The Last Circle-Chapter 18: Mystery

"A Fragment of Divinity?" said Nameless, staring with furrowed brows at the banner notification. As far as he was aware, the tutorial only mentioned the acquisition of such fragments through cleansing the Seeds of Corruption in a river of liquid fire.

But now, the liquid fire was rendered obsolete, for the most part. While he still didn't exactly understand how to willingly access the Sinner's Dream, it was clear to him that there was a greater benefit to reap by feeding the Shard of Sin with the seeds.

At least, he could only assume so, but even if it didn't bring any merits, it spared him the need to search for the rivers of liquid fire.

'Speaking of which, what the Hell even is liquid fire?'

He navigated to his status menu to observe the changes in his most important statuses:

Sin: 99,999,999,999,944

Fragments of Divinity: 1/1,000,000

He let out a soft, inquisitive hum as he stared with narrowed eyes. "They also get consumed immediately... Perhaps that's the only problem. I don't want to immediately appear up on the leaderboard," he said as he navigated to it to read:

[Evangelos Galliadis: 1,649]

"This Evangelos guy has been getting a lot of fragments... but how?"

That was a question that hid in the back of his mind for quite some time now. Ever since he first looked at the leaderboard, he noticed that there were always three names that the number one spot fluctuated between.

'Evangelos, Aurelia, and Kaelen,' he said to himself, rubbing his chin as he looked down at his feet. "Have they also gone through a trial similar to the Sinner's Dream's?"

It certainly was a mystery, and perhaps it would remain that way, unless if he were to come face-to-face with them one day.

He shook his head and decided to take his attention to the more important matters, deciding that it would be wise to not feed the Shard of Sin with the seeds just yet. After all, he was still far off from one-million seeds, and as far as he could tell, there was no benefit for the progress, however small it may be.

He stared at his list of attributes:

Attributes: [Immutable], [Lightless Creature], [Gaze of the Cleansing Fire (Devil Tier)](!), [Eternal Witness (Devil Tier)]

Nameless stared at the exclamation mark. As he focused on it, he watched as a banner notification appeared, reading:

[Your attribute is ready to evolve! Would you like to evolve [Gaze of the Cleansing Fire (Devil Tier)]?]

"Yes," he said, eager to see the changes.

A few moments would pass in silence, before a shattering sound played again, much like the one that ended up with him plunging into the abyssal sea of sins. Naturally, he jumped in fear, readying himself for anything bad to happen.

But nothing happened... at least, nothing apparent. He, however, did feel something different about himself. His already fiery eyes felt stronger, in a sense that he couldn't quite grasp. Perhaps it was the fact that he could see better in the dark now, but he knew that something, apart from that, was different.

Shame he didn't have a mirror to see that his eyes—once a bright, incandescent, flickering flame—now burned with a red tint, as though a ruby had morphed itself into a raging flame as he thought:

'If there are more trials of the Sinner's Dream, does that mean I can keep evolving my attributes?'

Pondering over it in silence, he looked back at the panel, reading a new message:

R𝑒ad latest chapt𝒆rs at freewebnovёl.ƈom Only.

[Congratulations on evolving your [Gaze of the Cleansing Fire (Devil Tier)] into [Gaze of the Cleansing Fire (Purgatorial Tier)]!]

"Huh?" Nameless stared straight at the display, awkwardly blinking as he raised a brow. "Purgatorial? I thought Devil Tier was the highest tier?"

One by one, things were starting to make less sense to him, not that Hell really made any sense to begin with. One of the few things he learned about attributes was that they too possessed their own tiers, creating varying power levels between them.

In fact, most attributes lacked the apparent distinction, only readily available if a Hell-dweller decided to read more into them, which Nameless didn't bother doing all this time.

According to the system, there were five tiers listed in ascending order:

Dark was the weakest. Fiendish was next, inspired by the fiendish creatures of Hell. Nephilim was next, which was named after "the fallen ones"... whatever those were. Then followed Abyssal, the second strongest. Finally, Devil: the best of the best.

Nameless possessed a decent variety of these tiered attributes, with his [Lightless Creature] attribute being of Dark Tier. His [Immutable] attribute being of Abyssal Tier, and of course, the other two were Devil Tier... or so that was the case for one of them now.

Which brought upon his bemusement. He evolved an attribute which was already at the supposed maximum, but now it was going beyond? Into Purgatorial Tier? What's beyond that? Was there anything beyond that?

"None of this stuff makes any sense," said Nameless, shaking his head as he fiddled with his thumbs and looked at them. "What a useless system."

He returned his gaze to the system and said:

"Examine attribute."

He watched as the display flickered and showed him an expanded page of more detailed information regarding the evolved attribute:

Attribute Name: [Gaze of the Cleansing Fire]

Attribute Type: [Passive, Offence]

Attribute Tier: (Purgatorial Tier)

Attribute Effect: [Any who gaze into your crimson-fiery eyes suffers a searing pain on their soul, amplified by the victim's sin count. The pain inflicted on their soul lingers between a few moments to a few days, with larger Sin equating to a longer duration. Additionally, when the afflicted close their eyes during the duration, they see your burning gaze, magnified, forcing them to suffer the same pain.]

Nameless pursed his lips as he nodded. It still didn't appear able to kill, but that was the least of his worries at this point, especially when he had the Rift of Flame now.

'Not bad,' so he thought, pleased with the outcome of the nightmarish trial he had to pass.

He didn't die, acquired a thousand Seeds of Corruption, the Shard of Sin accepted him as its master—whatever that meant—and he evolved an attribute. The only real question now was how he'd get out of here.

But no matter how much he'd try to think otherwise, his mind would always wander off, guiding him to the edge of the platform. He looked down, finding that his vision had indeed become better in the dark, able to make out some grooves and jagged edges along the weathered Shard of Sin.

With a mental command and his arm swinging down, across his body, he forced the Rift of Flame to appear once again, before he sliced his forearm with its edge, bursting into the ruinous flame.

"Still can't see," he said, staring at an impenetrable darkness deep down, raising the blade above his head and slashing down.

An arc of flame flew towards it, with its loud crackle echoing in the silent Sinner's Dream. Surprisingly, its flame failed to light up the darkness, and he even watched as it vanished for good into the obscure, black fog.

Within a few seconds of staring at the abyss below, he'd doused his ruinous flames, returning human once more as he said:

"Then I suppose that's the only way."

With a wavering heart and unconfident steps, he walked off the ledge, plunging into the dark below.