Twelve hours until descent.
I stood in the bone-dust wasteland outside the Cathedral, three swords orbiting me in synchronized rotation. Hunger. Truth. Wrath. The core trinity. My sustainable combat loadout.
The red light from the eternal eclipse painted everything the color of old blood. Appropriate, considering what I was about to do.
"Again," I said.
Lucy didn't argue. Just raised her Lightning Wand and unleashed hell.
The bolt came fast—faster than anything she'd thrown in the Flesh Cradle. Tier 4 lightning enhanced by whatever growth she'd achieved surviving that nightmare. The electricity split the air with a crack that echoed across the wasteland.
I moved.
Hunger swept up, the black blade intercepting the lightning mid-flight. The sword didn't deflect the electricity. Didn't redirect it. Consumed it. The essence that formed the bolt was severed, cut at a fundamental level, and the attack dissolved into harmless sparks.
But Lucy was already casting again. Three bolts this time, coming from different angles.
Truth flashed in my left hand. The silver-white blade cut through empty air—except the air wasn't empty. Truth revealed the hidden paths of the lightning, showed me where the bolts would be before they arrived. I dodged two. Hunger ate the third.
"Faster," I said.
Lucy's expression was grim, but she obliged. Five bolts. Seven. Ten. A storm of electricity that would have killed any normal person.
I danced through it. Three swords moving in perfect synchronization. Hunger consuming. Truth revealing. And when I needed raw power, Wrath—
The crimson blade swept through three lightning bolts simultaneously. The first strike destroyed them. The second strike would have been stronger. The third stronger still. Wrath's nature—damage that multiplied with each consecutive hit.
But I didn't get to a third strike. The essence cost was too high. Wrath dissipated, and I manifested Mercy in its place.
The pale blue blade moved differently. Gentler. More precise. I could have destroyed Lucy's lightning. Instead, Mercy severed it—cut the essence connection between her and the spell. The lightning continued existing but lost direction. Just electricity floating harmlessly in the air.
"Interesting," Somi observed from the sidelines. Her Strategic Omniscience had been analyzing my entire training session. "Mercy doesn't destroy. It separates. Cuts the connection between creator and creation. Against the Angel, that could be devastating."
"Or useless," Gery added. He was sitting on a stone hand, sharpening his new katana. "If the Angel's attacks aren't sustained spells but direct manifestations, there's no connection to cut."
"Then I use something else," I said. Dismissed Mercy. Manifested Joy.
The purple blade appeared in my hand, and I immediately felt it. The sword's nature trying to infect me. Joy as manic pleasure. As desperate seeking. As the sin of lust wearing happiness as a mask.
I slashed at the air. The blade's edge shimmered with something that wasn't quite light. Wasn't quite essence. Just... wrongness. Anything cut by Joy wouldn't hurt. Would feel good. Would make the target lose their survival instinct.
"That one's dangerous," Lucy said quietly. "Not to your enemy. To you."
She was right. I could feel Joy trying to make me want to use it more. To seek that pleasure. To chase the high of making pain feel good.
I dismissed it quickly. Manifested Sorrow.
The grey blade appeared. Dull. Light-absorbing. Just looking at it made me feel tired. Empty. Like nothing mattered. Like fighting was pointless. Like I should just... stop.
"Fuck," I muttered, dismissing Sorrow immediately. "That one's worse. It's not just affecting enemies. It's affecting me."
"Because they're sins," Elara's voice came from behind us. She'd been watching from a distance. "Every time you manifest one, you carry its weight. Joy makes you crave. Sorrow makes you despair. Wrath makes you rage. They're weapons, yes. But they're also burdens."
She walked closer. Her eclipse-marked eyes studied me.
"The Angel carried all seven simultaneously for centuries. It broke under the weight. You're planning to do the same at one hundred percent corruption, in the middle of combat, while fighting for your life."
"I know," I said.
"You'll lose yourself."
"I know."
"Then why?"
I looked at her. At her eighty-eight percent corruption. At the silver veins covering her arms. At the way she moved—too smooth, too precise, barely human anymore.
"Because losing myself for a few minutes is better than everyone dying," I said simply. "And I have people who'll pull me back after."
I glanced at Lucy. At the demon mask hanging from her belt.
"She'll remove the mask. I'll drop to fifty percent. I'll be human enough again."
"If you survive," Elara said.
"If I survive."
She studied me for a long moment. Then something shifted in her expression. A decision made.
"There's one more Reliquary you should know about," she said quietly. "A sixth one. Hidden. Not in the Cathedral. Somewhere else."
Everyone stopped. Turned to look at her.
"You said there were five," Gery said.
"I lied. There are six. The sixth is..." Elara hesitated. "The most dangerous. The Reliquary of Annihilation. It grants the ability to erase things from existence. Not kill. Erase. Remove them from reality entirely. It's the power Nothing—your seventh sword—is based on."
My void-black blade. The one that could cut through space itself.
"Where is it?" I asked.
"The Archive of the Fallen. The Chronicler guards it. Has for... I don't know how long. Centuries, maybe. It won't bind to it because binding would mark it for the Angel's judgment. But it might let you bind. If you can pay the price."
"What price?"
Elara's smile was grim. "A memory. Your most precious one. The memory that defines who you are. The Chronicler collects them. Preserves them. That's its purpose. That's why it's called the Chronicler."
Silence. Heavy. Weighted with implications.
A memory for a weapon. My most precious memory for the power to erase the Angel from existence.
"We have twelve hours," I said. "Show me where the Archive is."
The Archive wasn't a building. It was a hand.
A massive stone hand the size of a warehouse, fingers curved slightly inward like it was trying to hold onto something it had already lost. And carved into every inch of its surface—palm, fingers, knuckles, even the creases—were names.
Thousands of them. Tens of thousands. Every person who'd died in the Crimson Sorrow.
"The Archive," Elara said. "Every death is recorded here. Every name preserved. The Chronicler believes that as long as someone is remembered, they never truly die."
At the base of the hand, sitting cross-legged on a stone that might have been a thumb, was the Chronicler.
It wore a mask made of pages. Actual pages, covered in tiny handwriting, stitched together into a face that had no features. No eye holes. No mouth hole. Just words. Names. Stories. Deaths.
Its body was covered in a robe made of more pages. Every inch was text. Every movement rustled like turning book pages.
When it spoke, the voice came from everywhere and nowhere. Male and female and neither and both.
"The Lost One. I have been expecting you."
Of course it had.
"You guard the sixth Reliquary," I said. Not a question.
"I do. The Reliquary of Annihilation. The final fragment of the Angel's power. The ability to erase what should never have been."
The Chronicler's page-mask tilted slightly.
"You wish to bind to it. To gain the power of Nothing made absolute. To wield erasure as a weapon."
"Yes."
"The price is a memory. But not just any memory. The memory that defines you. The core around which your identity is built. Give it to me, and I will give you the Reliquary."
I felt Lucy tense beside me. Felt Gery's hand move toward his weapon. Felt Somi's tactical analysis running probability calculations.
"What happens if I give you that memory?" I asked.
"You lose it. Completely. It will exist only here, in the Archive. You will not remember it. You will not remember what it felt like to experience it. You will not remember who you were when it happened."
The Chronicler leaned forward slightly.
"But you will gain power sufficient to erase a Tier 3 entity. To cut the Angel from existence so thoroughly that even the Crimson Sorrow will forget it ever was."
I thought about my memories. About what defined me.
The moment I woke up in this death game? No, that wasn't core identity.
The moment I first bound to an Anchor Point? No, that was a choice, not a foundation.
The moment I realized I was becoming a monster? Close, but not quite.
The memory that defined me was older. Simpler. More fundamental.
A memory from before all this. Before the death game. Before the corruption. Before I became the Lost One.
A memory of someone saying my name. Actually saying it. With warmth. With love. With the kind of certainty that makes you believe you matter.
I didn't even remember who'd said it. The death game had taken almost everything from before. But I remembered the feeling. The knowledge that once, someone had cared enough to say my name like it was important.
That was my core. My foundation. The thing that made me fight to stay human even at seventy percent corruption.
The knowledge that once, I'd mattered to someone.
"If I give you that," I said quietly, "I'll lose the reason I'm fighting to stay human."
"Yes."
"I'll become a monster. Fully. Completely. With nothing left to anchor me."
"Yes."
"But I'll have the power to save everyone else."
"Perhaps. Or perhaps you will simply become another tragedy for me to record."
The Chronicler stood. Pages rustled. Names whispered.
"The choice is yours, Lost One. Keep your memory and face the Angel with insufficient power. Or sacrifice who you are to gain power sufficient to end it."
I looked at Lucy. At Gery. At Somi. At the people I was trying to protect.
Then I looked at the eclipse overhead. At the red sky. At the world that was dying.
"I'll keep my memory," I said.
Everyone stared at me.
"What?" Gery asked. "Sidd, this could be the difference between—"
"Between winning and losing? Maybe," I interrupted. "But if I give up that memory, I'll have the power to erase the Angel but no reason to care about protecting any of you afterward. I'll be pure monster with a god-killing weapon. That's not victory. That's just a different kind of ending."
I turned away from the Chronicler.
"I'll fight the Angel with seven sins and seven swords and seventy percent corruption. And I'll trust that's enough. Because if it's not, then we were already dead anyway."
The Chronicler watched me leave. The page-mask gave no indication of emotion.
"Interesting. The forty-seven before you all took the deal. All of them sacrificed their core memory. All of them gained the power of erasure."
I stopped. Turned back.
"What happened to them?"
"They defeated the Angel. Then they erased themselves. Because without their core memory, they had no reason to exist. They became Nothing manifested. And Nothing cannot sustain existence."
The Chronicler sat back down.
"You are the first to refuse. Perhaps that is why you might actually survive."
We returned to the Cathedral. Eight hours until descent.
I trained with the three-sword style until my arms went numb. Practiced switching between swords mid-combat until the transitions were smooth. Pushed my corruption to seventy-five percent twice just to feel the limit.
Six hours until descent.
Lucy bound to the Reliquary of Mourning. Gained Divine Lament—her attacks now carried emotional weight. Her lightning didn't just burn. It made you feel the pain of everyone you'd ever hurt.
Four hours until descent.
Gery bound to the Reliquary of Judgment. Gained Righteous Severance—his katana could now cut through lies and illusions. See truth in all things. His eyes gained the eclipse mark.
Two hours until descent.
Somi bound to the Reliquary of Remembrance. Gained Eternal Record—perfect memory combined with her Strategic Omniscience. She could now analyze patterns across infinite data points. Her mind became a tactical supercomputer.
One hour until descent.
We stood at the edge of the Cathedral. Waiting. The Choir's song had started to fade. The eclipse was pulsing faster. The red sky was darkening to black.
"It's coming," Elara said. She was standing with us. Her four companions as well. Maybe twenty other Penitents had gathered. All of them at eighty percent or higher. All of them ready to witness.
"When it arrives," I said, "everyone stays back. This is my fight."
"Sidd—" Lucy started.
"No. The Angel is coming for me specifically. I'm the one who stole the Eclipse. If any of you interfere, it might judge you too. And I can't protect you while fighting."
The Choir stopped singing.
Silence. Absolute. The world holding its breath.
Then, in the distance, we heard it.
Footsteps.
Massive. Heavy. Each one cracking the bone-ground like reality itself was breaking.
The eclipse overhead pulsed. Once. Twice. Three times.
And the Fallen Angel descended.