Eryl observed the hologram on which one of the silhouettes had taken the appearance of a beautiful dark elf with long black hair, around thirty years old, her irises shining in a dazzling emerald green.
"The Elf Queen? Is that her? I thought there was no trace of her existence?"
The others leaned over to get a better look at the Queen.
"I heard that no one can enter Kalaharis and that elves never leave. How did you take this photo?"
"As I said, Lady Mercy, the unseen world is greater than the eye can see. There have been expeditions to the Kalahari, and that is how we obtained this information... At a very high price."
She leaned back, caressing her ear, quickly making them understand her words.
Freya folded her hands for a moment, thinking.
"You said... Envy? And the Queen is Gluttony, and Dora is Greed? This new life form, does that mean there are seven?"
Eryl laughed and smiled at Moonra.
"Ah, Lady Freya, if only you were the Prince..."
"Leave me out of this!" Moonra shouted.
"As you may have guessed, there are seven beings who are equal in rank to the Queen. When an expedition returning from Kalaharis revealed the existence of a transcendental being, the Queen reportedly said to herself, "So, there are other avatars." Although she was speaking to herself, her words were overheard and the term "avatar" began to spread among the citizens.
Later on, an interesting event took place. The Queen ordered the Parliament, one of the kingdom's factions, to eliminate this term from their vocabularies. However, it is impossible to completely erase the power of murmurs, so the Parliament had to think of an alternative. They decided to use the term "avatar" to designate something else and allow its true meaning to disappear with time. That day, they replaced the word "arm" with "avatar" and that's how this word entered our vocabulary and remains in use today."
Eryl snapped her fingers and five images appeared on each figure.
"What I'm going to tell you now is secret information that you, Freya, Zuri, and Mercy would eventually learn the moment you took over from your parents. As you said, there are seven people with a powerful transcendental, beyond anything your mind could imagine. We use the ranking system from E-rank to S-rank, but they could erase an S-rank in the blink of an eye. These people have been known for centuries as Sin Avatars, the reality benders, with achievements made on the blood and ruin of so many worlds that they have become more feared than Disasters. These are real natural calamities, you are not fighting a volcanic eruption, you are doing anything to escape, but if you can't, you know you will die."
The hologram showed images of. Dora, Gloria, and three other people, who were not strangers to some of them.
"Over the centuries, we have confirmed the birth of seven Sin Avatars: the Sin of Gluttony, Gloria, the Queen of Ambrosia, and the First Sin. The Queen of Elves, Sin of Envy, Apophis. Details on her longevity are unknown, but as only two expeditions out of hundreds returned from Kalaharis, with only one survivor, we considered her an enemy. The third is considered the King of the Giants, Shaka, Sin of Wrath, on Alkebulan, under the Kingdom of the Elves. Traces of its existence come from a gigantic naval war near the Kalaharis, the fourth is someone you know very well, the current dean of the Royal Academy, Sin of Sloth, Candace, her case is very special, but for now, the next one will interest you, Lady Freya..."
Freya looked at the fifth figure on the globe with a frown.
"The Wolf of the North," she said.
"That's right. The general of the Fenrir Empire, Sin of Pride, Rhea Silva. Her story is unique and almost as impressive as that of gluttony. It is said that she awakened her powers when a rival kingdom was invading the kingdom of Fenrir. She was just 12 years old at that time. She single-handedly decimated the entire army of the enemy one by one, until the enemy was eradicated down to the last human. Immediately after this, she was integrated into the army of Fenrir. Later on, she traveled through the territory of the rival country, and like Queen Gloria, every soldier, every citizen, and every trace of life had been erased. Despite the casual nature of her powers, she is the only Sin who truly impressed Queen Gloria, leading to the last rule of the Code and the story of the Winter Wolf."
Eryl touched the globe, enlarging the image of a young girl with white hair, dressed in a black military uniform. Her irises glowed a sparkling purple.
"It is said that one day, the Queen herself decided to meet the Sin whose name was spreading throughout her kingdom, for peace and friendship. She only wanted to meet her equal in this world, so she went to Fenrir. But it was a terrible idea, because like I said, a Sin is not a God because they are humans, and as humans in a heaven, what they fear more than anything, is the end."
The globe showed them the silhouette of the Queen and Silva face to face.
"As Avatars, they were unparalleled and unstoppable forces in this existence, but the moment Rhea was within range of Queen Gloria, they sensed each other's aura, and they had the worst reasoning possible: she could end my world. It is said that Rhea showed hostility so the Queen left. The truth is that a Sin will never die of old age or illness, but can still be killed, they learned that the only thing capable of doing this, the only filth in their world, was another Sin. From that day on, the Queen returned to her castle and swore never to leave the Kingdom and Fenrir's territorial expansion stopped. Later, the Queen would request this final rule from the Code, to protect her paradise: One Sin must never interfere with another Sin. The Queen would never protect another country if Fenrir were to attack it, and Envy's troops should never be on Ambrosia."
Freya jumped, understanding a thousand things in an instant.
"So that's why you asked me not to be an enemy of Dora... His true place in the hierarchy... If he is a Sin, he will become just as strong, and... Nothing in the world could oppose his decision, not even the Queen..."
"Precisely, if he decides to kill the young Balder later, there will be no consequences."
The nobles exchanged concerned looks. Suddenly, many things made sense. Dora was not a hero; in fact, he was quite the opposite. He had always shown that he would never hesitate to use underhanded tactics to get what he wanted. And now, with total immunity, the worst was bound to happen.
Solaria whispered.
"But then... Mother doesn't want to kill him?"
"No," Eryl replied. "Sin Avatars have a special power that allows them to see their power on a screen. The Queen calls it a System. It's like a screen showing you the strength you have within you. With this, they can sense anomalies in the air, such as Rifts or monsters nearby. Now that Greed has awakened, he has probably already been detected by other Sins. If he were to disappear, it would mean that the Queen has broken the Code and plans to erase all other Sins. This would lead to an attack. For example, we have no idea where Lust is, but we do know that he has fully awakened."
Eryl looked at the image of Dean Candace mockingly.
"Well, everyone is different, and even among Sin, some are very special. Sloth's case is ridiculous. She awakened about a hundred years ago. But Sloth's blessing is tragically ironic. Her power allows her to train anyone except herself. To put things in perspective, she was the one who trained this generation of Holy Knights and the famous Balder girl, but I guarantee she is weaker than any of them."
Eryl snapped her fingers one last time and the orb disappeared.
The nobles in front of her were looking at the ground without even realizing it.
It took them a long time to process everything they had heard that day,
They had listened to so much information that destroyed their view of life and even reality, everything in their world was just a woman's fantasy.
Meanwhile, at the top of the castle, Dora was also about to experience the full extent of her madness.
*
*
The gray-haired boy looked in disbelief at the woman in front of him.
"... You're actually serious?"