Sloth

The wind on the ridge was still biting, whipping up sand, gravel, and remnants of snow.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!

Dull impacts continued to reverberate along the outer walls of Brugge's barrier.

The sound was neither like metal clashing nor like a heavy object striking; it was more like something invisible yet heavy continuously crashing against incredibly tough rubber. Clear ripples spread across the surface of the barrier where it was struck, but the barrier itself remained as solid as a rock, without even the slightest tremor.

Brugge maintained his raised hand gesture, the hem of his coat fluttering in the wind. Through the barrier, he looked down at the edge of the forest—Petricius Romani-Conti still stood there with his arms outstretched, his dark green eyes gleaming, his mouth stretched almost to his ears. Behind him, the eleven "fingers" stood stiffly in a twisted position, their eyes rolled back, their faces bearing empty and uniform smiles.

The impact continued.

Bang, bang, bang...

The rhythm was steady, the force heavy and powerful, each strike enough to shatter ordinary brick walls. But when it hit Brugge's barrier, it did nothing but create ripples and muffled thuds.

Sense stood half a step behind Brugge. Her eyelids drooped, and her long brown hair hung quietly behind her inside the barrier, the ends touching her boots. She listened to the continuous thuds, her gaze calmly sweeping across the empty air outside the barrier.

"Brugge, there was definitely an attack, right?"

"Certainly."

Brugge answered, his voice muffled but clear, coming through his raised collar.

"I sense several... currently seven invisible forces continuously attacking my barrier. Judging from the intensity and distribution of the impacts, they appear to be purely physical impacts and compressions, with the attacks themselves lacking complex properties."

"There are no problems at the moment. The barrier is strong enough; even if this level of attack continues for a whole day, it won't cause any significant damage."

His gaze fell on the empty hillside outside the barrier.

"This kind of attack seems to be 'invisible.' Not only is it invisible to the naked eye, but even conventional magical perception struggles to detect its specific form and trajectory. Its existence and approximate location can only be inferred from the fluctuations it generates when it strikes the barrier."

Falsh stood next to Sense. He pushed up his round-framed glasses, his gaze behind the lenses calmly analyzing the situation.

"An 'invisible attack'..."

He repeated it softly, then, as if remembering something, turned his head to look at Sense.

"We're also 'invisible,' how about that?"

Sense did not answer immediately. She raised her hand and gently twirled a strand of her long brown hair that hung down in front of her chest with the tip of her index finger.

Then she nodded.

"Can."

The words faded away.

Brugge maintained the barrier. Sense and Falsh's figures, within this transparent barrier, vanished without warning or a sound.

The ridge was completely silent.

There was only the sound of the wind, and the continuous, dull thuds of impacts from an invisible hand.

Bang bang bang... Bang bang bang...

Petruccius Romani-Conti stood at the edge of the forest below. His outstretched arms drooped slightly, and the manic smile on his face froze for a moment. His dark green eyes were fixed on the solitary deep blue figure standing in the barrier on the ridge, and the empty hillside behind him.

"... Huh?"

He tilted his head, and a slight "click" sound came from his neck.

"Where are they? My precious, future 'fingers'... Where are they? They were just there a moment ago... Two, yes, two such exceptional beings... Where did they go?"

He began to turn his neck from side to side, his movements stiff and strange, like a rusty wind-up doll. His dark green eyes widened, his pupils darting wildly in their sockets, scanning the mountain ridge, the sky, and even the distant wilderness.

"Gone? Vanished? How could this be...? The gift the witch bestowed upon me... How could it disappear? Impossible, impossible, impossible! It must be hidden! Yes, hidden! Trying to escape 'diligence'! Trying to escape 'love'! Unforgivable! Unforgivable, unforgivable!!"

His voice gradually rose, his speech quickened, and the last "forgive" almost cracked.

"Come out! Come out, come out, come out! I know you're here! Come out and accept your fate! Become my fingers! Become my instrument to repay that deep love! Come out! Come out—"

Laugh.

A very faint, yet perfectly clear, muffled thud as a sharp object pierced flesh.

Petitschius's voice abruptly stopped.

He lowered his head.

Four strands of strong, smooth, brown hair, gleaming softly in the dim light, pierced through the joints of his limbs: left shoulder, right shoulder, left thigh, and right thigh. The hair precisely pierced the gaps in the joints, severed tendons, and pinned down the space for bone movement.

Petruccius remained frozen in place, head bowed. He tried to move his left arm, but couldn't budge it an inch.

He raised his head again.

Sense stood three steps away from him. She had somehow emerged from her complete Concealment and revealed herself. Her long, brown hair moved without wind, with four strands extending out to connect to the wounds on Petitchius's limbs, while the rest fell behind her, the ends gently brushing against the withered grass and pebbles on the ground.

Her eyelids drooped, her face expressionless, as she calmly looked at him, as if examining an obstacle that had suddenly blocked her path.

Falsh stood to her side and slightly behind. He still had his glasses up, and his gaze behind the lenses calmly swept over Petitius's pierced limbs, then over the surrounding stiff "fingers," and finally landed on Sense, where he gave a slight nod.

Sense's gaze fell on Petitchius's face, contorted with pain and shock, and he spoke, his voice steady and cold:

"What is the Witch Cult?"

Petruccius blinked. The pain seemed to finally reach his nerves; his cheek muscles began to twitch uncontrollably, his mouth gaping open to reveal his gleaming white teeth. But he didn't scream, he didn't curse; instead—

"Heh... hehe..."

He chuckled softly, his voice hoarse and trembling as if leaking air.

"Hehehe... Ahahaha... Ahh!!"

The laughter suddenly rose, turning into hysterical maniacal laughter! He threw his head back, veins bulging on his neck, and a terrifying, chaotic light erupted from his dark green eyes!

"It hurts! It hurts so much! It hurts so much! But—but!!"

He roared, his body trembling violently from the madness of laughter and the excruciating pain. The strands of hair pinned to his joints were pulled, and dark red blood finally seeped from the wounds, slowly sliding down his brown hair.

"This is a trial! This is a test! This is the witch's recognition of my 'diligence'! This is love! This is love!!"

He glared at Sense, his eyes almost bulging out of their sockets.

"You're asking me? What is the Witch Cult? Hahaha! Foolish! Ignorant! Pathetic imperfections!! The Witch Cult —is faith! It is truth! It is the only correct path in this world! And we, the Sin Archbishop —are the highest messengers who walk this path, acting on the will of the Witch!!"

He tried to open his arms as if to embrace, but his arms, held in place by strands of hair, could only twitch slightly.

"And I! Petritchius Romani-Conti! The Sin Archbishop of 'sloth'! Am the most diligent! The most loyal! The most favored among them!!"

His voice trembled with extreme excitement, and saliva splattered from the corner of his mouth.

"Look! Look around! These 'fingers' I carefully selected and nurtured! Each and every one of them was once an imperfect, flawed, and confused soul! It was I! It was I who gave them a goal! I gave them a meaning to their existence! I allowed them to devote themselves to this great diligence! To dedicate themselves to this supreme love!!"

He frantically rolled his eyes, scanning the eleven frozen "fingers" around him. Those puppets, their eyes rolled back, still wore empty smiles on their faces, standing motionless on the hillside like bizarre sculptures.

"And now—you! All of you!" He stared at Sense again, his gaze burning like a madman, "You unauthorized, imperfect impurities! How dare you harm the body bestowed upon me by the Witch! How dare you question my path! Unforgivable! Unforgivable! Unforgivable!!"

He roared, and his body began to move forward in a bizarre way.

It's not about leaving.

He dragged his limbs, which were pinned down by his hair, forward inch by inch, using only the strength of his waist, abdomen, and neck. The wounds at his joints were roughly pulled and torn, and more blood gushed out, staining his brown hair and tattered black priest's robe. But he seemed to feel no pain; his face only showed an increasingly intense madness.

"But—yes! That's it! Pain! Suffering! Struggle! This is proof of diligence! It's the price of love! Come! More trials! More pain!! Let me be more, more diligent!!"

Sense frowned slightly. Not out of fear or disgust, but more out of pure bewilderment at the sight before her. She watched Petitchius writhe and stubbornly move toward her like an insect nailed to a board, his dark green eyes Burning almost to the ground.

"Your purpose," she interrupted his increasingly frantic roars, her voice still calm, "To appear here and attack us. Your purpose."

"Purpose? Hahaha! Purpose?!"

Petitschius stopped moving and laughed wildly again, looking up at the sky.

"Is that even a question?! Is that even a question?! Of course it's—to turn you all! All of you high-quality beings! into my 'finger'!!"

He roared, his voice echoing through the valley.

"More 'fingers'! More bodies to command! More tools to perform 'diligence'! Only then can I better, more perfectly, and more thoroughly repay the witch's love!!"

He took a deep breath, his chest heaving violently, and then roared with all his might:

"And you—how dare you resist! How dare you harm this precious body that embodies 'diligence' and 'love'! Unforgivable! Absolutely unforgivable!!"

So—so!!

He stared intently at Sense, his mouth stretched to his ears, revealing an extremely ferocious smile.

"I will turn you—all of you! Every single one of you! into my 'finger'!! So that you may repent in eternal diligence! And struggle in endless love!!"

"My brain is shaking!!"

The final roar tore through the air, echoing through the mountains.

Almost at the same instant his roar reached its peak—

Those eleven "fingers," which had been standing still like sculptures, suddenly sprang up!

Eleven pairs of eyes, rolled back in their sockets, instantly turned towards Sense and Falsh! Eleven empty smiling faces, their corners of their mouths suddenly widened to an inhuman width! Eleven bodies, which had been frozen in various contorted postures, were suddenly pulled by invisible threads, and with a speed and angle that defied all human ergonomics and was almost eerily fast, they pounced on the two on the ridge!

Their movements were haphazard, yet carried a wild, frenzied precision. Some sprang from all fours like spiders; others bent backwards and bounced up like broken bamboo poles; still others rolled across the ground, kicking up a cloud of sand and dust.

There was only one target—the two isolated figures beside Petitchius Romani-Conti, who was temporarily pinned down by Sense's hair and screaming madly.

The attack is imminent.