A cold, muffled laugh echoed between those glass walls.
"Hehehe… hahahahaha… my partner in crime!"
In a spacious place that looked like an apartment in a skyscraper without rooms—just a wide hall with glass walls where you could see the clouds outside—the ceiling alone was white.
At its center was a bathtub, though one could call it a small pool rather than a tub; it was large and massive, made of marble.
Beside that enormous tub stood a white table, stained with crimson-red blood. It hadn't darkened toward black, which meant it hadn't clotted yet—that the blood on it was fresh and still fluid.
On that table lay a head—severed from its body. If the body had been nearby, it might have been a divine sculpture, because judging by the head alone gave you an idea of what the body must have looked like.
The head belonged to a woman. She was slightly pale, with two lines running from her eyes down to her chin, showing how much she had cried; the tears had frozen in place when her head was removed from her body.
She had blonde hair; her eyeliner was smudged on both sides of her eyes from the tears, and her lips showed a hint of redness. She had been incredibly beautiful.
Beautiful—and dead.
But the voice echoing through the place called her by another title.
"My partner in crime!"
From inside the tub, a corpse floated to the surface, causing the liquid within to spill outward. It was crimson.
It wasn't an ordinary bathtub—it was filled with blood.
And that wasn't merely a corpse; it was the owner of the voice. Naked, only his black hair floated atop the liquid. He wore a mask resembling a carnival mask, but it covered only the right half of his face, leaving the left side exposed.
The mask didn't seem to symbolize anything specific, but it looked like a blend of olive leaves and a gentle beast in deep slumber.
The man smiled—this was clear from his visible features—red lips twisted into a wide, immaculate grin, even though blood stained his entire athletic body. He seemed to be in his late twenties. Handsome—exceptionally handsome for a serial killer.
And utterly insane—as one would expect from a serial killer.
His partner in crime was that woman. He turned his head toward the table beside the pool, the blood covering the masked half of his face.
His hand extended toward the table; he grabbed the woman's head by the hair and lifted it close to his face. Blood was still dripping from it.
The head was close to him as he contemplated her face. As beautiful as ever—no, even more beautiful now.
He smiled and pressed his lips to hers in a farewell kiss, then stared at the ceiling for a long time as if looking at people—those who had always tried to reach him, those who wanted to be beside him in that moment, those who wanted to bring him to justice.
He was staring at the security cameras on the ceiling.
He spoke in a cold yet heated tone, "My dear Yvonne Anh~~…" He moaned as though in sexual ecstasy, his voice deep and masculine.
"Everyone always thought I was alone. They always chased me, believing I worked alone, thinking that by gathering together they could bring me down. But there was always someone with me—someone who brought me peace, someone who protected me from the darkness of the night!
That person… was you, Yvonne."
He stopped speaking and admired her with a smile as his fingers caressed her cold cheeks.
He spoke in a tone of explanation, as though lowering the final curtain, a tone brimming with anticipation—waiting for certain people to be shocked by what they were about to hear: "She was my partner in crime, and of course she was one of you—your superior, the one tasked with capturing me. That's why you could never reach me."
He smirked wickedly toward the camera before continuing, "When she discovered the truth about me, when she drew close… do you know what her reaction was? 'Kill those pigs however you like. Practice your art of carving on their bodies however you like. No one will ever reach you.' Even though I never left a single piece of evidence behind, there's no such thing as a perfect crime.
Yvonne was always the evidence behind my crimes!"
He paused again to admire her more, speaking in a gentle tone tinged with awe and astonishment: "Honestly, I never expected someone else to share the same madness I suffer from… but she appeared! That's when I realized there were people just as insane as me!"
He continued speaking, this time in a calm tone as crimson blood dripped from the tub: "I didn't kill her for that reason. She and I fucked each other for nights, days, months, years. I can still feel her hot touch on my chest as we woke from deep sleep at dawn.
She sacrificed many of you to satisfy my pleasure and my insane desire, and you followed her like donkeys, believing she was leading you to a glorious victory over the Blood Butcher."
There was a card on the table; although stained with blood, its hand-drawn image was still distinguishable: the Seven of Swords—a man sneaking away with weapons from a camp while looking behind him.
He spoke in his cold, euphoric voice, "She deserves the traitor's card."
His voice echoed in that place, but it wasn't only for his own ears; he wasn't so insane as to speak only to himself. He was addressing the cameras—the people watching him through them at that very moment.
His words continued freely, "She knew why I called her here. She knew I was going to kill her. Yet she hurried to come. She told me with a smile not to be sad about her departure… and to do my work in the best way."
"She knew her role had ended. I felt the sadness and fear of death coming from her. I didn't want to torture her, so I gave her a painless death. She welcomed it with open arms."
"Since you've been searching for me for so long—even before I parted ways with you—my name is Cyn Jules. This is the name I gave myself. I haven't suffered any trauma in my life, probably. I am not mentally ill. My parents treated me with love—probably. I studied in the finest schools. I lived a good life—until now.
I still remember my first crime. I was terrible. I wet myself and fainted. I pitied that dog. I found it on the street. I remember attending church for almost two years to seek forgiveness, tormented by nightmares. A truly disgusting act! I hated myself. Why did I do it? Endless questions you probably don't want to hear now.
But here we are! How many crimes and victims have fallen by these two hands, and how did I reach this point?"
Cyn stopped talking and sank into the blood-filled tub quietly, but soon something else floated to the surface. A body without a head. A feminine body—soft, flawless—its features clear despite being drenched in blood. A body whose curves could drive even the hard-hearted to violate her even in death.
It was Yvonne's corpse. It sank again, and Cyn re-emerged from the depths, as if taking a dip in the blood to renew himself.
He repeated this seven times. The act felt strange—like some sort of ritual. Despite Cyn's earlier words and his asserted lucidity, everyone watching through the cameras considered him insane for one reason or another. They refused to accept such deviance as natural or tolerable.
Cyn smiled. "No need to hurry after me. Soon, I will leave this world… to obtain the answer I seek. An answer I cannot attain here."
He held Yvonne's head and began murmuring something soft—like a short poem, a charm, a final prayer.
And he began as though addressing someone… conversing with someone.
"I burned my name into silence ~ No gods came. So I became one."
"This body… a cage. This soul… a wound. My scar was the only thing that bled honestly."
"I call not for mercy, but for release."
"Take this shell. Take this shame. Unmake me."
"To be free… Free from all that is human."
With a final smile, Cyn dove one last time—but before he vanished, the investigators watching through the cameras noticed something.
A tattoo shaped like an incomplete circle, drawn with blood-like strokes resembling remnants of an ancient ritual, as if carved with the nails of an angry god. Sharp lines crossed its center in the shape of a thin cross, with red specks around it like the remnants of a spiritual explosion. It resembled an inverted crescent, but bleeding—like a half-moon born of sin, not light. A mark that symbolized not belonging, but exile… a seal of an unforgivable pact.
As for Cyn—and Yvonne's body and head—they did not reappear on the surface for a long time. Gradually, the blood level began to drop as if draining away. Not a single drop remained. Even the blood on the floor seemed to flow back into the tub. The vast white room returned to its original purity—no blood whatsoever. Even the table where the head had been, and even the card—the stains vanished and it looked new.
As if no blood had ever existed.
What puzzled the investigators most was the absence of any trace of Cyn or Yvonne's corpse.
They rushed to the place in a frenzy. They refused to believe Cyn had vanished in the blink of an eye, refused to believe the nonsense he had spoken. They were certain he was still there—that he had pulled off some trick.
How foolish they were.