“Sire! Sire! Please wake up!”
I was being shaken frantically by some nuisance but I paid no attention to it. I could hear that were trying to tell me something but listening takes too much effort.
“SIRE! WE ARE UNDER ATTACK! A HERO LEADING A CRUSADE IS PREPARING TO LAY SIEGE TO YOUR CASTLE!”
I actually listened to that one, not because it raised its voice or that it was probably important but rather... I figured that the nuisance will go away if I listened and responded… yet… what did it just say? I guess I’ll just give a vague response and let it talk some more. I force my mouth open.
“I see”
“Y-you see?! Then do something?! You’ve been doing nothing but sleep ever since I was assigned to supervise you!”
Do something? About what? First off, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to be dealing with and second, can’t you see that I’m busy trying to sleep? I was still slumped against my chair, normally I would be lying on my bed but I had to get off so that my maids can clean the bed.
“SIRE! You are the Archdemon of this castle and ruler of the surrounding territories, you may be the Archdemon governing the sin of Sloth but that’s no excuse to sleep under crisis!”
Ahhh... that’s right I’m a demon, an Archdemon at that. I was once human of course, but some thousands or million years ago I descended into demonhood, I don’t remember exactly how long ago because that would be a pain.
With a sigh, I forced my eyes open and lifted my head up to face the nuisance. Her appearance was mostly humanlike apart from the two curving horns sprouting from her red hair, other than her head the rest of her body was concealed under her jet-black plate armor suit. I myself, am also a rare demon which keeps their human like appearance.
The red-haired demon glared, announcing “Using the power vested in me by the great-demon-king! I hereby command you, Acedia Iscariot of Sloth, to take action against the foolish humans who dared to invade your territory and by extension the territory of the great-demon-king!”
I sighed and simply replied “Don’t want to.”
“D-don’t want to? Y-you dare refuse an order by a Demonknight of the black order, the personal royal guard of the great-demon-king!?”
She was getting really annoying, of course I would refuse an order. Why would she need to ask? Explaining that to her would take a lot of energy so I decided to just close my eyes and try to go back to sleep.
Abruptly, I felt the sensation of a force hitting me square on the chest forcing me downwards and breaking the chair, forcing me to slump on the ground, albeit I was unharmed. As a Demon of Sloth, I specialise in ridiculously high durability and resistances so I can exist without actually doing anything.
I arbitrarily opened my eyes again and glanced at the redhead. Her eyes burned with rage and a crimson fiery aura has surrounded her body. I guess she thought that if she unleashed her powers and destroyed my chair, she could force me to move... but she underestimated me…
Without giving anything a second thought, I closed my eyes and continued to sleep on the floor.
“Th-that bad?! H-how is this thing an Archdemon? It’s driving me mad!”
Grabbing my feet, she threw me into the air before kicking me down again, landing on my chest and then continuing to flail her fists at my face in a wrathful rampage. Wrathful… assuming her explosive outburst I guess that she’s a Demon of the sin of Wrath, who derived their strength from their rage. Of course it wasn’t hurting me in the slightest so I continued to sleep.
Boom!
Suddenly the castle shook slightly.
How lacking in etiquette, now that she realised she can’t wake me up, she’s probably taking her anger out on the castle itself... The tremors continued and during that time I was suddenly being incessantly shook by a nuisance.
“Acedia! If you don’t stop them right now the tremors won’t stop! The crusaders will invade the castle and interfere with your sleep! Also I won’t stop shaking you until you wake up and do something!”
“I see…”
Truly this lady is a demon. What sort of sick creature seeks to interfere with one’s sleep? Even as a demon myself, I still find this quite repulsive. Fine you win, I guess she did the thinking for me with the whole crusaders invading my sleep part yet... this is all such a pain...
I lightly pinch the air with two fingers of my right hand and soon a force began to press onto my shoulders. As I pull my hand upwards, that force simultaneously lifted my whole body up. As my body lay dangling suspended in mid air, I turn my hand to position myself upwards facing the Wrath Demon. She held a look of slight bewilderment but it’s pointless to think about it.
Finally ‘moving’ around, I neared my window I sighed “This is such a pain… why does everything have to be such a pain…”
Outside the window on the barren wastelands surrounding my castle where even the smallest plant life refused to grow, there lay a massive army, too many to bother counting. Leading the army was a hero clad in bright silver armour, the type you’d find in your generic fairytale. Of course I would know this because being an Archdemon with vast territories, crusaders, heroes, angels and even other archdemons tried to subjugate me in the past.
These battles all ended the same way, complete and total victory for me, not that it wasn’t a pain. The only battle I would and could remember from my past was one with this platinum-haired hero. I say battle but I doubt that you can even call it that, she couldn’t even lay a scratch on me while I remained unmotivated for most of the fight.
The weak one tried with all their might while the strong didn’t even move, it was probably a pitiable scene to watch. After failing to even cut my hair, she fell to her knees and started crying. I’m sure that this encounter wasn’t even that special, that my other battles went pretty much the same way but for some odd reason this is the one I remember.
Maybe I was tired of her crying but I don’t really know… in the end I killed her just like all the rest – I literally crushed her heart. The most vivid part of this memory was the look on her face after I killed her.
Her hollow eyes held deep regret and failure.
With the enemy in my sights I began moving my left hand back and forth. The ground the crusaders stood in dented inwards and the knights caught within were squashed flat as if some force had come upon them. The army began to panic and within seconds they all began to flee… except the hero leading them.
“W...Waa… W-what is t-this p-power?” came a dumbfounded response from the Wrath demon. “In all my years I’ve never seen such an o-overwhelming victory… wait no… the hero still stands.”
Suddenly the hero sprouted wings from his back, huge pure white feathered wings… revealing his true identity as that of an angel. Soon, a heavenly aura surrounded the holy knight. Only one type of angel can display such an aura, an Archangel.
The hero closed the distance in a moment. He smashed through the walls bringing his fist to my face, launching me towards the wall. Colliding with the wall I slumped down with my back laying on the wall. Facing forward I saw the wrath demon’s body on the floor, with her head completely absent. She’s dead, I guess that’s a shame.
The angel grabbed me and threw me out of the hole in the wall and onto the barren wasteland. Lying with my back on the floor, I saw the angel close in while drawing their sword. Soon he swung his sword which should have pierced my body but instead ended up slicing through air.
Teleportation… the power to move instantaneously without actually moving… truly a power of sloth.
This fighting was getting tiring so before the Angel could realise where I was, I raised my opened hand aiming at the angels direction. The Angel soon realised where I was and rushed towards me but it was too late. I grasped my hand shut and the Angel flopped on the floor dead… I crushed his heart.
It was over.
It was supposed to be over.
However, the angel began to stir, both hands pushing against the ground to help itself up. “My… determination... will… not break so easily…” were the only words to come out of his mouth.
Determination? No… this is gonna be a pain... Similarly to demons who are attributed to a sin, angels on the other hand are attributed to virtues… This angel seemed to govern the virtue of Diligence, the complete opposite of Sloth… one of the abilities of said angel is the ability to rewind from death as long as the wielder still held determination within their hearts…
What a painful enemy to deal with.
I crushed his heart again and yet again he rose on his feet. It doesn’t matter, eventually he’ll give up just like all the rest and then I can finally get some sleep.
As the seconds turned to minutes and day turned to night I started getting irritated. Most of the Diligence angels lost their determination in under a minute and the rest within ten but this one has went on for almost ten hours!
After standing on his feet after dying for God-knows how many times I spoke out. “What is this pointless determination? What makes you keep resurrecting despite the fact that you know that you have no chance to win against me?”
The angel gave a slight chuckle, replying “The real question is…” while he took off his helmet to reveal
her
face “Why do you keep on living in sloth despite not having a reason to?” With her helmet absent her platinum hair flowed downwards in a swift motion.
Her… her face! Her hair! It’s her! The platinum-haired hero I met and killed long ago! I see… she ascended into angelhood after her death hasn’t she? Yet… why now? Why is she here? What keeps her going? What’s her motivation? Why does she refuse to die? My mind hasn’t worked this hard in so long that it started to ache a bit.
I look at her to find that streams of tears began falling from her face… wait… tears?.. Nothing is making any sense!
Amidst the crying she continued to speak, “even after million of years of training… honing my strength… building my power… I still couldn’t do anything…” Her face lacked anger. Resentment was also absent. Not even fighting spirit... all there was, was regret.
And… and that question! Why do I keep living in sloth?.. Why… Why do I keep living in sloth? Like drills boring into my brain, I bore through the millenia worth of memories I kept within my mind. I came across the scene back when she was still a human hero crying tears similarly to how she was now… still this tells me nothing… I searched deeper until a scene flashed before my eyes.
I was lying on the ground within a pool of blood… my blood. Is this… back when I was human? Soon the memory started to fade to black, possibly because I died. However, once the scene was completely devoid of any colour, a single light appeared. A small fire emanating out the hand of a hooded figure.
The figure spoke in a grand benevolent tone which disguised his malevolent nature… “I see that you are lost child, yet you still possess an unparalleled will to carry on. To continue existing no matter what… What an interesting specimen. Do you still wish to live on? I can gift you demonhood so that you may be reborn again.”
I weakly responded, “y-yes.”
The figure chuckled, “An instant response… good… excellent… exceptionally magnificent… the desire within you would empower the sin you are attributed to, to the highest conceivable heights! But with that, the sin will consume you, the sin will dominate your thinking, you will become an empty shell with only that sin to lead your way.”
“I will do it.”
Within the hood, I felt the figure smile, “Hahaha… I will delightfully observe you as you plow through all your enemies as if they were dirt… Very well, I will grant the blessing... and curse… of sloth, the desire to keep on living despite having no actual goal.”
“Yes, anything so that I may see my daughter again.”
“...”
With that the memory ended… wait… daughter… daughter!
I HAD A DAUGHTER!
Diving deeper into my memories, I came across another vision of my human past. This time I was in my house bidding farewell to a little girl.
My daughter.
She spoke, “Will daddy be gone for long?”
I replied in a soft-caring tone that I don’t even remember I had, “Don’t worry, I’ll be back. Daddy just has to be gone for a while. As a hero it is my duty to reign justice over evil, I promise I’ll be back.”
Her tone lowered, “And if you can’t keep that promise?”
I laughed in a kind, fatherly way, “Well, I will always have my little angel to save me!”
Her tone lightened up and she smiled brightly, running towards me and giving me a hug. “R-really?”
I caressed her while replying “Yes really!”
“I love you daddy.”
I responded “I love you too my little angel,” while caressing her hair, her beautiful platinum hair.
Returning into reality I saw the archangel’s figure, her holy aura dimming until it was only a faint glimmer in this dark night.
I see… I understand it all now…
The reason why she was the only hero I remembered, why she still held determination in her heart. She was trying to save me… I smiled.
For the first time in millions of years I smiled. She grew up… in my absence she grew into the hero I never was and eventually became an angel… while I became a demon… All those years I wasted, the lives I took, the burden of sloth I placed upon myself… just so I can see her face again.
In my mind I began laughing to myself… what other reaction could I have? Millions of years living in sloth with my original purpose unknown to me and when the purpose revealed itself… I killed it… with my own hands. I doubt you can find a more fantastic comedy than this one. Standing myself up I faced my daughter, her eyes covered with tears. I began walking towards her, a movement I haven’t done since becoming a demon.
Her eyes opened wide, “Wha-what are you doing?..” She knew that it was abnormal for Sloth demons to actually move. Not just because their desires were against it but because the Sin itself denied it.
Movement is contradictory to sloth and as such the more one moves the weaker they become.
I can feel the power draining out of me but I didn’t mind it. I kept on walking towards my daughter.
“I’m… I’m proud of you…” While looking at her I saw that her tears were forcefully being back and her mood had changed. “I’m proud of what you’ve become and what you’re trying to do.” The distance between us shortened until we were a couple feet away from each other.
“Fa-father? You… You remember?” Were the only words she was able to muster. The eyes changed from eyes of regret to eyes of mild accomplishment. Her Aura brightened up, illuminating this empty atmosphere.
“I love you my little angel.” I walked down towards her and we embraced each other in our arms.
“I love you too father.” Were the words I received back.
Soon I felt something pierce my chest but I paid no attention to it. It was the warmest thing my cold heart felt in a long time.