John stood still, as the void watched, waiting for him to let his guard down—and when he did, the first of the tendrils struck.
It was not a simple lash of energy; it was a hunger that tore through space itself. The tendril erupted from the golden flame, a spear of molten light that screamed as it moved, devouring the darkness around it. Wherever it touched, existence folded inward, consumed by the intense desire.
John twisted to the side, and overextended his step to fall directly underneath the slashing tendril. He planted his palm on the bizarre glass like surface of the void and vaulted himself back to his feet, adjusting his blouse that got wrinkled from the movement.
He had felt something was off with the place so he purposely left an opening to see how to bizarre void would react. It's peculiar properties were reminiscent of the solace where he had confronted envy.
The other flame of the blue-black stillness shivered. From its form poured out shadows that lurched forth like liquid exhaustion, creeping across the glass plateau. They did not attack, simply halted as though they were absorbing motion and swallowing momentum.The aspects of speed lost all meaning in their surroundings as the reflections of the void on the glass halted from their presence.
John exhaled slowly. "So they hold dominion over hunger and inertia." The flames pulsed, almost as if they approved.
He stepped forward, and the void rippled beneath his feet. The golden light flared brighter, expanding outward until it became a beast. Its form growing as molten gold flowed from the void to compose its form, a vast, skeletal dragon its bones engraved with faces twisted in endless yearning. Its eyes were hollow coins, and its voice was the echo of desire unfulfilled.
"Feed me," it hissed. "Your victories, your love, your purpose—give them all to me. In return, I'll make you whole."
The blue-black flame followed, coalescing into a colossus that barely moved. Its body was a mountain of ash and dusk, its eyes half-lidded and dim. It spoke without opening its mouth, words vibrating through the void like slow heartbeats.
"Why resist? Rest. You've already won more than enough. What more is there to prove?"
John's aura burned with a faint silver-green glow, the resonance of creation and life intertwined. "You're both right," he said quietly. "But you're also both incomplete. Shallow beings composed of extremes that don't show the full picture."
Greed roared, its voice shaking the air. Sloth only sighed, the sound heavy enough to slow his thoughts.
The first strike came from the dragon. It lunged with a snarl that broke into countless voices, a million desires clamoring at once. Its claws raked through reality, sending waves of devouring light toward him.
John raised his hand. Flames of violet and black spiraled into existence, hard rocks spread along its form. Creating a crystalline barrier that pulsed like a heartbeat. The claws struck, dissolving into motes of hungry light that bit into his aura.
He countered, thrusting his shield forward. "Dao Art—Cycle Reversal."
The light bent backward, collapsing into itself. Greed's hunger turned inward, consuming its own radiance. The dragon howled, as half of its body imploded.
But before he could move, Sloth's shadow fell across him. The world slowed. His limbs felt heavy, his pulse dragged to half its pace. His thoughts dimmed, like a flame starved of air.
He blinked once, and in that instant, time folded. The colossus' hand descended—not as a simple attack, rather it embodied and inevitability. It didn't strike; it simply existed, its mere presence forced him down toward the ground.
John's knees hit the ground. His breath came slow and shallow. Around him, the air thickened into something viscous. He stretched his palms above as the shield morphed into gauntlets. He braced himself against the crushing weight but could not move it anymore.
"You fight for everything," Sloth whispered. "But everything fades. Why continue?"
His voice cracked with effort. "Because I must."
The colossus leaned closer. "Must is not reason. Must is habit. Your cycle is not life, it's a simple motion without rest. Even creation needs stillness."
For a moment, the words struck deep. He remembered nights of endless tinkering and struggling to even begin his cultivation. It was a sleepless pursuit of strength, the endless cycle of becoming.
His exhaustion, once buried beneath purpose, surfaced with quiet precision. He tried to shake off its persuasion, he didn't work so hard to simply gain power, but he did it to survive in the infernal depths of the dungeon.
Sloth's power was subtle not like hisdestruction, but it acted as a suspension of life and purpose. It didn't erase; it delayed.
But as his body began to still, the mark over his heart flickered. A memory surged through him: Tessa laughing as she dragged him from training, her hand tugging his wrist. "Even gods need to breathe, John."
His lips curved faintly. "Rest isn't surrender. It's part of the rhythm. It lets the existence harmonize, rather than halting improvement."
He slammed his palm against the ground. The plateau shook, and his Necrotic flames burst from his back in twin streams of violet and black flame. They twisted together, burning through the haze that clung to him.
Sloth reeled, its shadow peeling away in layers of sluggish mist. The colossus' hand cracked, fissures of silver light running across its surface.
Greed shrieked and surged again, now swollen by the energy it had consumed. Its maw opened, revealing endless spirals of worlds devoured, realms collapsed into treasure. Each tooth was a memory of something John had wanted but never achieved.
"You could have had it all!" the dragon screamed. "If you had only taken more! But you stepped aside and bowed your head like a coward!!!" It's voice boomed out and struck him with its intensity.
John lifted his gaze, and for the first time, there was no defiance only a calm understanding. "And if I took it all, there would be nothing left to grow. I would have fallen into a meaningless being that only existed to devour"
He spread his arms, and the cycle pulsed through him in visible waves. The energies of life and death, creation and decay, entwined into a single rhythm.
The azure harvest bloomed in a circle around him illusionary fields stretching infinitely, filled with the breath of rebirth.
Greed lunged again. This time, John didn't dodge. He stepped forward and let the dragon's jaws close around him. The light engulfed him whole.
Inside, he found not teeth or flame, but a void filled with his own wants—every craving that had ever moved him. Power. Love. Recognition. Safety. Tessa's hand in his, the dream of a world free of loss.
He let them wash over him, not rejecting them but taking them in.
"Desire gives meaning," he said, his voice echoing in the dark. "But when it owns us, it devours everything it touches."
The dragon's body trembled. Gold cracked into light.
Outside, Sloth tried to move but faltered—the slow heartbeat of its existence now beating against the rhythm John had restored. The colossus raised its arm sluggishly, as if reaching for something distant.
"Don't end it," Sloth murmured, its tone almost pleading. "If you burn us both away, you'll burn the part of yourself that needs to pause."
John's voice came from everywhere, resonant and firm. "Then you won't dissipate, you'll integrate into me. Balancing my realness pursuit of power"
The light of the dragon exploded outward. From the center of the explosion, John emerged coated in golden and nearly black flames. The two colors swirled, twisting like twin rivers until they flowed seamlessly together.
Greed roared one last time but its tone had changed. Its voice echoed with longing rather than hunger. The skeletal form melted, coalescing into a reflection. A version of John with eyes of molten gold, hands dripping with starlight.
Beside it, the colossus of Sloth crumbled into mist, reshaping into another reflection—this one serene, its form half-faded, as if it existed only when needed.
The two stood before him, their monstrous shells gone. Greed smiled faintly. "You never learned to want wisely."
Sloth's tone was softer, almost sad. "Nor to rest without regret." John lowered his hands. "That's why I'm here."
The golden and blue flames encircled him, neither oppressive nor gentle—simply present, waiting. The reflections watched, and the air between them hummed with the quiet before comprehension.
He knew this was not yet mastery but revelation. The next exchange would decide which of them want, stillness, or self defined his truth.
The reflections stepped forward, mirroring his stance.
The void trembled, reality bending to contain the battle that would decide what it meant to live with desire and within peace.
John's feet pressed against a surface that wasn't there, each step rippling the nothingness beneath him. The gold and blue-black flames flared, expanding into titans. Greed burst first — a serpentine colossus woven from coins, bones, and celestial ore. Its every movement shed glittering dust that devoured the light.
Where it passed, color drained into gold, and even the air turned covetous.
Opposite it, Sloth unfurled like a dream left too long unremembered. A colossal figure of shadow and pale mist, its shape fluid and slow. Its eyes were hollow suns, dim and half-asleep, gazing down with infinite disinterest. The air around it grew thick, dragging time itself toward stillness.
Greed hissed, its voice a thousand hungers in one.
"Desire defines existence. Without wanting, there is no motion, no creation. You call yourself sovereign, yet you deny your own nature."
Sloth exhaled, like dust over ancient stone.
"And what is motion without meaning? Rest is mercy, and mercy is truth. Be still, and you will find the peace you've never known."
Their words intertwined, pulling at him from both sides.
One offered everything, the ability to take, to own, to heal, to remake.
The other offered nothing other than a release from striving, release from pain.
John's hand clenched. "Both of you misunderstand. Desire without peace is madness. Peace without desire is death."
The serpent laughed, a sound like shattering vaults. Its coils looped through infinity, enclosing him.
"Then show me what balance means, thief of divinity!"
Its maw opened, and waves of molten gold cascaded down. John thrust his arm forward; the mark of life on his chest ignited, and a storm of azure flame erupted from his palm. Gold met azure, hunger met restraint and the explosion tore through the void, painting it with blinding fractals.
The serpent reeled back, scales peeling into radiant shards that screamed as they fell. But before John could press forward, Sloth raised one enormous hand and brought it down. The impact did not crush him it slowed him.
His heartbeat stretched. Motion thickened like molasses. His aura flickered as if submerged in the weight of centuries.
"Rest," whispered Sloth. "You have carried too much, fought too long. Even gods need sleep."
John's limbs grew heavy. Memories pressed in years of struggle, the endless push against fate, the exhaustion buried beneath duty. Tessa's sleeping face flickered before him, peaceful, serene. For a heartbeat, he almost wished to lie beside her forever.
But then her laughter echoed — bright, mischievous, alive.
She would never have wanted stagnation.
John's eyes snapped open. "Even rest must have a purpose."
He summoned the violet flame — the fusion of life and destruction — and let it pulse once. The temporal stillness shattered like glass. Sloth staggered, the mist rippling with disbelief.
The serpent lunged again. "Purpose? Purpose is a disguise for greed!"
It slammed into him. The impact sent him spiraling through fragments of broken time and memory. The serpent's coils constricted, whispering countless desires into his mind: Tessa whole. Worlds kneeling. Eternity without pain.
He could take it the power was there, offered freely.
Instead, he exhaled, voice steady. "Desire isn't wrong. But taking everything leaves nothing to share, nothing to bask in after the struggle nor her hand to hold."
His weapon took form again the black blade manifested in his hand as azure infused into it, sharpness born from his will exploded out. Cutting through even the fabric of the void. He plunged it into the serpent's heart. The golden flesh cracked, but instead of bleeding, it released streams of human faces. Reflections of John, each one grasping, hungry, demanding.
Greed's voice fractured into a chorus.
"You starve yourself! You chain your hands and call it virtue!"
John looked at the writhing forms and smiled softly. "Restraint isn't starvation. It's understanding where desire ends and meaning begins."
He pulled the blade free. The serpent convulsed, its body collapsing into molten threads that wrapped around his arm like living fire. They burned, painlessly each one carving a truth into his soul: to want is to live, to share is to create.
As Greed's last echo faded, Sloth stirred. Its body shifted, becoming more defined its limbs forming, shoulders emerging, until it stood like a shadowed man towering over John.
"Why fight what must end?" it asked softly. "All things fall to stillness eventually. Even love fades into memory."
John stared up at it, his expression unreadable. "Stillness is not the enemy. The world needs it as much as motion."
He sheathed the blade within his palm, allowing his energy to fall silent. The giant watched, puzzled, then reached out a slow, gentle motion. Its touch brought waves of lethargy, of comforting dark.
Instead of resisting, John stepped closer and laid his own hand over its chest. "You've been twisted by neglect. Rest is sacred, but when we let it consume us, it becomes decay."
Light surged through his hand, spreading into the giant's form. Cracks of silver-blue light traced its body, and beneath the surface, John saw its true shape — his own silhouette, tired but content, the reflection of a man who'd forgotten to rise after the storm.
"I accept you," John whispered. "But I will not stop here."
The figure smiled faintly, almost grateful, before dissolving into dust. The fragments flowed into him, mingling with the golden threads of Greed. The twin forces circled his heart, weaving into balance — motion and rest, hunger and peace, ambition and serenity.
The void went silent.
Then came the whisper of the Root, soft as falling petals:
[Trial Complete: Mastery of Greed and Sloth achieved. Dao of Balance: Sovereign Rank , Awakened. Dominion over the Seven deadly sins within yourself, has coalesced Necrotic flames have advanced. The true mastery of The Purgatory inferno has been achieved.]
The flames vanished. The world folded inward, forming a single silver portal ahead. John gazed into its depths, the light reflecting in his eyes like dawn breaking through shadow.
He exhaled, a small smile ghosting across his lips.
"So this… is what it means to want without taking, to rest without surrender."
The portal pulsed once, responding to his calm.
"Tessa," he murmured, stepping through, "I'm coming home."
The light swallowed him, carrying with it the faint echo of harmony a sovereign heart that had mastered desire without losing peace.