Pride stood before his members, his face unreadable. "We won’t be joining this battle," he announced. Silence filled the room as everyone processed his words. Then came the reactions—shock, confusion, and anger.
Greed narrowed his eyes, his voice laced with frustration. “Why? We’ve fought alongside Moxie’s group before. Why should we sit idly in this… voidish base in the 3rd dimension while they’re out there fighting?”
Lust and Sloth exchanged worried glances. “What about the others? Moxie, Insanity… they’ll need help,” Lust said, her voice trembling slightly.
Sloth, who was rarely roused, looked torn. "It feels wrong, Pride," he said. "Abandoning them now, when we know what’s coming…"
Glutton placed a reassuring hand on Sloth’s shoulder, trying to calm him. But even he finally spoke up. “Pride… why aren’t we going?”
Pride let out a deep sigh, his gaze distant. “That kid, Judas… he’s not ordinary. He has a connection to someone far more dangerous, someone not just stronger but… something beyond any force we've encountered.”
Greed scoffed, unconvinced. “What could be worse than us? Worse than Heaven? Or any god we've faced?”
Pride looked at his members, and for a moment, they saw a flicker of genuine fear in his eyes. “There was someone older than even I, who shared a story with me once. It’s about a being that no dimension, no reality, could contain… AuthorM. And this boy, Judas? He’s an avatar of AuthorM, even if limited to just one of his abilities."
The room fell silent, each member unsettled. Seeing their curiosity, Pride continued, “The story begins long before the first universe was even formed. In a time beyond our understanding, a child was born—different, a pariah among his kin. His siblings shunned him; his own family couldn’t understand his nature. He was treated as a freak, despised for reasons they couldn’t comprehend.”
The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
The group listened in silence, entranced.
Pride continued, his voice softening. “One day, the boy vanished. He was gone for days, then weeks. His family grew concerned, but not nearly enough. Then, as if from nowhere, he appeared again at the brink of what seemed like… the end of all existence.”
Pride paused, his gaze distant, as though the weight of the story bore down on him. “Soon after, he vanished again. But then, they found him standing in the middle of the mirror of existence itself. A crowd had gathered—rich and powerful, rulers and nobles, all marveling at him in curiosity and disgust. Then he started to laugh, this… haunting laughter that shook them to their core."
Glutton shifted uncomfortably, feeling a chill run down his spine. Pride’s voice dropped to a whisper as he continued, “A man tried to confront the boy, demanding to know why he was laughing. But what he saw was something beyond understanding. The boy reached out and grabbed the very fabric of reality itself. He tore it apart with his bare hands, uttering strange words… only the last word was understood, ‘will.’ And in that moment, every single person present—trillions, an entire race, vanished into nothingness.”
Pride’s voice trembled slightly. “He called himself AuthorM.”
The group sat in stunned silence, absorbing the weight of Pride’s tale. Even Lust and Sloth, who had seemed most concerned for Moxie and his friends, now looked afraid.
Pride took a steadying breath. “Judas… he’s only an avatar of AuthorM, granted a single fragment of his power. But even that’s enough to threaten everything. If we step in now, we’ll be risking more than we’re prepared to handle.”
The room grew colder as Pride’s words sank in. The members exchanged uneasy glances, each one feeling a newfound dread. This was no ordinary battle, and with a being like AuthorM in the shadows, they knew their entire world could be on the verge of collapsing.