The survivors had no time to celebrate Jonas' return. They would've rolled their eyes in exasperation if they had the heart because only their crazy leader could wake up from a near-death beatdown, insult the Maldread, throw a rock at its genitals, and start charging toward it with a calm demeanor. However, their hearts broke from the recent deaths of Ahmed and Jaden, which took all their emotions and left them with emptiness and despair.

Seeing Jonas face the Maldread did not inspire them with confidence or make them feel better about the situation; it made them feel worse because they had already lost too much, and they didn't want to lose him too.

Simon's mouth fell agape, and he shouted, but Jonas ignored him. He had planned on grabbing him, but all was for naught because his good friend had a date with death. No matter how much they screamed and pleaded, their leader ignored them.

Jonas' Sin Scars lit up the room like two cross-shaped suns. The red light was blinding, and those nearby felt their eyes twitch in protest when they tried to stare at the back of his hands. The Maldread's mandibles opened wide and revealed pieces of human between its rows of bloody teeth. Its scabby muscles flexed as it crouched and leaped toward Jonas, who narrowed his eyes in concentration as he prepared to dodge.

He perfectly timed his movement with no energy wasted. As the Maldread landed, Jonas dodged its claws and punched it half a dozen times in the blink of an eye: he was moving faster than humanly possible—a type of speed that only True Sinners could reach. Pride fueled his punches, and each attack caused the Maldread's face to jerk while causing significant pain. It swung its claws, but Jonas easily dodged around them, so it tried to bite his head, but Jonas ducked, grabbed its slimy, fleshy dick, and yanked as hard as he could.

The Maldread's mandibles opened wide as it screamed in anguish as Jonas ripped half its cock off—one of its few weak points. Blood shot out from the eye-shaped slit between its legs and squirted everywhere as the Maldread danced around in a pain-induced rage: screaming and trying to murder Jonas. The Crusader tossed the slimy cock aside and smiled devilishly at the rampaging beast, which tried its best to impale Jonas through the chest and head.

"Help Jonas!" Johnson yelled, but Jonas held up a hand to stop his friends from joining him. "Stay back. I've got this," he didn't take his eyes off the beast because if he did, it could mean death. If he had glanced over at his friends for a second, he might've seen Ahmed's corpse with a hole where his heart should've been or Jaden's disfigured neck. Simon was the first to realize that Jonas didn't know two of his friends were dead, and he knew they were all doomed if their leader lost his concentration and went into a raging fit.

"Stand in front of Ahmed and Jaden," Simon nodded at the two corpses side-by-side near the back wall. "We can't let Jonas see them," Ralph nodded, and multiple people stood in front of their bodies, completely blocking them from view.

"What happened to him?" Pete whispered, and his one good eye widened in shock. "He's moving faster than I've ever seen, and his punches are doing more damage than all of us put together."

"He's become a True Sinner," Yuki limped next to the group. "I can feel his Sin has changed. The aura he's giving off isn't the same as before. I'm so confused as to why this happened," she took a sharp breath as she watched Jonas weave between the flailing claws, and each time the Maldread nearly took his head off.

"A True Sinner?" Simon furrowed his Brow. "Do you think he's strong enough to beat the Maldread?"

"No idea," Yuki bit her lip. "His aura is just as strong as Howard's was, and it seems he experienced some breakthrough or some understanding of Sin that he didn't know before. We'll respect his wishes—for now. However, if he starts to lose, half of you will take him and escape through the door, while a few of us stay behind as a sacrifice. I'll stay."

"Me too," said Simon, and every member of Jonas' crew nodded in agreement. "Well, we don't need all of us to sacrifice ourselves."

"Simon, Pete, and Theo will get Jonas out of here. "Johnson, Ralph, and I will hold the Maldread back long enough for you to escape. Got it?" They didn't enjoy the idea, but they nodded their heads.

"For now, we watch," Ralph crossed his arms and continued to block the view of their fallen comrades.

Jonas was still fighting the Maldread in the middle of the room. He was dodging at speeds unbecoming of a human being, but the Maldread had instincts like a wild animal, and it sliced Jonas a few times, but the wounds healed so quickly that he wasn't bothered by the pain, and instead he let the dripping blood fuel his Pride.

The Maldread swiped its claws, and Jonas concentrated as he stuck out the palm of his hand and allowed the beast to slice it. Blood spurted out, coated his hand, and Jonas ducked under the next attack. He facepalmed the Maldread, and his blood smeared across the beast's face. Jonas imagined that the blood was burning; it was the antithesis of the Maldread.

There was another scream, and the Maldread grabbed its face because it felt like it was burning—Jonas had successfully made his blood acidic, and this time it was much more potent than when he had used it against Michael Davis. The beast thrashed and crashed against the wall, it shrieked and moaned, and it desperately tried to wipe the burning blood off its face.

Then it shrieked again because Jonas had smeared blood all over its unprotected back. It grabbed its back and revealed a terrifying visage: the attack had melted one eye while the other was reddened and squinted. Some of its teeth were visible behind the melted skin, and the attack had also exposed some yellowing skull.

Jonas wasn't sure which Sin Sorcery would work against the beast, but he was happy to see that his blood reached an acidity that could hurt the Maldread's flesh, much like Howard's flames. However, Jonas knew that the monster's healing factor was top-notch, and even though it was missing a cock and had half its face melted off, the Maldread would eventually heal if he didn't figure out how to deal it a killing blow.

The fight continued, and it seemed that Jonas was winning. However, the spectators knew that one good slash was all it would take to end the battle, which meant that Jonas was hanging on by a thread much more than he was close to winning a fight with the Maldread.

The beast was in so much pain that it was losing focus on killing Jonas and was starting to feel bits of fear mingled with its rage and hunger. Jonas was spilling his blood and using it as a weapon, and this strategy resulted in the monster looking worse for wear—much worse than any damage that Howard Hurts had done.

The Maldread was in so much pain that its attacks had become random, but this made things so unpredictable and increased the difficulty of dodging because it had no attack pattern that Jonas could memorize.

He was so confident in his ability to avoid the attacks that he felt like the Maldread could never touch him. However, his punches couldn't do enough damage to make the monster die, and his blood wasn't acidic enough to burn through the beast's bones, and only its rotting flesh was affected.

A few minutes passed, and Jonas noticed that its skin had started to repair, and he squinted his eyes while trying to think of what to do.

"What happened to the dagger?" Jonas shouted while keeping his eyes on the Maldread.

"Hold on!" Johnson ran over to Howard's corpse and grabbed the sacrificial knife that was lying nearby. "Incoming!" With great concentration, Johnson threw the blade across the room; it hit the floor and slid about six feet directly behind Jonas, who had been backstepping. Johnson had perfectly timed the throw because Jonas bent over and picked up the knife between the Maldread's flailing attacks.

The Maldread recognized the dagger in Jonas' hand, and its eyes widened with anger and fear. It stopped attacking and began screaming at the ceiling, and Jonas could tell that the beast was at its wit's end and its temper had gone past the breaking point.

It stared evilly at Jonas, huffed, then screamed once more. Then, something ridiculous happened.

A dim red light shone from the back of its hands, and Jonas watched in horror as two flame-shaped tattoos began to come to life, like tiny snakes crawling beneath the rotting flesh of the Maldread's hand.

"Sin Scars," Simon moaned. "It's got fucking Sin Scars."

The Maldread noticed the red light, stared at the back of its hand with confusion, and then looked toward Jonas. It didn't understand what Sin Scars were, but it did feel a new wave of power and anger that gave new meaning to its conquest to feast on Jonas' flesh.

Jonas subconsciously backed away. The Maldread was dangerous enough on its own, which meant it was even more deadly now that Sin was pumping through its veins.

"Don't panic, Jonas!" Yuki called out. "It doesn't know how to use Sin!" Although Jonas knew she was correct, he felt some trepidation about restarting the fight. However, the Maldread was itching to kill and screamed while charging toward him.

Jonas's Sin Scars glowed in protest as he dodged the oncoming assault, and the first thing he noticed was how much quicker the attacks had become: so much faster that he felt a panic in his chest.

He tried his best to dodge the onslaught of Sin-infused attacks, but eventually, he messed up his timing, and the beast's claws grazed across his chest. A wave of blood splattered outward, and Jonas gasped because the Maldread had carved three deep gashes.

"Jonas!" Simon knew that things had taken a turn for the worst.

"Don't fucking help!" Jonas yelled before they could interrupt or beg him to run. "I'm fighting this thing to the death! Do you hear me? I'm fighting to the death!" His voice sounded disdainful toward life, and Simon bit his lip because he had no idea what to do. They couldn't force Jonas to run away. If they tried to help, it might make things worse. For starters, one of them could die because they couldn't dodge as well as Jonas, and watching his friends die would shake his mentality and turn his Pride into Wrath. They could try escaping through the electronic door, but none wanted to leave Jonas behind.

Every person in the room felt like they had reached their mental breaking point because they had no idea how to help Jonas or make the situation more ideal for themselves.

Jonas picked up the pace and began dodging faster than before, and a new wave of Sin filled his body because of his willingness to face the creature to death, and his choice not to run had granted him more power to deal with the beast. He counter-attacked with the dagger and began swinging, stabbing, and punching. The blade sliced the Maldread's flesh, but when Jonas aimed for its heart or skull, it instinctively avoided death by moving out of the way. However, the Crusaders' punches had become like small explosions, and each time they hit the Maldread's bones, Jonas could feel them creak in protest.

Once again, they had reached a stalemate because both were healing nearly as fast as they could cause damage. The gashes on Jonas' chest had already sealed, as did the slices on the Maldread's body. When the beast inflicted more wounds on Jonas, the Crusader would continue dodging until his body had healed.

It was the craziest and most intense fight of his life, and Jonas knew it was more difficult than his fight with any of his previous opponents. The Maldread wasn't like Wolf because it had no deep thoughts, feelings, or fighting experience. It was a massive creature born from Sin, capable of destroying crowds of people in seconds.

When Jonas thought back to Wolf, he remembered when his opponent had been on top of him, ready to deliver the killing blow. Back then, he needed to be daring to win the fight and willing to make the ultimate sacrifice. It had cost Jonas a pound of flesh and a tongue to beat Wolf, and he knew it'd cost even more to kill the Maldread.

"Use your heart to kill that Maldread. Using your heart is always the right way to go," Jonas hazily recalled what Pride had said to him just before their parting. At first, Jonas thought it was just a feel-good pep-talk that Pride gave during his final moments. On second thought, the Sin Shadow wasn't one to honey up Jonas, and his last words were probably a hint on how to beat the Maldread.

'Okay, Pride. I'm going to put my trust in you one last time,' Jonas dropped his guard and waited for the right moment. His heart was beating a million miles an hour and protesting what Jonas had planned.

The Maldread stabbed its claws forward, and the change in the situation whipped the faces of his companions with shock and horror; Yuki screamed, and the Maldread's long, bloody claws pierced through Jonas' chest cavity.

The word pain wasn't worthy enough to describe what Jonas felt when the Maldread had pierced his skin. However, he knew that he couldn't lose concentration and that confidence would be the key to his plan's succession.

The Maldread screamed, pulled its arm out of Jonas' chest, and in its blood-dripping hand was a beating heart.

"No!" Jonas couldn't tell who else was yelling, but he heard desperate cries of disbelief as the Maldread lifted the heart to its mouth and swallowed it.

His limbs had gone numb as if they were no longer there, while the pain in his chest was the worst he had ever felt. Jonas' vision began to fade, and it felt like someone had poured cold egg yolk on the top of his head; it ran down his neck and made him icy and nauseous. He was mere seconds from falling over and dying—a regular person would have already done so. However, Jonas wasn't just any person.

"You gluttonous fuck," Jonas whispered as he used Sin and willpower to remain standing. "My heart isn't on the menu," he pointed his finger at the Maldread's chest cavity—he could sense the location of his heart in the beast's esophagus. 'Expand! Let the beast choke to death.'

It started as a small bump that grew to a fist-sized lump within a few seconds. The Maldread sensed something was wrong as it tried to breathe, but Jonas' expanding heart crushed its windpipe from the inside. The Maldread's eyes bulged, fear and panic filled its expression, and the beast opened its mouth, but no sound came out. It began clawing at the lump in its throat while desperately running around; however, it had no solution to breathe again.

Jonas hit his knees while watching the beast struggle for air until the monster could no longer stand up from asphyxiation, and it too fell to the ground; its evil eyes were panicked and reddened.

The Maldread turned its head and met eyes with Jonas, and for the briefest moment, they stared at each other. The Maldread made gagging noises, clawed at its throat one last time, and its eyes rolled into the back of its skull while its head slumped and hit the stone floor. Only then did Jonas lose the strength to hold on to life and hit the floor.

There were a few seconds of confusion and disbelief as the survivors tried to understand the strange turn of events that had just occurred. Jonas was desperately struggling against the Maldread, then he randomly dropped his guard and was speared through the chest, then the Maldread choked to death: it was a series of twists and turns that most of them had yet to understand.

"Jonas!" Yuki, Simon, and Johnson were the first three to come to life. They sprinted across the room, past the Maldread's unmoving body, and to Jonas' side. The poor teen was sprawled across the floor and had dark blood leaking from a large hole in his chest. His eyes were unblinking, and his friends couldn't see his chest moving.

"He's not breathing. Fuck, what do we do?" Johnson bit his lip, and his eyes were watering.

"Can we get his heart from the Maldread and put it back in?" Simon suggested, but Yuki shook her head and pointed at the giant lump in the beast's throat.

"Simon, getting that heart back out is one thing, but even if we did, I don't think it would fit. Jonas used his own heart as a weapon against that beast, and I doubt he planned on having it returned," tears also began filling her eyes as the realization of Jonas' demise hit her full force. None of them were capable of Original Sin, and none of them were capable of healing.

"What do we do?" Simon watched as the rest of the group slowly came over to check on Jonas and the dead Maldread. "We have to save him."

"Jonas has the greatest healing ability I've ever seen," Ralph's deep voice was just over a whisper. "If anyone could regrow a heart, it would be him."

"That's impossible, right?" Pete scrunched his eyebrows. "Regenerating a heart is a little too much," Yuki shook her head and brushed the hair out of Jonas' face. Big tear droplets built up in the corner of her eyes as if they were holding out for hope before they finally fell to the ground.

"He's regenerated his brain, regrew his tongue, and I've seen him come back from death more than once. Just trust that he can make another miracle happen," Simon nodded his head: his expression filled with religious fervor because he believed in Jonas more than anyone else.

Usually, when Jonas was near death or unconscious from a tremendous beatdown, he would awaken in the room of shadow and blood, and Pride would give him a lesson or insult him for being an idiot. However, the room was gone forever, and his Sin Shadow was dead, so it wasn't surprising that a dream had replaced them instead.

The dream that Jonas had was vivid and very confusing. There was a pale woman veiled in darkness who beckoned for him. He heard the loud sound of a ship's horn that echoed in his eardrums. The visions were unrecognizable: faces he had never seen and places he had never been. There was a blinding light from a beautiful star in the sky. The starlight illuminated the darkness and revealed Ahmed, who looked pale and ghastly. The old desert warrior was like a corpse with yellowing dead eyes and was slacked-jawed as he stared at Jonas.

'Ahmed!' Jonas tried to call out, but his voice wouldn't work. He couldn't reach his old friend anymore. Then Jaden appeared, and it looked as if he wanted to speak but couldn't because he was holding his throat too tightly.

"Your fault," Ahmed whispered. Then the starlight faded away, and the darkness swallowed both his friends.

Jonas tried to scream and chase after them, but in the darkness, he found nothing but a huddled figure on the ground. It was a skinny man covered in filth with bulging green eyes and taking soft raspy breaths because he had difficulty breathing. Terry Coleman stared lifelessly into the void as the last seconds of life drained from his body, and Jonas felt pity mingled with distaste. It was strange how such a background character like Terry could cause so much death and destruction.

Part of Jonas wanted to apologize, but he was angry at Terry because he felt like the young fighter had taken something dear to him but didn't know what it was. A few moments passed, and Terry took his last breath and was gone for good.

The dream changed once more, and Jonas saw more shadowy figures pass by him: one of them wore a crown, and another had wings. One figure was muscular and imposing, while the other was noble and proudly walked by.

Then he saw Old Louie, who grinned toothily and laughed at him. However, the laughing stopped, and fear filled his expression. Jonas felt something terrible and incredible behind himself, so he turned around and came face to face with the Man of Light, whose brilliance made it hard to see his features. All Jonas could see were curtains of silvery white hair and a warm smile.

"I'm always watching," he wasn't speaking English, and his melodious voice carried a tune of song and life that Jonas could understand. "Go with Old Louie. Do not mention me to others, and help the people while you search for Drake. I chose you for your goodness, so try to be good, even when it's hard. You have a heart of gold that darkness could never take, so use it to lead others into the light. Good luck, child of God," Jonas couldn't speak, couldn't move, and could only watch as the Man of Light summoned some mystical force and flicked it toward him. A golden light shot into the hole in Jonas' chest and filled it with a warm, brilliant feeling.

The Man of Light vanished from the spot, but the golden light remained. It vibrated in his chest and formed the shape of a ball, which eventually shaped into a golden-colored heart glowing with light and life. Then the wound closed shut, and he could barely see the golden light through the skin on his chest. His body had felt so cold and numb during the dream, but at that moment, it was full of life and warmth that made him sleepy.

Jonas knew that he was awake because he felt the cold mossy ground beneath his body, and he heard the voices of his friends standing around him. He didn't open his eyes because he wanted to take a moment to appreciate the dream before forgetting most of it.

The Man of Light had visited and spoken to him for the first time, but Jonas was too confused to understand what it meant. The Man of Light told him to help others and not to speak about himself with other people, which Jonas considered meant his presence was taboo.

He told Jonas to go with Old Louie, which meant that Pride was correct when he speculated the Man of Light wanted Jonas to take the Sin Assessment and that the deity had purposely put Old Louie and Jonas on the same path to meet.

Who were all the shadowy figures? Jonas couldn't recall them very clearly, but he did remember a pale woman who called out to him, and it seemed she needed help—the kind of help the Man of Light told him to give people. The Man of Light wanted him to be a good boy, but Jonas wasn't sure he wanted to be good anymore.

What else was there in the dream? He tried to stretch his memories, but the pieces were fading into nothingness, and all that was left were a few shadowy figures that slowly walked out of his mind.

His body felt light and comfortable, not what he'd expect after having his heart removed by the Maldread. There was no pain, and there was still a lingering warmth from the golden light that had touched and repaired his heart. Jonas knew that part of the dream was authentic because he could feel his heart beating and knew the giant hole in his chest had regenerated. He was alive and well.