Chase was lazing around in his office as usual, recalling a memory. He recalled it so vividly, as if it were yesterday. A sin, but strangely, he had never felt any guilt from it, not in the past nor present.
It was a memory from the past Heaven Arena from ninety years ago. A tournament held once every century. The Heaven Arena was a congregation of the strongest teams of immortals throughout the planets under a god’s control, a battle royale, hosted by their planets’ respective god. Although it was euphemized as a “tournament,” to the gods, it was nothing more than a game of stakes to see which planet under their rule had the guild best performance. There was little say in the matter, the worlds that chose not to participate would be visited by an apostle serving under the god that ruled over their world.
If a god’s apostle descended, what usually awaited was something that could only be called a disaster. The apostle would shape the world in accordance to what they believe would please their god the most.
The four apostles of the god Raphael once had a discussion of what they would do if they had the chance of descending, and their conversation went something like this:
The vermillion phoenix said, “Beings that don’t respect our god’s wishes are less than garbage, I’d turn them all into ash.”
The azure dragon said, “No, no, no. You don’t understand! That’s too wasteful. They just need to learn how to appreciate our god. The problem would be fixed if we made their entire planet follow a religion we create, and kill the rest who resist, right?”
The black turtle said, “Does it matter? I’d just grab a few random immortals, call them a guild, and send them in to represent their planet.”
The white tiger said, “Hahaha! It’d be interesting if there were any strong people there.”
Raphael, the current sovereign of their world of Eldeon, defeated the previous sovereign, the Demon God, centuries ago in a battle and stole his rule. Upon his defeat and body’s destruction, the Demon God split his soul containing his powers into seven individual fragments that possessed their own will and scattered them throughout Eldeon. They sought and lay dormant in vessels with sentience that they judged were the most compatible to them.
In Raphael’s latest Heaven Arena, the guild Sirius and their leader Chase relied on their excellent teamwork, utterly tearing through the immortals from other guilds. The other guilds judged them to be a threat, and worked together to surround them. They were in a life-and-death situation, but they’d be able to easily make it out with their teamwork. The trust they had in each other was unbreakable.
Among the immortals that surrounded them, one of them was a woman with dark bags under her eyes. She looked like she hadn’t slept in years. How she even made it into the Heaven Arena, no one could say, but something was causing her drowsiness. It was something that laid dormant inside of her.
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Chase rushed in front of her, his hands coated in something blue. What covered his hands was like mana, but not mana. It seemed much more terrifying. Chase was using his Worldbreaking technique: Plasma Hand. It had the power to rip space itself open, severing the molecules of everything it touched and entirely disintegrating them upon contact. Anything touched by it below the power of a god would never be able to heal itself. A detached limb would no longer recognize itself as being a part of their body, the molecules would be completely broken apart and closed off.
Chase’s palm moved, and disintegrated the part of her head that it passed through. At that moment, he felt something enter his consciousness. His ability, "Plasma Hand," severed the link of whatever laid dormant inside of that woman, and whatever laid dormant inside of her awoken inside of him.
Chase felt something overpowering him and invading his mind. He willed himself to resist, but whatever it was contained way too much power. He fought against the thing invading his consciousness until the bitter end, until he could no longer endure. He finally resigned himself, compromising with fusing with the invader. The entire ordeal was quicker than a split second from the moment his hand passed through the woman’s head. He gained an unbelievable amount of power and a special ability from the amalgamation.
After fusing with it, Chase felt extremely lethargic. He felt like he didn’t want to do anything, like nothing else mattered. He felt an overwhelming sense of laziness. Leagues of hostile immortals from other guilds surrounded him and his guild, but so what? He didn’t want anything to do with it. Guildmates? Companions? What were those? It was too much of a hassle for him. He felt tired even thinking about it. He discarded any naive thoughts of responsibility that he as a guild leader had previously possessed.
The only thing Chase felt like doing was lazing around and enjoying himself. Aside from that, there was something compelling him to take part in the next Heaven Arena. He didn’t know who Raphael was, but for some reason, he felt an uncontrollable urge to fight with him, Eldeon’s current god.
He felt like a… Sloth.
He had the power to make it out of the encirclement alive with his guild if they worked together before the fusion, and could easily do it alone after the fusion. But why? He suddenly felt like he didn’t want to expend any effort on it.
And so, he simply did what was on his mind. He left alone. He teleported and abandoned his guild. He left them surrounded by immortals, to be left waiting for their deaths.
That was his sin.