In my restless dreams, I see the same thing on repeat.

  The same accursed fate. The same faces.

  They trust me, yet this vision makes me doubt them. It makes me doubt everything.

  And I always ask myself: "Do I even deserve their trust?"

  I probably don't. But that's just another reason I need this wish. I'll fix everything. And then, maybe then, I'll find the courage to tell her how I feel. Or perhaps I'm just making excuses, delaying until the chance is lost forever.

  "Ghost, are you even listening?"

  Our information gatherer, Rykard, pulled me from my thoughts. My gaze was fixed not on him, but on his long black hair, tied back in a ponytail.

  "No," I said, finally meeting his eyes. "I'm not."

  "Great." The light in his green eyes dimmed. He'd genuinely wanted me to hear this.

  "Don't worry about it, Rykard."

  The Hero interrupted, her voice a calming force. Her white hair fluttered like strands of starlight, and her blue eyes found mine—twin moons full of a faith I wasn't sure I warranted. "We'll just have to fill him in on the road," she said.

  "Like always," our mage retorted from her corner of the room, her tone laced with a familiar, weary affection.

  "Not that it'd make a difference," Rykard replied, shrugging. "We'll defeat the Demon King either way."

  A grandiose claim, but not a baseless one. To even approach the Demon King is a feat beyond the dreams of most armies, let alone a party of four where one isn't even a combatant. But we don't just have the Hero, chosen by humanity's deity; we carry the blessings of all the gods.

  Yet, I can't shake this feeling. This deep, chilling certainty that none of us will survive that final encounter. It's not a question of strength. It's the terrifying knowledge that our story... simply isn't meant to have a happy ending.

  They were ready to move toward our final destination. Just one last objective stood between us and the end of our story.

  Kill the Demon King. Claim our wishes from the gods.

  Hopefully, it would be that simple.

  Hopefully.

  ***

  Once on the road, each mounted on our own horse, we rode for the Demon King's castle. The path ahead was bleak, a scar of corruption cutting through the land.

  We had already slain his generals and scattered their armies. Only one figure and his final legion remained.

  "If only we'd killed him when he was weak!" Rykard yelled, his voice sharp with a regret he couldn't quell.

  "Rykard," Meryl, our mage, called to him, her tone weary. "We've already talked about this." She had long grown tired of this particular grief.

  "He was weak, and we couldn't kill him," Rykard continued, unable to swallow the bitter memory. "And we lost so many good people because of it."

  "Rykard," Meryl tried again, a plea to let the past lie.

  "Sean... Samuel... Jill..." he listed the names like a grim mantra.

  I had heard the names before, but never the full story. They were ghosts in our party, casualties of a battle I hadn't shared.

  "...Mary." Rykard's voice dropped to a broken whisper.

  Before anyone could muster a response, the Hero raised a fist, bringing our party to an abrupt halt.

  She pointed to a narrow, almost invisible break in the woods to our right. "Rykard and Meryl will take that path."

  Her hand then swung toward a more defined trail."Ghost and I will take this one. Everyone remember the plan."

  "Aye aye, Captain," Rykard said, the familiar bravado forced but comforting. He and Meryl dismounted and vanished into the thick undergrowth on foot.

  The Hero and I urged our horses onward, the thunder of our hooves the only sound between us.

  The plan was simple, a pincer movement of brute force and precision.

  On our end, I would break the army's front line. She would use the chaos to breach the main gate and push toward the throne room.

  On their end, Rykard and Meryl would infiltrate the castle's underbelly, eliminate the spellcasters powering the Demon King's defenses, and regroup with the Hero for the final assault.

  A simple but solid plan.

  "This is it, our last stop. Don't I get a bedtime story before the end?" I asked. I needed to know their history, to understand the ghosts that haunted them before we faced our own potential end.

  A long silence stretched between the thud of our horses' hooves. "I suppose I do owe you that much," she finally answered. I couldn't see her face, and she masked her emotions well, but I knew her enough to catch the subtle tremor in her voice. The memory was a raw wound, yet she was choosing to open it for me.

  "Before you joined us, we assembled a group of the most talented individuals we could find. We trained for years for the second coming of the Demon King."

  "Since the legendary Hunters had vanished and couldn't be the ones to face him. Yeah, you told me that much."

  "Yes. Sean, Samuel, Jill... Mary... they were all part of that original group. But they weren't the only ones." Her voice grew heavy. "There were ten of us, at the start."

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  "Ten?" I asked, the number feeling impossibly large for the four who remained.

  "Yes. Me, Rykard, Meryl, Mary, Sean, Samuel, and Jill, whom you know. But there were two others... ones who didn't die, but gave up."

  "Who were they?"

  "A paladin named Yas. And a warrior named James." She spoke their names like relics from a lost age.

  "You said they left. Why?"

  "Yas broke her sacred oath of non-violence," she explained, the memory paining her. "It was in a fit of rage and grief after we escaped the Demon King the first time. She lost her hand in that battle, and her faith shortly after."

  "And James? Why was he with you?"

  "He was strong, but he wasn't with us to kill the Demon King. He had received a letter, supposedly from his dead wife, saying she was waiting for him on a hilltop. When we met, we realized that hill was the prophesied location of the Demon King's return. He joined us for the chance to see her again."

  "Then why did he leave?"

  "Because when the Demon King appeared," she said, her voice dropping to a horrified whisper, "it became terrifyingly clear. The gods had tricked him. They forged the letter and used his love for a ghost to recruit him. He left that day, broken in a way a sword never could achieve."

  "Gods..." I breathed, the word itself feeling like a curse. "That's... brutally cruel."

  "But," I remembered the very premise of our mission, the fuel for our entire journey. "what about the wishes? He could have wished her back."

  "After our defeat, James believed the wishes were the grandest hoax of all." Her words fell like a final, heavy stone. "He said no reward was worth serving masters who would desecrate a love like his."

  "I see," I replied. The castle had emerged on the horizon, a jagged silhouette of pure malice, and before it, the Demon King's army churned like a dark tide. "I guess this is goodbye, then. Hopefully, just for now." I slowed my horse to a stop.

  "Yeah," she said, matching my pace until both our steeds stood still. "We'll defeat him this time. I know it."

  I swung myself out of the saddle, my boots hitting the scarred earth with a sense of finality. "Don't worry," I said, turning to face the endless ranks of monsters alone. "I'll clear the path. I'll see you at the throne room to collect my wish."

  ***

  I sat on the corpse of a cyclops, my body screaming in protest. The earth around me was a churned mess of mud and demonic blood, a testament to the slaughter. My longsword had shattered an hour into the fight, and my other weapons were now just scraps of metal and spent enchantments.

  With a trembling hand, I checked my bag, its holding spell flickering weakly. Only one vial remained: a single, highest-grade healing potion, glowing with a taunting, final promise.

  My mana reserve was a barren wasteland, a hollow ache in my core. And from the castle looming above… nothing. No clash of steel, no roar of spells. Only a silence more terrifying than any battle cry.

  And so, with the last of my strength, I pushed myself to my feet and began to walk towards it.

  ***

  "My return is inevitable." The Demon King, kneeling, forced out the words, his voice a hollow rasp. The many eyes that dotted his form were devoid of their former malevolent light. "I. Will. Return." With that final threat, his pale skin grew paler still, then crumbled into dust.

  But the aftermath of his final battle did not vanish with him.

  "Mary..." Rykard's weak voice called out. "It seems I'll be joining you in our new home after all." The light in his eyes was dimming, the life fleeing from them. Meryl's magick was no miracle; it could not regrow the arm he had lost, nor restore the flesh torn from the gaping hole in his chest. He was a dead man, and though Meryl knew it, she still tried.

  "Meryl, it's useless. He's already gone," the Hero said, her voice heavy.

  But Meryl did not stop. Her tears fell freely, a desperate counterpoint to her failing spells.

  "Rykard, please," she begged, willing him to show her a miracle he could not provide.

  She had always known his heart belonged to another—to the memory of Mary—yet she could not help but love him. And now, she was awash in the bitter regret of never having told him.

  "I'm sorry, Rykard. May our next lives be better. Happier." Gently, she laid his body upon the ground. Her eyes still streamed, but her voice found a new strength as she looked at her sole remaining comrade. "What are you waiting for? Make the wish. Now."

  "Yes. You're right." The Hero straightened her posture, composing herself.

  One wish. That was all they would receive, and she was the one chosen to make it.

  This came as no surprise to her, to Meryl, or to the fallen Rykard. They had known the cost from the beginning. It was only Ghost they had lied to, securing his aid with a false promise.

  "Gods," she began, then corrected herself with a shake of her head. "No. I do not make this wish of the gods, and I know it is not they who will answer."

  She drew a final, shuddering breath and spoke the words that would unmake everything.

  "I wish of the world: erase this one, and in its place, give us another."

  No voice answered her. Instead, the very air grew thick and heavy, warming rapidly until each breath was a struggle, as if the world itself were holding its last.

  She turned back to Meryl, and what she saw horrified her.

  Ghost was standing there. His face was hidden, yet she could feel the weight of his anger—a silent, seething force that made the very air feel heavy and dangerous.

  ***

  When I reached the entrance to the Demon King's chamber, the scene beyond the open door froze the very blood in my veins.

  Rykard lay bleeding out, and Meryl was sobbing over his corpse.

  My first instinct was to rush in, to demand what had happened. But their conversation held me at the threshold.

  A wish. One. Singular wish.

  And she was the one who held it.

  Why else would Meryl be urging her to make the wish? Why was she the one to decide?

  I wanted to burst in and stop her, but a treacherous thought whispered, How bad could it possibly be? I clung to that false reassurance.

  Then I heard her wish. "I wish of the world: erase this one, and in its place, give us another."

  And my world shattered.

  When she turned and saw me, the look on her face confirmed everything I feared.

  She was terrified of me.

  "Ghost, how long have you—"

  "Long enough," I answered, my voice a dry, rasping thing. It didn't matter.

  "I apologize for deceiving you, I truly do—"

  "It's not the deception that angers me. I could have forgiven that. It is the wish. The betrayal. And, most of all, the lie."

  "I—" She started another excuse, but it was cut short as Meryl intervened.

  "Give it up, Ghost," Meryl spat, her voice like nails on a chalkboard to my ears. "This was the plan all along. This world is simply not worth saving."

  Her words were the final spark. I was moving before I even willed it, my speed shocking even me. My goal was singular.

  I closed the distance and seized the left side of her face with my right hand. Fire magic erupted from my palm. She struggled, her screams choked and brief, but I held fast until flesh and sinew vaporized, leaving only bone.

  I turned my gaze to the Hero. Her face was streaked with tears, a sight that once would have shattered me. Now, it only stoked my fury into a hotter, cleaner flame.

  I rushed her, faster this time.

  My hands found her throat, squeezing. As I looked at her face, I hesitated, my right hand loosening its grip.

  She must have mistaken my pause for mercy. A flicker of hope crossed her features.

  "It's not—" she began.

  But I would not be poisoned by another lie.

  My index finger and thumb shot forward, lodging deep into her left eye socket. There was a wet, sickening pop as I ripped the orb free and flung her to the ground.

  She hit the floor, her screams echoing through the chamber like a damned soul's.

  It meant nothing. I stared, my gaze a vacant void, at the eye resting in my palm.

  "Still beautiful," I mused. "A shame it belonged to someone like you."

  Plip.

  It made a soft, wet sound when it hit the ground, followed by a definitive crush beneath my heel.

  I advanced on her again, my anger not subsiding but crystallizing into something absolute. With every step, I felt stronger. And I felt… watched. Not by humans or demons, but by vast, ancient presences. Their gazes fell upon me, and with them came a profound, undeniable need to declare my purpose to the cosmos.

  And so I declared it.

  "ONE! I shall visit upon you every ounce of pain you have brought upon me!

  TWO! I shall bring suffering to the new world you destroyed mine to create!

  THREE! I shall bring death to the gods and the Sins who stood by and let this happen!"

  With those words, I sealed my fate. I felt the title sear itself into my soul: the Sin of Wrath.

  First, I would hunt the other Sins. Then, I would turn my gaze to the gods.