Tetra landed right in front of Sin and Maria, face still contorted with sorrow. "What is it you wish, great sister of mine?"

Sin did not look at her, her gaze was instead fixed on the dark skies. "Armoire is gone. Find what she left behind and return." The servant barred her fangs at Tetra when she did not move. "Now! Have you no idea how precious little time we have?"

The sage quickly took back to the skies, flying back out of the city. Sin began to pace up and down in front of her master. "He will be here any moment now, my master." She flicked her fingers and caused a great throne to appear behind Maria. It was cut out of a single black rock, void of ornaments or decorations. It looked ancient.

After some hesitation, Maria sat down, her bag with sir Screech and her crown in her lap. She held onto it as good as she could and looked back at Sin. "What are we going to do?"

Sin did not return the gaze. She was taking off her shoes and socks, throwing them to the side. When her bare feet touched the ground, they left behind a print of black blood that began to slowly spread from where she stood. "I will do everything in my power to kill him, of course. Which means that I will kill him. Worry not, my master."

She pulled up her sleeves and kept her gaze pinned forward, toward the sounds of battle. And waited. More and more of the floor was covered in pitch black, until the entirety of the plaza was covered in it. The blood began to creep across the walls of the surrounding buildings. Maria had already pulled up her feet, cowering on her throne as she could not take her eyes off of Sin.

A great figure appeared in the air, having leapt upward. It landed before them, the force of the impact shattering the once pristine rock. Even the crater was being quickly filled and consumed, as Samdel stepped out of the cloud of dust and rubble, approaching them.

Sin bowed, her mouth twisted into a wide grin. "So much death and suffering have you caused, only to come here before my great master. Was it worth it, leading all of those poor people to their death?"

"They followed me on their own, beast." Samdel stared Sin down. The ground shook under his steps. "Justinia, Aaron, Fera, Ivonne, I remember each of their names. Can you say the same for those you sent to be slaughtered?"

With narrowed eyes Sin hissed at the mountain of a man. "Wolves do not concern themselves with the names of lambs. You've come far, old man. And now you face Sin, the first beast, greatest and most loyal servant of Len-Fey, devourer of champions-"

Samdel's fist raced towards her face. She stopped it with her left hand, tiny in comparison. Samdel's arm was shaking, his great muscles showing through the skin while Sin stood calm. "Did I say I was finished?" She pushed forward, and sent Samdel six steps back.

"You still have no idea who it is you are facing, do you?" Great silver spikes began to peek through the blackened ground all around them, slowly pushing outward. Impaled on them were countless bodies. Their skin was flayed, the meat underneath bruised and ancient, faces so devastated they all looked alike in their amorphity. Hundreds, thousands. All of them were still moving, all were still alive and in agony.

"I've slain greater men than you before your grandfather was even born, fool." She spread her arms towards the forest of suffering around them. "And you think some muscles and metal are going to scare me?"

"I am not trying to scare you." Samdel shook his head, and walked closer to her, unphased. "I am only here to kill you and make things right again. I want to say that it is nothing personal, but you did kill my son."

The look in his eyes made Maria curl up in terror, hiding her face in her palm.

"So that would be a lie. I thank you, Sin, for all of this." He looked across the writhing, impaled bodies. "Each and one of them a reason why you cannot be allowed to exist."

He charged forward, and Sin met him head-on. They moved too fast for Maria to keep track, all she could see were the flashes of silver and black. Sin's claws tore deep wounds into his flesh, while Samdel's punches left flaming marks that did not dissipate. They swung at each other with singular determination.

Sin was the one that disengaged, much of her clothing torn or set ablaze. "So you won't give me the satisfaction of not appearing unsightly to my master. Very well then." She crossed her arms in front of her chest, and let herself fall backwards.

The darkened floor enveloped her like the waves of an ocean, completely swallowing her. For a few eerie moments, everything was quiet, until two large hands burst out of the ground, each palm larger than Samdel. Following the arms was the head, pitch black and void of features saw for a wide open maw with countless rows of teeth. Then the torso, half was wide as the plaza itself.

Maria could now see nothing but the great back of her servant, her mouth agape in awe. The shadow of a smile appeared on her lips. Victory had to be near.

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The fight was completely one-sided. Samdel could only leap and weave to dodge her swings, a single grasp and he would be crushed like an insect. The few strikes he could muster did not manage to even pierce her thick skin.

He leapt backwards, to Sin's bellowing laughter. "You will grow tired eventually, old man. I can continue forever. What is another day, a week, a month? I have waited for two hundred years for this moment, you will not ruin my triumph!"

She rose her right arm and burried it deep in the ground, only for it to appear out of the wall behind Samdel, narrowly missing him.

Samdel was panting, but there was no fear in his eyes, no quivering in his body. In fact, he was smiling. "Thank you everyone, and thank you most of all, my son." He rose his left hand to the skies. The metal covering this side of his body began to retract, back towards his hand where it formed a long, silver lance.

"In all your might, all your brutality, you forgot, didn't you?"

The corners of sin's mouth dropped down, with a furious roar she brought both her hands down on Samdel to squash him, but he evaded by dashing forward.

"You flaunt your power, your abilities, even your weakness to the world. Because we are insects to you, who could never hope to as much as inconvenience you. Pride, beast. The eternal downfall of tyrants."

Samdel took a step forward with his right leg, and threw the lance forward. Sin brought her arm up to shield herself, but it pierced through the skin effortlessly, and rammed right into her heart.

The scream of pain drowned out even Yggdrasil's droning hum. It drove the monsters on the outskirts mad, whipped into a frenzy they attacked everything, foes, their allies, each other.

From her wound brilliant light spread in thin lines all across Sin's body, the ground, the walls. Then, with the sound of shattering crystal glass, it burst, and all feeling left Maria's body, replaced with a strange and total void.

The great demonic body was gone, in it's place stood Sin, clothes torn, a gruesome hole in her chest. She could not stay on her feet and fell on her knees, eyes shot open they stared at Samdel in utter disbelief.

"Forgiveness, beast." He uttered as he came nearer. "No one deserves to live in eternal slavery. The very thing you could never muster."

A loud, wailing screech made him stop. Maria had jumped off her throne, and was running towards him. Tears streaming down her eyes she dropped her bag and reached for her dagger as she charged.

"You will not take my Sin, you will not take her, you will not take my crown!"

Samdel grabbed her with ease, and ignored the tiny cuts she caused to him. Even as she burried the blade into his arm did he not flinch. He merely looked at her in sorrow.

"It is over, little princess. I am sorry that it had to come to this, truly. That you could not see the error in your ways, the sorrow that laid at the end of your road. But such is the way of tyrants. I pray for you, that your next life may be one on a path of righteousness. " He forced a smile, and tensed his grip around her ribs.

Or at least he tried to. Control over his muscles was leaving him. His skin grew pale and leathery by the second, and Maria managed to wrestle out of his grasp. Samdel stared at his arm in disbelief, then at the dagger still in his flesh. And finally Maria could see fear in his eyes.

He pulled the blade out and threw it to the side, but it was too late. The curse was spreading through his body, his arm already gone as it fell off his shoulder, crumbling to dust.

Maria ran back as he tried to step forward, but his leg gave way underneath his weight, and he could no longer get up. He did not even try to. With sorrow he looked up to the trembling, crying young master.

"I weep, child. Not just for the world, and the people you will ruin. I weep for you." No more words left him. He closed his eyes and waited as the curse destroyed the rest of his body, until nothing but a heap of dust remained.

His words did not even register in Maria's mind. She was on her knees, holding tightly onto Sin with her arm. "Please don't die, you can't, right? It was just a stupid bluff, I can fix you, I can make this right, please Sin, please tell me how to fix you!"

Her servant was in the process of dissolving. Her lower body was already nothing but black blood that slowly sunk into the ground. The rest of her body was melting much in the same way, all she could give her master was a sorrowful smile. "I am afraid that you cannot. Weaponizing forgiveness, what other fool could possibly come up with that." Her chuckling was interrupted with a cough of blood.

Her words did nothing to soothe Maria's wailing, or her frantic pleas. Sin grabbed her bag, and with shaking hands placed the crown on Maria's head. "Please my master, do not weep. This is the day of your victory, it is no time for tears."

"HOW?! You are, you are leaving, I can't feel you any longer, how can I, I can't do this, not without you Sin, what am I going to do?!" Pain and fear were wracking her body, she clung onto Sin for dear life as her servants body was dissolving.

"I have given all that I could, and died in the name of my master. Maria, I can think of no better end." Sin leaned forward and against Maria, their faces mere inches away from each other. "And I am free, for the first time in centuries. Maria."

"Please forgive me."

Sin wrapped her arms tightly around Maria's body, and her body fully dissolved, coating her master completely. Maria could see only blackness before her, too surprised to even struggle against the drowning tide of blood. Her senses blacked out, one by own until oblivion took her completely.

When her senses returned, the first thing she felt was the cold, damp rock she was laying on.