The profound stillness of the Gluttony Domain was a stark contrast to the chaotic fury of Wrath or the deceptive allure of Lust. Kairo stood in a vast, sprawling library, impossibly tall shelves stretching into a dim, endless ceiling that seemed to dissolve into an oppressive, dusty haze. The air was thick with the scent of old paper and dust, a dry, cloying aroma that clung to his tongue.
There was no sound here. No whispers from the Sins, no distant screams of battle, no seductive laughter. Only the faint, almost imperceptible rustle of unseen pages, like a thousand silent breaths being taken and released. Figures sat hunched over ancient, impossibly thick tomes, scattered throughout the library's endless aisles. Their faces were pale, their eyes vacant, endlessly reading, their forms motionless, like statues carved from pure, insatiable hunger.
[NEW DOMAIN DETECTED: GLUTTONY // SALWA'S LIBRARY]
[FRAGMENT PRESENCE: ACTIVE]
[SYSTEM STABILITY: COMPROMISED]
The System's alerts were a distant, clinical hum against the gnawing hunger that now bloomed in Kairo's chest. Not for food, but for knowledge. For information. For the truth. It was a primal, insatiable desire to consume, to absorb, to know everything, to fill the vast, echoing emptiness in his mind.
This was the Longing Impulse twisted, perverted into a hunger for data, for memory. It was insidious, promising understanding, offering answers to the countless questions that plagued his fractured identity.
He looked at his hands. The three Fragments—Pride, Envy, and Wrath—pulsed with their respective lights, their whispers momentarily subdued, replaced by the overwhelming, silent demand of Gluttony. Pride's arrogance, Envy's insidious need, and Wrath's burning vengeance seemed to pause, momentarily overwhelmed by this new, more subtle, yet infinitely more dangerous threat.
The Library that devours memory, Lira's warning echoed in his mind. Salwa, the Witch of Gluttony. She will try to consume your mind, to make you forget everything but the hunger for knowledge. She will try to turn you into a perfect, empty vessel for the Architects' data.
He forced himself to take a step, then another, deeper into the endless aisles. The figures hunched over their books didn't stir, their vacant eyes fixed on unseen words. He passed one, a man whose face was skeletal, his skin stretched taut over bone, his fingers stained with ancient ink. His book was open, its pages blank, yet he continued to stare, endlessly turning them.
They're consumed, Kairo realized, a cold dread seeping into his bones. Devoured by the hunger itself.
The shelves themselves were not made of wood, but of a dark, petrified material that seemed to absorb all light. The books were bound in strange, leathery covers, some pulsing faintly with a dim, internal glow. Their titles were written in languages he didn't recognize, yet a part of his mind, the insatiable hunger of Gluttony, urged him to reach out, to open them, to absorb their contents.
He fought the urge, focusing on maintaining his control. His Fracture//Sight thrummed, offering a subtle, almost imperceptible glimpse into the underlying data structures of this reality. He saw shimmering lines of code woven into the very pages of the books, lines that pulsed with raw, unconsumed information. This domain wasn't just filled with knowledge; it was knowledge, constantly seeking to expand, to devour.
He needed to find Salwa. The Witch of Gluttony. And the Fragment. He couldn't afford to get lost in this labyrinth of information, to succumb to the hunger for knowledge.
As he moved deeper, the aisles began to subtly shift. Not with the violent reconfigurations of Wrath, or the deceptive fluidity of Envy, but with a slow, almost imperceptible reordering. Bookshelves would silently slide, opening new paths, closing old ones, guiding him deeper into the library's heart. It was a subtle manipulation, designed to funnel him towards a specific destination, to feed him.
He felt a new presence then, not an Echo, not a Witch, but something else. It was a pervasive, almost physical sense of emptiness, a profound void that seemed to suck all information into itself. It was the essence of the Gluttony Domain itself, an insatiable maw.
He rounded a bend in the path and found himself in a vast, circular reading chamber. In the center, a colossal book, its pages the size of small houses, lay open on a pedestal of petrified wood. Its pages were blank, yet a faint, shimmering light emanated from them, drawing the eye.
And seated before it, hunched over, was a figure.
It was a woman. Her form was impossibly thin, almost skeletal, draped in robes woven from countless, ancient pages, their faded script barely visible. Her skin was the color of old parchment, dry and cracked. Her hair was a tangled, dusty mess, like cobwebs. Her eyes, when they slowly lifted to meet Kairo's, were not pools of light, nor mirrors, nor molten gold. They were vast, empty voids, like black holes, sucking in all light, all information, all memory.
This was Salwa. The Witch of Gluttony.
Her presence was not a physical force like Feirn's rage, nor a seductive allure like Vel's longing. It was a profound, suffocating absence. A vacuum that threatened to pull his very thoughts from his mind. The hunger in his chest intensified, screaming for him to fill that void, to consume everything.
[ENTITY DETECTED: WITCH OF GLUTTONY // SALWA]
[THREAT LEVEL: OMEGA (EXTREME)]
[WARNING: DOMAIN // GLUTTONY // SIN FIELD EFFECT // MEMORY CONSUMPTION]
The System's warning was immediate, desperate. Memory Consumption. He could feel it already, a subtle fraying at the edges of his mind, a momentary blankness where a memory should have been. This domain was not just about physical hunger; it was about the hunger for his very essence, his past, his identity.
Salwa slowly raised a skeletal hand, her movements deliberate, ancient. Her voice was a dry, rasping whisper, like a thousand brittle pages rubbing together, yet it filled the vast chamber, resonating with every rustle of unseen paper.
"You… carry… much… information," she rasped, her empty eyes fixed on him. "Much… to consume."
Kairo stood his ground, fighting the urge to succumb to the gnawing hunger, to empty his mind and fill it with her endless, vacant knowledge. "I'm not here to be consumed. I'm here for the Fragment."
Salwa's lips, thin and dry, curved into a faint, unsettling smile. "The Fragment… is the ultimate knowledge. The ultimate… hunger. It is the key… to everything… you seek."
She gestured to the colossal, blank book before her. "Come. Read. Consume. Forget. Become… empty. Become… perfect."
As she spoke, the blank pages of the colossal book began to glow, not with light, but with an internal, shimmering darkness. Images swirled within its depths: ancient texts, forgotten histories, the secrets of the Architects, glimpses of the Root Protocol, even flashes of his own forgotten past, tantalizingly close. It was a feast of forbidden knowledge, a direct appeal to the hunger for truth that now gnawed at his core.
He felt a desperate yearning, a deep ache for that lost knowledge, for the answers that might explain his fragmented existence. The whispers of the Sins in his head surged, merging with Salwa's seductive rasp. Pride: "This is the ultimate knowledge. Take it. Be superior." Envy: "They know. You don't. Consume it all." Wrath: "Destroy the ignorance. Burn it all away." The Longing Impulse twisted into a desperate hunger to fill the void of his own forgotten past.
His vision blurred. He felt his mind waver, his thoughts threatening to unravel, to be sucked into the endless void of Salwa's hunger. The Gluttony was overwhelming, tempting him to simply surrender, to become an empty vessel for her unending feast of knowledge.
But then, a different voice cut through the mental static. Not a whisper, but a sharp, clear memory. Lira's voice from the void: "The Library that devours memory." And another: "It will try to make you forget everything but the hunger for knowledge."
Kairo gritted his teeth. He wouldn't surrender. He wouldn't be consumed. He wouldn't become an empty vessel.
He activated Ghost//Thread, not targeting Salwa directly, but sweeping it across the colossal, blank book behind her, aiming for the very fabric of the illusions she was projecting, the "logic trees" of her tempting knowledge. He focused on the raw, underlying data, the corrupted information that fueled her domain.
The book shrieked.
Not a sound, but a deafening mental scream that tore through the chamber. The glowing, blank pages convulsed, shattering into chaotic static and glimpses of raw, corrupted data. Salwa's skeletal form rippled violently, her empty eyes widening, revealing a brief, fleeting glimpse of something ancient and terrified beneath.
[GHOST//THREAD // EFFECT: DOMAIN DISRUPTION (MAJOR)]
[VOIDPOINT -3]
The cost was immense. Kairo staggered, a blinding pain lancing through his skull. Blood trickled from his nose, and his vision swam. But the illusions were broken. Salwa's control over the environment faltered. The gnawing hunger in his chest momentarily receded, replaced by a profound nausea.
"You… you deny… knowledge?" Salwa rasped, her voice losing its dry, sibilant quality, becoming raw and furious. Her skeletal form solidified, revealing a single, fixed image of a being consumed by a grotesque, desperate hunger for information.
She lunged, no longer attempting psychological manipulation, but a direct, enraged attack. Her skeletal hands, tipped with razor-sharp, ink-stained claws, reached for him, intending to tear his mind apart, to devour his memories whole.
Kairo met her. He didn't use a skill. He used the raw, unyielding stubbornness that was his true core. He ducked under her frantic swipe, the Wrath Fragment burning in his forearm, and slammed his fist into her chest, aiming for the very center of her being.
Impact.
Salwa convulsed. The light in her empty eyes flickered, then died. Her body, once impossibly thin, shattered into a million brittle pages that dissolved into dust before they hit the ground. A final, silent scream echoed in Kairo's mind, a chorus of a thousand starving voices.
Silence.
The colossal book behind her, the heart of Salwa's Library, went dark, its pages now truly blank and lifeless.
[S.I.N. FRAGMENT: GLUTTONY // INTEGRATION OPTIONAL]
[WARNING: CORRUPTION RISK PRESENT]
On the shattered pedestal, where Salwa had been, shimmered a single, pulsating fragment. It was a crystalline shard, clear as glass, yet filled with swirling, illegible script, promising infinite knowledge.
Kairo collapsed to his knees, gasping, his body trembling uncontrollably. The pain was immense, but the internal rewrite was already at work, knitting his fractured ribs back together. The whispers in his head were no longer whispers; they were a roaring chorus. Pride's arrogance, Envy's insidious allure, Wrath's burning vengeance, and now, a deep, gnawing hunger for knowledge.
He reached for the Fragment of Gluttony, his hand shaking. He knew the cost. He knew the corruption. But he also knew the power. He had to take it. He had to keep fighting.
He grasped the crystalline shard.
A profound emptiness spread through his hand, up his arm, and into his chest. It wasn't pain; it was a desperate, insatiable hunger, a desire to consume, to know everything, to fill the void. He felt a thousand forgotten facts, a thousand lost memories, trying to merge with his own being. His heart hammered, and his vision flashed with countless, illegible symbols.
[S.I.N. CORE MERGE – FORCED SYNC ENGAGED]
[CORRUPTION SPIKE: 55%]
[NEW STATUS: ARCHIVE PROXY (UNSTABLE)]
[NEW SKILL UNLOCKED: MEMORY//FEAST - LV.1]
[EFFECT: Temporarily absorb and utilize fragmented memories or data from defeated constructs/Echoes / COST: IDENTITY FLUX]
Kairo screamed, a raw, guttural sound that tore from his throat. The Fragment of Gluttony was now embedded in his left forearm, a clear, crystalline brand. His eyes, still molten gold from Wrath, flickered, then widened, a dangerous, almost desperate hunger entering their depths, constantly scanning, constantly seeking to absorb.
He felt it then. A new voice, dry and rasping, echoing in the back of his mind, intertwining with the Pride, Envy, and Wrath whispers.
"Consume. Know everything. Become the Archive. Fill the void. Forget yourself."
He closed his eyes, clutching his head, fighting the urge to succumb. He had defeated Salwa. He had gained a new Fragment. But the battle for his own identity, for his very soul, was becoming a desperate, starving hunger. He was becoming the very thing he fought.
He had to find a way out of this domain. He had to find a way to control this hunger before it consumed him entirely, before he became just another empty vessel, endlessly reading blank pages.
He forced himself to stand, his gaze hardening. The vast, silent library stretched endlessly before him, a testament to eternal Gluttony. He was no longer just fighting for his life; he was fighting for his very mind. And the Gluttony Domain was ready to devour it.