"Wow~ What a fun party!"
The voice came from above, cheerful and grotesque all at once.
Ashen's hollow state shattered instantly. Emotion, will, intent… everything came flooding back as his head snapped upward.
There, descending through the air with lazy flaps of feathered wings, was the crow-like creature.
And dangling from one clawed hand, held by her crimson hair, was an unconscious woman.
Cornelia Arde.
Sabrina's breath caught at the broken, beaten sight of her master, held like a trophy.
"Mistress—" The word barely came out before Alice shut her up with a hand to her mouth.
Secrets scanned the battlefield as though shopping for a welcome party venue.
Tilting its head, all its eyes blinking out of sync as it noticed the maid. "Oh! Is this one yours? What a coincidence! I had so much fun playing with her~"
It shook Cornelia slightly, her limp body swaying.
"But she stopped moving after a while. Boring! So I thought, maybe her friends would be more entertaining!"
The creature's beak arched into that perfect, impossible smile.
"Hello, new friends! I hope you're ready to play!"
The laughter multiplied… layering, scraping against their eardrums like nails on glass.
But then, it abruptly halted. "Wait! I said I would only play with Sin Lords, didn't I?" The crow's neck snapped back to its summoner. "Cassius, why are you so slow? Can you hurry up, please?!"
"...I'm almost done."
No one dared breathe too loudly in front of the presence. Even as they casually spoke of their death as if it were mere cleanup, aside from its wrong appearance, the sheer pressure of the tyrannical mana simply rooted them in place.
"Tsk tsk… If you're dragging your feet this much on the first fortress, won't I have to wait forever each time?"
"That is not so. Humanity is like a hedgehog. Once the outer shell is gone, the rest will be easy." He paused. "Besides, there's an unexpected anomaly among them."
"Is that so?" The crow scratched its head, not really listening, but interestingly eying the prize in its claws.
"By the way! I'm gonna use this body, you don't mind, do you? Well, who cares about your opinion? I wanna try to be 'female' for once." It flailed the Sin Lord around.
"Suit yourself. But remember that the other Sin Lords have long reached the First Step."
"Hehehehehe—don't worry!! This won't weaken me. Besides… with my curses and your Astrologer combined, can't we just talk them to death? Talk. Them. To. Death. Huhuhuhu~ ahh, that'd be hilarious!!"
Even as the words went back and forth between them, Cassius's remark about an 'anomaly' caught Secrets' attention. The man probably slipped in the word intentionally to make use of its curiosity, and perhaps have it target this 'anomaly' itself.
But Secrets didn't care about being manipulated. It had never been able to hold its curiosity back anyway!
'Hmhmhm…'
Its gaze locked onto the surviving third-step woman who had her legs pulverized in the distance.
'Not that.'
Then, it switched to the weirdly dressed maid.
'Nope.'
The passed-out nun?
'Boring…'
When its eyes finally landed on the golden-eyed woman, they fractionally widened.
'Interesting… but Cassius will still kill her in a couple of seconds…'
Finally, it scanned the last, and the juiciest-looking one. "Oh… Oh…? Oh my!"
'Such high compatibility with a single concept… mmm…'
'Is this one humanity's best? What a catch!'
Its beak opened wide at what it saw next. 'A regressor?!'
'And this potential… A might that can reach the point where he can kill every one of us… including Her.'
'What in the world…'
As it started gleaning into memories of a ruined timeline where its fate and everyone of its kind ended up slaughtered under one spear, all its previous jolly mood disappeared.
The joy, the childishness, the laughter, the smugness… was no more.
'This man needs to die… Now—'
In a world where it held back its curiosity, that might have happened. But in this timeline, a certain woman was determined to stop his death at all costs, even if a God asked for it.
To her, he was irreplaceable, after all.
"ASHEENNNN—!!!! COME TO ME!!!"
A pink-haired woman screamed at the top of her lungs from the wall's edge. There were only two who were able to notice her approach, but one became too relaxed with the arrival of an Outer God by his side, and the other was too immersed in indulging its curiosity to care.
And so, she screamed for him.
Ashen, who was preparing all of his mana for one last strike before going down, found himself redirecting all of his remaining energy to his legs instead.
He didn't know why he threw away his last stand for a desperate cry, even as his mind screamed every logical fact—that the voice behind him could never change this hopeless situation.
But when did the body ever listen to logic when instincts were involved?
Riven State - Rupture.
BOOM—!
{Path Skill Activated: Blindstep}
This was his eighth and last activation of Blindstep. The Hourvault was out of stolen time. And it was merely for 0.05 seconds.
But he was already crouching, and it was enough to catapult him back to his target and dodge the transformed crow's claws that were a breath away from freeing his head from his body.
Secrets, who had already fully transformed into a humongous creature and dived for the kill, caught nothing.
CRASH—
The monster lifted its head and found its prey on the far side of the vast wall, holding the pink-haired woman who'd just arrived. A danger sense long dormant abruptly woke—and screamed at it to separate them at any cost.
It, after all, knew the identity of that woman. It had extracted a price from her not long ago.
From this distance, using its Space concept to move would be faster than dashing, so it prepared to do so, but Lucia didn't need more than a moment to do what had to be done.
{Path Skill Activated: Future Echo}
Ashen heard a system prompt asking for his lifespan, but accepted everything before the request was fully made, fully trusting the con artist in his arms.
And the moment he did, he felt a pain so immense, so encompassing, that he wished he'd die on the spot.
He felt his innards twisting, his skin burning, his flesh festering, his bones cracking, even the rest of his functional circuits fractured.
But a laugh bubbled under his parched throat, because under all this, he also felt a connection he'd long longed for come back to life.
'Astrologer… you think you're the only one with outside help? You'll never see this coming. Right… my twin soul…?'
{Innate Skill Activated: Twin Souls}
"Little Gomba. Stop for a minute."
The voice was light. It was even easygoing, but the wall almost shook from the arrival of the new existence.
The pressure was so overbearing that it far eclipsed what the Outer God's had been.
The Outer God in question was claws brandished—a mere millimeter away from Ashen and Lucia's heads—but it stood still as if frozen.
"Aaaah… aaahhh… AAAHHH!!"
The silence was suddenly broken by a heart-wrenching scream.
It was the passed-out Seraphine who'd just felt the bond's transmitted pain.
But the Secrets Keeper did not even register it.
Little Gomba… that seemed to be its name? No, it certainly was, since Secrets' curse reacted. Its name seemed to be a long-forgotten secret, unknown even to itself.
But how did this man know? Even it had forgotten its real name after ascending, so how?
It tried to pry the secret, but it was somehow blocked. It was the same feeling when it tried to pry into Her secrets. The one it didn't dare mention the name of, even if She was technically on its side.
But how did this human manage to do the same feat She did? How curious… was he hiding other secrets? Curious indeed…
And this curiosity halted it in place. At the same time, it used a loophole that only it knew about its curse.
If someone asked for a price while delivering a secret, paying what the speaker requested would invalidate the haphazard penalty they would receive otherwise.
And he'd asked for a minute, did he not? So a minute, he shall receive.
The crow still wasn't letting its curiosity overwrite its rationality yet. It knew that the other self of that man now occupied his body. The regressed one. But it wasn't even out of the question that he'd die on his own before even that minute ended.
Aside from his tortured state, the overbearing soul was trying to fit in a body that could never hope to hold its vast concepts, and now, with each second it stayed, the body kept unraveling.
This Ashen, however, didn't seem to mind his tormented shape, nonexistent circuits, or the gradual breaking of his body.
Still holding the pale Lucia, he didn't even glance at the frozen Outer God and started walking toward the shocked spectators.
From everyone else's perspective, it hadn't been even two seconds from Secrets' two attacks and Ashen's changes.
Ashen finally reached Sabrina and Alice's position and gently put Lucia beside them.
Then, he walked to the tearful Seraphine writhing on the ground and crouched. "Seraph. You've held on well. Now rest."
Even under that agony, she seemed to have heard him and managed a small nod. A light tap on her temple finally relaxed that tearful face into peaceful slumber.
"Ashen…?"
Alice finally called out, tears shimmering as she took in his state. Yet a single look from him eased every worry. They knew each other too well, and one glance could speak volumes.
That look said everything would be alright.
'Lust concepts… the other me is not slacking off, it seems.'
He mused.
"I don't know how you stopped that thing, but I can't feel a speck of mana from you… It's already hopeless. If you have the means, run away."
Finally, Sabrina uttered, her voice devoid of emotion.
But she only felt a hand pat her head in return. "Good job, little maid. I'll save your mistress on the way as a reward."
"...?"
She didn't know why, but she unconsciously nodded in return.
Ashen kept moving forward, toward the man who watched everything with a blank expression.
One would think he had some kind of plan under that look since he was the Astrologer. The Veiled Moon's head, the man who felled five domains and killed hundreds of millions. He was the one who planned for two centuries, roped in an Outer God for his cause, commanded an army of billions of monsters, and always had a scheme behind every move.
But they would be wrong.
In fact, his inner thoughts were as blank as his face.
He wanted to move, to attack before he got closer, retreat from danger, anything but staying immobile! But his body refused to listen.
His Astrologer had already seen that the man before him was only at the second step, the same as him, but even knowing that, he felt as if everything he would do was futile, everything he would think of was pointless. Even if he were at his best, it would be the same.
In front of this broken, manaless man, he only felt like a helpless child who could only wait for his doom—because that was the only and absolute answer.
When Ashen was less than twenty meters away from him, the embers of his will to survive finally struggled hard enough for him to manage to speak. "Are you going to fight me in that state…? You won't be able to kill me."
But under the ears of the Ashen of the first timeline, those words were utter hubris. "If there's something I learned during my life, if there's a will, there's a way. And will… I have plenty of that." He tilted his head. "So… There's always a way to kill."
The moment he finished speaking, Cassius caught a light shining under the night sky.
Lifting his head, he saw it. There, like a second moon, an icon of a golden crown hung. Under it, the words 『Seventh Crown: Sloth』 shone brightly.
'A title.'
Cassius instantly recognized it. Titles are labels one can get after being widely recognized for a legendary feat or an achievement.
And Cassius knew how to get the one shining over his head right now. Be recognized as the strongest Sloth pathwalker among humans, and you will be bestowed one of the crowns, the seventh and last of them.
Ten steps away now.
"Relax..."
…Though he didn't know how this would help him or change his state. That crown would merely allow him to wield a very limited portion of Sloth without mana. But that would never be enough to beat him, especially with those injuries.
Tap… tap…
Seven steps away.
"Take deep breaths… slow in—slow out…"
He should attack now to keep his opponent at bay and probe for any surprises.
Five steps.
"Keep your eyes on my face. Don't close them. Good. Hold that breath…"
No, maybe he should wait for him to get closer and deal one lethal blow.
Cassius's eyes turned bloodshot, but he still didn't move.
Three.
"If you want to scream, do it. Let it out—no fighting it. That's fine."
Now is his last chance… he should attack—!
One.
'What did I just want to do…? Ah, yes, I need to kill this man. But why do I feel so lethargic…?'
"You're doing fine. Count with me: one, two—easy."
And with that, he felt a light tap on his heart from the golden-eyed devil's outstretched fingers.
Tap. Tap.
The two fingers were barely felt on his chest, and there was no mana or even malicious intent within them, but as if his heart took it as permission to finally rest… it stopped.
"You'd think after two deaths you'd be numb." He said softly. "You'd be wrong. First moments always bring tension. Take a deep breath—yes, that's it. Deep breaths. Feeling a little dizzy is normal…"
He tried breathing, but only agonal breaths rang out. He also felt dizzy, but the soothing voice said this was normal…
.
.
.
Thud.
Cassius's back met the stone ground at last.
No… it wasn't Cassius anymore. What lay amid the debris was merely…
A corpse.