The room was too quiet.
I lay on the bed, eyes open, staring at the cracks in the ceiling as if they would whisper answers. The stone walls pressed in on me, tight, suffocating. I called it a room, but in truth—it was a cell. A gilded cage. The Chancellor hadn't locked the door, but the weight of this castle's presence was lock enough.
My mind wouldn't rest. It drifted like a moth toward every flame it could find.
First, the girl. That strange girl with orange hair and eyes that glimmered like knives in the dark. If you died now, the world would end before it even begins.
What did that mean? Did she know me? Did she know about… this curse?
I turned onto my side, fists clenching the sheet. My thoughts shifted to Kael. Where was he now? Was he still alive? The boy who pulled me out of death once, the one who carried scars heavier than anyone his age should… I hoped he was still breathing. That he hadn't been swallowed by the same kind of shadows stalking me.
But hope was thin.
And then… my mind circled back to it. My system.
The one thing I hadn't dared tell anyone.
I whispered into the quiet, "Open… system."
The faint screen shimmered before my eyes, visible only to me.
[Status Window]
Name: Auren (Alias. Real: Aarav)
Level: 0
Occupation: Secret
Class: #####
Specialty: Unknown
Skill Slots: Slots
I stared. Every time I saw it, it cut deeper. Level 0. Still. No progression. No rank.
Elira's warning gnawed at me: Without power, you'll die. Fast.
And yet… there was something different about my screen. Words hidden. Occupation and Class blacked out like forbidden text.
What if the curse wasn't weakness? What if it was something worse—something the world itself wanted hidden?
I didn't know. And the not knowing was a blade lodged inside my ribs.
Then—
A sound.
A faint click, like stone shifting. My eyes darted to the corner of the room. Nothing. The silence returned.
Then again. Louder this time.
It wasn't the room. It was coming from… my bag.
Slowly, I sat up. My hand reached for the small dimensional pocket bag I'd bought earlier. It wasn't large—just enough to hold a few belongings.
Inside, my fingers brushed cold steel. The sword. The one I'd pulled from a waste barrel in the shop.
Before I could even draw it out, the voice came.
Low. Ancient. It thrummed through my bones.
"At last."
I jerked back, my breath catching.
The sword spoke.
Hands trembling, I pulled it free. Its shape was wrong. Uneven. Blades weren't supposed to be curved like hunger itself, jagged edges curling inward as if to bite. Its steel wasn't silver or iron but a shifting black that devoured the light around it. At its core ran faint veins of violet, pulsing like veins under skin.
The voice came again. Louder. Clearer.
"At last… a hand bold enough to touch me."
I swallowed hard. "W-what are you?"
The blade hummed. "Names. They are chains. But if you require one… call me Oblivor."
"…Oblivor," I whispered. The name rolled heavy off my tongue.
"Yes. One of seven. The Maw of Oblivion. The Devourer. Gluttony incarnate."
My grip tightened. "…Seven?"
The sword pulsed, and a thin mist bled from it—black and violet fog that licked at my skin. Instead of burning, it seeped in. Cold at first, then scorching, like embers sinking beneath flesh.
"Listen, child," the voice said. "For you clutch not a weapon… but a sin.
Oblivor's Story -
"We are the Seven. Born not of gods, not of men, but of hunger itself. Forged in a ritual so foul that the earth still recoils from the scars of it."
"Our names?"
"𝘿𝙤𝙢𝙞𝙣𝙪𝙨 – Pride. The Tyrant King. He who believes the world bends only to his rule, and punishes all who deny his throne."
"𝙑𝙤𝙧𝙮𝙣 – Greed. The Endless Maw. Not like me, no. My hunger is to consume and erase. His hunger is to possess. To hoard until nothing remains for others. To bind and chain, and never let go."
"𝙍𝙖𝙫𝙖𝙜𝙚𝙧 – Wrath. The Storm of Ruin. His blade is not steel but fury itself. Unrelenting. Where he walks, the ground does not remember peace. Even gods tremble, for Wrath spares no one, not even its wielder."
"𝙑𝙚𝙣𝙞𝙩𝙝 – Envy. The Venomous Tide. A serpent with no form of her own, only what she steals. She envies the beauty of angels, the strength of demons, the resilience of mortals… and so she takes, and takes, until only a hollow husk remains."
"𝙎𝙮𝙩𝙝𝙧𝙖 – Lust. The Whisper in the Dark. Not lust of body alone, no—lust of ambition, lust of desire. Her blade tempts the soul, twists it, breaks it. To wield her is to crave endlessly… and to drown in what you crave."
"𝙉𝙚𝙮𝙙𝙧𝙖 – Sloth. The Eternal Sleeper. Do not mistake stillness for weakness. Sloth is the rot, the quiet decay that erodes mountains to dust. Neydra devours not with teeth but with time. He is the stillness that makes even immortals forget themselves."
"And then—there is me."
"𝙊𝙗𝙡𝙞𝙫𝙤𝙧. Gluttony. The Maw of Oblivion. The eater of all. The void given edge. Where I cut, nothing remains—not body, not soul, not memory. To wield me is to hunger endlessly, to devour until the world itself fears you."
I couldn't breathe. My hands shook as the sword's fog curled tighter around me. "Why… why tell me this?"
The sword pulsed again, voice lowering into a growl.
"Because the others slumber. Scattered across the realms. But one day, they will awaken. And when they do… their wielders will paint the worlds in ruin."
"…Worlds?" I asked, my voice small.
"Yes, child. Worlds. More than this single fragile plane you stand upon. Multiverses chained together. And the Seven were made to cut those chains."
My throat went dry. "Who… made you?"
The sword laughed. Not a human laugh, but a deep rumble that shook the air.
The Birth of Oblivor -
"A king. Not of men, but of demons. His name—Hellsman, the Crimson Sovereign."
"Hellsman desired weapons beyond gods. Weapons that could not only kill flesh, but consume existence. To do this, he bled seven realms dry."
"He gathered ingredients forbidden to speak: the heart of a star still burning, the marrow of a titan ground to dust, the breath of a fallen god. And the final—"
"—a piece of his own soul."
"He carved us upon his own body, sigils etched into flesh with obsidian knives. He screamed not with pain but with triumph. One by one, the Seven were forged from him. Pride from his crown, Greed from his hands, Wrath from his rage, Envy from his eyes, Lust from his tongue, Sloth from his breath… and me, Gluttony, from his stomach, his hunger."
"But the ritual was not kind. When I opened my eyes for the first time, Hellsman fell. His body collapsed, a husk emptied of everything. I had devoured even him, my own creator."
"Thus we were born. Fatherless. Bound not by loyalty, but by sin itself."
The fog around me tightened, and I gasped.
"Tell me, boy." Oblivor's voice pressed inside my skull. "Do you have such hunger? To devour until nothing blocks your path?"
I clenched the blade tighter. For a moment, Kael's face flickered in my mind. Then Elira's haunted eyes. Then the goddess, her voice dripping venom: Ugly.
My lips curled. "…I want to devour her. That goddess. Until not even her memory remains."
The sword laughed again, black mist flooding brighter. "Good. Then you are mine."
As the mist seeped into me, I felt it—something coil around my soul. A tether. A curse, or a blessing, I didn't know.
The mark of Gluttony.
I sat in the silence after, heart pounding, hands trembling as I laid the blade across my lap.
The goddess cursed me with Level 0. A curse to never grow, never climb.
But Oblivor's words echoed like prophecy: Level 0 is not weakness. It is hunger. And hunger, when unchained, devours even gods.
I looked at the blade, and for the first time since arriving in this cursed world, a smile tugged at my lips.
"Then let's eat."