I'm a Serial Killer in Famous Paintings

Cheng Yan, a first-year college student majoring in animation, is drawn into the Infinite World of the Cycle of Obsession, where only those consumed by obsession can fall.

To find a sliver of hope for survival, he joins the Arbiter's team and becomes an assassin who walks the line between life and death.

Rule: Reach the top seven on the points leaderboard to escape the endless cycle and return to reality.

But his severe dissociative identity disorder makes him the most unstable weapon of all:

First personality: The Red Queen

A graceful maniac who kills on a whim. She leaves a Q on her targets' corpses, earning her a fearsome reputation in the Cycle of Obsession.

Second personality: The Mechanic

Quiet and focused, like an ordinary wage worker. In his hands, broken machines and cursed, uncanny objects can be restored to life, or even turned from junk into deadly weapons.

Third personality: Three

Pale and aloof. By touching the dead, he can glimpse fragments of their final memories...

Including that kiss from Kui Si.

He thought he was a lone misfit in this brutal arena, unaware that a pair of black eyes hidden behind a playing-card mask had been watching him for a very, very long time.

Instance: Impression, Sunrise

The landscape transforms into a man-eating swamp. Just as Cheng Yan is about to sink beneath it, Arbiter Kui Si appears in a playing-card mask and declares coldly, "Player Cheng Yan, suspected of violating the rules. Oversight is stepping in."

The rules are quietly rewritten. No one sees him haul Cheng Yan out, or shield him with his back from a poisoned arrow fired from the shadows.

Instance: Sunflowers

Nameless corpses keep appearing inside golden frames. The moment Cheng Yan touches one, Three is forced to read its grisly memories and crumples to the ground in pain. Kui Si's fingertips brush his trembling eyelids. "Don't look."

Instance: Along the River During the Qingming Festival

At the ghost market in Bianjing, two versions of "him" speak at once: "We're one short. Need a ghost. Are you in?"

Behind him, Kui Si's voice rings out coldly: "Are you inviting the Arbiter... to play mahjong with you?"

[Arbiter: Kui Si]

A cold-blooded overseer in a playing-card mask, responsible for judging and punishing players who break the rules.

Beneath the mask is an unmistakable face: tall, long-legged, with broad shoulders and a narrow waist. His striking features look mixed-race, but his eyes are as black as night.

When Cheng Yan finally can't take it anymore and stabs Kui Si in the chest, he snaps, "Who gave you permission to spread rumors that I kissed you?"

Kui Si calmly takes out a handkerchief and wraps it around the knife handle. "Easy. Don't push too hard, or you'll hurt your hand."

He leans close and reveals every disguise by Cheng Yan's ear. "Today's kiss tasted of mint, yesterday's of peach, and the day before..."

"The scent of coffee on the Left Bank of Paris, in 1932."

So much time had passed that Cheng Yan didn't know someone had searched for him, driven by an obsession so deep he refused reincarnation and endured countless hardships to become an Arbiter, all for the chance to meet him again in this endless Cycle of Obsession.

"Cheng Yan." Beneath the mask, those deep black eyes roiled with love and obsession spanning centuries. "This time, you won't get away."

"Your madness, your crimes, every side of you, all belong to me."

Buddha teaches that all living beings cycle through birth and death in the Six Realms because of karma and ignorance. This is called reincarnation. But those whose obsessions run too deep belong neither to Heaven nor Earth. They form a world of their own: the Cycle of Obsession.

They seek neither another life nor a return to the past. This is where the obsessed belong, and yet it is nowhere at all.

[Content warnings]

Two powerful leads who love and fight each other | Devoted Arbiter x art student with three personalities | Both are mad and unhinged, with plot and romance progressing side by side

The instances are inspired by famous paintings from around the world. I'll write whichever ones come to mind!

Theme: Justice delayed is truth revealed.