The ground swallowed them.
For a moment, there was no sound — only falling. Then the world slammed back into place as Jiwoon landed hard on ancient stone, Kaelya and Vera crashing beside him.
Dust swirled in the air. The torch flickered, casting shadows on the underground walls.
They were in some kind of temple.
No… a prison.
⸻
[System Alert: SIN AVATAR DETECTED]
Classification: Forgotten Type
Warning: Entity is partially conscious
⸻
Kaelya coughed, pulling herself up. "Where the hell are we?"
Jiwoon didn't answer right away. He was staring at the carvings.
Sins.
Old ones. Ones not even the current system tracked anymore. Ones lost before the world was rewritten.
Vera knelt beside an altar. Her fingers brushed a cracked stone tablet — it glowed faintly at her touch.
Jiwoon took a step forward.
And that's when he heard it again.
The voice.
Not the system.
The demon.
"This place is sacred to us. You shouldn't be here."
His breath caught in his throat.
"Unless you're ready to remember who you were… before the debt."
⸻
Suddenly, the walls shifted. Not collapsed — moved.
A low rumble echoed from the far side of the chamber, and a sealed gate began to rise.
From the blackness behind it… something emerged.
It wasn't fully formed. A creature of shadows and bone, its face split down the middle with a jagged mouth that whispered not with words, but regret.
Kaelya froze. "What… is that?"
Jiwoon clenched his fists.
"It's what happens when sin rots too long without judgment."
⸻
Combat Initiated – Avatar vs Avatar
Jiwoon's Sin Meter: 990 / 1,000
Demon Threshold: 99%
⸻
The beast lunged.
Jiwoon didn't dodge — he stepped into it, his hand glowing with violent red light.
"Sin Sentence: Weight of the Unspoken."
A shockwave blasted outward, hurling the creature against the wall.
But it got up.
Laughing.
Jiwoon's eyes narrowed. His armor began to form again — but something new sparked within it.
Not just rage.
Recognition.
This wasn't just a monster.
It knew him.
And he… almost knew it.