Chapter 1310. Seven Deadly Sins, and Apparently Only One Seat Left on the Menu

Chapter 1310: 1310. Seven Deadly Sins, and Apparently Only One Seat Left on the Menu

The realization didn’t come as a lightning bolt; it came as a slow, glacial shift of tectonic plates beneath Rex’s consciousness.

The thought that had been circling his mind since the first moment those infernal red lines had hemorrhaged light across Leonidas’s chest finally settled heavy, freezing, and absolute.

If lust were real and could manifest as a tangible, corrupting force that could stitch flesh together and fuel a man’s suicidal rage, then the old stories were not mere fables.

They were not warnings carved into stone by terrified priests or metaphors spun by scholars to frighten children. The Seven Deadly Sins were not abstract concepts; they were cosmic entities.

They were living, breathing plagues.

’Pride. Greed. Envy. Gluttony. Sloth.’

Rex’s mind raced through the implications as he dodged a desperate, bone-shattering swing from Leonidas’s sword.

SHHHH TING!

The blade whistled past his ear, close enough to slice through the air itself.

’Some of them might already have bearers,’ he thought, his inner voice becoming dangerously quiet. ’Some might be waiting in the womb of some unsuspecting kingdom.’

’Some might be walking among us right now, hiding behind crowns and holy robes.’

His thoughts spiraled across the map of Erosyne, each location feeling more like a potential powder keg than a kingdom.

The war camps of the Valdric Sovereignty were their generals fueled by something more than ambition?

The silent, ancient forests of Thornweald did something ravenous lurk there, embodying Gluttony?

The gilded lecture halls of the Aurelian Compact were their knowledge poisoned by Envy?

The unmapped coasts of the Sable Reaches, the shadowed corridors of Solmordia... they were all potential hunting grounds for the sins of the gods.

Powers that could stand toe to toe with his own.

For months, Rex had walked this world believing he was the apex predator. He had operated under the assumption of singularity that he was the only anomaly, the only player who understood the true mechanics of power.

That assumption had been his foundation. It had underlain every plan he had orchestrated for Celestina, every calculated conquest, every move on the grand chessboard of this continent.

He had believed he was playing a game where he owned all the pieces.

And in one afternoon, that entire delusion had been shattered by a middle-aged swordsman with a hole in his belly and enough hatred to defy the laws of biology.

The old, reflexive arrogance and the casual confidence that had carried him through countless slaughter were gone. It had been burned away by the crimson glow of Leonidas’s Mark.

In its place was something far more dangerous: a cold, razor-sharp wakefulness. It was the primal alertness of a predator who had just realized he was being hunted.

It was the feeling he hadn’t experienced since his first nights in this world, when he had been raw, terrified, and utterly alone.

Leonidas roared again, a sound that tore through the last of Rex’s composure, lunging forward with a strike so powerful it left a trail of displaced air. Rex parried, the impact sending a shockwave up his arms that made his teeth rattle in his skull.

CRACK.

As they pulled apart for a fraction of a second, Rex stared at the pulsing, molten veins of light crawling across Leonidas’s torso.

He wasn’t looking at a man anymore. He was looking at a warning sign.

"You aren’t alone," Rex murmured.

His voice was almost lost in the wind, carrying no emotion other than a grim, analytical fascination. He wasn’t speaking to Leonidas; the man was too far gone into his own hell to hear him.

He was speaking to the universe itself. "There have to be others."

His eyes narrowed, the violet fire in them deepening. The game hadn’t just changed; the board had been flipped, and a whole new set of players had just walked into the room.

Rex didn’t wait for Leonidas to recover from his roar. Recognizing the dangerous escalation of the Mark, he pivoted on his heel and launched himself backward.

His boots tore through the blood-soaked earth as he leaped twenty meters in a single, explosive arc, putting distance between himself and the epicenter of the divine rage.

Mid flight, he snapped his right hand open. "Enough."

A spiderweb of pure, concentrated violet light Telekinesis erupted from his palm. The invisible threads lashed across the wasteland, seeking out Leonidas like hungry serpents.

When they connected, they didn’t crush; they anchored. The web wrapped around Leonidas’s limbs, his torso, and his throat with surgical precision.

The force was calibrated perfectly, light enough to avoid snapping his already shattered bones, but strong enough to lock him in place mid-lunge.

Leonidas froze. His sword was inches from the ground, his body twisted in a grotesque position of forward momentum.

A sound tore from his throat a wet, strangled snarl of defiance as his muscles corded and bulged against the telekinetic restraint.

His entire frame shook with such violence that the crimson veins of the Mark pulsed erratically, casting strobe-like shadows across the ruins.

But he could not move. He was a prisoner of physics.

The garden fell into a silence so sudden and absolute it felt deafening.

No more bone-crushing impacts.

No more wet grunts of agony.

Only the distant crackle of burning timber and the labored, wheezing breath of two dying men. Rex stood amidst the wreckage, his chest heaving, blood dripping from his chin onto his ruined shirt.

He closed his eyes, shutting out the carnage.

’Time to evolve,’ he thought.

With a flick of his will, he summoned the system interface. The translucent blue screen flickered to life before his eyelids, glowing brighter in the dim haze of smoke.

[Free Skill Selection available: 2]

[Select any skill from the full catalog (no cost, no prerequisites).]

Two choices had been simmering in his mind for days: rewards from Morwenna and Valentina that he had been weighing with careful deliberation.

The catalog was a bottomless well of god-tier abilities. Some skills were mere enhancements; others were conceptual weapons capable of rewriting the laws of reality.

He remembered the warnings from Lustia on the path of Abstract Mastery. To grasp at the very concepts that defined existence was to ring a dinner bell for the gods themselves.

It was a path of infinite power and infinite exposure.

He paged through the options with the detached calm of a scholar reading a ledger, while the man trapped in the telekinetic web continued to rage silently inches away.

’Not now,’ Rex dismissed. ’None of these fit the current equation.’

He swiped past devastating elemental spells, past legendary sword techniques, and past abilities that could topple empires. His eyes moved toward the very end of the catalog.

There, in a section that had been empty when he had woken in this world, a section that should not have existed, a new entry pulsed with a malevolent, sickly crimson light.

It didn’t glow with the clean blue of the system; it bled.

[Sin Authority: Wrath (Resonance Copy)]

[Description: Analyzes the divine signature of a Sin Bearer.] Copies the Wrath authority and anchors it directly to the user’s soul register.]

[Warning: Soul corruption risk is absolute.]

Rex stared at the words. The detection of Leonidas’s Mark had triggered something in the system: a recognition of a fundamental law.

The system wasn’t just a tool; it was adapting to the sins of Erosyne.

’Copy it,’ his instinct screamed. ’Take the fire and make it yours.’

He understood the implications immediately. Taking a Sin into his soul was not a temporary buff or a spell he could unlearn.

It was a fundamental alteration of his being.

It was a permanent scar on his spiritual architecture.

It was a door that swung shut behind him, locking him into a new reality.

And that was exactly why he chose it. Rex had never been interested in safety. He had no patience for doors that allowed retreat.

He wanted power that was absolute, terrifying, and irreversible.

"Let them come," he whispered to the empty air.

Without a heartbeat of hesitation, he pressed the selection.

The interface screamed.

A sound like tearing metal erupted in Rex’s mind as the first free selection burned away. A searing, white-hot agony tore through his chest as the crimson essence of Wrath began its violent descent toward his soul.

[First Free Selection consumed.]

[One selection remains in reserve.]