My Three Beautiful Vampire Wives can hear my Inner Thoughts-Chapter 196: Faith’s Voice

For a moment, nothing happened.

Faith stood there, her chest rising and falling slowly, the weight of her own words still hanging in the air. The tension that had built between her and everyone else had not faded. If anything, it had grown thicker, heavier, pressing down on the room like something unseen but impossible to ignore. No one spoke. No one moved. Even the guards who had laughed earlier now watched her with quiet expectation, waiting to see if she would back up what she had just declared so boldly.

Then, without warning, Faith opened her mouth and began to sing.

There was no surge of power behind it.

No glowing aura.

No trace of Blood Mana woven into her voice.

It was just her.

Her voice came out soft at first, almost hesitant, as if she were testing the air, letting the first few notes settle into the space around her before committing to anything stronger. It did not carry the same immediate weight that Pam’s had. It did not seize the room or bend attention toward itself. Instead, it moved quietly, almost carefully, like a small ripple spreading across still water.

Her tone was clean, but simple.

There were no dramatic rises, no overwhelming emotion pouring through each note. She held her pitch well, her control steady, but there was nothing about it that stood out at first glance. It sounded like something one might hear in a quiet corner of a small gathering, pleasant enough to listen to, but not something that demanded attention or left a lasting mark.

She continued, letting the melody unfold at its own pace.

Each note followed the next without force, without urgency. There was a rhythm to it, a structure that showed she understood what she was doing, but it lacked the kind of presence that could fill a space like this. It did not challenge the silence around it. It simply existed within it.

Pam listened.

At first, her expression did not change.

Her eyes remained calm, her posture relaxed, her lips resting in that same faint smile she had worn earlier. As the melody reached her ears, she did not lean in, did not focus harder, did not react in any visible way that suggested surprise or concern.

If anything, her confidence only settled deeper.

She could already tell.

This was not on her level.

The difference was clear within the first few lines, not because Faith was terrible, but because she was not exceptional. There was technique, yes. There was practice behind it, certainly. But it lacked the depth, the experience, the refinement that came from years of facing real pressure and real judgment.

Pam let out a quiet breath through her nose, almost like a sigh she did not bother to hide.

"So this is what she meant," she thought to herself.

There was no tension in her mind.

No uncertainty.

She had expected something more, something that would at least make her pause, make her consider the possibility that this challenge might hold something interesting.

But this—

This was average.

And she knew, with absolute certainty, that she was going to win.

She did not need to compare further.

She did not need to analyze every note.

It was already decided.

Around them, the guards began to react.

At first, it was nothing more than a few exchanged glances, small shifts in posture, quiet looks that passed between them as they listened. But as Faith continued, those looks turned into expressions, and those expressions turned into reactions that were harder to hide.

One of the guards let out a small chuckle under his breath.

Another followed, shaking his head slightly as if he had expected more.

"That’s it?" someone murmured quietly, though not quietly enough to go unheard.

A third guard crossed his arms, his lips pressing into a thin line before he let out a short laugh that broke the fragile calm of the room. 𝐟𝕣𝗲𝕖𝕨𝗲𝐛𝗻𝗼𝐯𝗲𝚕.𝗰𝚘𝐦

"I thought she was serious."

The laughter did not erupt all at once.

It grew.

Slowly.

Piece by piece.

Like cracks forming across a surface that could no longer hold itself together.

"She talked big for this?"

"It’s not bad, but..."

"But nothing special."

Their voices overlapped, not loud enough to drown out the song completely, but enough to taint it, enough to strip away what little presence it had and reduce it further.

"It sounds like something you’d hear anywhere."

"Exactly."

"Where’s the part that’s supposed to impress us?"

One of them leaned slightly toward another, lowering his voice just enough to make it feel like a private comment, even though it wasn’t.

"She really thought she could compete with Pam with this?"

The other guard snorted quietly.

"She’s out of her depth."

Their laughter lingered, light but cutting, not fueled by cruelty alone, but by disappointment, by the expectation that had been raised and then left unfulfilled.

Faith kept singing.

She did not stop.

She did not falter.

Even as their voices crept in around her, even as their reactions became more open, more dismissive, she held her tone steady, her expression unchanged.

But the air had already shifted against her.

Cain listened as well.

From where he stood, he watched her closely, his eyes fixed on her as her voice carried through the room. Unlike the guards, he did not laugh. He did not speak. But his silence did not mean approval.

He understood music enough to recognize what he was hearing.

And what he heard—

Was ordinary.

He had expected more.

After everything she had said, after the confidence she had shown, he had thought there would be something hidden beneath the surface, something that would justify her boldness, something that would make this moment worth the tension it had created.

But as the melody continued, that expectation began to fade.

"She’s holding back," he thought at first.

But the longer he listened, the less certain he became.

Because if she was holding back, then what she was showing now was not enough.

Her control was fine.

Her tone was stable.

But there was no weight behind it.

No presence that demanded attention.

It was the kind of singing that could pass unnoticed if the room were not already focused on her.

And that was not enough here.

Not against Pam.

Cain’s gaze narrowed slightly, though his expression remained calm.

"This won’t work," he thought.

Not like this.

Not if she continued the same way.

Yet—

Faith did not stop.

Her voice continued to flow, steady and consistent, as if she were completely unaware of the reactions around her, as if none of it mattered.

And then—

Something changed.

Pam felt it first.

It was not immediate.

Not obvious.

At least, not in the way her own performance had been.

There was no sudden surge of power.

No visible sign that something had been added.

But as Faith’s voice carried on, something within it began to deepen.

At first, Pam did not even realize what she was noticing.

She simply listened, her attention lingering a little longer than before, her focus sharpening without her intending it to.

The melody had not changed.

Not in structure.

Not in tone.

But the feeling behind it—

That was different.

It was still simple.

Still controlled.

But there was something beneath it now, something that had not been there before, something that began to press against her senses in a way she could not immediately explain.

Pam’s faint smile faded slightly.

Not completely.

But enough.

Her eyes narrowed just a fraction as she continued to listen, her earlier certainty meeting something unexpected.

"What is that..."

She could not place it.

It was not overwhelming.

It did not dominate the room.

But it lingered.

It stayed.

And more importantly—

It pulled.

Her attention, which had once rested lightly on Faith’s performance, now held onto it without her realizing, as if something within the melody refused to let her simply dismiss it and move on.

Faith’s voice did not grow louder.

It did not become more dramatic.

But it became heavier.

Not in volume.

But in feeling.

Each note began to carry something with it, something that stretched beyond sound, something that reached deeper, touching parts of the mind that were not easily accessed.

Pam’s posture straightened slightly.

Her confidence did not vanish.

But it no longer sat as comfortably as before.

Because now—

She was listening.

Truly listening.

Around them, the guards began to notice it too.

The laughter did not stop all at once.

It faded.

Gradually.

Like a sound being pulled away, replaced by something that demanded more attention than they had intended to give.

One of the guards who had been laughing earlier slowly fell quiet, his expression tightening as he looked toward Faith again.

"...Wait."

Another shifted his stance, his brows furrowing slightly as if trying to understand what he was hearing.

"It still sounds the same..."

"But it doesn’t feel the same."

Their voices lowered, their earlier mockery replaced by confusion, by something that made them hesitate before speaking again.

Faith’s voice continued, steady as ever, but now it carried something else with it, something that slipped past their initial judgment and settled somewhere deeper.

The room grew quieter.

Not because they chose silence.

But because the sound demanded it.

The guards who had once dismissed her now found themselves listening without realizing it, their expressions slowly changing, their earlier confidence in their judgment beginning to crack.

One of them swallowed slightly, his gaze no longer casual.

Another looked down for a moment, his jaw tightening as something stirred within him, something he could not easily push away.

"...Why does this feel..."

He did not finish the sentence.

Because he did not know how to.

Even the older guard, who had spoken with such certainty before, now stood still, his eyes fixed on Faith, his expression growing more serious with each passing second.

The melody did not rise.

It did not explode.

It simply continued.

And yet—

It grew heavier.

Sadness began to seep into it.

Not forced.

Not exaggerated.

But real.

It was not in the notes themselves, but in the way they lingered, in the way they connected, in the way they carried something unspoken between them.

The guards felt it.

One by one.

Without realizing it.

Their shoulders lowered slightly.

Their expressions softened.

The tension that had once been directed at Faith now turned inward, pulling at something within them that they had not expected to feel in this moment.

"...Why do I feel like this?"

No one answered.

Because they were all feeling it.

And they did not understand why.

Pam stood there, completely still now.

Her earlier amusement had disappeared.

Her confidence remained, but it no longer felt absolute.

Because what she was hearing—

Was no longer something she could easily dismiss.

Her eyes remained locked on Faith, her mind working, trying to understand what had changed, trying to grasp how something so average at the start had begun to transform into something that held her attention in a way she had not expected.

"This shouldn’t be happening," she thought.

And yet—

It was.

Faith continued to sing.

Her expression calm.

Her voice steady.

As if she had always known this would happen.

As if she had been waiting for this moment.

Cain watched.

And as the melody reached him once more—

Something within him stilled.

At first, he did not react.

Not outwardly.

His posture remained the same.

His gaze steady.

But inside—

Something shifted.

The sound reached him differently now.

It no longer felt ordinary.

It no longer felt easy to dismiss.

Instead, it lingered.

It settled.

And before he realized it—

He found himself listening.

Not just hearing.

Listening.

His thoughts slowed.

The tension in his mind eased.

And the world around him seemed to fade, not completely, but enough that the song stood out more than anything else.

For a brief moment—

He forgot everything else.

And without realizing it—

Cain began to fall into it.

A trance he had not expected.

And did not resist.