CHAPTER 70 – THE HAND OF SIN
For several seconds, Leylin said nothing.
The battlefield was silent except for the slow pulse of the red core embedded in Crimson Six's armor. Each beat carried a pressure that spread through the air like distant thunder, subtle yet impossible to ignore.
Wrath.
Leylin's gaze remained fixed on it.
Not merely because of the power it radiated.
But because of the implication.
Crimson Six noticed immediately.
"Ah," she said softly.
"You're surprised."
Her smile widened faintly.
"Well… I suppose that reaction is reasonable."
Leylin's eyes lifted from the core to her face.
Crimson Six tilted her head slightly, studying him with open curiosity.
"Although," she continued lightly, "if you think about it for a moment, it shouldn't be that surprising."
She tapped the center of the armor once.
The Wrath Core pulsed in response.
"After all… the other little cores you've been collecting."
Her gaze sharpened slightly.
"They came from me."
The words landed with quiet finality.
Leylin's pupils narrowed.
Crimson Six observed the reaction carefully, clearly pleased.
"Yes," she continued, almost conversationally. "You were originally one of my more promising experiments."
She began pacing slowly across the shattered ground.
"Thousands were created," she said calmly. "Most failed within hours. Some lasted days. A few endured weeks before their bodies collapsed under the strain."
Her eyes flicked briefly toward Leylin.
"But you…"
She smiled.
"You showed stability."
Leylin said nothing.
His mind had already begun assembling the pieces.
The laboratory.
The scars across his body.
The first time the Gluttony Core awakened.
Crimson Six stopped walking.
"I inserted the Gluttony Core into your body because it was the most adaptable," she continued. "Its nature allows it to consume, process, and stabilize foreign energies."
She lifted one hand lazily.
"You survived."
A pause.
"Which made you valuable."
Her smile thinned slightly.
"And then you escaped."
The wind swept across the battlefield again.
Dust lifted from the broken earth between them.
"For a time, that was… inconvenient," Crimson Six admitted.
"But in retrospect, it proved useful."
Leylin's voice was quiet when he finally spoke.
"So the others."
"Ah," she said.
"The other cores."
Her expression brightened slightly, as if pleased he had reached the correct question.
"Yes."
She clasped her hands behind her back again.
"I ended those experiments."
Leylin's eyes hardened slightly.
"The hosts of Envy," she continued calmly. "The host of Pride. The host of Greed."
She shrugged lightly.
"They had served their purpose."
Leylin's gaze remained locked on her.
"You scattered them," he said.
Crimson Six nodded once.
"Across the world."
Her tone remained casual.
"Fragments placed carefully along the paths you were most likely to travel."
She looked directly at him now.
"And then I watched."
The faint glow of the Wrath Core pulsed again.
"I observed how the cores reacted when they encountered you."
She took a slow breath.
"How they fused."
"How they resisted."
"How you survived each integration."
Her smile returned.
"For a moment… I thought I had finally succeeded."
Leylin's voice remained calm.
"But?"
Crimson Six sighed.
"But you use them like a brute."
The disappointment in her tone was genuine.
"Like a blacksmith hammering raw ingots."
She gestured vaguely toward him.
"You treat the cores like tools."
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
"External weapons."
Another pulse from the Wrath Core.
"You devour energy. You steal power. You smash through obstacles."
Her voice cooled.
"That is not refinement."
She took a step forward.
"That is not mastery."
Her gaze became sharp now.
"That is a man using a sword like it's a sledgehammer."
Leylin watched her silently.
Crimson Six shook her head.
"The cores were never meant to reshape the world around you first."
Her finger lifted slightly.
"They were meant to reshape you."
The air between them seemed to tighten.
Crimson Six smiled again.
"Allow me to demonstrate."
She stepped forward.
Not fast.
Not sudden.
Just one step.
And reality slipped.
For a brief moment her silhouette still stood in front of Leylin, exactly where it had been.
The same smile.
The same posture.
Yet something about it felt wrong.
Faint.
Unstable.
Leylin's instincts exploded.
Afterimage.
The impact came from behind.
A fist drove into the lower left side of his ribs with catastrophic force.
The sound of cracking bone tore through the battlefield.
Leylin's body launched upward like a projectile.
The sky rushed toward him as he tore through layers of cloud, the ground shrinking rapidly beneath his spinning form.
For a moment the world became nothing but wind and white mist.
Then...A voice spoke behind him.
"Too slow."
Leylin's eyes widened.
He twisted instinctively.
Too late.
Another fist struck the center of his back.
The force drove through his spine like a collapsing mountain.
The sky vanished.
The earth surged upward.
Leylin slammed back into the battlefield with terrifying speed, carving a trench through the stone as his body plowed across the surface of the planet.
The ground split beneath him.
Stone shattered.
Dust erupted into the sky.
His body finally stopped deep inside a fresh crater carved into the fractured crust.
For several seconds he did not move.
The world spun violently.
Sound returned slowly.
Wind.
Falling debris.
The faint pulse of energy still lingering in the air.
Leylin exhaled slowly and forced his body upright.
Pain spread across his ribs and spine like fire.
He pushed himself to his feet.
Across the crater, Crimson Six stood calmly.
She wasn't even looking at him.
Her head was tilted slightly downward as she adjusted something near her waist, tightening one of the armor clasps as if preparing for a routine exercise.
A casual gesture.
Human.
Almost dismissive.
Only when she finished did she turn.
Not abruptly.
Her body simply shifted position with quiet precision until she faced him directly.
As if the battlefield itself had moved around her.
Her crimson eyes settled on Leylin again.
The Wrath Core pulsed once more.
Crimson Six smiled.
"Now," she said calmly,
"let the real battle begin."