Ha… ha… at last, I understand.
The sins are not mere powers. They are primordial. Ancient. They existed long before men ever named them, before kingdoms or faiths or gods. What I carry is not a gift, nor a curse—it is a fragment of something immeasurable, a shadow of their true essence.
What I once believed to be madness is, in truth, awakening.
And now that I have learned to restrain myself—to bend the voices, not be bent by them—I can begin to explore further. If each sin is a chain, then together… they are a key.
Yes. With all their power combined, I should be able to tear a rift—a portal to that place I have always felt pressing against the edges of my mind. The source. The Root.
Let all the sins converge: Gluttony and Wrath as fuel, Greed, Envy, and Lust to perceive, Sloth and Pride to manifest. Each will serve its purpose. Each will demand its toll.
The forest shuddered. Leaves quivered as though alive, trees twisting toward some unseen force. A low, rumbling hiss rose from the soil, echoing like the groan of a world in pain.
He stood at the center, arms outstretched, channeling every fragment of sin into a single, impossible focus. Gluttony burned like a furnace in his chest, Wrath crackling along his limbs. Greed, Envy, and Lust sharpened his perception, making him see the forest in waves of hunger, desire, and intent. Sloth and Pride bent reality around him, warping the air into coils of tension.
Then it happened.
A slit tore open before him, a jagged rip in the veil of existence. Through it, the world beyond bled—a darkness so deep it seemed to swallow all light. Shadows moved within the void, writhing, whispering, promising both revelation and oblivion. Eyes like slits into unknown realities pierced the darkness. An ominous aura poured from the portal, creeping outward, saturating the forest—and the world itself—with dread. The scent of decay, iron, and something unnameable stung his nostrils.
The ground trembled. Birds took flight in chaotic flocks, their screams echoing unnaturally. Even the wind seemed hesitant, curling around him like a living thing, carrying faint whispers in languages older than humanity.
The slit widened, showing glimpses of alien landscapes: mountains that bent impossibly, rivers of darkness reflecting twisted stars, forests where every tree seemed to lean and watch. His eyes, narrowed to slits, drank in the shapes and movements with a hunger only sin-fueled perception could sustain.
And in that instant, he knew—this was no mere portal. This was the Root itself, the origin of all sin and shadow. Its presence was absolute. Its aura infected the forest, every stone and branch trembling with anticipation and terror.
He took a step forward, feeling the pull of the darkness. The sins inside him screamed, urging him to claim, to consume, to merge. His body felt hollow and infinite at once. He was nothing, yet everything.
Above him, the sky twisted. Clouds bled into one another—black, red, violet—as though reality itself had begun to rot from the edges. Even though this act would leave him hollow—empty-handed in body and soul—it must be done. He could not turn away now.
Forgive me, my wife. Forgive me, my daughter. This is my kind. This is what I was meant to be.
The forest convulsed. Trees snapped like brittle bones, their roots tearing from the earth as though the ground itself were rejecting its own life. Shadows lengthened unnaturally, twisting into forms that should not exist—creatures half-seen, half-imagined, writhing at the edge of perception. Their whispers grew louder, no longer confined to his mind, spilling into the world like a plague of sound.
The portal pulsed, a living wound in reality. From it seeped darkness that drank the color from the leaves, the light from the sky, the warmth from the air. Birds fell from the sky, their eyes empty voids, their bodies warped by the aura. The wind carried the taste of iron and ash, sharp and acrid on the tongue.
Gluttony screamed, demanding, consuming. Wrath roared, shattering the air with invisible force. Greed, Envy, and Lust pulled his senses outward, letting him feel every want, every hidden desire, every secret yearning of the living world. The knowledge was intoxicating—and horrifying. Sloth slowed time around him, stretching moments into eternal agony and ecstasy at once. Pride shaped it all, bending perception so he could manipulate the very weave of reality.
The ground cracked, molten black veins crawling like living fire along the soil. Animals howled, driven mad by the alien aura; some fled, some fell to their knees, some twisted into shapes their species could never have known.
Then he took his first step into the unknown territory. The world held its breath as he crossed the threshold, vanishing into the dark rift. The portal shuddered once, then snapped shut like a wound finally cauterized. Silence fell—heavy, unnatural, as if reality itself were trying to forget what had occurred.
Even though the portal had closed, its influence did not end. The boundaries of the world began to blur. Horizons shimmered unnaturally, rivers bent impossibly, and mountains leaned as if straining toward some unseen center. The sky flickered between day and night, sometimes both at once, leaving mortals dizzy and disoriented.
Rifts began to appear across the globe—smaller than the one he had opened, yet no less dangerous. They tore open in forests, deserts, cities, oceans. From each, whispers poured, carrying knowledge and terror too vast for human minds. Some rifts remained invisible to the eye, felt only as a chill in the air or a sudden prickling on the skin. Others spat out shadows, flickering shapes that slithered across the land like living nightmares.
And from these rifts, monsters emerged. Not the beasts of legend, not creatures of flesh and bone alone—but twisted amalgamations of shadow, hunger, and thought. Limbs that bent the wrong way, eyes that reflected entire worlds, jaws that seemed to bite through reality itself. They spread slowly at first, then with a terrifying intelligence, as if the sins themselves had sent them to reclaim what had been glimpsed.
Humans tried to fight, but weapons shattered, fires sputtered out, and even magic seemed to bend uselessly against the invading darkness. Entire cities fell silent overnight, swallowed by the creeping influence of the rifts. And everywhere, a quiet, insidious dread grew—the knowledge that the first day of doom was merely the beginning, that the world itself was unmaking under the weight of primordial sin.