Beyond the Eternity

"Hm... hm-hm-hm... hm-hm-hm~"

Gula hummed cheerfully, skipping lightly through the passageway, her mood as bright as ever.

And who could blame her? There was a perfectly good reason for her cheerfulness. She had dispatched her opponent with ease, swiftly completing the task at hand. Now, she had the luxury of returning early, eager to indulge in some delectable desserts while her sisters were still busy with their opponents.

Her sisters, of course, were wise to her appetite and always hid the snacks and treats from her, fearing she would devour everything in one greedy gulp.

There had been incidents, after all. One time, when they weren't looking, she ate all the food in the house. Another time, she accidentally consumed something harmful and ended up "sick." Luxuzia, the one who was supposed to be watching her, had gotten an earful for that.

So, in the end, her sisters decided the best course of action was to keep the food hidden and monitor her closely.

But now? Now, she had the perfect opportunity to sneak away and find their stash, savoring it all without any interruptions.

She giggled.

"Hehe! I wonder, I wonder. What should I eat today? Maybe I eat ice cream, but I tried that a few days ago, so I don't have an appetite for it. Ohhh, maybe I should try Chinese food. I always wanted to try Peking Duck, but I also have an appetite for Dumplings. Ah! This is a serious problem... Which one should I eat?"

She stopped mid-step, folding her arms with a serious expression on her face.

She was in the midst of a crisis, a serious one and it seemed like monumental too! She couldn't decide what to eat. It was a choice too difficult to make.

The house, large as it was, had an equally vast storage of supplies. New materials were either delivered by her master, the Witch of Darkness, or created by her sisters. They were never lacking in anything. Even if their food stocks ran low, they could go several days without any, provided they had accumulated enough energy to sustain themselves.

But what was the point of staying without food?

The thing was, new food always found its way into the house eventually. And that, in part, was because Gula was always hungry.

Her insatiable appetite was both her blessing and her curse. It was the reason she was known as "Gluttony."

That was her sin.

No matter how much she ate, the hunger always returned, gnawing at her like an insatiable beast. At first, Gula had worried that something might be wrong with her, that perhaps she was flawed in some way. But her sisters had reassured her, explaining that her condition was no defect—it was simply how she had been programmed. Her insatiable appetite was a part of her very design, and encoded into her biometric programming.

In fact, all the Seven Flames were programmed according to their sins.

Superbia was the Flame of Pride, thus, she was prideful.

Invidia was the Flame of Envy, thus, she was envious.

Avaritia was the Flame of Greed, thus, she was greedy of others.

Ira was the Flame of Wrath, thus, she had a furious personality.

Acedia was the Flame of Sloth, thus, she was always sleepy.

And Gula was the Flame of Gluttony, thus, she was gluttonous.

Each of them were carefully programmed according to their sin, perfectly aligned with the name they carried. It was their "origin", their "curse", and their "purpose".

Gula clicked her tongue impatiently.

"Ahhhhhh! This is too stressful! Why don't I take everything? Yes! Let's do that!"

Making decisions had never been her strong suit. Why bother with the headache of choosing when she could simply devour it all? It was a much easier, and tastier, solution than agonizing over the alternatives.

She took a confident step forward—

Grrr...grumble...!

Her stomach emitted an unsettling sound, like a deep protest from within. Gula paused, a flicker of confusion crossing her face. Dismissing it as mere hunger, she continued forward, even though she'd recently devoured that "woman."

But then it happened again, more intense this time—

Grrrrn...glorp...!

A wave of nausea struck her like a hammer, and the passage spun in her vision. Her confident stride faltered, and she braced herself against the wall.

"W-What? What's happening...?"

Her voice trembled as her surroundings became increasingly distorted. She stumbled forward, only for the unsettling churn in her stomach to intensify.

She was certain that the problem wasn't hunger. It felt as if her stomach were rebelling, punishing her for something vile she had consumed.

"Ugh... I don't feel so good. Oh no, mhmm..."

The sensation clawed its way upward. She clamped a hand over her mouth, desperately trying to hold it back. But resistance was futile.

Her legs buckled, and her body heaved violently.

"Ugehh!"

With a sickening, guttural noise, she vomited. Her body convulsed as the contents of half-digested food and sweets splattered onto the floor in a disgusting mess.

But even then, it didn't stop.

"Guaaaghhh!"

The force of it overwhelmed her, and her throat stretched wide as she expelled another wave. The pressure was intense, almost unbearable for her to handle. She could feel it coming again, the weight too heavy to resist.

Moments later, the dreadful load fell from her mouth, splattering across the floor.

It wasn't food.

It was a human body.

And, horrifyingly, it — no, she — was still alive.

A gasp escaped her lips as she saw the figure stir, drenched in slime and stench.

"You—!"

Moon Jiyeon coughed and wiped the filth from her face with clear disgust.

"Khh-urk! Khh-urk! Ughh... This is disgusting. Why do I have to go through such misfortune?"

Moon Jiyeon coughed and grumbled in the same breath. The stench clung to her like a curse, and her entire body was drenched in a slimy, repulsive liquid that made her skin crawl.

How could anyone not complain in a situation like this?

It was pure misery.

But if anyone looked worse off, it was Gula. She clutched her stomach tightly, with her face pale as a sheet, every trace of color drained away. It was as though she were battling an unbearable stomach ache that refused to let up.

She glared at Moon Jiyeon.

"You... you were supposed to be digested! How...?"

"Ah, so that 'thing' is finally taking effect. I thought it wasn't going to work, but it seems I'm luckier than I thought."

"What are you talking about? What did you do to me?"

"Oh, curious, are we? If you want to know, then say 'please' to your senior. Say Moon Jiyeon-nim."

"Ughh... Go to hell, you fat sow!".n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

"Tch. Such poor manners for a lady. But fine, I shall enlighten you since you look so... pitiful."

Moon Jiyeon reached into her dimensional storage ring and pulled out a small, ominous vial filled with a thick, glowing green liquid. She held it up between her fingers like a prize.

Gula's eyes narrowed. She asked impatiently:

"What is that?"

"It's poison." Moon Jiyeon answered casually.

"Poison...?"

"Yes, it's poison. You do know what that is right?"

"Don't be ridiculous. Are you seriously saying a lowly poison like that reduced me to this sorry state? I'm not buying it."

Moon Jiyeon chuckled, twirling the vial between her fingers as if to emphasize its menace.

"Oh, it's no ordinary poison. Let's just say it's tailored for someone... special like you. Inside this vial is a combination of every toxin, venom, and poison extracted from the deadliest creatures on Earth. Its potency is really strong, and it can kill a normal person ten times over."

"W-What? You don't mean..."

"Yes, that's exactly what I mean. And while I was inside your belly, I poured in ten doses of this beauty."

Gula's face turned ghostly white.

Moon Jiyeon ignored her despair and continued speaking.

"You're really something, huh? A single drop of this is enough to knock out fifty bulls. Fifty. Bulls. That translates to about 250 to 500 humans—or more! And yet, it took ten doses and all this time before you even started to falter. Seriously, what is that stomach of yours made of? For a moment, I thought I was trapped in some freakish dimension. Turns out it was just your insane physiology. Lucky for me, the poison worked just fine in the end. If you're a construct created with human physiology, then poison would definitely work on you, don't you agree?"

"You wretched woman! Don't get cocky! Even like this, I can still crush you like a bug!"

With a furious cry, Gula stretched her hand forward, and summoned her magic stakes to obliterate the insolent human in front of her at once.

But—

"...?!"

Nothing happened.

The air remained still, empty of the deadly stakes she had conjured countless times before. A cold realization washed over her as she struggled to grasp her situation. For some reason, she couldn't manipulate her mana.

To be more precise, her mana was unresponsive.

"What the hell is happening? Why can't I use my magic?!"

"Oh, about that..."

Moon Jiyeon said, feigning surprise. She tapped the side of her temple as though she'd just remembered something.

"Did I forget to mention? I added a little extra to those vials. A little demon-like fairy told me about a certain consumable that prevents someone from using their power temporarily. I thought it would come in handy, so I purchased it from the shop before coming here."

Her expression showed that she was enjoying Gula's despair.

"I was saving it for a rainy day, but due to special circumstances, my hand was forced. Besides,"

She continued,

"You seemed like the perfect test subject. Now, be a good girl and say 'thank you' to your senior."

"No, no, no, no, no...! This can't be happening! I can't die like this!"

Panic surged through Gula as she stumbled back. At this point, the seemingly defenseless Moon Jiyeon had transformed into an unspeakable horror that had come to claim her life.

Her thoughts spiraled as she struggled to process her helplessness.

If she were to die, how would she ever taste food again? How could she savor the countless delicacies that had defined her existence?

The thought of losing the ability to eat was somehow more terrifying than the thought of dying itself.

"Ah, that's right."

Suddenly, she remembered something, the existence of her sisters, who were still engaged in battle.

A hoarse laugh escaped her lips, and with it, her confidence surged to its peak.

It was as if she'd completely forgotten the despair she'd been feeling just moments ago, or the fact that her stomach was still in knots.

"Ha! Do you realize how unlucky you are? If you kill me now, my sisters will come after you. In your current state, how many of them do you think you can defeat?"

Moon Jiyeon answered truthfully.

"Not many. I'm not foolish enough to think I could take on more than one of you, especially if they're as strange as you."

Gula's grin widened. "If you know that, then you—"

"However," Moon Jiyeon interrupted her before she could finish her sentence. "I won't need to. If my calculations are correct, your sisters should be falling one by one right now."

"What the hell? What kind of bullshit are you spewing? There's no way—"

Her words choked off mid-sentence as a translucent screen materialized before her eyes.

The message it bore turned her blood icy cold:

[The hunter, Avaritia, has been eliminated.]

[The hunter, Invidia, has been eliminated.]

Thump! Thump!

Her heart pounded chaotically. Two of her sisters had fallen. Defeated. If they had truly been bested, then...

The realization of that unfathomable reality sank into her heart, and crushed it instantly without mercy.

"No... No way! This is absurd! What kind of twisted joke is this?! There's no way they would die like that!"

"Invidia and Avaritia, was it? Weren't they up against Soo Jinyoung-nim? I see. It seems she handled them earlier than expected. I'm not worried about Kim Jakga-ssi or Yoo Rin. My only worry is that child."

Moon Jiyeon's words dripped with certainty, as if she knew more than she let on. Perhaps she had gained information from an unknown source.

She turned her gaze back to Gula, who was trembling still.

Ji-yeon's lips curled into a cold sneer.

"Oh, and forget about calling for reinforcements. Even if you tried, I doubt any of your 'sisters' would be in a position to answer. But don't worry, soon enough, all of you will share the same hell."

"…!"

Gula's lips parted to retort, but no sound emerged. The words she so desperately wished to unleash crumbled into silence, suffocated by the mounting terror and suffocating dread welling up from deep within.

An indescribable emotion, something beyond fear, clawed at her insides. Her body betrayed her, shuddering under the weight of that nameless dread. An eerie sensation surged through her veins, spreading like a venomous curse.

There was no scream. No curse. Not even a whisper.

Only silence. Only despair.

She tried to flee, her instincts screaming for survival, but her poisoned body betrayed her. Collapsing to the ground, she clawed at the dirt, dragging herself forward with trembling hands.

Her nails scraped against the earth as she crawled, driven by sheer desperation.

Despite the countless lives she had taken, despite the blood, flesh, and hearts she had consumed, she clung selfishly to her own life.

A pitiful, unforgivable sin.

Moon Jiyeon approached with deliberate grace. In her hand, she brandished a dagger, its unfamiliar blade glinting ominously in the dim light.

The cold glint of the weapon mirrored the cruel curve of her smile.

It was as though the blade had been craved for this moment.

"W-wait! Wait! P-please—!"

Gula attempted to plead, to beg for her life and ask for forgiveness, but her pleas were cut short by Jiyeon's piercing gaze, which were devoid of even the faintest hint of compassion.

The savage Moon Jiyeon pounced, and the dagger descended in a deadly arc.

"Aaaaak!"

A shrill scream erupted, shattering the silence and reverberating through the passageway like the mournful wail of a dying echo.