"What?"
The refined elder erupted in anger on the spot. But that anger lasted only a brief instant. Just as he was preparing to scold this unknown, ill-mannered brat—
His hands suddenly rose and wrapped tightly around his own neck, completely out of his control.
"I—"
The elder's eyes bulged as he glared fiercely at Hel, utterly confused as to why his hands no longer obeyed him.
"Is this… a spell from the Fallen lineage? But she didn't cast anything…"
Still in utter bewilderment, he twisted his own neck and collapsed.
Several of the elders beside him mirrored his actions.
Moments later, only six corpses remained on the floor.
Seeing this, the duke and his two sons were completely petrified, their minds blank with terror. The fifth son let out a trembling roar:
"D-Demon… you're a demon!"
"What a straightforward truth to shout." Hel beamed at him with a sweet smile—but in the fifth son's eyes, that smile was nothing short of nightmarish.
He didn't know why, but in that moment, scenes flashed across his mind—the girls he had toyed with until their deaths; the families of innocent girls he had thrown into prison under fabricated charges; and the words his father had just told him:
This is a world where the strong devour the weak. Whoever has the bigger fist is in the right.
"Oh, I almost forgot about you three."
Hel looked at the duke and his two sons with a gentle expression and narrowed eyes.
"So, what are you waiting for? Must I repeat myself—must I say again 'please kill yourselves' before you move?"
"Mercy, my lady—!"
The Caramel Duke tried desperately to beg for his life, but he only managed to utter three words before his own large hands seized his throat, cutting off his plea.
Perhaps because the duke was stronger…or perhaps because Hel's puppet body was weaker…he didn't die immediately. Instead, his face turned deep purple as he strangled himself.
Hel slid down from the desk, her little feet stepping lightly onto the floor. With elegant steps, she approached the struggling duke.
Softly, she said:
"Truth be told, I came here planning only to eliminate a few of your upper ranks and leave the rest of the family to be devoured by your enemies. But before entering, I probed Caramel Castle with my spiritual sense… and discovered some of your little secrets."
A shadow flickered deep within her eyes.
"So thank you—for showing me just how brazenly nobles in this world can commit evil."
The duke's eyes went wide with confusion. What was she talking about? Had one of his family members offended her somehow?
But Hel's next words only left him even more bewildered.
"That mass grave beneath the dungeon—half the bodies are children. Tell me, does that not bother your conscience at all?"
Children? Were there?
The duke searched his memory. Weren't those pits filled with nothing but lowborn rabble? And for something so trivial… she would annihilate his entire family?
What a joke. How could those lowborn animals compare to them—the nobility? They didn't deserve to.
He couldn't understand her motives, just as she couldn't understand how the Caramels could so casually treat ordinary people as less than human.
But the duke would never receive an explanation.
Hel's fingertip lightly tapped his chest.
Then a cold, emotionless voice spoke the last three words he would ever hear:
"You are dead."
In the next moment, he felt it—a crushing force seizing his heart, a tearing roar like fabric ripping at his ears—the sound of his heartbeat stopping forever.
A wave of dizziness flooded him, darkness swallowed his vision, and he collapsed.
Three minutes later, the Caramel Duke's eyes glazed over. His consciousness faded. He crossed irrevocably into death.
Hel waved her hand, and the corpses vanished into her spatial ring.
The study returned to silence once more, save for the curtains fluttering under the breeze. Anyone entering now would never imagine that several of the Caramel family's strongest had died here moments ago.
Hel pushed open the door and walked unhurriedly toward the castle hall.
The vast, ornate chamber was already packed with people.
The Caramel family's main line. Side branches. The duke's retainers. The family guard. Even transcendents from the city guard.
All in all, more than 3,200 people—far too many to fit in the hall. Most waited outside in the plaza. Only the most important figures stood inside.
Direct descendants, heads of branch families, and high-ranking officials of Caramel City—a gathering of elites whose single decisions could determine the life or death of over 100,000 people.
Yet after waiting for so long, all they saw was a petite girl descending the staircase with graceful steps.
Confusion spread like wildfire. The hall grew noisy as curiosity overwhelmed them.
But the girl merely gave them a gentle smile.
Then, from her cherry-blossom pink lips—soft as morning dew—came six words colder than winter steel:
"You are already dead."
The moment her voice fell, the entire crowd clutched their chests in unison. Within seconds, they collapsed where they stood—a perfectly synchronized field of corpses, eerie in its neatness.
No exceptions. No survivors.
No one knew how much time passed.
In the castle's underground prison, the cell doors suddenly swung open.
Inside, ragged prisoners stared at the open doors with mixed expressions—some numb, some suspicious.
One took a step out. Then another. And another.
Soon, under the pressure of herd instinct, the people who should have been the rightful common folk of this land finally walked out of the prison that had held them for who knew how long.
They emerged from their nightmare of a castle…and saw the rising dawn.
Above them, a chubby white pigeon soared past the castle tower, struggling forward as it flapped away toward the brightening sky.