Calmly, Sloth mumbled while holding Radan’s trident, and everyone froze.

It was strange.

Sloth’s condition was far from good—even saying so would be an understatement.

His body had been torn apart by countless attacks.

And his muttering contained no magical power.

Nor did it carry any sense of pressure.

It was simply spoken as if stating a fact.

And the emotion it conveyed was just one.

Regret.

That was all.

Alon felt a sense of confusion.

What was this emotion Sloth was showing?

Where did it come from?

Why was he wearing that expression?

However, that thought didn’t last long.

“Too bad.”

Sloth’s words continued slowly.

And then—

KWAHHHHH!!!

A deafening explosion that seemed to burst everyone’s eardrums.

“Uweeegh~!”

Radan, trembling all over, spewed black blood.

Before him, Sloth was already standing proudly.

Radan collapsed, vomiting blood over and over again.

As soon as everyone realized what had happened, the first to move was Seolrang.

KWAANG—!!!

Like before, Seolrang moved at an incomprehensible speed and swung her leg like a whip at Sloth.

KWAHHHHH—!!!!

Once again, Sloth’s body was driven sideways, tearing the ground apart with a thunderous roar.

But—

“!”

Sloth showed no change.

He merely lowered his right hand, the one that had blocked Seolrang’s kick, with a bored expression.

Seolrang, who had briefly widened her eyes, furrowed her brows deeply and launched forward.

Crackling golden electricity levitated everything around them for a moment.

As if in a vacuum, it all floated, then exploded loudly.

Seolrang’s fist immediately struck Sloth again.

Another maddening roar flipped the surrounding landscape.

Yet again, Sloth was simply pushed back, calmly lowering his arm, seemingly unharmed.

Seolrang bit her lip hard and charged again.

CRACKLE—CRACKLE!!

Golden lightning shot in all directions, targeting Sloth’s entire body.

Head, right side, ribs, legs, back.

Lightning flashed in and out repeatedly.

The enemy’s body was pushed around momentarily.

Then Seolrang raised her leg to stomp down on Sloth’s head.

“!”

In the next instant—a mere moment.

She shifted her stance.

Just barely.

Just barely blocked Sloth’s counterattack.

KWA-KA-KA-KA-KA-KANG—!!!

It was on another level.

Seolrang was pushed back so far that a giant line was carved into the black field.

She clenched her trembling arm with force and gritted her teeth.

But anyone present could already tell who would win.

Sloth was still a wreck.

But that only brought a deep silence to everyone.

Everyone watching understood.

That in this state, Sloth could not be defeated.

One by one, everyone recalled Sloth’s words.

That he would make them understand it was only natural to die by his hand.

That quiet murmur was etched into their minds.

“Ha—”

Someone let out a hollow laugh.

Someone else stared blankly in terror.

Another simply froze, as if they couldn’t comprehend what was happening.

But one thing was true for all of them.

They all—

Couldn’t help but acknowledge Sloth’s words.

That he was an opponent they could not deal with.

That he was an opponent they could not defeat.

That he was an opponent they couldn’t even attempt to face.

The soldiers.

The knights.

The nobles.

The mages.

—Understood.

They had no choice but to understand.

The light in their eyes vanished.

Their pride and spirit withered away like dust in the wind.

The courage that held firm when facing disgusting lumps of flesh now turned into deep fear.

But—

Alon remained expressionless, calm.

‘This situation is the worst.’

He coldly assessed the situation.

Sloth had a personality different from what Alon knew.

His plan had already unraveled the moment Sloth appeared.

To put it plainly, Alon had failed.

Yet he didn’t despair.

It was fine.

He hadn’t revealed his final card yet.

“….”

Alon looked around.

At those gathered here, who were repeatedly forced to accept defeat and surrender by Sloth.

Seeing that, he lifted his gaze.

In the sky, as planned, the rift was still forming, and his Reverse Heaven technique was not yet undone.

It wasn’t a complete loss yet.

……

Alon had already laid out the plan in his mind without reservation.

Now, he simply needed to combine only the necessary parts to form a new plan.

Of course, this plan wasn’t as solid as one devised over several days.

But it was still effective.

Recalling that, Alon quietly looked up at the sky.

There it was—part of the old plan—the “rift.”

So then, what remained was time.

The time to endure against that irrational, absurd existence.

The time to keep the rift open until the plan was ready.

But among those present, none could buy that time against the “Sin of Sloth.”

Not Seolrang.

Not Radan.

Not Eliban, the main character of Psychedelia.

They couldn’t stop the sin before them.

Even if everything needed to counter it were prepared—

The actual sin that appeared was far more unreasonable than Alon had known.

Still, giving up was not an option.

Because the moment they gave up, everything would be over.

Alon fiddled with a statue in his pocket.

It was “The Beast of Possibility,” an artifact he obtained from the Labyrinth of Whispers located in Rosario, after dealing with the half-awakened Sin of Purity.

A one-use artifact that could summon the “user” at their strongest state for a limited time.

Of course, even with this, he wouldn’t be able to easily block the sin before him.

But that was okay.

What Alon needed was time—nothing more, nothing less.

Therefore.

“Radan.”

Alon tossed the Beast of Possibility to Radan, who was closest to him.

Radan caught the statue, his face briefly puzzled.

“Pour magic into it.”

Following Alon’s command, Radan imbued it with mana without hesitation.

Then—

The statue began to glow intensely and devoured Radan whole.

—WUUUUUUUUUUNG

A burst of overwhelming magical energy erupted.

Everyone’s eyes immediately turned toward it.

Even Sloth’s listless gaze shifted to Radan, now radiating a bluish light.

The light released increasingly fierce mana.

But Sloth just stood there indifferently.

Even though it seemed like the situation might turn, Sloth made no move.

In fact, his once-dull eyes now held a strange hint of anticipation.

And finally, when the explosive mana died down and the light dimmed—

There stood—

“What the…?”

A confused Radan.

Still clad in his usual blue armor.

A single emotion flickered across Sloth’s face.

It was—

Undeniable disappointment.

Everyone’s eyes were on Radan.

Seolrang, Eliban, the mages and soldiers, even the knights.

And their gazes were all filled with the same thing—confusion and disappointment.

It was only natural.

Radan had received something from Alon and released enough magic to shake the entire land.

A faint hope had started to rise in everyone’s hearts.

Maybe—just maybe—there was still a way to overcome this despair?

But the one who emerged from that immense outburst of mana was just…

A slightly cleaner version of Radan.

Different?

At least to the knights, soldiers, and mages, nothing seemed different.

Seolrang could only think, “Ah, he’s a bit taller. Maybe a little stronger.”

And Alon—who knew exactly what the Beast of Possibility was—

Felt much the same.

‘…What’s going on?’

The artifact was supposed to summon the “user” at their strongest point in time.

In other words, Alon expected a version of Radan from ten or twenty years in the future to appear.

Given Radan’s nature of collecting and mastering relics, he was bound to grow stronger over time.

But the Radan in front of him didn’t seem that much older or more experienced than the current one.

“…Looks like there’s no point in waiting any longer.”

Sloth muttered, revealing a strange disappointment beneath his apathy.

WHOOOOSH—!

And then he unleashed his magic.

BLEGH~!

The soldiers outside the blackened territory immediately vomited and fainted.

Overwhelming purple mana rapidly spread in all directions.

CRICK—CRACKLE—!!

The lumps of flesh that had been still as corpses began to twitch and rise, like puppets on strings.

Just as despair and gloom returned to the air—

“Ah—”

Radan, surveying the situation, let out a low murmur of realization.

“This is the past, isn’t it? Brother’s still here.”

Then he turned and found Alon, nodding as if he understood everything.

“Then what I need to do is stop this guy, right?”

He pointed at Sloth as he concluded.

As if it were no big deal.

Calmly.

With an eerie sense of detachment.

“You think you can stop me?”

Sloth answered lazily.

As if it wasn’t even worth laughing at, completely uninterested.

And at those words, Radan suddenly stared blankly at him—

[Ah—]

Then smirked, as if finally understanding.

[Arise, my apostles.]

With that, he spoke.

CRACK—!!!

The rising mounds of flesh suddenly exploded.

Or more precisely, shattered.

It was closer to a metamorphosis.

Like a cocoon being ripped open as a butterfly emerges.

And finally, from within—

■—!!!]

A white giant emerged.

Many times larger than a human, yet still vaguely human-shaped.

Its entire body disturbingly emaciated, like a starving beast.

A pure white being.

The moment Alon saw it, he realized one thing.

‘I was wrong.’

No—he hadn’t even thought of it.

He’d assumed Radan had grown stronger through relics.

Because the Radan he knew had done exactly that.

But that was the Radan of this timeline—one Alon had saved.

The original Radan—the one used as a vessel for sin—was bound to be entangled with sin no matter the reason.

In other words, in countless parallel worlds, the strongest version of Radan—

Was not one who mastered relics to their limits.

Nor one who skillfully wielded unique powers.

Nor the one possessed by Jealousy.

The strongest Radan across all existing timelines—

Was that.

The pure white beings began to fill the earth.

At the same time, Radan’s appearance began to change.

He consumed the manifested sin—

His blue armor turned a blood-red hue.

“You asked if I could stop you?”

His once-blue hair turned pitch black.

His blue eyes took on a bizarre crimson glow.

“Of course I can~”

And for the first time, Sloth’s eyes widened in disbelief.

Radan stared at him and said—

“I’ve already devoured one.”

He twisted his lips into a gruesome grin.

“Monsters like you.”

—Radan had become a sin himself.

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep