The Boar Hat was louder than usual.
Laughter echoed through the tavern as mugs slammed against tables, Hawk complained about scraps on the floor, and somewhere upstairs King and Diane were arguing over blankets again. But beneath all the noise sat something heavier—something tense enough to make even Meliodas unusually quiet.
Merlin stood near the far window, crimson eyes fixed on the storm gathering outside.
“The Ten Commandments are moving faster than expected,” she said calmly. “At this rate, Liones will fall within weeks.”
Ban leaned back in his chair with one boot propped on the table. “Then we smash ‘em before that happens. Simple.”
“No,” Merlin replied.
The single word made the room still.
Even Escanor lowered his cup.
“We cannot defeat them as we are now.” Merlin turned slowly toward the Sins. “Not without her.”
A silence followed.
Old. Uncomfortable.
King frowned first. “You don’t mean—”
“The Raven’s Sin of Death.”
The temperature in the tavern dropped instantly.
A gust rattled the windows.
Elizabeth looked between them in confusion. “There was… another Sin?”
Meliodas gave a faint sigh, rubbing the back of his neck. “Yeah.”
She blinked. “Wait, hold on—there were eight of you?”
“Not officially,” Gowther answered quietly. “History erased her existence after the Holy War.”
Ban said nothing.
But the sharp tightening of his jaw did not escape Meliodas.
Merlin walked toward the table. “If the Commandments fully awaken, regeneration alone will make several of them nearly impossible to kill.” Her gaze shifted toward Ban briefly. “But her magic ignores regeneration entirely.”
King’s wings twitched uneasily. “Thanatos…”
Even saying the name felt wrong.
Like whispering beside a grave.
Elizabeth noticed the way the others reacted—the tension, the hesitation.
“What was she like?”
No one answered immediately.
Then Ban laughed softly under his breath.
Not amused.
More like remembering something painful.
“She was… quiet.” His crimson eyes lowered toward his untouched drink. “Too quiet for our lot. Always looked at ya like she could already see how you’d die.”
Diane shivered.
“But she wasn’t cruel,” Meliodas added. “Actually, she was one of the kindest people here.”
“Kind?” King snapped. “Flowers died when she walked by!”
“And she cried every single time it happened,” Meliodas replied.
That shut him up.
Rain suddenly hammered against the tavern roof.
Black feathers drifted past the window.
Everyone froze.
Merlin’s expression darkened.
“She’s near.”
Ban was already standing before anyone else moved.
His chair scraped hard against the floor as he strode toward the door.
Memories hit him like blades.
A woman standing alone beneath snowfall while corpses covered a battlefield.
Silver chains wrapped around pale wrists.
One crimson eye.
One black.
The scent of dying roses.
And her voice—
“Even immortals fear the end eventually, Ban.”
He had laughed back then.
Told her immortality made him untouchable.
But when she held him after Elaine died the first time…
She’d looked at him with that unbearably gentle sadness.
Like she mourned him too.
Ban shoved open the tavern doors.
Cold wind exploded inward.
The others followed behind him as thunder rolled across the hills beyond the Boar Hat.
At the edge of the cliff overlooking the forest stood a lone figure dressed in black.
Midnight hair whipped violently through the storm, silver strands gleaming beneath flashes of lightning. Around her wrists hung engraved silver chains that chimed softly in the wind.
Black feathers spiraled around her.
Flowers beneath her boots withered into ash.
And strapped across her back rested a massive black scythe.
The world itself seemed afraid of her.
Ban’s breath caught for half a second.
Ten years.
Ten damn years without a trace.
Then the woman slowly turned toward them.
One crimson eye met his.
The other—dark and endless as a void—settled on the Sins behind him.
Her expression remained calm.
Gentle.
But unbearably tired.
“…It’s been a long time,” she said softly.