The Greatest Sin is Weakness
Seph trailed closely behind Starless, scrutinizing his every movement as if hoping to draw inspiration from him. Yet, he seemed completely ordinary. Even his name was strange—it carried a faint divine resonance despite clearly being of a low name-tier. Perhaps, long ago, a divine being had touched it. His mask also exuded a trace of divine aura, likely from the same source as his peculiar odachi. Under normal circumstances, this would have been cause for alarm, but given that Starless was once divine-tiered, it wasn't too strange.
As they approached the mountain, they encountered their first trial abomination.
A grotesque, emaciated humanoid creature stared at them from behind a tree, roughly a hundred meters away. It looked as if a human had grown to five meters tall, starved for a year, and then had white paint splashed on its dark face. Its unnatural smile unnerved Starless, but Seph appeared unaffected.
As soon as it was noticed, the abomination raised its elongated arms and rushed them with horrifying speed. It screeched as it closed the hundred-meter distance in mere seconds.
Its speed was truly heaven-defying, far beyond human limits. It had to be a higher-tiered being—which wasn't inherently bad—but if it was challenger rank, we likely had no hope of surviving as rankless individuals. While I couldn't directly view its tier using my mask, I could analyze the tiers of its named components, which typically correlated closely.
The second my mask finished its analysis, I turned, grabbed Seph by the arm, and ran. She resisted for a moment but complied when she saw my expression.
Damn it. This was simply too unfair!
The abomination was at least king-ranked—possibly sovereign-ranked. Its claws carried inferior Epic names, and its grotesque mask was listed as an Epic name as well. Fortunately, those names weren't of the highest quality. If they had been, we would have been better off just lying down and accepting death.
A quasi-sovereign-ranked monster in a first trial was unheard of! Even a king-ranked abomination was impossible for me to defeat with my current, virtue-less strength. Worse still, high-tiered monsters possessed a crude but dangerous intelligence that increased with rank. At king class, a monster could perform rare-class combat techniques and had a cruel, calculated sentience. The leap from king to sovereign was like the gap between a toddler and a seasoned killer. Sovereign-tiered monsters were exponentially more dangerous.
As I turned to run, the abomination's smile widened. It sped up, drawing closer.
Then, just as it reached within ten meters of me, a flame wisp struck it. I looked around and saw the brown-haired guy from earlier. Relief washed over me. At least I wasn't the only one dealing with this horror.
The creature stumbled back, snarling. The boy ran in the opposite direction, while the violet-haired girl I'd seen before swung her wand in the air. A massive fireball descended and engulfed the monster.
The pair relaxed.
"That won't be enough to kill it! It's quasi-sovereign-tiered! Keep running!" I yelled.
They turned to flee, but it was too late. The abomination emerged from the fireball, its expression twisted with murderous delight.
They froze, then began physically invoking names. From the look of it, their names were, at best, inferior Epic rank—far too weak to save them. No name below superior Epic could save them from a monster of this caliber, and if they had a name that powerful, they would have used it earlier.
Half a second before the creature reached them, they completed their invocations, speaking in the original, ancient tongues from which names originated. Space rippled, their bodies glowed, and a powerful shockwave knocked the monster back.
Then, an angel descended from the heavens.
It radiated terrifying status. Gracefully, it raised its hand and snapped its fingers. Chains of divine text wrapped around the abomination, restraining it.
Shock.
Silence.
Everyone nearby watched in stunned disbelief as the two summoned a sovereign-ranked angel to subdue the monster.
Summon-type names were extremely valuable, allowing users to call creatures for aid. Typically, summoned beings were of equal or lower rank. Only rare high-tiered names allowed one to summon a creature barely half a rank above. But a sovereign-ranked angel? From rankless humans?
My entire understanding of summoned creatures was shattered.
But there was no time to reflect. As the angel restrained the monster, the pair fled deeper into the grey forest. Moments later, the angel vanished in a flash of light. Fortunately, the distance—nearly 500 meters—was now too great for the abomination to close before they escaped.
Eventually, all of them disappeared into the snowy, grey hellscape.
Running through the forest, I kept wondering: why had my trial featured a quasi-sovereign class monster guarding one of the "easy" entrances to the World Summit?
Reaching a safe distance, I began digging into the snow, forming a crude igloo. Being caught outside after nightfall in the first trial was suicide. Trial monsters went berserk at night and only returned to their lairs during daylight.
Seph quickly picked up on what I was doing and helped me dig, never straying far—as if afraid I'd vanish. Her caution made sense. We'd barely survived, and I wasn't just any stranger—I was a semi-legendary figure in the inner circles of the Six Clans. Though, given my partial erasure from history, maybe not that well-known.
Once the hole was deep enough, we hollowed out a space to sleep. She summoned two common-tier sleeping bags and laid them on our packed-snow floor.
Oh, to be a rich princess with access to anything she wants.
If only I hadn't been born hundreds of years ago.
As we prepared to settle in, the sky turned pitch black. A massive red moon filled the skyline. Quickly, we used leftover snow to seal the entrance, covering our tracks. In trials, day and night came suddenly. Rarely did the sun rise or set like on Roathia.
I lay in my sleeping bag. Seph placed hers next to mine—almost touching—and climbed in, facing away.
I pretended to sleep to avoid any awkward conversation. Sharing a bed with a teenage girl wasn't ideal.
"Starless, is there something else I can call you by? I let you use a nickname, after all," she whispered, voice trembling.
She sounded entitled, likely unaccustomed to being treated as I treated her. I thought for a moment before replying,
"If your highness would grant me the honor, 'Starry' would be preferable."
She turned to glare at me, ready to scold me for calling her "your highness," but then paused. Taking a breath, she replied with a mischievous smirk:
"This humble princess dares not address a divine one so casually. But if you would be so benevolent, Starry it is."
We laughed, sharing in our mutual distaste for our backgrounds.
Then the mood shifted.
"Starry, you don't hate me, do you? Or want to kill me—for what my patron god and ancestor did to you?"
I answered calmly.
"I have no reason to hate you. You aren't responsible for your ancestor's sins. And frankly, I lack the strength to kill you anyway."
She smiled faintly, then turned away.
"One last thing. Promise you won't disappear while I'm asleep?"
I chuckled. If I could disappear, I would've already fled this cursed trial.
"I promise. I'll still be here when you wake up."
We didn't need to take watch. If a monster found us here, we were doomed anyway. But I wasn't one to take chances.
I drew Nola and stabbed her into the snow near the sealed entrance.
Nephim.
'What? Feeling guilty about sleeping next to a teenage girl even though you're ancient?'
Ignoring her, I asked:
I know you're still mad about earlier, and I'm sorry. But can you keep watch tonight?
'Hmm… maybe. If you beg.'
Nephim. If I die, you'll be sealed.
'Fine. But polish me later. I hate feeling dirty. And warm me by a fire next time. Just because I'm in a sword doesn't mean I don't feel cold.'
Deal.
'Also, stop being so mean to me. I get lonely, you know… I mean! This venerable Fairy Queen grants you the right to speak with her!'
Even though she was acting childish, it was fair. She was still a juvenile Fairy Queen. Even if she was a thousand years old, beings like her viewed time as fleeting.
…Fine. Deal.