The figure leaned forward, with its flickering eyes oscillating in and out of existence. Its gaze drilled into Leo: up close Leo could better make out what he had seen before: the mask was nearly unblemished and didn't have a single speck of dust on it; It had 6 eye sockets and 2 ram-like horns in total extending from its temple. It was an ivory, off-white in colour.

The figures ruby-red eyes flickered like a flame in its left eye sockets; the light coming from it cast the mask in an ominous light. The baleful shades of red coupled with the ivory white worked in harmony to highlight the inky black abyss present in its right eyes.

The figure had a bulky frame, muscle lined every square metre of its 2m tall frame, its muscles seemed taut and rigid; the quantity and quality of which would even make the muscle-obsessed Dwarfs cower in shame.

Leo's body froze still, his eyes trembled and conveyed his feelings of distress and trepidation; as if having read Leo's fears, the figure heartily 'laughed' and remarked, "There's no need to be afraid, young one! After all, I've been waiting for someone like you for millennia!"

The figure turned around and sauntered towards the other end of the cave, its feet dug into the cave floor with each step, Leo was unable to comprehend how the figures steps made no sound at all; he was clearly able to see the large indentations form with each and every stride yet not a whisper of noise was made.

The figure stopped just before the wall and snapped his finger; a shockwave radiated out and knocked Leo off his feet, a gale of air ruffled his hair leaving it messy and untidy and the cave rumbled in agitation causing tiny debris to fall from the ceiling and wall - some even hit Leo's head.

In front of the figure, an iridescent throne formed out of thin air on which it sat. Its left cheek rested upon its left hand and its right leg crossed over its left leg's quadriceps; its body hunched forward giving off a lazy demeanour. Its slouching position, to Leo, looked reminiscent of a bored king lording over its subjects pathetically.

The onyx torches on the wall were set alight with white fire which illuminated the cavern in a searing white light; the light reflected off the figure's pitch black body causing a remarkable contrast.

Leo lifted himself off the ground, his face tinged with curiosity, and asked "Someone like me?" He dusted his hands against his linen trousers, his eyes zoomed in on the figure observing every movement, of which there was not much, like a hawk.

The figure, still sitting nonchalantly, replied: "You got the Vaunite blood coursing through your veins, kid. You're exactly what I need!" Leo noticed that the voice came from nowhere, he suspected some kind of non-elemental magic was in play but if so, there should have been something glowing iridescent.

Leo became more suspicious of the enigmatic figure: at first, it used some kind of mysterious magic that was unlike any he had seen before without any chant, then it made a chair out of mana and sat on it and, on top of all of that, it was some kind of undead with the ability to speak, perhaps even a lich! Now it was saying it needed his blood!

Danger signs light up in Leo's brain all at once; he had heard that nefarious necromancers and high-tier liches used the blood of innocents to gain power! Was that was happening to him?

Leo steadied his grip on the dagger, he knew he was no match for this creature but he could try at the very least and maybe even injure it; he cursed his bad luck, first, he got ambushed by a bear, then, he got a chased by wolves up the mountain and now a lich was trying to use his blood for some nefarious purpose. Had Leo known this was going to happen, he would have never beat up his fellow orphans and instead would have kept his head down.

Leo squinted with suspicion flaring in his eyes as he eyed down the creature in front of him before asking "What do you need me for? Blood magic?" He backed himself against the barrier and widened his stance, his voice containing a sharp edge of distrust and hostility.

To his surprise, the figure gave a short scoff and answered "It's quite simple really. You'll be my successor." Its reply was calm and collected, not containing a single strand of hostility or anger; it waved its hand in a lethargic manner as though it wasn't worried about a single thing.

Leo was still wary of the figure but due to how relaxed it was, he unconsciously loosened his grip on the dagger. He was still cautious of the figure but not as much as he had been previously; he noticed the figure hadn't mentioned blood magic at all, only saying he was going to be its successor.

Several thoughts went through Leo mind, he tried to think why it had ignored his mention of blood magic. Perhaps, it wasn't going to use blood magic and instead was going to turn him into a lich with necromancy or maybe it was lying to him; why would he need someone of Vaunite blood to be his successor?

Leo gnashed his teeth, the figure's intentions were unclear - he would have to probe deeper. He questioned the figure "You aren't going to kill me? Aren't you going to use blood magic… or necromancy?"

The figure started laughing as though it had just heard the most hilarious thing in the world, it pretended to wipe an imaginary tear from its eye. After it finally calmed down from its little skit, it quickly assuaged the fears of Leo.

"No, no, no, of course not," it hastily declared "After all, I need you… to kill me." Its previously light-hearted voice completely disappeared without a trace at the last sentence, Leo could tell it was serious.

"I… need to kill you?" Leo was bewildered at this sudden development, he hadn't expected the creature to give him such a strange answer: his face contorted into an expression of confusion, the creature's stance changed, it stopped lazing around and sat straight.

A gruff voice came of nothing once again, "In a sense, yes, but don't worry, you won't have to do anything, in fact, it won't even hurt." Leo became even more suspicious of the figure, what kind of person would want to die and on top of that promise that there would be no hassle for the killer.

Furthermore, what was up with the last few words it said, "won't even hurt." Hurt for who? Him? Or maybe was it referring to itself? If it was for him, then why would it hurt? These questions sprung up in Leo's mind making him more and more distrustful of the figure.

"Who even are you? What's your goal?" Leo finally got his priorities straight and asked the questions he should have asked first.

"Oh me? You can call me Sloth, other people know me as Sloth the undying though I doubt they're still alive; it has been a long time since someone met me and lived to tell the tale. Hahaha!" The figure spontaneously started to laugh.

What was the need for this elaborate hoax, Vaun? I see no purpose in this fanfare. Was it not in your capabilities to have him become Sloth immediately? Why the need for this fake when you are making the real one? Or perhaps, you need to put his mind into a state of disarray. While this is not the most efficient way, it has much more character than what my other children would've done; you're worthy of being my usurper.

Its laugh was deafening causing Leo to have to cover his ears. "Anyways, I am one of the seven deadly sins: the original sin of sloth. I'm sure you've heard of me somehow. After all, whenever someone of the 7 races finds us, we get the rest of the lot chasing our tail!"

"My goal is really easy to understand: I need someone to become the new sin of sloth."

At this point, Sloth had risen from the throne, his lazy demeanour had completely vanished in favour of a more energetic one. Leo could almost see a gigantic grin form on its skull had it any facial features to express emotion with.

Leo was contemplating his life choices, was his transgressions so great that they warranted this much karma against him. Getting thrown out of the orphanage was understandable, getting mauled by a bear and nearly dying was kind of teetering on the extreme, then getting chased by a pack of wolves was completely overboard! Now he had to deal with becoming the bearer of a sin; Leo felt a strong urge to drop to his knees and curse the heavens for their injustice.

Leo had heard all about the sins from fairy tales, storytellers and random books haphazardly strewn about the orphanage library. The seven deadly sins were the creations of the God of Void, Vaun; they were the tools he had used to vie for power. To spread his rule and sow chaos in the world.

According to the books, the Origin Gods - who were: Bellow, the God of Fire; Azyn, the God of Air; Gaia, the God of Earth; Aquas, the God of Water; Lynidos, the God of Lightning; Aidel, the God of Light and Khaos, the God of Darkness - bestowed upon people of their own race their blessings and made them their apostles. Then they decided upon a leader to lead their apostles against the sins - this person was known as the hero.

The sins were the enemies of the 7 Gods for they sowed destruction and pandemonium, and contributed to the 'corruption' of the world. Due to these reasons, the 7 races cooperate to destroy sins upon finding them.

My children seek the moral high ground, corrupting the views of these mortals and twisting them with bias. Those very children, who slew their brothers and sisters and devoured their flesh for power, wish for order? They are much too hypocritical. They wish to destroy the environment, in which they strive, if the mortals knew what they were actually like, they would be laughing. It was like a blood-thirsty warlord promoting peace and prosperity. A laughable matter.

Leo decided to try his luck and hesitantly requested "Is there a way for me to not become a new sin?" His expectations were not high, he knew that this would be highly unlikely to work, but, a small semblance of hope still held out.

"NO!" The atmosphere around Sloth changed in an instant, the previously calm and relaxed air turned tense and an enormous pressure exerted itself unto Leo causing him to collapse onto all fours. It was much stronger than the pressure he had experienced when Sloth killed the 4 wolves. Sloth's attitude took a complete 180: it became agitated and on edge, its hands shifty and untamed. The eyes flared intensely which light the skull a menacing scarlet.

Cracks shot up the smooth surfaces of the wall with each step Sloth took, booms echoed throughout the cave unable to be masked by the bellow of thunder and the cascade of rain. Leo could hear Sloth getting closer by the second, he was overwhelmed with complete and utter fear. His heart pounded against his chest as though trying to escape.

Leo could feel something clutch at his neck. It was cold, metallic and lifeless. He felt himself get lift up into the air, he couldn't even resist like a helpless lamb about to be slaughtered. His eyes clasped shut even tighter, he could feel Sloth's glare penetrate his very soul. A thousand thoughts ran through his head, most expressing his desire to live, others telling him to beg Sloth for forgiveness.

The pressure stopped. The hand clasping at his neck let go. Without the hand dangling him in the air, Leo fell and landed on his bottom. His eyes slowly opened, he could see Sloth stride towards the end of the cave, the ground did not tremble under its wake as it had done so in the past. It sat back down on its throne, assuming its original position.

"I don't think you understand what kind of position you're in right now." Its voice trembled with fury, "You WILL become my successor!"

"Y…Yes sir!" Leo hastily clobbered together a reply, beads of sweat rolled down his forehead. He knew he had just messed up! Experts were always known to be eccentric. The atmosphere in the cavern gradually returned back to normal, Sloth resumed his original carefree attitude; the flaring in its eye calmed down in intensity, its hands stopped violently shaking and its voice absolved itself of the sharp edge it had.

"Good, good. It's good that you understand." Sloth started to slowly nod his head, "Since you will be my successor, you should get to know your mission. Kill the other sins. Understood?"

"Yes!"

"Fantastic! Now you're probably wondering 'how will I kill them? I am just a child at the advanced 1st circle stage of the path of the warrior!' It's gonna be real simple, I'm gonna seal you in a pocket dimension for a few years. And I'll give you my notebook containing all my hard work over the past 80,000 years! Its got the best mana art and battle art you'll ever find and with that, you should be all set for the journey."

A distortion in space formed over Sloth's outstretched hand, from the distortion two books fell out and landed in Sloth's pitch-black palm. Even from afar, Leo could tell they were thick books.

Sloth beckoned Leo over causing him to quickly scamper from one end of the cave to the other; the indentations on the floor caused him to nearly trip more than once.

The gash running across his chest started to act up, the linen shirt he was wearing had been dyed a scarlet red, despite how bad it hurt, Leo hastily acted; the threat in front of him was far more dangerous than bleeding out.

"Ah! Aren't you bleeding too much? Well, I can't have you die just yet." Sloth extended its hand, its palm facing Leo's wound; An iridescent light covered the wound running across his chest, the wound stopped bleeding and then it started to close.

In a second, the wound had completely closed leaving only a scar reaching from his right shoulder down to his left hip. Leo's face was filled with awe, the pain he had been dealing with was completely gone. A thought went through his head, "Maybe this isn't so bad after all," but it instantly went away when he remembered what was happening.

"No need to be surprised, kid. Just a simple 'Recover' spell." Sloth stated, "I'll be having to use a more advanced version of that soon. It's time to set up for the succession ritual which means turning you into 100% pure Vaunite. Give me that dagger." Leo offered the rusty weapon without any resistance, he knew resistance was futile. The question to him was, "What's it going to do with the dagger?"

He could think of many possibilities: Sloth didn't want to deal with him trying to launch some kind of sneak attack; Sloth wanted to check out the rusty dagger to see if it was special or not. Or maybe Sloth was going to brutally kill him with his own dagger! Leo focus centred around the last one. His brain was having an internal debate about the likelihood of this happening.

One side opened with, "It definitely isn't going to kill us with the dagger, that thing just said that it can't have us die just yet!"

The other side came back with a simple rebuttal, "It could have been lying!"

The first side argued back, "If it wanted to kill us it could have done so ages ago so it must be telling the truth!"

"Or maybe it wants to torture us! Ever thought of that?"

"It could have done that without the dagger, what's your point?"

"This 'Sloth' could be some kind of sadist or a demented sicko, we have to be careful!"

"You're right. But what can we even do? It's way more powerful than us." The two sides had set aside their differences and assiduously worked on a solution. Sadly, their efforts bore no fruits.

Sloth's gaze returned to Leo, the eye continued to flicker brightly; the dagger nimbly twirled around in the palm of its hand with ease. Leo suddenly fell to the ground and he lost control over his body - his limbs felt numb, no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't move an inch. The money in his pocket clanged against the floor and each other producing a high pitched noise.

Leo tried to muster up a sentence but to no avail. Sloth's deep voice rang out in the cavern, its tone mocking but sincere, "No need to worry, I've just cast a simple paralysis spell on you. You'll thank me for it later. Anyhow, It's time to perform the ceremony." Sloth paused. Inside Leo's mind, Leo was cursing profusely at Sloth, 'You already said the ceremony was going to start three times now!

Sloth started up again, "I can't just turn you into a Vaunite otherwise you'd die, that's why I need to turn you into the bearer of sloth at the same time. For that, I'll need to engrave the necessary magic circles onto you. As a bonus, you get to see what this dagger does."

A hand roughly tugged Leo to the middle of the cavern where he was promptly dropped leaving him facing the ceiling. Sloth effortlessly played around with the dagger some more before carving a magic circle on the smooth rock around Leo's sprawled out body with its finger.

The finger never touched the ground yet an intricate magic circle was engraved into the solid ground; had Leo seen this he would've instantly thought high-tier magic. However, that was not the case, rather it was just raw mana being manipulated. Much too crude to be called magic.

Leo's mind was in complete disarray, he was scared shitless. If his body was still functioning, he would have pissed himself on the spot. luckily for him, it wasn't. So Leo continued staring up at the ceiling while gradually coming to terms with what seemed like his death.

Sloth took off the bloody linen shirt clinging to Leo's body and brought the dagger close to the skin; the dagger flowed in its hand with finesse and grace of flowing water producing a scene that would wow the audience if there was one. That is to say, the audience would have to ignore or block out the agonizing screams of Leo as they watched the scene with their mouths open in awe.

Leo's chest had a complex magic circle slashed directly onto it. The depth and width of each slice were exactly the same, something that could only be done by a true professional. Despite the blade being engulfed in reddish rust and the blood of a bear, it cut easily and smoothly into the skin.

Not a single drop of blood escaped from Leo's wound, instead, it seemed to be endlessly assimilated into the blade; after the blood was absorbed, rust flaked off revealing a blade shinning a dull silver and several tiny grooves converging into one main fuller running down the middle of the blade on either side.

Ominous chanting suddenly erupted, catching Leo off guard. Sloth's arms shot right up into the air in a pose. The words spoken by Sloth couldn't be understood by Leo leaving him confused and frightened for his life.

Everything above the even floor, including the rocky ceiling and walls, slowly disintegrated into an ethereal black substance - it flowed from the surroundings and into the body of Sloth.

Without the ceiling, Leo could see the stars twinkle uncaringly, the moons, on the other hand, paid more attention; their divine light illuminated the scene. Rain pounded the floor relentlessly creating a rhythm that complemented the arcane chanting by Sloth. Thunder crashed down with the might of a hammer forging a blade; lighting the scene for a flash before disappearing.