"By the way," one of the figures said suddenly, tilting its head at an unnatural angle, "are you the Purgatorio?"
Raka's smile didn't change, but the muscles beneath it tightened. "Purgatorio?" he echoed lightly. "That's a flattering comparison. I usually get called an angel, a monster, or on particularly bad days a walking natural disaster."
The shadows shuddered.
Hundreds of mouths opened at once.
Their jaws stretched too wide. Their teeth were too many.
Their voices overlapped in a nauseating chorus, rising and falling like a mad hymn.
"We know how cunning you are, esteemed one."
"We know."
"We know very well."
"You cannot deceive us."
"Calling others is invalid."
"You cannot send a signal to the army."
"It won't be any fun then."
"The fun will be over."
"I want to enjoy it."
"Want to enjoy it."
"Really want to enjoy it."
"Hahahahaha!"
The laughter rolled through the cave, vibrating through stone and bone alike.
Raka exhaled slowly. "You know," he said conversationally, "for creatures obsessed with laziness, you talk an awful lot."
Their laughter intensified.
"Your divine blood," they crooned.
"Our high priest used the authority of the great Lord to slow everything around Slumber Pit Village."
"Around the whole area."
"Whole area."
"Hahaha…"
"Hahaha…"
The shadows multiplied.
What had once been hundreds became thousands, then tens of thousands, pouring from the cave walls like ink bleeding through parchment. They climbed over one another, bodies merging and splitting, eyes gleaming with manic delight.
"Hahaha! Do you half-lings really think you can defeat us? With just that?"
Raka rolled his shoulders.
"Defeat you?" he said thoughtfully. "No. That would imply effort."
The wings at his back unfolded.
Eight pairs of crystalline ice wings burst outward, each feather carved with divine sigils, each edge sharp enough to split concepts rather than flesh. The cave trembled as cold flooded the space, absolute and merciless.
Half the Purgatorio froze instantly.
Their laughter cut off mid-note as ice crawled through their bodies, locking expressions of joy into grotesque statues.
A heartbeat later—
They shattered.
Dust and frost rained down like snow.
The remaining Purgatorio stared at him.
Still smiling.
"Of course," they said calmly, "we cannot defeat the esteemed angel."
"But our Lord can."
The ceiling detonated.
Stone and ice were torn apart as if peeled back by an invisible hand. The sky above darkened unnaturally, clouds twisting into a vortex. The sun vanished behind a veil of crimson light.
A blood-red moon rose.
It did not belong there.
"North!" Raka shouted, his voice sharp, all humor stripped away. For the first time since entering the cave, fear flickered across his face.
***
The altar room lay beyond the cage chamber, separated by warped corridors and collapsing stone. Even now, as I moved, I could not be certain whether what I sensed was real or merely a decoy crafted by Sloth's authority.
Ice and laziness were different concepts, yet disturbingly similar.
Both suppressed motion.
Both slowed progression.
Both reduced life to stillness.
Where Ice preserved by stopping decay, Sloth destroyed by stopping will.
As I entered the altar chamber, the ground shook violently. The ceiling cracked, massive boulders crashing down and pulverizing the corpses strewn across the floor. Blood spread everywhere, pooling unnaturally, flowing against gravity toward a single point.
At the center of it floated a child's body.
A boy.
Barely breathing.
The roof exploded outward.
Where the sky should have been blue, the crimson moon hung low, bathing everything in red light. The world felt wrong, like a painting forced into reality.
My thoughts sharpened painfully.
Sloth had done something reckless.
Something arrogant.
He had woven his authority together with the lingering divinity of Olwen Frozenlight, the previous God of Ice. Olwen had once slowed time across an entire region, isolating it from the flow of the outside world. The high priest had used sacrifices to invoke Sloth's authority, expanding that slowed domain across Slumber Pit Village and even nullifying the space above the Sea of Unity.
Two divinities.
Opposing, yet overlapping.
The result was absurd.
Time collapsed.
The slowing effects canceled each other out, snapping the region back into its original rhythm with violent backlash.
Moonlight flooded the chamber.
The child convulsed.
Horns pushed through his skull with a sickening crunch. He fell into the pool of blood and drank like a starving animal, gulping it down with desperate, obscene hunger.
I stepped forward.
The high priest appeared instantly, positioning himself between us. His body was already failing, veins blackened, eyes sunken.
He slammed his hands together.
A blazing sigil formed.
The Seal of Bloodline.
Pain lanced through my limbs as the seal locked onto my divinity, suppressing movement, freezing authority itself.
The pain was imaginary.
The priest laughed, blood pouring from his mouth.
"Long live Lord Sloth!" he screamed. "Release us from our karma!"
His body collapsed, lifeless, consumed by the very authority he worshipped.
He sacrificed his like to buy 1 second and that was enough.
An angel sacrificed his whole being just to stop and incomplete god.
The child finished drinking.
The cave shook again.
No.
The cave wept.
The boy's body twisted and expanded, bones reshaping, flesh reforming, horns growing longer and sharper. His presence pressed down on reality like a heavy blanket.
Then he spoke.
His voice was gentle.
Warm.
"Welcome," he said softly, "newly crowned God of Ice… North Frozenlight."
I met his gaze.
Sloth smiled.
"Philosophers argue endlessly about effort," he continued, almost conversationally. "They praise diligence, discipline, struggle. But tell me, Ice God… what has effort ever truly achieved?"
He spread his hands. "Wars, Extinction and Suffering."
I said nothing.
He chuckled. "Laziness is mercy ,To stop striving is to stop hurting and To stop moving is to stop failing."
"You mistake stagnation for peace," I replied calmly.
"Do I?" Sloth tilted his head. "Then why does your world keep bleeding?"
I raised my hand.
Ice bloomed across the altar, surging toward him in a wave of absolute stillness.
Sloth snapped his fingers.
The ice slowed.
Not stopped.
Slowed to a crawl.
"See?" he said gently. "Even you cannot act without effort."
Behind me, the cave roared.
Raka descended like a falling star, wings blazing, frost and laughter intertwined.
"Hey, North!" he called out brightly. "Sorry I'm late ,Traffic was hell, Literally."
He slammed into the ground, shattering the remaining Purgatorio in an explosion of ice and light.
Sloth sighed. "Ah!! Family."
Raka grinned. "You know, for a god of laziness, you picked a lot of steps to get here."
I felt the seal crack.
Just enough.
I stepped forward.
"Saving people is never efficient," I said quietly. "It's never optimal. It stains the soul. It hurts. That's why gods who still try are called foolish."
Ice surged.
"But if divinity means abandoning them," I continued, "then I would rather remain incomplete forever."
Raka laughed. "See? This is why I like him."
Sloth's smile finally faltered.
But he said again,"Welcome," he said softly, "newly crowned God of Ice… North Frozenlight."
" Because It'll be your last night."
The battle began.