The Insane Regressor: Throne of Pride

Ravian did not wait to see what the cloud would do to Kaiden in the end.

He stepped across the threshold and entered the room, leaving the mirage mist to coil around Kaiden behind him.

The mist had no fixed color; it shifted among pale hues with no names—or perhaps they did have names, but Ravian personally did not know them either way—before settling on violet for a few moments, then turning gray. Whenever it settled on violet, a distorted reflection of Kaiden appeared within it.

Kaiden remained motionless where he was, unable even to move his eyes. He tried to open his mouth, but the mist swallowed the sound before it could be born, and all that escaped him was a trembling breath that vanished into the cloud.

Ravian did not look back at him.

He went straight to the desk and picked up the paper that had dropped from the hidden slot moments earlier.

The message was brief, written in practical language and bearing neither a name nor a signature.

{Keep the table ledger in your room, and do not hand it to anyone before the White Bell.}

Ravian read it once, then folded it and slipped it into his inner pocket.

At that same moment, the last remnants of mist peeled away from Kaiden’s body, and with them, his breathing stopped completely.

The violet faded from the mist, and the black cloud contracted inward as though swallowing something invisible before disappearing entirely. Kaiden’s body collapsed to the floor a single step from the door, his eyes still open and fixed on the horror he had died witnessing.

Ravian did not approach the body. Instead, he began erasing everything that could lead back to him.

Raindrops marked a trail from the threshold to the desk, some having fallen from the ends of his white hair and the hem of his coat. He took a towel from beside the washbasin in the room and pressed it against his hair and clothes until the water stopped dripping, then carefully wiped the floor, retracing the exact path he had taken since entering.

Afterward, he washed the towel in the basin, wrung it out, and returned it to its original place. Nothing suspicious would remain on it by morning—only natural dampness beside a basin of water, and even that would vanish before anyone opened the door.

Ravian swept his gaze across the room once more.

Nothing had been moved from its place except the paper now resting in his pocket, and he had left neither a footprint nor a single drop of water on the floor.

Then he looked at the window.

Rain streamed down the glass in long rivulets, and no trace remained of the number seven he had drawn in red ink before reaching Kaiden’s room. Ravian had wiped it from the outside the moment Kaiden turned toward the door, and the rain had washed away the last remnants of color.

He had not chosen that ink at random. It was water-based ink from the Correspondence Office, vivid enough for Kaiden to see from inside and easy enough to erase with a single touch and a heavy downpour.

Ravian remained before the glass for another moment, making certain that not even a single red smudge remained, then turned and left the room.

He closed the door quietly behind him.

The corridor of Evernight Palace was submerged in darkness like the depths of the sea beneath a cloud-choked sky; there was no light to reveal a direction and no sound except the distant rain and the faint creak that emerged from the palace’s very bones every few moments.

Even so, Ravian did not hesitate to move.

He was certain no one would risk coming out now. The Killer had already murdered one of them the previous night, but that did not mean he selected his victim the moment each night began. He could simply delay his choice, then roam the dark corridors while waiting for some terrified person to open their door or attempt to reach another room.

Their plan had been clear: everyone would enter their rooms and remain inside until the night ended completely.

The fear that had created that plan was the very thing that guaranteed the corridor would remain empty for Ravian.

He walked close to the wall and stopped at every corner to listen before rounding it. No door opened, no hand moved behind a handle, and no light appeared beneath any threshold. Even if someone was awake, they would not risk breaking the plan over a faint sound the Killer might have deliberately made.

He roamed the palace like a murderer, his white hair gleaming in its darkness like an immortal specter that had haunted the place since time immemorial.

Ravian finally reached his room and entered, closing the door without a sound.

The layer of black wax over the copper tube remained intact, as did the thin sheet of paper stretched beneath it. Nothing had gone near the tube because the message had never passed through it in the first place; it had traveled from his desk through the internal channels reserved for paper, an entirely different network from the tubes they had wasted the entire day sealing.

Ravian changed out of his wet coat and wiped the remaining water from his neck and the ends of his hair, then folded the damp clothes and placed them where air could reach them. Nothing remained of his journey except a little moisture, a trace that time alone would erase before morning arrived.

He sat on the edge of the bed and released a quiet breath.

The plan had succeeded.

At the beginning of the day, he had directed the Mage’s attention toward Aldric and Talia, then secretly gone to eliminate Kaiden.

If Mirai was the Mage, as he suspected, she would need to choose three people to protect. She would undoubtedly choose herself, and Aldric was the most logical second choice; he was the only one capable of keeping the group organized and preventing random accusations. As for the third slot, Ravian had publicly steered it toward Talia.

After what he had said in the hall, leaving Talia unprotected was no longer an easy choice. If the Mage left her without protection and she died, it would appear as though she had deliberately abandoned the weakest person among them, especially after Ravian had made the danger surrounding her so unmistakably clear.

Thus, while Mirai was most likely protecting herself, Aldric, and Talia, Ravian changed his target at the last moment and chose Kaiden.

This strategy was nearly impossible to counter, particularly under conditions that prevented communication.

He allowed them to think, discuss the possibilities, and build a plan everyone agreed upon, then waited until that plan entered its final stage and could no longer be altered. Once everyone had settled into position and communication between them was forbidden, Ravian did not attempt to break through the plan they had created; he simply took another route it had never been designed to counter.

The final seconds did not narrow his options.

They closed off theirs.

Even so, one possibility continued to trouble him until the final moment.

That Kaiden, not Mirai, was the Mage.