"Greed… one of the Seven Deadly Sins?" Soren whispered, cautious.
"Very good," the demon purred. "I like when you use that brain of yours. Not that you've done anything useful with it until now."
Soren looked around, senses stretched thin.
"Where am I?"
"Your mind," Greed replied casually. "Your very soul. A realm cracked open thanks to our little abode—Ruin, the left eye you so stubbornly keep shut."
He leaned in, bloated stomach heaving with oily breath, mimic-mouth grinning.
"I'd say your mental world is dreadfully boring, though. Your past? A crippled boy fumbling through life. A ghost in his own skin."
He sniffed, theatrically.
"And black! Always so black in here!" He let out a dry, theatrical laugh. "Your memories are worthless—nothing to see because you can't damned see!"
He clicked his tongue mockingly. "A life like a film reel burned to ash."
Soren's fists tightened.
"And yet," Greed added, grin curling wider, "you let me in."
"Let you in?"
"That eye, boy. The Eye of Ruin." Greed's voice turned reverent, like a cultist whispering sacred blasphemy. "It's not just power — it's a gate. A throne. A curse. And through it, I found you."
He spread his grotesque arms wide.
"Now this little soul-realm of yours? Mine to shape. Mine to stain. Unless…"
He loomed closer, mimic-mouth creaking open.
"Unless you're ready to stop being pathetic."
Soren's jaw tightened.His voice was low, controlled — but laced with growing fire.
"What are you, Greed? Why are you here inside my mind?"
The demon's chest-mouth widened unnaturally, teeth shifting in eager motion.
"I am a Primordial Concept," he declared, bloated body swelling with pride. "Born of hunger, want, insatiable desire.Just like the six others."
"We are the roots of Ruin. We are what makes it… divine."
His mimic head leaned low, tongue flicking close — disgustingly intimate.
"That power was forged for a Demon Lord, Soren Noctis. And right now? You're barely even a man."
He paused — voice softening with sinister promise.
"So tell me… will you crawl and always find yourself in the mud?"
"Or will you rise — and take the throne that waits for you?"
Soren didn't answer.
He couldn't.
Not because he was afraid, or because Greed had struck some hidden nerve — but because he truly didn't know what to say.
So instead, he shifted the subject.
"You said the Seven Deadly Sins were formed like you," Soren said quietly. "Where are the other six? Why have I only met you?"
Greed let out a sharp, guttural chuckle. "Do you really think they'd bother with someone like you?"
Soren's brow tensed.
"A fragile human," Greed went on mockingly, "suddenly inheriting the apex ocular power of a true demon? You're an accident. A joke, to them."
"Then why did you reveal yourself to me?" Soren asked, genuinely puzzled.
Greed's grin widened, gleaming like a slit in oily flesh. "Because I'm Greed. I can't wait."
His voice curled with self-satisfaction, chest-mouth heaving with each breath.
"I crave something, and you can give it to me."
Soren narrowed his eyes slightly. "And what is it... that you want?"
Greed leaned back, the mimic-mouth curling with gluttonous delight. "Something rare. Forgotten. Desired even by gods."
A long, oily pause.
"The Shard of Epoch."
Soren frowned. "I've heard of it. Just myths. People said whoever owns it can glimpse into the future—even if only for a blink."
"Myths," Greed hissed, "are merely truths worn thin by time. "His grin widened unnaturally. "And you will find it for me, human. That is the price of my favor."
"And what favor will that be?" Soren asked, voice low.
Greed's grotesque smile instantly dropped into a frown of mock offense.
"Tch. I think you're greedier than me." He leaned forward with exaggerated disappointment. "I already helped you — and you ask what favor I will give you?"
Soren's brows furrowed. "When did you ever help me?"
The mimic-mouth snarled, teeth clicking."That dragonfire!" Greed barked, belly jiggling with sudden fury. "I'm the one who swallowed it for you!"
Soren blinked. "Wasn't that Gluttony's doing?"
Greed gave a dismissive wave, grumbling. "Gluttony did release the blackhole — that moment when you devoured part of the forest near your house. Yes, yes." He jabbed a bloated finger at Soren. "But the dragonfire? That was me. That was Greed!"
Soren still looked skeptical. "Really?"
The demon huffed like a scolded child, then chuckled, low and wicked.
"Fine. I thought you'd say that." He leaned in close, mimic-head hovering just inches from Soren's face, breath like rusted gold and spoiled incense.
"I have proof," Greed whispered. "Proof it was me — and that proof, Soren Noctis..."
His eyes gleamed.
"...will be your trump card."
Soren didn't flinch, but his silence spoke volumes. He was listening.
"Good," Greed purred. "You're learning. Listening instead of barking. Maybe you can be shaped into something worth fearing."
He snapped his grotesque fingers — the air in the mental realm twisted, like oil poured into water. Between them formed a shifting mass: a memory, or perhaps something deeper.
Soren watched as the scene unfolded within the shimmer.
It was the battle. The moment the dragon's breath had cascaded down. But from this angle, it wasn't like before — this was from within. From behind his closed eyelid. From the eye.
A voice had echoed then, one he hadn't registered in the moment:
"Take. Devour. Claim."
The fire didn't merely vanish.
It spiraled inward, drawn into the pupil like a starving whirlpool. Not dispersed — absorbed. Not broken — hoarded.
Soren inhaled sharply.
"That voice," he murmured. "That was…"
"Mine," Greed said, savoring the word like a fine wine. "A whisper nestled in your soul the moment you opened the gate."
"You mean the eye," Soren said quietly.
Greed shrugged. "The eye is the gate. And I? I am what slithered through first."
The mimic's smile grew razor-thin.
"Now do you see, Soren Noctis? You're already changing. You've already tasted what my favor brings."
Soren's mind swirled — not just with doubt, but something colder, deeper.
"Why tell me this?" he asked, eyes narrowing. "If you wanted control, why not keep me blind to it?"
"Because I want you to know," Greed hissed. "I want you complicit."
He stepped closer — a wall of pulsing hunger and stinking heat.
"Every sin in this eye has a cost, and a gift. I don't want a puppet. I want a partner."
Soren tensed.
"A partner," he repeated.
"Yes," Greed said. "Find me the Shard of Epoch. Accept what you are. Let us remake the world, one stolen future at a time."
"And if I refuse?"
Greed didn't move. He simply smiled, a smile too wide for the world.
"You won't."
A beat of silence.
Then the world shook — not from outside, but from within Soren. A pulse. A warning. Something was pulling him back.
Greed tilted his mimic-head.
"Ah… someone's trying to wake you."
"Don't worry," he whispered, voice like velvet across broken glass. "I'll be waiting."
With that, the mental realm collapsed inward — and Soren fell through the darkness.
---
A sharp gasp escaped his lips.
Soren's body jolted as he returned to consciousness, the after mental realm experience still crawling along his spine.
"You're awake, Mister Envoy!" came a loud, relieved voice.
It was Vin — breathless, dirt-smudged, and kneeling beside him.
Soren blinked rapidly, disoriented. The ringing in his ears hadn't faded yet. "The battle—what happened?" he rasped, trying to sit up. "Did I—did my fall make things worse?"
Vin shook his head quickly, eyes wide. "No, mister. You fainted, but not for long."
Soren exhaled, tension still knotting in his chest. Even without sight, he could feel the battlefield's rhythm — wild, sharp, deadly.
A deafening crack echoed through the air.
Not far ahead, Elianne's personal bodyguard was locked in synchronized combat with the Crimson Apostle, alongside Garron and Joran. The three men struck like hammer and storm — relentless, coordinated, desperate.
Then the earth split.
Two massive, thorned roots surged up like twin serpents, coiling around the Crimson Apostle's legs, dragging him still. A storm of rose petals spiraled around him, glowing faintly with arcane luminance.
"Fall back!" Elianne's voice rang like a commander's cry.
The three men obeyed instantly, retreating without hesitation.
Elianne raised one hand, eyes locked on the target.
"Bloom."
Every petal ignited.
What followed was a cascade — a chain reaction of mana explosions, wave after wave, lighting the battlefield in violent, blinding bursts!
BOOM!BOOM!BOOM!!
Each blast hit like a war drum from the heavens — ripping through the ground, cracking stone, and splintering trees like twigs. The air howled with pressure. Shockwaves pulsed outward in every direction, turning dirt into shrapnel and leaves into ash!
By the final detonation, a dome of searing mana — radiant and furious — had engulfed the Crimson Apostle entirely, as if the world itself had tried to erase him.
Then, suddenly—
Silence.
Smoke drifted like breath from a dying beast.
"…Did it work?" Garron muttered, lowering his massive axe with a grunt. The head thudded into the ground.
The haze thinned.
There he stood.
Unscathed.
A glimmering barrier surrounded the Crimson Apostle — eerie, divine, and cracked.
A single fracture shimmered faintly along its surface.
Everyone's eyes constricted!
The Crimson Apostle looked down at it, the fracture on his barrier, running a finger across the imperfection like a man tracing a lover's scar.
"Ah," he murmured, a smile curling on his lips. "I remember now."
His gaze lifted — eyes landing on Elianne with twisted amusement.
"Spectral rose. There was a woman once… whose power the same unique skill just like that."
He tilted his head.
"Are you her kin, perhaps?"
The change in Elianne was immediate.
Soren couldn't see it.
He didn't need to.
The surge in her mana was raw and trembling — not from fatigue.
But from rage.
From grief.
From something too personal to name.
The air thickened.
And the Crimson Apostle's smile grew colder.