— Back to the Slaughterhouse —
The Veyne estate lay on the very edge of the city, where urban order gave way to neglect and silence. From a distance, traces of its former opulence were still visible in the skeletal outlines of its architecture—the grand ironwork, the sweeping stone walls, the once-manicured gardens now reduced to tangled growth.
But whatever splendor it once possessed had long since rotted away.
Now, the estate was known by only one name among the locals—a haunted domain.
More than thirty lives had been erased here in a single night. Not stolen. Not lost. Erased.
As Eren stepped closer, he felt it immediately. The air itself seemed heavier, thick with a pressure that refused to disperse. It was as if the grounds still remembered what had happened—still echoed with panic and disbelief. Beneath the stale scent of decay lingered something sharper: a faint metallic tang, subtle but persistent, clinging to the back of the throat once noticed.
Blood never truly left a place like this.
The main gate stood sealed, heavy chains looped through twisted iron bars. Wild grass and thorny weeds choked the cracked stone path beyond, swallowing the driveway where luxury vehicles had once rolled in and out, their engines purring in quiet excess. Now, only silence remained.
Arden's efficiency was, as always, unquestionable.
By the time Eren arrived, several police officers were already waiting at the gate—the same men who had first stormed the estate that night, the same ones who had placed the cuffs on him with shaking hands.
They had received clear orders from above: fully cooperate with a "special investigator" reassessing the case.
Even so, none of them had been prepared for this.
The car door opened.
The moment Eren stepped out, color drained from their faces.
"Eren Kai?!"
"How the hell did he get out—?"
Shock froze them for less than a heartbeat. Training and terror surged in its place.
Weapons came up almost simultaneously.
"Freeze! Hands in the air!"
"Don't move! One step and we fire!"
Several fingers trembled on the triggers. Sweat slicked palms. Old memories clawed their way back to the surface—corridors slick with blood, bodies stacked where they fell, and a man standing at the center of it all, untouched.
To them, Eren was no longer a suspect.
He was the massacre given flesh.
Slowly, deliberately, Eren raised his hands. A flicker of weary resignation crossed his face—not fear, but recognition of a familiar pattern.
"Easy," he said calmly. "I'd rather not make headlines again because of a negligent discharge. Didn't Director Arden inform you? The person coming—was me."
"Don't spout nonsense!" Captain Bernard snapped, his voice sharp with strain. "A death row inmate claiming to know Director Arden? You think invoking his name will scare us?"
The tension stretched tight, brittle as glass.
Then—
Kane stepped out, his movements measured. He produced his credentials, holding them up clearly, and spoke in a firm, steady voice that cut cleanly through the standoff.
"I am Warden Kane of the Novalis District Maximum Security Penitentiary. Mr. Kai has been formally authorized by Director Arden to reinvestigate this case."
He paused. "Lower your weapons."
"What...?!"
Bernard stared at the documents in his hands, reading them once. Then again. And again. The words refused to settle.
—A death row inmate. Personally authorized by Director Arden.
Slowly, he looked back at Eren.
The man stood quietly, hands still raised, posture relaxed. There was no menace in him now—only a weight, an unmistakable gravity. Calm. Composed. Almost commanding.
Kane's attitude toward him was respectful. Nearly deferential.
None of this matched the monster etched into their memories.
Bernard let out a long breath and lowered his gun. One by one, the others followed.
"Eren," he said at last, voice tight but controlled, "our superiors have instructed us to provide full cooperation. Ask whatever you need. We'll tell you everything we know."
Eren inclined his head slightly.
"Good," he said. "Then let's walk."
His gaze shifted toward the sealed gate, the overgrown path beyond it.
"And talk."
---
— Silent Evidence —
The seal was torn away.
With a grating shriek of metal against stone, the heavy iron gate creaked open, its echo scraping across the hollow silence like a blade dragged along bone.
The blood-soaked domain lay exposed once more.
Even after more than ten days, the stains had not faded. Dark, rust-colored smears clung stubbornly to the floors and walls, seeping into cracks where cleaning had failed—or been abandoned. In the living room and along the corridors, chalk outlines still traced the positions where bodies had fallen, rigid white silhouettes marking the final moments of chaos and terror.
The house looked less like a residence now than a frozen aftermath.
Eren stepped inside.
To the officers, the place felt cold—unnaturally so, as if the building itself rejected warmth. To Eren, it felt crowded.
Residual emotions saturated the air. Panic that had nowhere to run. Hatred that had burned itself hollow. Despair pressed flat under the weight of inevitability. They hung like an invisible fog, too thin to take shape, yet dense enough to cling to his senses and slow his breathing.
Not ghosts. But echoes that refused to disperse.
He moved methodically from room to room, footsteps light, gaze sharp. He examined corners, walls, overturned furniture, the angles of shattered glass. From time to time, he asked questions—quiet, precise, almost casual.
Bernard and the others answered as best they could, replaying memories they would rather forget.
Nothing changed.
No reactions. No distortions. No hidden currents beneath the surface.
Eren straightened slowly, disappointment flickering across his eyes.
"What a pity..." he murmured.
"If my cultivation were higher—if I were willing to pay the price—I could cast the Time Retrospection Art."
His fingers curled faintly.
"Then the truth wouldn't hide so easily."
Returning to the main hall, he stopped beneath the stained ceiling and asked, as if in passing, "Captain Bernard. When you first entered the estate... did anything strike you as unusual?"
Bernard shook his head, jaw tightening.
"Nothing specific. The smell of blood hit us all at once. We rushed in immediately. It was chaos."
A brief silence followed.
Then a younger officer shifted uneasily, his voice hesitant. "Sir... I might have seen something."
Eren's gaze snapped to him.
"Speak."
"I was upstairs," the man said slowly. "I looked out the window and saw... a black shadow. It leapt over the outer wall."
He swallowed hard. "The wall's over four meters high. Lined with iron spikes. I thought it was stress. A hallucination."
Eren's brows drew together.
A hallucination?
No.
Anyone capable of clearing that wall—cleanly, silently—was no ordinary person.
Perhaps that... was the real killer.
He conducted one final sweep of the estate, extending his senses as far as he dared. But the silence held firm, offering nothing more.
No confession. No revelation.
Only absence.
Night had fully descended by the time Eren and Kane turned to leave. The estate loomed behind them, dark and unmoved, as if satisfied to keep its secrets.
They had just reached the gate when Eren's phone vibrated.
Arden's name flashed across the screen.
He answered.
"Eren," Arden said, his voice tight, barely containing something between urgency and excitement,
"we've identified the man who impersonated Lucien Veyne's corpse..."
The night seemed to lean closer, listening.