Demonic Po*nstar System Chapter 271: Riddle of Sin

The page reeked of rust and dried roses. The ink had bled through the parchment as if the writer couldn’t stop pressing harder.

For a long moment, no one said anything.

Then Luna exhaled.

"Merciful? That’s not mercy; this bloodsucker was a proper lunatic. A lunatic among lunatics..."

The others turned to her. The Storm Valkyrie explained.

"That’s a compulsion. A need to feed something into himself. He wasn’t helping those people; he was feeding off being needed. Every act of ’kindness’ made him hungrier."

She walked slowly, pacing.

"It’s like... he couldn’t bear not being seen as generous, so he kept pushing it further. Mercy doesn’t beg for recognition. This does."

Nyx was catching on. "He gave, but only to keep them close. And when they didn’t need him anymore..."

Aria nodded. "He made them need again. With silk and poison. With sweetness and blades. This is so wrong..."

Kaiden finished it: "Gluttony. A deeper version of it."

This was not the crude kind of gluttony. Not one where one hungered for meat or gold.

This was a hunger for worship. For dependence. For control through giving.

Aria felt conflicted. "But the writing said ’mercy’ a dozen times... How could one person be so twisted as to think this was being merciful?"

"They’re monsters of the night, Aria..." Luna deadpanned.

Bastet gave a thoughtful sound. "The sins in this place wear noble masks. That’s the point. A twisted mercy, a corrupted kindness... all leading back to a deeper rot."

Kaiden touched the journal again.

"Let’s get going. We need more pieces to know if our understanding is correct."

...

The group moved deeper into the wing, no longer trudging but hunting. Bastet’s nose twitched like a bloodhound tracking sin itself, and Aria’s eyes never left the corpses. One journal after another was torn free from twisted ribcages, slit from bellies, or dislodged from shattered skulls. The deeper they went, the clearer the pattern became:

Every noble had a mask. A virtue, a performance.

But beneath it, rot.

Kaiden skimmed each entry with his fingertips, sensing the weight behind every gilded word. It was as if his Paragon of Sin class, or perhaps the Demonic Pornstar System, was speaking to him. He gained insight into the journal entries that were on the brink of being logical fallacies based on a lack of information, but somehow, he felt he was right.

One journal from "Lady Seris of Honor" recounted the brutal executions of countless guests, justified as acts to preserve dignity. But Kaiden saw the truth in the venomous edge of her words. It wasn’t to preserve honor. It was out of nothing but poisonous pride. Pride that demanded blood to defend her name.

Another claimed to belong to "Brother Varn of Charity," who spoke of uplifting the poor by turning them into "eternal companions." Kaiden felt the oily smear behind each word. Lust, not charity. A hunger for beauty. A need to possess and preserve it, no matter their will.

They moved fast. Bastet would gag dramatically with each sniff, wincing as if she’d swallowed bile. Aria read quickly. Luna used some knowledge gained from playing many Fantasy RPGs. Nyx kept watch for any movement, but also began catching on, sometimes pointing out details the others had skimmed over.

By the time they reached the last of the journals, a slim one clutched in the hands of a shriveled vampire matron fused into the wall, Kaiden had identified three repeating patterns.

Gluttony, Pride, Lust.

Three sins disguised as mercy, honor, and charity.