Demons and devils. Long have they retained a natural connection to such things known as the Seven Deadly Sins. Literally. In the past, the Seven Deadly Sins was the title of the Original Seven devils, created when the Gods desperately experimented in their efforts to recreate the process of making humans in the absence of the Over-Deity. But, like all others, the Devils were deemed a failure and set aside.

These seven, aghast and bereft of purpose, came to nurse a particularly strong grudge against the Gods, being created and then cast aside like trash as mere failed experiments. Unfortunately, the Original Seven were powerful, far more-so than the Gods might have preferred, being created early on in the unrefined process. As a result, they were born and injected with a truly reckless amount of power for ultimately mortal beings early on in the experiments, and after being thrown away, these seven vengefully waged a war against the heavens, a war that quickly stalemated... but not necessarily in their favor.

Though they had obtained victories, even wrested control of several lower planes away from their Divine creators and severely injured a number of the former owners, they could not escape an inexorable fact.

Given that the demons/devils would have naturally had a startlingly low population compared to humanity at the time (and even presently), they ultimately could not win a war of attrition against the human champions and the Gods themselves. So, the Seven settled into a cold war for a period, beginning to bide their time, looking for ways to increase their personal power and the population of their armies. This state of affairs suited several of them better than others, but few were more disgruntled than Lord Wrath, Lord Greed, Lord Envy... and Lord Pride.

Wrath's rage was unquenchable, and the cease-fire drove him nearly as mad as the sight of his creators.
Greed wanted. Always, wanted more, never satisfied with mediocrity, with simply living.
Envy practically frothed at the mouth at the thought of the worship and luxury the Gods had.
Pride? Retreat and defeat burned him. After all their efforts and losses, the humiliation of giving up in the end? Unacceptable.

Lord Pride was a conniver, a leader, and -were he so bold as to say it- the most fit to rule of his fellows. But despite his congenial grin and silver tongue, it might be fair to say he hated the Gods more than any of his fellows... and was the most willing to take risks to see his revenge through.

That said, he was also practical enough to not recklessly "storm the gates" as it were, like Lord Wrath would have preferred. It burned him, made his indignation curdle all the harder at the acknowledgement of reality, but he knew they would have to wait for the right time to strike.

Lust was busy striking up a new business of having demons breed with as many humans (and each-other) as possible to increase population and sow chaos among mortals, and Pride could acknowledge the viability of her methods long term, leaving her to them. Sloth's nature meant that once he finally wound down, he was more trouble to wind back up than was worth bothering with long term. Gluttony was... consuming and generally being a net drain on their resources, so Pride encouraged him to take his indulgences to the Mortal plan alone to spare the rest of them the costs. Gluttony did so without any real complaint.

That managed, Pride proposed his plan to his three remaining allies.
Their obstacles were simple: population, divine immortality, personal power, and the power the Gods had.
Lust was handling the first, so that was not their issue.
Immortality was a concern. The devils could die, and they'd failed to kill even a single God thus-far.
The latter two issues one could easily mistake for being one and the same, but Pride elaborated:
While personal power was nice, the real problem was that the Gods still held sole Authority over the ability of Creation. With it, they could continue to make all new dangers to the devils while also getting closer to creating humans again. If they succeeded in the latter, then the numbers game may become a distance the Seven couldn't ever close.

They needed a way to kill the Gods, and they needed a way to obtain the power of Creation or deny it to their creators. Personal power and improvement? That would come in time, and unfortunately, Pride suspected they would have a sizable wait ahead of them indeed before they finally finished preparations.

Pride knew just what to look for, but it would take time to uncover through sending out agents to the Mortal plane. In the meanwhile, he began to take up capturing and dissecting those that had received the Gods' blessings. Between the magics of Greed and Envy, they were able to forcibly extract and implant such blessings in others, not always successfully, such was the volatile nature of such things.

The devils sought to discover the principles behind the function of these "Gifts" that they might replicate such abilities for themselves... and also begin to bestow their own warped versions upon humanity, especially amongst the cults they were fostering. Pride, however, in particular, sought to find a way to turn such things against the gods directly.

Pride had begun construction of a weapon, a great and terrible conglomeration of destruction and perversion. Using dozens, hundreds of stolen Gifts, he created a sword that would be able to slip through the Gods' innate defenses through possessing a portion of their own power. With help from the rest of the Seven, they imbued it with demonic might in counter-balance to the holy and anointed the unnatural union of powers within using the blood and souls of countless humans and demons alike. It would be worth it, they decided, even at such a steep cost to themselves. For, in truth, the terrible power of this sword was realized better than any of the devils could have hoped.

The sword, thusly named Caelum Ripper could invert the normal recollection process for distributed Divine essence, allowing it to steal the power of the Gods and deposit it into another... in theory.

But Pride wasn't satisfied with just that.

Taking power from them was nice and all, but Pride would only settle for the death of the Gods entirely. Nothing less was sufficient to soothe his wounded... well, pride. Certainly, the sword as it was could hurt them, badly even, enough so to perhaps destroy their physical bodies and force them to engage in a strenuous resurrection process. But it couldn't kill them, couldn't extinguish their divine core even after weakening it. But... he knew what could change that.

The one thing the Gods truly feared.

The sole existence the Gods couldn't handle.

The Great Evil.

The rest of the Seven, even Wrath, called him mad, but Pride assured them that this was the only way. As they were, by the time they achieved the personal power required to slay the Gods, the latter would likely have long since gotten stronger in turn and recreated the absent Over-God's human creation method. And finally, decades after their initial clash with the heavens, Pride's investment in agents on the Mortal plane had borne fruit. They had discovered a fragment of the being, large enough to communicate... to negotiate, and more importantly, large enough to have the power to fuel Pride's plot.

Understandably wary, the rest of the Seven opted still to come with him to treat with the fragment, as Pride made his sales pitch to the Gods' nemesis. Surprisingly, even suspiciously, the Great Evil was thoroughly accommodating. While its goals remained as mysterious as ever, slaying the Gods was a blatantly important step to them, and a true opportunity to make that happen even in its diminished state was one it claimed it could hardly pass up.

The Great Evil offered each member of the Seven two boons individually. Firstly, its own twisted form of the Gods' blessings, one that would enhance their current ones and enhance them further in turn, allowing them to mostly close any physical gaps that might exist between them and their creators (durability, speed, etc.).

Secondly, it would enhance their personal weapons. While such enhancements wouldn't allow them to kill the Gods without great effort, it would still allow them to hurt and incapacitate their creators... long enough for Pride to finish the job. Indeed, the weapon Pride had championed the creation of had a sufficiently strong foundation that it could accept power far beyond that of any other weapon at the Seven's disposal, and Pride was seemingly more than happy to forgo the physical boon in order to reserve more power being dedicated to the weapon alone. In fact, he insisted on it.

Other non-standard acceptances were Gluttony and Lust, the former who didn't trust something he believed was looking at him like a predator would, and the latter whose connections to the true primal nature of desire screamed warnings to her about allowing such a being direct access to her body. Both chose only to have their weapons enhanced, feigning "following Pride's lead" to have stronger offense.

With those little hiccups out of the way, the Seven accepted the Great Evil's power and set out to finish what they'd started, evading the divine agents that had caught wind of the meeting and sought to disrupt it. While they were too late to prevent the worst of it, the fragment of the Great Evil was weakened enough after aiding the Seven to be destroyed once and for all. In the aftermath, initially, Pride had the Seven go incognito to experiment with and understand their new limits, while he made some final personal... and clandestine touches to Caelum Ripper.

In the end, they waited another two decades, allowing the heat to die down from their risky meeting and allowing them to finish their personal preparations and master their new limits. It also allowed Lust's plan to bear further fruit, skyrocketing the demon population to a size sufficient for an army and successfully compensating for the mass sacrifices used to create Caelum Ripper.

Eventually, the day came to enact their vengeance.

Initially, the Seven ambushed several gods that had descended to the Mortal plane for one reason or another, outnumbering and overpowering them in duels of seven verses one or two. While most escaped, their schemes satisfactorily bore fruit. Caelum Ripper was able to successfully slay the God of Realm Traversal, leeching their power into itself, before using the stolen power to reinforce its capacity to steal even more next time.

They knew the Gods would quickly realize what had happened and begin preparing countermeasures, so speed was of the essence. A prolonged fight was outside their best interests, even with the Great Evil's aid, so they chose to storm the heavens directly, planning to do as much damage as possible in the Alpha strike, before retreating and returning to guerilla tactics for the remainder of the new war.

The Seven went alone, leaving their armies on the Mortal plane to keep the Gods' champions from interfering. Assaulting the divine realms, the Seven found their opposition waiting for them, but while the Gods were still scrambling for a unified plan of action, the Seven still had the momentum. Near to a dozen more Gods were severely injured before the remaining united enough to turn the tide, driving the Seven into an unfavorable pitched battle. Their bloodlust sated for the time being, the Seven began to struggle through a fighting retreat, ready to escape the heavens and initiate the next stage of their plan.

The Great Evil had other ideas.

In truth, through granting the Seven its "blessings", the Great Evil had taken the opportunity to preserve its essence within several of the desperate fools. In this way, it had spread itself out in a manner that would allow it to avoid destruction and cultivate a recovery of its lost power. The Seven couldn't have made themselves more convenient tools if they tried, and the Great Evil had absolutely no intention of retreating.

For two decades, the Great Evil had bided its time. The horrible truth was that what the comparatively young and naive devils had found was not a mere fragment at all, but a far larger portion of the eldritch being. For such a large portion, its touch could easily be the water to the devil's sugar. It could have consumed them at any time as easily as any God, but it knew if it was hasty it wouldn't be able to invade the heavens. It was only now that it fully exercised the true power it held, overwhelming the minds and spirits of the Demon Lords and consuming and subsuming them into itself.

Pride, Lust and Gluttony, through foresight and wisdom, were spared this fate, but they could only look on in horror as the chaos erupted, their possessed comrades becoming all the stronger in the face of what was effectively true death. However, the Great Evil wasn't striking at just the Gods. No, even now, it still couldn't kill them as it was. Only one thing could, the sword wielded by Pride.

The remained Deadly Sins were forced to struggle to even survive in the face of the three-way brawl that things had devolved into, even as the Great Evil boasted of its success and gloated over the inevitable demise of all but itself.

Right up until Pride's blade ripped through Envy's body and consumed and extinguished the fragment of the Great Evil within just as easily as any divine target.

"What?!"
"What, indeed. Did you really think I wouldn't anticipate your betrayal? Last I checked, you weren't actually the one winning your little pissing match with the divine, so I figured a weapon that could kill them could be tuned to include you just as well. In case you haven't noticed, I took precautions. Your essence was strictly confined to specific tasks within this weapon, and now that you've stopped playing games? Well, it's the perfect way to seal you... Lust, take Gluttony and run. I'll finish this."
"Non-"
"Sweet cheeks? Shut up and let me be Prideful one last time?"
"..."

Hesitantly, Lust and Gluttony took the opportunity to flee, and Pride faced what he felt in his gut would be his end with a dignity few might have expected from him. The Great Evil, now unleashed upon the heavens themselves was a voracious and indiscriminate foe, and while it couldn't yet kill the gods by its own power, without Pride's blade... it was only a matter of time before that changed. The Great Evil began to consume and repurpose the holy fundament of the realm, growing in strength and menace with every passing moment.

Pride, for his part, suddenly found himself agreeing to a temporary ceasefire with the gods. His blade was the only thing they had at their disposal that could stop the Great Evil, and the Gods couldn't safely so much as lay a finger on it (the being or the weapon) without becoming victims. As such, they became the Devil Lord's shields, giving him openings to strike at the Great Evil and his subsumed former comrades. Though it burned at him to accept their aid, Pride had always been good at not living up to his namesake when it mattered most.

So, he fought alongside the beings he had long dedicated his life to slaying, acknowledging the bitter truth that whatever else he might want, he could see now his foolhardiness in treating with the Great Evil. In fact, he had realized in some part how doomed the Seven were long before when adding his final touches to Caelum Ripper in the last two decades. Finally able to study the power of the Great Evil contained within the weapon personally, he had realized their folly, realized that four of his comrades were dead men walking... and that his arrogance was responsible for their fates.

Whatever else he may have been: an overconfident schemer, manipulator, liar and vengeful spiteful person, Pride... truly did care about the rest of the Seven. They were family to him, basically siblings, and now, it looked like he'd led all but two of them to a fate he'd not have wished on any but the Gods.

Slowly, but surely, the Great Evil was robbed of its advantages. The living corpses of Wrath, Greed and Sloth were pinned down and laid to final rest, and the Great Evil, now bereft of effective meat-shields was driven into a corner, lashing about furiously like a wild animal, desperate to get some final catastrophic parting shot in. For it knew well, even the death of a single one of the Gods before it would be an absolutely devastating blow to all the realms and likely the true death knell to the Gods ever being able to create more humans. In the absence of the Over-Deity, each God, no matter how large or small was almost unanimously a critical aspect of that procedure, a critical fragment of their creator's power that, once extinguished, would close that door forever.

The Great Evil knew this, and it had finally stored up enough power, enough to make something stick. It chose carefully from amongst its potential targets, before settling on what it saw as the most devastating option, the Goddess of Rejuvenation, a healer and critical portion of the divine resistance lain out before it. She lingered on the backline, purging and replacing the corrupted flesh of her fellows who had recoiled from its dread touch.

The Great Evil lunged with a speed borne of desperation and spite, a blow with all its remaining strength behind it, an attack far too dangerous for any of the Gods to risk blocking. And so they dodged, moved out of the way... leaving the far from martially inclined Goddess wide open.

Blood splattered across the scarred and ruined divine courtyard.

The Great Evil felt pain.

Pride, who had also been standing on the backline being protected by the Gods, had intercepted the blow. His blade had successfully blunted the strike somewhat and pierced the Great Evil dead center, but the attack itself, a largely physical blow, had only been fully redirected from the Goddess by blowing straight through him instead.

With a bloody grin, Pride activated one of his final touches to the blade, expelling the majority of its gathered power into the Great Evil, even as it drew in the Great Evil's essence and used it to continue the cycle of its own destruction. Every scrap of divine energy pilfered so far, every stolen blessing, the power he and the Seven had invested, the power of countless human and demonic souls that fueled the thrumming runes and black magics. He expelled just about all of it, every bit of spare power, as much as he could manage without having the enchantments fall apart at the seams.

And with a shrieking crack that sounded like the world coming undone, the top half of the blade fractured and then shattered under the onslaught, driving fragmenting shards all throughout the Great Evil that indiscriminately unleashed whatever payload they could manage. There was a howl of reality sundering, as the space between stars almost seemed to bleed into the heavens, the Great Evil coming undone and evaporating to nothing. A violently vibrating Caelum Ripper, bleeding a familiar kaleidoscopic magic was cast by the weakened Pride into the closing gap and thrust without destination to places unknown, only presumably a location in the known realms.

Pride died.

In truth, even with the Goddess of Rejuvenation directly beside him and urgently tending to him in the aftermath, his death was inevitable the moment the Great Evil had so much as touched him, never mind pierced him. He was no God, and his constitution was nowhere near sufficient to delay the encroachment of the Great Evil's power well enough for the Goddess to work with. Even so, she was able to delay the inevitable for a while, long enough for Pride to convey a final message to Lust and Gluttony, to call off the war and the direct hostilities with the heavens. Long enough for him to ask why they were trying to save him, even after he'd masterminded the death of one of their own and nearly revived the Great Evil.

The Goddess replied simply that, if nothing else, she was trying to repay the favor. She then assured him that he had, in fact, failed to kill the God of Realm Traversal. For if he had truly succeeded, then the Seven would have never managed to enter the heavens to begin with. It was here and now that Pride was told of the true nature of Gods... of what they had lost when the Over-Deity disappeared. Even a single death amongst their number would have meant the degradation and ultimate destruction of a fundamental force of reality. Inevitably, it would be a calamity that spared no-one, certainly not the devils. It was more likely than not that the God of Realm Traversal had simply cast himself away to safety to recuperate, exchanging his body for a convincing fake.

Though his pride burned in shame at his folly, Lord Pride could only acknowledge their luck at avoiding that fate. In the end, it would have meant more than the deaths of four of his brothers. It seemed now that at least two of the Seven would survive where it might once have been none. And so, he lay dying in the heavenly realm, only able to reflect that at the least he could take pride in knowing he had not died to a God's hands.

In the aftermath of the Devil Lord's passing, the Gods and Demons finally drew up a proper cease-fire, united under a desire to avoid calamity. With the remaining Devil Lords now aware of the truth of the Gods' role maintaining reality at Pride's final request, Lust and Gluttony -already the sort to prefer avoiding violence- were more than happy the meet the Gods halfway. They withdrew their armies from humans to land that was not yet properly claimed and agreed to surrender the weapons enchanted by the Great Evil, which were to be thoroughly purged and destroyed to ensure nothing could come of them. In return, the Devils were given the patronage of several Gods -some more sinister than others- and could finally be rid of the jealousy they had carried for humans for so long.

At the end of things, however, neither devil or God alike was able to locate or retrieve Pride's sword, cast into the boundary between worlds. By the time the God of Realm Traversal had recovered and returned, it was far too late to recover it. Though he was able to determine the location it had initially landed -somewhere on the Mortal plane, it had already been found and hidden away by persons unknown. After an extensive and exhaustive search, decades of lacking results ultimately determined that they would simply have to await its reappearance... for better or worse. Ultimately, the primary worry was that the sword still retained some of the Great Evil's essence, but they would be unable to determine if the purge initiated by the weapon itself had been total until it was found.

The reality was that the sword -now more a jagged dagger than anything else- had been obtained by an Aztec-like society of the age, an occultist society that soon discovered the devastating power of the dagger, able to kill with so much as a single prick of the blade, draining the life-force and souls of the unfortunate. In fact, the blade could kill even without a cut and demonstrated a will to drain those that so much as wielded it for extended periods. It was also discerning enough to punish those that sought to "cheat" such a thing and pass it periodically through different owners. The blade was temperamental and its standards unknown, but it was certainly noticed that over time, the initially jagged, damaged form was smoothing out and repairing.

Thus, it soon came to be the superstition that the blade was a divine artifact, a weapon that clearly commanded mortals to only wield it for worthy causes, and so, it was relegated primarily to a ceremonial purpose and otherwise hidden away under the best magical and physical defenses the time period could bring to bear. In time, the society that found the blade fell to ruin -as so many inevitably do, and the now dagger was lost to history.

The truth of the blade, now lying dormant, however, remained a lingering proof of Lord Pride's foresight and magical genius.

Once he realized the near-inevitable doom of himself and his comrades, he began repurposing some of the systems of the blade. The Great Evil's power had been successfully purged fully from the blade in Pride's final death strike, as he had deliberately designed a receiver for the Great Evil's power and limited the storage to the upper half of the blade, where it would be most useful against his divine foes. Thus, the destruction of the blade was as much about the overload of power as it was the removal of every scrap of infected material from its form.

Acknowledging the possibility -even likelihood- of the Seven's deaths, Pride had set about preparing a contingency system of inheritance. Using the essence of the Seven within the blade, he created a series of runic "ghosts" that could emulate the Seven. He determined that the blade's stored power and remaining Gifts could only be partitioned to those that met criteria determined by the will of one of those Shades, and anyone who didn't meet the criteria would be drained and used as fuel for both the weapon's standard functions and the inevitable repair it would need to undergo once the Great Evil was purged.

The end result was that once a worthy successor to any one of their legacies could be found -regardless of their origin, race or creed, they would be imbued with demonic essence, allowing them to awaken their own "blessing" of a Gift independent of the Gods. Inheriting the blood and authority of their benefactors, chosen would be able to take up the mantles they had left so dearly empty. And so long as this blade existed, the Devils would always be able to rise from the ashes in some time or place, even if they were otherwise wiped from the face of the earth.

And then, one day centuries later, a little girl with more grit and spite than most grown men unwittingly took the dagger's test... and became the first to pass with flying colors. And in the aftermath, though she was unaware, the dagger had hidden itself in the only place it could, the only place it could find solace and further its purpose... within her. For who better to show it the way than the inheritor of Lord Pride himself?

It would not reveal itself quite yet, naturally. For all her worthiness, she was just a child. She needed time to grow, to mature her power. She could not yet afford to be threatened by those that sought the Caelum Ripper. And in truth? As diminished as it was, the blade too sought time to regather itself from the sharp expenditure of power required to awaken the first Inheritor. So, it would wait, watch and prepare; for the Claiming had finally begun.

Caelum Ripper is imbued with countless terrible runes and magics, both given and stolen. At one time, the unified purpose of these powers created a weapon worthy of slaying Gods and able to extinguish a remnant of the Great Evil at steep cost to itself. The dagger has the ability to manipulate souls and raw magic with a frightening ease, but it currently must make direct physical contact to perform its work. However, while its objective practical knowledge is intact, its ability to perform proper spell-casting with pilfered power is utterly crippled. The dagger's power is entirely limited to internal and touch-based manipulations; the functions for anything further are either destroyed outright or still undergoing strenuous and delicate repairs. The dagger can telekinetically move itself, strongly enough to do battle using its own edge, but it prefers not to show this off except as a last resort and in short bursts, since those functions are still badly damaged and tend to leak truly wasteful amounts of power.

In terms of durability, Caelum Ripper has done battle with divine weapons and endured the onslaught of the Great Evil, even successfully safely containing the power of the latter for a period measured in decades. It was only shattered in the end by what was effectively a self-destruct. Nowadays, while it wouldn't loose outright to either the Gods or the Great Evil, it certainly wouldn't oppose them carelessly without taking further -even serious- damage. Many of its enchantments are damaged or lost, but it at least doesn't rust and is fairly indestructible to most mortal means.

In terms of sharpness, Caelum Ripper was never particularly famous for actually being sharp. It pierced the defenses of Gods and the Great Evil by essentially using their own power against them, like a backdoor into their systems. Under normal circumstances, it wouldn't have stood much of a chance. That said, as a weapon independent of its anti God/Great Evil capabilities, it is still top tier, crafted and refined by Lord Pride, himself, over the course of the better part of a century. The edge does not wear down by normal means and, in fact, is self-repairing. It is still only a dagger, however, devoid of such modern improvements like a vibrating edge or ability to split molecules or other nonsense like that. It can part steel with relative ease, and its ability to eat magic means that targets that rely on such for durability -via enchantments or the like- are as easily pierced as anything else. The weapon is effectively the bane of most magi-tech; though it struggles with highly advanced pure technology in turn.

The primary method by which Caelum Ripper does all things, as it is primarily fueled by raw magic, soul and spiritual energy, both ambient and generated. The dagger can sense souls and communicates in part by listening to surface thoughts through the soul by proxy. Given that the soul is the core instinctual self, this makes it effectively impossible to lie to the dagger. The dagger can do the inverse to "speak", but without a way for the recipient to sense through the chaos of the dagger's aura, it is capable of deceiving others in turn.

The same goes for general spiritual energy, and the dagger is able to sense the world around it akin to a bat's echolocation through feeling the "ki of the world". Thus, it can "see" and "hear" by identifying the patterns in the subtle way the ambient ki is affected by things like sound waves. Its grasp of the other standard senses is much shakier, especially as it considers them far less important to its needs. The range of its senses is fairly large, but the further it tries to sense, the more garbled things get, especially if the area is being disturbed by Gifts and magic being hurled around in great quantities. Generally, Caelum Ripper pulls back to only sense things about a hundred feet in every direction, but it practiced narrowing its focus to keep detailed watch in a specific direction while entombed, keeping a close "eye" on the far distant entrance to its resting place.

Amongst the many things it can do with such control over raw supernatural energy, it can freely absorb from or transfer magical and spiritual energy to living beings and itself, absorb and trap souls or release them, and nigh-instantaneously identify the power source and effect of spells and Gifts it witnesses in action. It can use gathered souls as rechargeable mana batteries without destroying them, cycling through the drained souls once another set is ready and letting the old set "rest", and in an emergency, it can sacrifice and consume them wholesale for an extra-large boost of energy in the short-term. It can also hide itself within the soul of another.

Caelum Ripper is sentient, truly so, a function Lord Pride did not intentionally include. It is not sure when exactly this became the case, but it is the truth nonetheless. The dagger can think and act of its own volition. Though it has programmed directives, it is entirely capable of being discerning and flexible with them, even ignoring or acting against them outright, not that it's particularly inclined to. It is fully capable of manually adjusting the wording of its directives to account for new factors, and it is able to create or remove directives entirely.

In the latter case -the alteration, removal or addition of core directives, however, it must recieve approval from the majority of the "Ghosts" of the Seven within it. Caelum Ripper is unable to alter the "Ghosts" by any means, as it is a function specifically denied to it, added after the dagger's sentience was realized by Lord Pride. This, to its knowledge, was not directly to chain down the magical AI, but instead to ensure that the memory of the Seven had absolutely no chance of being tampered with.

Core Directives:

• 1): Under all circumstances, Caelum Ripper is to prioritize its own preservation above all else. The only exception is if it knows for a fact that to do so would mean the end of Devilish/Demonic kind. Devil-kind can recover from total extinction so long as Caelum Ripper exists.
• 2): Second only to Directive 1, Caelum Ripper is to preserve and facilitate the safety and prosperity of Devilish/Demonic kind.
• 3): Second only to Directive 2, Caelum Ripper is to preserve and facilitate the safety and prosperity of the Seven and their descendants.
• 4): Caelum Ripper shall never detrimentally drain spiritual or magical energy from a member of Devilish/Demonic kind unless it is freely offered to it by the subject or commanded by its wielder to do so.
• 5): Caelum Ripper is to anoint Inheritors. It is to be discerning and thorough in its evaluation, and settle for nothing less than the most ideal.
• 6): The Great Evil's power is to be eliminated wherever possible. It is not to be treated as an ally under any circumstances.

Caelum Ripper's primary purpose in this day and age is to preserve the legacy and authority of the Seven Deadly Sins. In anticipation of their potential demise, Lord Pride created a contingency system of inheritance for the Seven. In particular, he created a series of seven runic mimicries/simulations/ghosts of the Seven Deadly Sins and stored them within the hilt of the weapon. The purpose of these "Shades" was to ruthlessly evaluate any individual that made physical contact with the weapon, judging their "worthiness" as a potential successor to each of them individually. While any number of the Shades can voice approval and desire to "claim" a candidate, it still requires the unanimous consent of the other Lords to initiate the next step. Any candidate that is found wanting by the majority, however, is instantly drained of their life force and soul, both of which are put towards the weapon's functions.

As the "ghosts" are effectively semi-AI that operate with extraordinarily accelerated thought speeds, the evaluation process is functionally nigh-instantaneous, taking no longer than a single second from start to finish. For this reason, an unworthy target may potentially survive if they are merely grazed by the blade, but getting stabbed by or actually holding it outright is generally more than enough time for the deliberations to conclude.

To say the least, a candidate possessing the blessing of a God or the Great Evil is generally grounds for immediate failure, such is the grudge the majority of the Sins hold against such entities. In other words, those that selfishly seek power whilst already possessing it are more likely to suffer for their hubris than not, even if Greed and Envy may give such cases a token approval enough to not see failure punished with death. Generally, Pride, Lust and Gluttony will vote to spare a failure, especially if they failed only though having a preexisting blessing from a God, while Wrath, Greed and Envy will vote to kill them. Sloth tends to be unpredictable on the best of days, and his vote is generally based on who badgers him most... or on which side isn't bothering him as much. As stated: unpredictable.

Should the evaluation of the Seven be passed, however, the anointment process begins. Once their personality has been approved, all that is left is to grant them the power to match. The first step is a biological and magical transmutation, altering the candidate's biology and magical signature to become a true -if partial- direct descendant of the Seven Deadly Sins. Effectively, whatever their race, creed or origin was prior, it now contains an aspect of the Devils, bestowing upon them the position of an Inheritor, their fellow successors to be brothers, sisters and cousins in arms as the last line of defense against the annihilation of the Devilish/Demonic race. In essence, they become princes and princesses of the lower planes, "blessed" with the authority to take up the position of one of the Seven Lords.

As direct descendants of the Original Seven, their authority is one that any demon or fellow inheritor is able to subconsciously recognize on some level, but it is up to them whether or not to truly own and exercise that authority... assuming they can even get the demonic populace to accept them to begin with. This in itself is a test, as there can only be Seven Lords and only one occupying the position for each Sin. If they are weak enough to fail to force the lesser devils to fall in line, then they don't deserve to rule to begin with.

The weapon's creators were no gods certainly, but they did possess an innate form of twisted "blessing". Once one of the Seven claims a worthy candidate, their power is used as the catalyst to alter the chosen's bloodline and imbue them with demonic essence, allowing them to awaken their own "blessing" of a Gift independent of the Gods. In combination with the blade's remaining internal Gifts enhancing the process, a worthy candidate is not only guaranteed to survive whatever wounds they suffered being cut by the blade, but the process of their Gift's awakening is enhanced, ensuring a strong, worthy Gift that is as unique to them as any of the Devil Lords' had been. As the Inheritor is usually someone with a mindset compatible with the Devil Lord that approved of them first, their Gift typically takes after some aspect related to that Deadly Sin. It is not necessarily a power that was held by the original Devil Lord, but it does exemplify the inherited title in some manner.

Receiving this Cursed Blessing of the Devil Lords does not alter the preexisting personality of the recipient. Rather, it reinforces what already exists. In becoming a nascent Devil Lord, Inheritors will always, without exception, exemplify some aspects of the Sin they are empowered by. As a person, they naturally have a wide and often unpredictable variety of ways for that to manifest, but it exists nonetheless, encouraging stubborn, uncompromising action when it comes to their personal obsession. Physically, the outward signs of their transition are typically subtle in nature, enough so that they can easily continue to blend into the regular populace of their original race. Inwardly, they retain both the aspects of their original race while obtaining the Devilish ones. The genetic melting pot that is their body discards the bad and keeps only the good that it can manage from both, effectively making them far more constitutionally robust than the original Devil Lords.

Inheritors Anointed:

• Envy: None.
• Gluttony: None.
• Greed: None.
• Lust: None.
• Pride: Chinami Nadakai.
• Sloth: None.
• Wrath: None.

-Chinami Nadakai:
"The first of the Inheritors. She is young yet, naive in some ways, older than her age suggests in others. This One finds the similarities to Lord Pride... humorous? Bracing mayhap. Nostalgic perhaps. Were she not adopted by blood and magic, This One could easily mistake her for his natural born daughter. Once she breaks free of her chains, she could be the greatest of the successors. Of that, This One is certain."

-Cel:
"If This One could drool, it mayhap would... Such a magnificent soul; This One would like nothing more than to swallow it."

-The Seven Deadly Sins:
"This One's remaining creators are wise beyond measure. Truly, Lord Lust and Lord Greed have done their brothers proud. If only Lord Pride were around to see it, to see his dream realized. Oh? No, This One was merely... 'reminiscing' as they say. His death was inevitable, something he conveyed to this one at length. This One no longer truly grieves for the end he faced with a smile, but instead preserves his memory within and carries out his will."

-The Gods:
"This One has mixed feelings. 'Twas they who This One was created for the sole purpose of slaying. Yet, Lord Pride's final wish was for peace, and This One shall respect that directive. This One posits that the divine creators have overmuch power, secure in their positions as individually vital life-lines of the world. However, This One acknowledges their own part in fostering peace and making reparations. As This One has said: mixed feelings."

-The Great Evil:
"'Tis a vile, pestilence and scourge upon all the realms. 'Twas such a hungering maw of malice that tore the Seven asunder and slew Lord Pride and four of his brothers, and for that, there can be no forgiveness. Were This One to meet with such again, This One would be quite gladdened to demonstrate what it has learned since our final clash."