Chapter 414: Gate of Hell
When Corleon’s words fell, the space fell silent for a brief instant.
Then Sloth’s voice slowly sounded. “It was because you were tampering with the past, fixing the future, and at the present where the past and the future intersect, that concept had not yet arrived.”
Corleon said with clear appreciation, “It seems you have digested the knowledge taught by the monastery quite thoroughly.”
Sloth said, “I never cared about what something was. I only cared about whether it was useful. And as for the monastery you wish to use to change the future, to someone like me who wanted to reach the future, it was naturally useful.”
Gluttony’s voice suddenly rang out. “That’s impossible! If that were really the case, wouldn’t that mean we were already destined to die?”
“Our future has already been pronounced, and our past is also being denied. Even those Primordial Gods who ran off who knows where could not do something like that.”
It was so furious that it completely ignored the plan agreed upon earlier—to take turns attacking and conserve the accumulated power—and instead desperately assaulted Corleon, once even pressing the purification light that had leaked out back into the humanoid form.
But its anger came quickly, and it also faded quickly.
Because the accumulated power it consumed in an instant was too great, if it did not recover and continued attacking like this, it might fall into slumber.
Although it would only be a brief slumber measured in days, in the current situation, even half a day could allow Corleon to leave in advance.
After anger withdrew from the rhythm of suppression, the purification light that once again leaked out extended past two hundred layers, yet it still did not penetrate Greed’s world.
Only after there were no more extraneous voices did Pride speak. “That is indeed impossible. If we did not exist in either the past or the future, then we should have already disappeared in the present, to the extent that even any trace of our existence in this world would have vanished.”
“But to achieve that, even the Primordial Gods could not do it. Perhaps after you truly became unified, you would have the qualification to do such a thing, but at least for now, while you still clung to retaining some humanity, you could not.”
“And after you truly became unified, you would not even care about such a trivial matter.”
Corleon nodded and said, “You are right. Right now, I indeed had no way to do that, so I left this matter to the future. But that did not mean I could do nothing in the present.”
“What did you do?” a voice asked with curiosity.
Corleon turned to Sloth and asked, “Can you guess what I did?”
Sloth said, “Whether I could guess or not—shouldn’t you already know that?”
After speaking, a New Testament Scriptures appeared in his hand.
With a wave of his hand, the New Testament Scriptures floated into the air, then flipped open with a ‘shua’, finally stopping at the chapter of the Seven Deadly Sins.
At the very beginning, in the preface, it was written that the Lord had finally exiled the Seven Deadly Sins who had brought about humanity’s fall, imprisoning them in the nine hundred and ninety-nine layers of Hell, and had bestowed names upon them, warning them that when their true names were spoken aloud, it meant His eyes had discovered them, and they must return to Hell—this was their final destination.
Sloth said leisurely, “Nine hundred and ninety-nine layers of Hell… those eyes were truly terrifying. They had already seen how many layers of space we would fold out, even before we had finalized this plan.”
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Corleon said in a consoling tone, “Actually, it wasn’t that terrifying—if anything, it was exhausting. I needed to find a suitable opportunity to write all of this down. If I wrote it too early, you would easily discover it; if I wrote it too late, I would be unable to fix the anchor point.”
“So, in order to obtain a perfectly correct answer, I had to use every single breath as a time node to calculate the future countless years ahead. Only then could I finally find an answer that came closest to absolute correctness.”
“And even because of these countless deductions, innumerable branch worlds that I myself could not be certain of were born.”
“These were all costs.”
Envy and Greed cursed together, “If you dislike it so much, then give us those eyes!”
Corleon merely smiled and ignored them.
A voice sighed. “So it wasn’t just that we trapped you here. It was also that you wanted to trap us within this span of time.”
Corleon said, “But in the end, I still did not completely trap you here. You were ultimately too powerful. Even if you stayed here, you could still split off a bit of will and send it into the material realm.”
“And only by investing all of my will here could I leave at the time I needed.”
“Of course, you don’t need to waste effort searching. I can tell you directly—the anchor point exists within the fissures of time, which is the Hall of Heroes.”
“Without my permission, even if you became great heroes praised by the entire world, you still would not be able to enter that fissure of time.”
Sloth muttered, “The fissures of time, huh—looks like it was that idiot Greed.”
Greed froze for a moment, then cursed back, “You’re the idiot! Why are you scolding me?”
Sloth glanced at him. “I was talking about that fragment of will of yours that got captured. Of course, what you just said also made me certain that there was a reason it was stupid.”
“You—” Greed was about to curse back.
But Gluttony interrupted it. “You mean that the content written in this New Testament Scriptures—the anchor point—is Greed’s avatar?”
Sloth said, “Who else could it be? To become an anchor point, sufficient recognition of will was required. And we, the Original Sins, were born of will—we were embodiments of will itself. Naturally, we could also be said to be countless wills. And who wasn’t greedy? Even him.”
“He might not have lust, might not indulge in gluttony, perhaps had no wrath. He looked humble, already possessed everything, and was diligently transforming this world. But he was absolutely greedy. He wanted to control everything. He wanted this world to become the way he desired. This was the greatest greed.”
Corleon sighed softly. “The reason it was Greed was because what it yearned for was precisely that which could not be touched. So I also acknowledged what you said—my greed.”
After speaking, Corleon said to Greed, “That was also why your fragment of will lived quite well with me. I was worried it might get bored, so I even gave it a New Testament Scriptures to read.”
“Perhaps it would be the first among you to accept the baptismal name of my bestowal, even though it was only a fragment of will.”
Sloth’s voice drifted slowly, like that of an old man, as he recited a passage from the New Testament Scriptures. “That was precisely the Sin of Greed, the King of Hell, Mammon. He was greedy for everything, greedily desiring to possess all things. He existed within human greed. When human greed expanded infinitely, it might summon this King of Hell, becoming the Gate of Hell through which this King of Hell touched the world.”