With screeches of shouts from the swarms of harpies behind them, Avarice, Acedia, and Invidia enters a dark cave to seek shelter.
The trio, consist of; a tired Invidia, donning in a cracked, futuristic-combat armour, including the helmet, bends his knees before he slumps backward to the floor of the cave. Avarice, who is covered in brown ragged robes, with a glowing yellow ring on one of his right hand's finger, leans his back to the dark wall of the cave. Acedia, with a rather tattered white assassin robes, crosses her arms as she slowly shakes her head.
"Sister," called an annoyed Avarice.
Acedia turns her head to the one who called her, slowly.
"...Yes?"
The sin of Sloth received an irked glare from Avarice.
"Next time," Avarice pauses for a while. "When we told you to run...RUN!"
Avarice has his arms up in the air before calming down, earning a dry chuckle from Inividia.
"Give her a break, Greed. The distance between this cave and the beach isn't exactly a short walk."
Avarice glares at Invidia, who is still laying on the ground. Acedia tries to open her mouth but Avarice put a finger on her lips, preventing her from saying anything as he walks towards the other end of the cave.
"Looks like we're in the 8th,"
Invidia inhales his breath deeply before letting it out as he gets up on his feet. Acedia moves over to Avarice with Invidia as they look at the 8th Circle of Hell.
"Let's go, we need to make our way to the 9th," Invidia takes a step forward as the other two Sins follow behind him.
The trio were met with screams of anger, despair, and agony as they glance over to the ten huge trenches with a lot of people inside of the trenches and devils with horn, wings, and tails striking them with whips above the trench.
Invidia feels a little downhearted as he keeps hearing the screams of the sinners but soon distracted by a quake. Another stomp of a giant destabilised their footing to the point that all three of them were about to fall down. After finding their bearings, a literal giant towers over the three of them, holding a trunk of a tree which he perched on his shoulder.
The giant crouches down to the trio as he squints his eyes.
"Not sinner. Sin. Why here?"
Hearing the giant speaking in such manners put Invidia into disbelief.
"Giants really speaks like that?" Invidia turns to his brother, Avarice. "Wow..."
Acedia can be seen waving at the giant to which he waves back. Avarice stares at Invidia before rolling his eyes. He then moves in front of Invidia and speaks to the giant;
"Hey! Big man! We need to talk to the 'boss'!"
The giant slowly nods as he straighten his posture.
"Hmm. Under. Stand. Wait here."
Avarice turns back to Invidia as he mouthed 'let's wait' to him. The giant raises his other hand and snaps his finger. A moment later, one of the devils from the trenches flew over to them.
"What do you need big man?" The devil, now landed near the giant.
The giant points at the trio, "They. Want. Speak. Warden."
The devil nods as he starts to fly up, "Follow me."
The trio nods as they follow the devil.
...
During the travel, I can hear sounds of whips, stabs, and even bone crushing which follows by screams of pain. I refused to look back to the trenches despite my curiosity telling me to.
"One...small lies... But an eter...nity of... damnation..." I can hear Sloth spoke as I look over to her.
She adopts a look of sombre on her face. I look away from her as I can hear Greed speaks out.
"Unless they were forgiven for their lies."
Hearing that statement of his, I could not help but smile lightly. However, the thought of my father on Earth removes it from my face.
"Your...father?"
I sigh before looking at my sister.
"Yeah."
She gently smiles as she puts a hand on my shoulder pad.
"You can... do it..."
She pulls away her hand and clenches it to a fist before slowly pumping it above her chest. I shake my head as I let out a chuckle.
"I know..." I paused as I sigh. "But it may be hard for me to forgive him."
"We're almost there."
The rough voice of the devil caught our attention as I look over to the distance, and see the dark cave which possibly leads to the 9th Circle with a single devil standing by the entrance.
As the four of us come closer to the cave, I hear a clink sound of a metal as a spear burrow itself right in front of me. The devil which most likely to be the guard of the entrance, pulls out the spear as she gets into a stance.
"Rondil! What are those sinners doing here?!"
A lady, which looks similar to Rondil but with longer hair, feminine looks and body, points the spear towards us with anger.
"Ronda! They're the Sins! They want to speak to the 'Warden'!"
"The Sins?!"
Ronda's face turns red, which is supposed to be impossible considering her red skin, as she places the spear to her side. She bows down to the three of us to which I accidentally apologised.
"Ah- It's alright. I'm sorry for the inconvenience."
Ronda straighten her pose as she looks at me weirdly. I look over the Rondil and he does the same thing too. I turn my head to Sloth and she gave a concerned look.
"Why? What's wrong?" I asked before looking at Greed who gives me that look that says 'seriously?' on his face.
"It's the first time someone ever apologised to us slavils."
"And be grateful." Greed said with a slight venom in his tone. "You're slave-devils for a reason."
He then turns to Sloth and I.
"Let's not waste any more time-"
"Greed!" I yelled out as I pull him away from the two devils, who seems to have a change of expression on the faces.
Greed now has a hole on his chest, courtesy of Ronda's spear. I drag him away from the entrance as Sloth suddenly appears between the two devils and the two of us, as a blade comes out of her left wrist-gauntlet.
As I drag him by his armpits, Greed hovers his hand to his chest as his face is full of disbelief.
"No way- Even in the 8th circle?"
I can hear him muttering 'no way' over and over again while his hands shakes crazily. Once I was sure that the two of us were far enough, I put a pressure to Greed's wound. He grimaces in pain as his screams rings loud in my ears.
Greed looks over to me as he holds my hands on his chest.
"Bro- Brother..." Blood slowly comes out of his mouth.
"No. Just stop talking. I-"
I was cut off by the yellow glows of his ring. I look over to his hand and saw that he has already taken off the ring, while the tint of yellow in his eyes slowly fades, including the frantic shaking that he did previously.
I then look over to my own hands and saw it covered by Greed's blood. A sense of fury awakens the gauntlet on my right forearm. I can feel the heat around me rises as a spiral of fire surround my body.
I look over to the devil who stabbed Greed and see that Sloth has already slices off the neck of the one named Rondil. The other devil has no slight changes on her expression as she keeps launching strikes with her spear to Sloth.
Before I could even make a move towards the fight, I hear a massive rumble further away behind me. I turn my back and see a man riding a horse of flame with a huge great sword behind him, charging towards our position. I look down to watch Greed's lifeless corpse before noticing his Ring of Greed. I pick it up and summons one of Greed's weapon; a large two-handed claymore.
Gripping the claymore tightly, I 'instruct' the fire to engulf the blade without melting it as the stranger on the horse is coming closer. The man unsheathes the great sword and points it to me.
I get into a stance to block the incoming attack.
...
As Invidia tries to block the attack from the cavalryman, he suddenly found himself stands in front of a dying Ronda. He lowers the blade and see a smiling Invidia, at the same place he was a few moments ago, with her back to the stranger on the horse.
Although a little silent, Envy can hear the slow, but soft words of Acedia.
"Take care... little brother. We'll see... each other... in that city you... always talk... about..."
A tear found its way to his eyes as a trace of purple light hover to his left arm. Acedia then turns to the stranger while her entire body shines in bright violet. The stranger swings his sword at Acedia, causing a huge explosion which knocks Invidia into the cave, sending him directly into the last Circle of Hell.