The artificial space of the Libra Sanctuary was screaming.
The starry sky on the ceiling began to crack like a mirror hit with a hammer. Fragments of space fell down, turning into dust before hitting the rising black water that swirled beneath their feet.
Two powerful objects were clashing on the giant golden scale. On one side was the Libra Feather—representing Order and Rules. On the other was the Mirrakyn—the Stone of Wisdom, representing Chaos and Consumption.
The scale shook violently. The Mirrakyn did not follow Lysandra's "rules" of weighing. It was creating a gravitational black hole, sucking away the mana that maintained this reality.
Madame Lysandra panicked. Her mask of noble calm shattered. She realized she had invited a monster into her home, not a victim.
"Stop!" Lysandra screamed, her black hair flying wildly. "You are destroying the fabric of reality! If this space collapses, we will all be thrown into the Void!"
Sin stood still on the water. The storm whipped around him, but his eyes remained as calm as a dead lake.
"You haven't asked the final riddle," Sin said, his voice freezing. "Finish the bet. Or I will let the Mirrakyn devour you and this entire casino."
Lysandra grit her teeth. She could not take back the Feather until the bet was finished. That was the unchangeable law of the Divine Artifact.
"Fine! If you want to die, I will grant your wish!"
Lysandra raised her hands to the sky and shouted the final riddle in desperation:
"What becomes lighter the heavier it gets? What remains forever the more you give it away?"
It was a riddle about Love and Compassion. In the rules of Libra, only the sacrifice of emotion makes the soul's burden lighter.
If it were the Sin of yesterday, he would have answered with philosophy or the feelings he had for Eric. But the Sin of now—who had just been drained of his hot emotions—looked at the riddle as if it were a broken physical equation.
"Love?" Sin smirked, a smile without any warmth. "A very cheesy and inaccurate answer for this situation, Madame."
Sin did not answer with words. He stepped forward. He placed his white hand onto the Mirrakyn stone.
"My answer is... A Vacuum."
VROOOOOOM...
Sin activated the stone. Instead of giving off energy, the Mirrakyn reversed its flow, sucking away every bit of air and mana around Lysandra's side of the scale.
Without a medium, there was no longer any magical lifting force. In an absolute vacuum, every concept of "soul weight" or "the lightness of love" became meaningless. Only raw gravity remained.
The Libra Feather lost its magical support and fell straight onto the pan like a piece of lead.
CLANG!
The scale tipped completely toward Sin.
"You... you dare to use physics to break magic..." Lysandra stared, her voice choked.
"Magic is just a form of science you don't yet understand," Sin coldly declared. "I win."
BOOM!
The bet ended. The Libra Feather was sucked off the pan and flew into Sin's hand. It shrank, turning into an exquisite gold brooch.
Losing her Divine Artifact, Lysandra let out a heart-wrenching scream of pain. Her illusion melted away. Her smooth skin wrinkled, her black hair turned white, and her back slumped. She revealed her true form: an old, ugly witch who had lived for hundreds of years by sucking the memories of others.
The space around them collapsed completely.
Amidst the chaos, two glowing orbs flew out of the witch's chest. A Silver Orb—containing the Ancient Wisdom of the Mirrakyn. A Red Orb—containing Sin's memories of the night and his trembling emotions.
"No! Mine! They are mine!"
The old witch screamed madly. Knowing she couldn't get her Artifact back, she threw out a final spell—a spear of darkness aimed straight at the two orbs to destroy them.
"If I can't have them, no one will!"
Sin narrowed his eyes. His brain calculated in a millisecond. The distance was too far. The speed of the dark spear was too fast. He could only save one.
He looked at the Red Orb. Emotions. Love. Eric. Those things... they were beautiful. But they would not help him save Lady Sil. They would not help him survive the Emperor's pursuit.
He looked at the Silver Orb. Knowledge. Power. Survival.
The choice of logic was cruel and decisive. Sin lunged forward. His hand ignored the Red Orb and snatched the Silver one.
GULP.
He pressed the Silver Orb into his forehead. Knowledge rushed back like a flood. He remembered everything: how to operate the stone, how to seal it, and the map of the dungeons.
At that same moment, the spear of darkness brushed past Sin's shoulder, flying straight toward the Red Orb which was free-falling into the black abyss below. It was about to be destroyed.
CRASH!
The ebony door shattered into a thousand pieces. A figure lunged in like a lightning bolt. Not with magic, but with frantic muscular power.
Eric.
He didn't care that the space was collapsing. He didn't care about the witch or Sin standing there. His eyes were fixed on that fragile red spark of light. He threw himself off the floor, diving into the void.
The knight's calloused hand stretched out to its limit.
Caught it.
Eric hugged the Red Orb tight to his chest, curling his body to protect it, and then fell heavily into the vanishing black water.
BOOM!
The illusion shattered.
They fell onto the marble floor of the Golden Scale Casino in reality. Water from broken fish tanks flooded everywhere. Eric coughed violently, his body soaked and covered in cuts from broken glass. But he still knelt there, his hands carefully shielding the treasure in his arms. The Red Orb still glowed weakly, with the warm beat of a heart.
He looked up, gasping for air: "Sin... are you okay?"
Sinhara stood a few steps away. He was adjusting his collar, pinning the Feather brooch to his chest. His manner was calm—terrifyingly so—amidst the ruins.
Sin looked down at Eric. His gaze paused at the Red Orb in Eric's hand, then moved past his worried face. There was not a single ripple of emotion.
"I am fine," Sin replied steadily. He took out the green emerald (the dungeon map) and tucked it into his pocket. "The objective is complete. The probability of this building collapsing in the next 3 minutes is 98%. We need to move."
Eric was stunned. He slowly stood up, still gripping the memory orb.
"You... aren't you going to ask what I'm holding?" Eric asked, his voice trembling. "This is your memory. These are the feelings of that night. You chose to save knowledge over this?"
Sin tilted his head, looking at Eric as if he were a child asking a silly question.
"In that situation, knowledge was a strategic asset. As for emotions..." Sin pointed at the red orb, "...they are an unnecessary risk. If you kept it, good. If not, it wouldn't have affected the plan."
Eric felt as if his heart were being squeezed. He looked at the boy in front of him. It was still the same face, the same intellect, but the warmth and the silent understanding between them had vanished.
Sin had become an iceberg. And Eric was holding the only fire that could melt that ice in his hands.
"Hey, you two lovers!" Ardyn's deep voice roared from a broken window. The former general was kicking a guard away. "Save the flirting for later! The Shadow Guards are flying here like flies to honey! Move!"
Sirens screamed throughout the city of Elystria. Ghostly shadows glided over the roofs, moving toward the casino.
Sin turned to Ardyn and Celles (who was bristling in cat form). "To the roof," Sin ordered. "I will use the Divine Artifact."
"Do you even know how to use that toy?" Ardyn asked suspiciously.
"I just re-loaded the 'user manual' into my head," Sin smirked.
The group ran to the top of the tower. The sea wind blew hard. Below, hundreds of torches from the soldiers surrounded the building.
"Jump!" Sin shouted.
The four of them threw themselves into the open air. Sin touched the Feather brooch on his chest.
"Gravity Reduction."
A golden light covered them. Instead of falling like stones, their bodies became as light as feathers. They glided through the night wind, flying over the confused guards, heading straight for the dark harbor.
-
One hour later.
On a small smuggling boat cutting through the waves, leaving the bright lights of Elystria behind. The air on the boat was heavy and silent.
Sin sat at the front, lighting a small oil lamp. He spread the Royal Dungeon map on the wooden floor, carefully studying it and marking guard positions with a piece of coal. He was completely absorbed in his work, his face cold and absolutely focused.
Eric sat at the back, leaning against the mast. He stared at the Red Orb glowing in his palm. He could feel the warmth from it—the warmth of Sin's love, the thing its owner had thrown away without regret.
Ardyn sat on a crate, taking a swig of strong alcohol. He looked at Sin, then at Eric, and sighed.
"You hold his heart. He holds our lives," Ardyn muttered. "A cruelly fair trade."
Eric tightened his fingers around the orb. He knew if he gave it to Sin now, Sin would look at it as a useless object, or worse, destroy it to "optimize memory."
He tucked the orb into his inner pocket, closest to his heart.
"I will keep it," Eric whispered into the darkness, his eyes fixed on Sin's slender back. "Until you are brave enough to take it back. I will make you love me again, Sinhara. Even if I have to woo you all over again from the start."
Sin, at the front of the boat, seemed to hear the whisper. He paused for a second, his coal pen stopping on the paper. But then he shook his head and continued to plan the break-in into the most dangerous place in the world.
The boat plunged into the darkness of the ocean, carrying exiles and broken hearts toward the planet's greatest storm.