Damien sat cross-legged in the grit, the sand clinging to his sweat-damp clothes, his fingers still sticky from the sweet, acidic fruit they'd eaten to heal. The taste of ash lingered in his mouth, stubborn and bitter. Around them, the world was still—no insects, no breeze, just silence, and the heavy breath of three survivors.
"To formulate a plan, I'll need to know all of your abilities," Damien said, his voice calm but firm. "Jenna, I already know your virtue... detonating your blood. Now I need your sin ability."
Jenna scoffed, taken aback. "What? No way. That's like handing someone your greatest weakness."
Damien exhaled, already expecting the pushback. "Maybe. But I've seen your mark, and after what happened in the garden, I've already figured it out."
She narrowed her eyes, folding her arms across her chest and deliberately hiding her wrist. "Oh yeah? Then go ahead. What is it?"
"Greed," Damien said, his voice flat, but his lips curled ever so slightly as he watched panic flicker across her face. "Your sin is Greed."
The fear that crossed her eyes was all the confirmation he needed. With just a few words, he'd let her know he understood precisely how to incapacitate her.
Unlike him, most Hellbound couldn't endure the shackles' wrath. Damien was different, conditioned since childhood by the Organization to withstand soul-rending agony. But for others, a single false move was enough to bring them to their knees. One sin-triggered misstep, and they were left paralyzed and easy prey.
"I'm not asking to hurt you," Damien continued coolly. "If I wanted you dead, I've had plenty of chances, so stop being difficult, and just tell me what it is."
Jenna hesitated, glancing from Damien to the Monk. Her posture stiffened, jaw tight. After a moment, she uncrossed her arms with a resigned sigh and pressed her fingers against the underside of her right wrist.
Runes ignited in the air before her, which the others couldn't see.
She stared at them for a long beat, then spoke in a low voice.
"Sin: Greed. Sin Ability: Claim."
Her gaze lifted, and there was something quieter in her tone now.
"Anything I want, anything I truly desire and touch… becomes mine. No one can take it from me, but the more I take, the less I want to live."
A heavy silence settled over them.
Damien and the Monk stared at her, the weight of that statement hanging in the heat between them. Her ability was powerful, borderline broken, but the price it exacted was steep. Suicidally steep.
'Can she really make anything hers, no matter how strong?'
The thought spiraled through Damien's mind, opening doors he hadn't considered. That kind of ability… had potential. Real potential. She could be useful, not just in this trial, but far beyond it.
He kept his expression neutral, portraying none of those thoughts.
"Good," he said simply, turning now to the Monk. "What about you?"
The question came casually, but beneath it was a deeper intention. Damien hoped the Monk's ability would help them face the mimic, but more importantly, he was sure the man was hiding something. Something that might one day become dangerous.
And if it did, knowing his sin… would mean knowing where to strike.
The Monk's expression didn't shift. Calm, composed, just as he always was, but at last, he opened his mouth, voice low and deliberate.
"Sin: Sloth. Sin Ability: Burden Transfer. I can pass my fatigue onto others through touch. But the more I use it… the more emotionally numb I become."
The words lingered, heavy in the air.
Jenna blinked, and Damien tilted his head slightly, reevaluating.
They hadn't expected that. 'Sloth?'
But now that he said it, it made sense.
The Monk barely spoke and rarely moved. When he wasn't fighting, he would pray, remaining still and silent for hours at a time. Damien had assumed that was just part of his strange monkish discipline.
But now…
Now it seemed like something far more dangerous.
Maybe he wasn't at peace.
Maybe he was slipping into apathy, one stolen breath at a time.
The silence that followed was thick, weighed down by heat and suspicion. Damien didn't speak. Instead, he studied the monk's middle-aged face, searching for any flicker of deception. Sloth, he'd said. It had caught Damien off guard, but now, the doubt crept in.
The monk could have lied. In fact, if Damien had been in his position, he would have done the same.
Then, an irritating voice sliced through the sweltering air.
"Alright, your turn," Jenna said, her tone sharp. "What's your ability? Considering we don't even know your virtue, I think it's about time you started sharing."
Damien didn't answer immediately. He reached for a half-empty bottle of water at his side and took a slow sip, the heat pressing down on him like a blanket.
The water was warm, nearly hot, and had a faint metallic taste. It slid down his throat like regret, doing little to quench the dryness clawing at his mouth. Sweat pooled at the nape of his neck as the sun pressed harder, turning the sand into an oven beneath them.
He let the silence hang, dragging it out just enough to assert control.
He couldn't tell them the truth.
If they knew his sin ability, how easily he could manipulate them, they'd never trust him again, and worse, if they found out he didn't have a virtue at all… they'd see him for what he truly was. A monster, a creature so far removed from salvation that he didn't have a single virtue.
Most men would have cracked under such pressure.
But not Damien.
Not the devil.
He lowered the bottle and set it down with deliberate calm. Then, without flinching, he lied.
"My virtue is confidence," he said smoothly. "It grants me enhanced speed. I used to be a track runner back on Earth, so it fits."
The pain surged immediately, like being thrown in a blender. His shackle roared to life, punishing the lie, but Damien didn't so much as blink.
"And my sin…" he continued, voice steady despite the agony tearing through him, "is Envy. Sin ability is called Comparison. It lets me see what others are better at, but if I change to be like them, I lose a cherished memory."
As the last word left his mouth, a new spike of pain lanced through his body. He winced slightly, more from surprise than the pain itself.
For some reason, that final detail had provoked an even stronger reaction from the shackle.
But still, he didn't break.
The lie he'd told was perfect.
He was the fastest among the three, which made his fabricated virtue, Confidence, granting enhanced speed, seem entirely plausible. And the sin ability he'd claimed, Comparison, was the perfect kind of useless. Subjective, unverifiable, and completely internal. No one could call him a liar, because only he could see it.
As far as he could tell, the deception hadn't come back to haunt him. Not yet.
But he hadn't forgotten the truth. He still had no virtue, and his real sin ability… was far more dangerous.
Jenna suddenly burst into laughter, doubling over as she clutched her stomach. Real laughter, loud and unfiltered. She wiped tears from her eyes as she gasped between fits.
"Envy," she managed through her giggles. "You would be the jealous type. It's written all over your smug little face... What an idiot!"
Damien didn't react. He just watched her quietly.
'Every day you walk closer to death, Jenna. And when the day comes that I no longer need you... I'll make sure it's brutal.'
Still, deep down, he felt a flicker of satisfaction. His lie had landed. His deception, amplified by the seventy percent boost from his true sin ability, had worked flawlessly.
They believed him.
He sighed, brushing off her taunts with cold indifference. "Let's get back on topic. I've got a few plans."
A slow, wicked smile crept across his face, sharp and cruel.
The kind of smile that promised pain.
"I hope you like it, Jenna."
She stopped laughing instantly, her expression freezing. Panic flickered across her face as she glanced at the Grey Monk.
For the first time since the fight, she looked small beneath the desert sun, her laughter shriveling into nothing. The dry wind tugged at her clothes as if trying to pull her away.
"What does that mean?" she asked, voice thin with unease.
The Monk didn't answer. He only shrugged, slow, deliberate, and no help at all.