Morning arrived slowly, almost reluctantly, as if the world itself hesitated to acknowledge the aftermath of the previous night.
Sunlight stretched across the village rooftops, spilling onto dirt paths that still bore faint impressions of hurried footsteps and hurried work. Smoke spiraled from the chimneys, carrying the smell of cooking fires. Somewhere in the distance, a child laughed—light, careless, alive. The sound struck him oddly, intrusive in its normalcy, as though the land hadn't yet realized how close it had come to being consumed by something far darker than laughter.
He stood at the edge of the village, his eyes scanning the quiet streets. His body still throbbed with residual energy from the battle, not in pain, but with a deep, humming awareness. Muscles remembered the clash with Sloth: the coiling tension in his legs, the fluid tracing of imagined swords, the rapid bursts of precision to evade Rider's deadly strikes. Every fiber of him had been tested, yet strength remained. Not dormant—it waited, patient, coiled like a spring beneath his skin.
Kneeling, he took the Rider-class card in his hands. It pulsed faintly, a soft, steady rhythm of power. The memory of Medusa's abilities—the chains, the eyes, the grace in death-dealing strikes—flowed through him even without activation. He placed the card carefully into the small, sealed box he had brought from the village. The click of the lid resounded softly, a quiet punctuation that marked control, preparation, and restraint. Power unrestrained could be a curse; power contained, a weapon for the right moment.
He stood and allowed his gaze to drift across the village. The people went about their morning chores, oblivious to the battle that had just occurred above them. They were safe for now, yes—but he knew safety was transient. The remaining Sins—Pride, Lust, Gluttony, Envy—lurked in shadows beyond perception, plotting, watching, waiting. He felt their attention like a weight in the air, subtle and patient, as if the world itself were holding its breath.
His eyes fell upon the well, and he saw his reflection. For a moment, he did not recognize himself. The Eighth Card had done more than grant power; it had reshaped him, physically and spiritually. His face had sharpened; the softness of childhood roundedness was gone, replaced by subtle angles that caught the morning light differently. His jawline had become firm and deliberate. His nose straighter, sharper. His brown eyes, once uncertain and searching, now held focus, depth, and the kind of calculation that belonged to someone older than his years.
Even his hair had changed. What had been a sun-faded, uneven brown now lay in neat lines, brushing his collar, catching the light with a weight that hadn't been there before. Standing still, he radiated readiness; posture straight, shoulders square, balance absolute. Seventeen, not just in body, but in presence, in the gravity of his gaze, and in the quiet authority of someone who had carried both responsibility and loss far too early.
The villagers noticed, even if they didn't understand. A mother slowed as she guided her child past him, glancing at his face before pulling the child away. Two men stopped mid-conversation, eyes following him, resumes only after he had passed. A child tugged at a parent's sleeve, whispered something he could not hear, then was pulled back. No thanks, no accusation—only an uneasy awareness of something different, something beyond comprehension. The absence of acknowledgment weighed heavier than any word.
He adjusted the straps of his cloak, feeling the small box pressing against his chest. Rider's power was secured, contained, a latent force awaiting its necessity. He stepped onto the path leading beyond the village. Each step carried the weight of purpose and anticipation. The horizon stretched endlessly, yet the road felt narrow, intimate, and yet expansive in its implications.
The path wound through fields that had long since been reclaimed by nature, through forests thick with shadow, and past ruins—remnants of conflicts long faded from memory. He could feel the land remembering, and in turn, he felt the echoes of the Sins moving within that memory. Pride, regal and cruel, waited with the arrogance of inevitability. Lust, seductive and cunning, danced at the edges of perception, unseen but aware. Gluttony, endless and grotesque, loomed in appetite and anticipation. Envy, sharp and silent, watched from the peripheries, patient for weakness.
He paused at the crest of a low ridge, the wind tugging at his hair, carrying the scents of earth and forest. Behind him, the village lay small, fragile, unaware of how much had truly been at stake. He allowed a single glance—not nostalgia, not regret, only recognition. Rest had ended. The hunt had begun.
The box pressed to his chest reminded him of restraint. Medusa's power, sealed and patient, throbbed faintly beneath its surface. He imagined the grace, the lethal elegance of chains striking with deadly precision—but he did not summon them. Not yet. Patience, control, and foresight were as necessary as steel.
He moved forward, boots firm against dirt and stone, each step deliberate. The sun rose higher, shadows stretched and shrank, and the forest whispered around him. He sensed movement—slight, almost imperceptible—among the trees. Subtle shifts, faint disturbances in the air. Lust, Pride, or perhaps Gluttony testing the edges of perception, measuring him. He brushed his hand over the box beneath his cloak. Not yet, he reminded himself. The first battle was over; preparation came before engagement.
Hours passed. He pressed on, driven not by anger but by responsibility. Each pause, each careful step was calculated. If he faltered, if he allowed hesitation, the Sins would move, and innocents would pay the price. The weight of foresight pressed like a spring against the edges of his consciousness, an ever-present reminder that failure was impossible.
The path rose and fell, a living geography of memory and ruin. Hills cast long shadows, forests thickened, and ancient stones whispered of conflicts lost to time. The air itself seemed to thicken as he moved deeper into the forest. Faint rustles, distant snaps of twigs, the occasional animal call—but something lingered beneath them, heavier, deliberate.
He stopped briefly, kneeling, and closed his eyes. No movement, no swords traced in the mind, no projection of power. Only listening. The faint hum of the world, the subtle resonance of magic in the air, the quiet pull of danger that refused to be ignored. The Eighth Card responded softly to his presence, not forcing him forward, only reminding him that he was ready when the moment came.
When he rose, dusk had begun its slow descent. The sky deepened to orange and violet, shadows stretching long across the terrain. The hunt was no longer theoretical. It was a living, tangible thing, a presence that moved, shifted, and tested. Every step he took was deliberate, each footfall silent. The Sins were aware. They were watching.
For a moment, he thought of the village—safe, oblivious, fragile. No thanks awaited him, no recognition. It did not matter. His path lay ahead, forward into confrontation, into the battles that would shape not only his destiny but the fate of countless others.
A wind stirred, carrying with it a subtle distortion. Faint, but unmistakable. A prelude, a whisper that reality itself had been shifted by forces unseen. He paused, eyes narrowing, senses straining. The hunt had begun, and somewhere, unseen but present, the Sins had already noticed him.
Alone, carrying the weight of what he had done and the burden of what remained, the boy pressed forward. There was no place left to rest. Only the road and the Sins that waited ahead.
The boy stepped onto the winding path beyond the village, his senses immediately aware of the shift. The open farmland faded behind him, replaced by dense woodlands whose canopy swallowed sunlight and distorted perception. Trees grew twisted, their trunks gnarled and blackened in patterns that suggested age and suffering. Moss clung to branches and roots as if nature itself were clinging to life in stubborn defiance. The ground beneath his boots alternated between soft soil and jagged stones, each step demanding attention.
The air was thick, laden with a mixture of earthy scents, decay, and faintly sweet traces that did not belong to the natural world. He inhaled cautiously, noting the subtle signs that indicated the presence of something unnatural: the slight shimmer in the shadows, the way wind moved in patterns too deliberate to be random, the faint hum in the space around him that tickled his awareness like the resonance of a spell.
He recalled the mage who had raised him, now gone. The mage had told him stories of the world's older layers—lands untouched by humans, traces of battles fought in eras when gods walked openly, and when the seven class cards did not yet exist. Those layers still lingered, hidden beneath forests, ruins, and mountains. As he traveled, he could feel remnants of those layers: invisible ley lines vibrating faintly beneath his feet, distant echoes of the old magics that had once bound and released heroes, kings, and demons.
The path led him into valleys carved from centuries of river erosion, their cliffs marked with the faded reliefs of civilizations long forgotten. Figures of men and beasts intertwined in stone, telling stories the wind had almost erased. Some carvings bore resemblance to the seven Sins he pursued—figures of gluttonous kings, lustful queens, slothful warriors, arrogant tyrants, envious schemers—but centuries of time had twisted their shapes. The boy paused at one relief, tracing its lines with a fingertip. The depth of artistry spoke not of mere decoration, but of ritual, purpose, and warning.
He carried no weapons beyond the small box holding the Rider-class card, yet he felt armed. His experience with the card, the training instilled within him, and his memory of battles gave him confidence. Every footstep, every movement, was guided by foresight honed in practice and memory. He did not need to summon the card's power yet. What lay ahead required observation, patience, and the quiet accumulation of knowledge.
The sun climbed higher, casting rays through breaks in the foliage. The forest opened briefly onto a plateau where wildflowers grew in clusters around ruins—columns shattered, archways fallen. Here, the air tasted of iron, faint and sharp, as though the stones themselves remembered blood spilled upon them long ago. He knelt by a pool of stagnant water, gazing into its mirror-like surface. The reflection showed a seventeen-year-old boy with sharpened features and weighty eyes, yet the same brown hair brushed across his collar in neat, flowing strands. This body was new, forged by the Eighth Card, a vessel suitable for battles that demanded more than mere skill—it demanded presence, endurance, and understanding.
He continued, stepping carefully across the plateau. The plateau descended into a valley where the forest grew dense once more, and here he began to notice signs of life—or signs of its absence. Trees bore claw marks, deep gouges that did not match animal patterns. Animals had fled long ago, leaving behind only the faintest traces: tufts of fur snagged on branches, footprints too large for common wildlife, and the occasional echo of a distant, unnatural sound. The valley whispered warnings.
In the distance, he saw smoke curling from a small cluster of ruined buildings. Curiosity drew him closer. The structures were ancient, their walls covered in ivy, yet remnants of human habitation lingered: a broken pot, a fragment of cloth, a partially buried tool. Here, centuries ago, perhaps humans had built lives unremarkable enough to be forgotten—yet the ruins spoke of sudden disruption, perhaps from one of the Sins centuries past. Prideful rulers, envious schemers, gluttonous kings—those remnants of history were not distant myths; they were echoes of the very forces he now pursued.
As he moved through the valley, the land began to subtly shift. Shadows lengthened unnaturally, shapes blurred at the edges of vision, and the temperature dropped in sporadic patches, hinting at disturbances in reality itself. He slowed, noting the pattern: the distortions pulsed rhythmically, almost like a heartbeat, and each pulse carried faint traces of consciousness. The Sins were near, moving not just through the land, but through its perception.
Even in this dense, quiet forest, life existed in miniature: birds darted between trees, insects buzzed in lazy spirals, and small mammals scurried among roots. Yet all of it seemed overshadowed, cautious. The boy recognized the subtle fear inherent in their behavior—not natural fear, but a response to presences they could not understand. His footsteps stirred them, and he noted it calmly: he was intruding into territory long abandoned by ordinary humans, a hunter entering lands where the hunted had long ruled.
At dusk, he reached a river winding through the valley. The water ran clear, but shimmered strangely in the waning light, as though the surface itself held a reflection of something beyond the physical. He followed its edge, moving cautiously, tracing each ripple and shadow. Here, legends whispered by the mage began to make sense: this land was alive in ways ordinary men could not perceive. Lines of power ran beneath the earth, traces of barriers and seals, remnants of ancient battles where gods and demons had left their marks.
He paused by a stone bridge spanning the river, worn smooth by time. The river's flow seemed unnaturally steady, almost measured, as if counting the moments before something arrived. He knelt and ran a hand along the stone, feeling faint vibrations that spoke of sealed magic, latent power, and the echoes of beings long gone. His eyes narrowed. This land was no longer merely a forest or valley—it was a battlefield layered with history, each step potentially dangerous, each stone carrying memory.
Night fell slowly. The forest darkened, the river gleamed like liquid silver under the moonlight. Mist crept along the ground, wrapping roots and stones in ghostly coils. Every shadow seemed alive, moving in subtle, unpredictable ways. Yet the boy pressed forward, calm and deliberate, fully aware that the Sins were near, that Lust or Pride might already be observing from the darkness.
He set up a temporary resting place under a canopy of trees, small, careful, unobtrusive. No fire, no noise—just him, the box with the Rider-class card, and the quiet hum of his own heartbeat. He ate sparingly, conserving energy while allowing himself a brief moment of reflection. He considered the path ahead: Lust would manipulate and test him, Gluttony would likely ambush, Pride would confront him directly, and Envy would attempt to exploit weakness. Each required a different approach, different tactics, and all demanded vigilance.
The stars overhead blinked coldly, indifferent to the weight of destiny pressing upon him. Yet beneath their light, the boy felt the hum of the Eighth Card, a constant pulse that reminded him of the latent potential contained within. It was a promise, a warning, a preparation.
Before sleep claimed him, he traced imaginary swords in the air, testing angles, arcs, and timing, preparing his mind for the challenges ahead. His body was seventeen, yes—but it was more than that. It carried memory, experience, foresight, and the quiet patience that came from surviving battles that no ordinary human could endure.
The forest settled around him. The wind whispered through leaves, carrying faint scents of the Sins' presence. Somewhere ahead, unseen but alive, the echoes of Lust stirred. Gluttony, Pride, and Envy watched silently from distance, waiting. The hunt had begun, and the boy was ready, patient, and aware of every heartbeat, every whisper of motion, every shadow in the darkness.
He closed his eyes for the briefest moment. The road stretched endlessly ahead. No place left to rest. Only movement, only vigilance, only preparation. The world was wide, old, and alive—and he was stepping into it, fully awake to both danger and purpose.