The eclipsed sun beat down on Leo as he traversed the desert. He had not noticed it when he had woken up but he was in dire need of sustenance and water. His throat felt as dry as the scarlet sand beneath his feet and his lips were parched and cracked. This made him look even more bedraggled.

He mindlessly trudged through the sand, he could feel the blisteringly hot sand penetrate past the soles of his shoes which made his feet feel like they were in a furnace.

Leo set his sights on the giant rings of metal in the distance. He could only hope to himself that they were the key to leaving this place. He was already sick of being in this desert. He rested for a minute as he looked up at the sky.

He had been walking for what felt like an eternity but was actually only about 2-3 hours. The eclipsed sun had not moved an inch causing Leo to question if time was even moving or if it was put on hold. Leo wiped the sweat off his forehead and carried on with his journey.

The titanic ring had certainly gotten closer, it was much larger than he had originally thought it to be; it towered over the giants' corpses casting long winding shadows.

Leo was deeply intrigued by the mystery of what had happened here, what kind of force had killed these magnificent creatures and who had erected those titanic rings. What was their purpose? He had no answer.

Thinking further on what had happened to them, a creeping sense of dread appeared in Leo's mind: what if some kind of massive creature had single-handily killed everyone here, leaving their corpse to bask in the sun. Perhaps some kind of sandworm. But that was merely a conjecture with no evidence to back it up.

Leo thought to himself, "Even if a creature had single-handily killed everyone here it would most likely be dead. There doesn't seem to be any living thing here and considering the state of the weapons and skeletons it had been a very long time since it had massacred them."

"Maybe there was a war." Leo thought it was fitting of the situation. It would explain why all of them had a band of blue fabric cusped around their arms; it was to show which side they were on. However, this interpretation brought up many questions. Who were these titans fighting against? Who killed them? There did not seem to be any titans on the opposite side; they all wore the same blue.

Leo wished he could answer these immensely interesting questions as such he made a mental note to research the history of titans. He remembered that Sloth had said that he was going to send him into a pocket dimension of his own creation.

If this was the pocket dimension, then how strong was Sloth? From what he could see Sloth had the power to conjure an entire desert and one that he had never heard of in any books. Granted he still didn't have all his memories back. This still meant that Sloth was as powerful as the people in fairy tales and myths.

He gulped in fear, Sloth had way more power than he had ever imagined. What would have become of him if Sloth wasn't seeking a 'successor'? Leo was still in the dark about what he gained from becoming the new sin of sloth. He had gained the books that were strapped to his leg and possibly the mask strapped to his arm. The mask didn't seem like inheritance and more of a coincidence.

He had learned from somewhere that each sin had a unique power linked to them. He could vaguely recall the powers of wrath, gluttony, greed, pride, lust and envy which made it all the more perplexing why he couldn't recall the power of sloth. He shut his eyes close and strained to remember any details yet none came to mind. Leo let out a disappointed sigh.

[Interesting… He seems to have absorbed information while being created. Or perhaps, it was when he was given the ability of Sloth. This could be interesting.]

All of a sudden the ground started to rumble! Leo lept back in surprise with a shrill cry. The scarlet sands shifted allowing a wall made of crystals to raise high into the sky. The wall extended all around him trapping him inside like a prisoner in solitary confinement. The quaking was so powerful that Leo landed on his backside unable to keep his balance. The shaking continued for 20-30 seconds.

At last, Leo was able to stand up and inspect the wall; from what he could see, the wall was made of a clear crystal that housed abyssal black energy. The wall's surface was uneven and bumpy particularly at the points where the crystals fused which were the low points. Leo could gesticulate the shape of the crystal as an octahedron, however, this knowledge was not of much use.

Leo estimated the height of the wall to be 50m or bigger. He would not be able to scale it, instead, he had to find a different way out like an exit. After more than four hours of searching, Leo finally found the exit causing him to feel immensely stupid.

He had gone counter-clockwise in search of the exit but the exit was just a short walk clockwise from his original position. Leo facepalmed at his short-sightedness.

Leo walked through the exit which was an arch roughly his size, pondering only for a second if this was a coincidence or intentional, however, this thought went as quickly as it came. He noticed the thickness of the wall was the length of his body; it was a good thing he hadn't tried to chisel his way through or he would've been at it for decades.

He cautiously stepped out, his gaze shifting all around him; he had become cautious as the appearance of the magic wall signified that there could be traps or danger lurking in this desert. He locked onto a black figure far in front of him. He carefully approached it and to his sheer joy and utter excitement he had found a human being.

The person wore a full suit of black crystalline armour that looked like the same theme as the wall. its fortified and sturdy hands clutched at a corroded greatsword embedded in the sand. A gust of wind flew by with a gentle whistle.

Leo could cry tears of joy right now. He was joyous, ecstatic and over the moon about this. He almost rushed forward without a second thought only barely stopping himself last second.

He hunched his back and put on his best expression of grief, sorrow and patheticness; this alongside his decrepit clothes made him look like a poor orphan abandoned and left to defend for himself.

He lurched slowly forward to complete the appearance, a thought ran through his head, "I guess this isn't Sloth's pocket dimension why else would there be someone else here." Leo let out a soft chuckle, it was time for his freedom.

"Oh thank the heavens and praise the seven almighty!" Leo enacted his deceitful plan, "Sir knight please help me escape from this devilish dessert, I have wandered these dunes for days! A heinous warlock has left me for dead. I'm the heir to a powerful and rich noble lineage if you show me the way out my family would reward you generous amounts of money and… and land and riches and whatever you could ask for!" Leo thought to himself about how good of a job he had done.

If he had to grade himself, he would give a solid ten out of ten; the stutter was truly a stroke of genius in his mind and gave himself another point for it making the total 11/10. Personally, I would say he had done terribly; he was just following the mould. Not enough out of the box thinking. Luckily, he could afford to make mistakes.

The 'knight' didn't respond at all, choosing simply to retain its rigid position. "A bit weird," thought Leo but he chalked it up to the knight not having heard his calls, as such, Leo faltered forward with the same deceitful act; Leo wasn't particularly proud of what he was doing, but any shot at survival was well worth it even if it meant abandoning his pride.

He was well aware that if the knight took the bait, they would eventually realise they had been duped. At the moment Leo could only hope sir knight would show him some sympathy and let him go, after all, who would kill a 12-year-old for trying to live.

Once again the knight didn't budge, standing obliviously and obstinately with the sword clutched in its hands and light shimmering off its crystalline armour. At this point, Leo was hunched over right in front of the knight, he was so close he could have buried his head in its armour.

All of a sudden, the knight sprung into action, it gouged its tarnished greatsword from the ground and swiftly took a fighting stance. Its eyes glowed an intimidating azure.

Leo jumped back in surprise, foregoing his deceitful demeanour; he had not expected the knight to react in such a way and as such was extremely frightened, thinking the knight had seen through his lie and was exacting an act of extreme revenge, Leo hurriedly appealed his fate, "I'm so sor…" *Crack*

Unfortunately, the knight paid no heed to his words and immediately took action. With one fell swoop of its greatsword, it gruesomely tore into his flesh and, as the blade was old and dull meaning it was unable to cut cleanly, crushed his femur into a million different bits like a hammer effortlessly crushing an egg.

Sanguine blood gushed out of Leo's wound as he let out a blood-curdling scream. The knight refused to give any mercy and quickly struck again, completely dismembering his left leg! Leo's shrieks continued and rivers of tears flooded out of his eyes, however, his brutal torture was not up. The knight systematically cut his remaining arms and legs, each taking two strikes all the while it ignored his cries and wails.

At last, as though sick of playing with its prey, it skewered Leo through the heart, finally putting him to rest. The knight returned lackadaisically to its position and resumed its standing regime. Its azure eyes vanished.

The mark of sin, an ouroboros, fluoresced with a deathly black light which soon enveloped Leo's body like a cocoon. The cocoon compressed in on itself until it disappeared from existence, this process only took a fraction of a second.

A few kilometres back Leo lay flat on his back, his eyes lifeless and listless, and his limbs to his side. This was the most traumatic thing he had experienced that he could remember. His consciousness waned from the sheer shock he had just experienced, causing him to go unconscious at the very place he started.

The horned mask strapped to his arm trembled furiously and an arcane rune light up and radiated a stygian light. The maimed limbs broke down into a stream of jet-black particles that flowed into the mask. Once the limbs had fully dematerialised and absorbed, the mask was stained light ebony.

A steady stream of inky particles gushed out of its orifices and replaced the missing limbs with swirling unstable replicas made of the black particles. The mask returned to its ashen colour.