Chapter 342

Chapter 342
Chapter 342

—

If such a thing were achievable, it would be nothing short of a swindle, a grand fabrication, and a betrayal that would shatter the very sanctity of the Druids.

Every divine lineage would surely turn their backs in disgust.

The Star Guardians, the Elves, and perhaps even the collective of other Druids would recoil.

‘There is simply no way a person who radiates such a sinister aura could truly be the Druid of the Golden Rule, however…’

Under any normal circumstances, that would be the only logical conclusion.

The complication, however, stemmed from the ‘erratic’ tendencies of that crow, the Lord of Five Calamities.

‘The Lord of Five Calamities was an entity of pure contradiction, a being that defied the natural order and broke every rule of reality, as if the very world had been turned upside down.’

The Lord of Five Calamities. That individual was far from typical.

That had been evident since his initial appearance within the Tower of Mysteries.

He had shattered milestones that were deemed unbreakable and had utterly dismantled established laws.

Was that the extent of it?

Every action he had taken following that moment had been a departure from the norm.

In the end, he had assisted in the recovery of his ‘fang’, yet suspicion was unavoidable because he existed so far beyond the boundaries of sanity.

“The truth will be revealed once our ‘Souls’ collide.”

The Monster Soul.

That particular spirit was a vessel specifically crafted to develop in tandem with the soul of the one who summoned it.

Consequently, engaging in a ‘Battle of Souls’ was equivalent to slamming their internal essences against one another.

As they fought, the distinct aroma of their spirits would intensify—much like the way a body produces perspiration—and he would be able to discern the true nature of his opponent with absolute precision.

Naturally.

‘I shall demonstrate that my own spirit stands supreme.’

…The thought of facing defeat had never even crossed his mind.

He was the sovereign of the north.

He was a peerless entity that even the celestial deities ought to regard with trepidation.

Upon catching the words of the White King, a sharp wave of alarm pulsed through my chest.

‘He detected the scent of the Lord of Five Calamities.’

It seemed impossible.

Every trace of ‘malicious intent’ had been successfully shifted onto Randolph.

At this moment, only the essence of radiant sanctity should be dwelling within me.

And yet, the White King had specifically named the ‘Lord of Five Calamities’.

Claiming he could smell it.

But there shouldn’t have been an actual scent to follow.

‘Did he perceive my true nature?’

Had he managed to glimpse the hidden side of my split existence, a side that had remained invisible to everyone else?

Perhaps it was tied to the unique talent the White King held.

His perceptive faculties were so refined that they were often likened to the power of prophecy.

‘…An intuition. He is sensing it. On a primal level.’

Exactly.

Ultimately, it was a mere ‘feeling’.

It was nothing more than a tentative probe.

Provided I did not lose my composure, I would not be exposed.

‘His instincts appear to have sharpened significantly compared to our last meeting.’

This was a development I hadn’t anticipated.

It appeared the White King had also undergone his own evolution.

By reclaiming his fang, he had not only restored his former glory but had actually pushed beyond his previous limits.

I shifted my gaze back to the White King.

It felt as though he had finally claimed the throne of a true monarch.

…His very presence had undergone a profound transformation.

【Druid of the Golden Rule (Eleven Holy Heavens) VS White King (Mok, the King of Ruin)】

The window for dialogue had slammed shut.

The tournament matches for the final five had officially commenced.

“Let’s see if you can provide some entertainment.”

The White King spoke with total self-assurance.

Mirroring that confidence, the pressure emanating from Mok, the King of Ruin, was that of a devastating combatant.

Crash!

The second the fight began, Mok, the King of Ruin, propelled himself off the earth, lunging directly at the Eleven Holy Heavens.

His velocity was staggering.

Gaaaaak-!

Within a heartbeat, he had his grip tightened around the Eleven Holy Heavens’ throat.

His limbs expanded in size as he began to wrench the neck of the much larger dragon, intending to snap it like a twig.

Whoosh!

In that critical moment, the wish beads erupted in a brilliant light.

Suddenly.

Grrk?

The movements of Mok, the King of Ruin, began to reverse.

He released his hold on the neck and was pulled back to the exact spot he had occupied before his initial leap.

‘The authority to manipulate the temporal state of a physical body.’

The Eleven Holy Heavens commanded the flow of time.

Not the time of the universe at large, but the internal time of a biological form.

It could be surged forward or rewound at will.

Guwaaaaaaak!

Mok, the King of Ruin, let out a tortured howl.

Scales began to slough off his frame, his posture slumped, and his body began to undergo a process of extreme, rapid aging.

“Inviolable.”

Clang!

As if a pane of glass had been struck, everything splintered apart.

Instantly, the physique of Mok, the King of Ruin, snapped back to its prime state.

This was the result of the White King uttering the word of activation.

“Special talents hold no sway over Mok, the King of Ruin.”

The powers categorized as special abilities.

This meant that any external forces designed to grant a blessing or inflict a curse were rendered useless against Mok, the King of Ruin.

Mok possessed the inherent power to negate any ability that attempted to influence him.

《‘Mok, the King of Ruin’ is protected by the trait ‘Special Ability Inviolable (40Lv)’.》

That, too, was a manifestation of the ‘inviolable’ state.

It was a level of mastery that exceeded my own current limits.

It meant that even the War God’s Heart Sword was currently unable to pierce through it.

He seemed to be a creature entirely dedicated to a single purpose.

Unarmed, physical destruction.

Nevertheless, that did not make him completely unbeatable.

‘One eye has shut.’

Among the multitude of eyes drifting across the form of Mok, the King of Ruin.

One of them had blinked closed the moment he invoked ‘inviolable’.

Those ‘eyes’ held the specific authority to neutralize special abilities.

To put it another way, if every one of those eyes could be forced closed, the ‘Special Ability Inviolable’ would be deactivated.

‘The manipulation of speed and time is likewise categorized as a special ability.’

The reason he was dubbed the King of Ruin was now glaringly obvious.

I also understood the source of the White King’s immense pride.

It was well-earned.

Crash! Crash!

Kwaaaaaang!

…He gave me no window to utilize my talents.

I needed to force his eyes shut to break the shield, but Mok was far too fast.

Utilizing his massively enlarged hands, he pummeled the Eleven Holy Heavens with a barrage so rapid the eye couldn’t track it.

In a raw contest of physical brawling, I couldn’t match him.

There was only a single path remaining.

“Do you truly have more room to grow?”

The White King let out a short laugh.

Mok ceased his assault.

He was choosing to pause, allowing the evolution to take place.

It was the arrogant patience of the truly powerful.

【Initiating shift into the form of the ‘Twelve Heavenly Sons’.】

The final manifestation contained within the tail.

Sacred and monumental.

“…A crow?”

A bird of pure white feathers stepped forward.

The White King, gazing upon the Twelve Heavenly Sons, narrowed his eyes and tilted his head in confusion.

“The Lord of Five Calamities… no, it isn’t.”

A crow was certainly a crow.

Yet this creature radiated a holiness that made any comparison to the Lord of Five Calamities laughable.

The miniature sun burning above its crown and its crimson, glowing tails were stunningly radiant.

It was so magnificent that one might hesitate to even label it a crow.

Observing the finished transformation.

“In that case, let us resume our game.”

The White King grinned once more.

The ‘Forgotten God’ watched the Druid of the Golden Rule with a heavy silence.

The Twelve Heavenly Sons.

That celestial crow was a creature that existed outside the boundaries of Truth.

It was a beast that had once been revered as a deity.

It was a progenitor of myth, the weaver of life and the bridge between existences.

Its influence had been so overwhelming that it was eventually cast out and struck from the records of Truth.

‘So the Twelve Heavenly Sons was the foundation all along!’

The Forgotten God understood the moment she laid eyes on it.

The Dianax, the Angel Behemoth, the Ten-Tailed Fox, and the Eleven Holy Heavens.

Ultimately, these were all facets that the Twelve Heavenly Sons had bridged and shifted into.

It wasn’t a series of evolutions, but a sequence of transformations.

That implied that this current form was the ultimate conclusion.

‘Victory is still out of reach.’

If this was the peak, it wouldn’t be enough.

The Twelve Heavenly Sons was a specialist in amplifying the strength of its various forms.

But Mok, the King of Ruin, was an anomaly of pure power.

He lacked the finesse of time manipulation or the weaving of life, but his raw strength was great enough to dwarf those concepts.

He was far more formidable than she had envisioned.

‘That must be considered the pinnacle of the species.’

If the species began with the human shape designed by the Forgotten God.

Then this could be viewed as the ‘ultimate evolutionary peak of that race’.

She hadn’t anticipated such power, but it was likely a reflection of the master’s own potential.

The White King.

That man…

‘He carries the lineage of the White Tiger Emperor.’

The sovereign of the White Tiger Clan, who forced everything under his command to evolve.

A person who had displayed a genius so great it was unmatched even in the peak of the most advanced civilizations.

It appeared that bloodline was now manifesting.

Kaaaaak!

The Twelve Heavenly Sons cried out.

It was struggling just to stay standing against the onslaught of Mok, the King of Ruin, and even that was a losing battle.

The Forgotten God sighed and shook her head.

‘If he had only chosen me, the path would be different.’

She had been prepared to offer him everything.

If he had forsaken the goddess to embrace her, this battle would be a triviality.

He would have ascended to the highest tiers of the malevolent gods.

-…-?

It happened in that instant.

Just as she concluded that the Twelve Heavenly Sons was the final limit.

-What is that…?

The Forgotten God found herself doubting her own perception.

Because the Twelve Heavenly Sons had begun to shift its shape once again.

And that new form was something else entirely.

The eyes of the Forgotten God trembled violently as she witnessed ‘it’.

-That is… impossible…!

The Gray King.

The World Tree.

The pillar that held the heavens and ensured the world’s equilibrium.

All living things trace their roots back to the World Tree; thus, the original World Tree was the mother of all creation.

However, the ‘First World Tree’ was not built for longevity because the sheer volume of life force it held was too much to sustain.

It would eventually wither and fade after scattering the seeds for the World Trees that would follow.

Therefore—the most significant hurdle was the planting of the seeds born from the ‘First World Tree’.

The power emanating from the First World Tree was so intense that no living thing could survive getting close to it.

Naturally, even the gods who had achieved divinity dared not approach.

‘It was written that only a single creature was permitted to go near the First World Tree.’

…Only one.

A bird that had built its home at the very peak of the World Tree.

Though the memory of it had been wiped away.

Because she had been discarded and forgotten within the depths of the World Tree’s dungeon, she remembered.

‘Its name is the Nameless Eagle, the sovereign of the high skies.’

It possessed no title.

No living soul knew what to call that bird.

But that colossal eagle had transported the seeds of the First World Tree and, in doing so, had birthed the many World Trees across the lands.

There was no force that could obstruct the great eagle as it cut through the firmament.

Even though it had long since been erased and vanished.

‘…That creature must be the true ancestor of the Druids.’

The Druids, the people who cultivate nature.

The duties of the Nameless Eagle were passed down directly to the Druids.

The Druids were likely one of the very races brought into being by the ‘Nameless Eagle’.

Indeed, that was the reason the Nameless Eagle was systematically forgotten.

The primary reason it had to be destroyed for existing outside the gaze of Truth was…

‘The inception of species!’

The power to create an entirely new race.

Because the Nameless Eagle was an ‘Originator’.

It didn’t merely distribute the seeds of the World Tree.

Through that process, it had given rise to countless species and became their progenitor.

Yet the species it created had no memory of the Nameless Eagle.

Because ‘Truth’ had scrubbed the image of it from their collective consciousness.

-H…ow…

The Forgotten God’s eyes were wide with shock.

That was undeniably the most celestial of all beasts.

It was a grand entity that no ordinary creature could ever hope to rival.

And yet.

There was supposed to be a ceiling on what could be manifested using a ‘Monster Soul’.

No matter how well one could summon a being that existed ‘outside of Truth’, the ‘Nameless Eagle’ was a being that broke past even those barriers.

-How can you… an ‘Old One’…!

…An Old One.

That was the term used to describe the ‘deity of beasts’ in the age of the super ancient civilization.

The original beasts were massive and powerful beyond modern comprehension, and so many different species were at each other’s throats that every day was a struggle for survival.

Among them, a precious few beasts held ‘divinity’ because of their god-like strength; the other beasts labeled them ‘Old Ones’ and knelt before them.

And this was undoubtedly the eagle known as an ‘Old One’.

It was a supreme manifestation that should have been impossible to conjure from a mere soul.

Yet he had done it.

The Druid of the Golden Rule, who had turned his back on her, had summoned the ‘Nameless Eagle’ and went even further.

-…You mean he consumed it.

…He had forged another state of being.

It had been devoured.

By something else.

Something profoundly dark and endlessly ruinous…

By a presence that made even her—an evil deity who lived to spread misery—tremble with fear!

What should have been the ‘Nameless Eagle’, a bird of shimmering white and holy light, had been twisted and evolved into something else entirely, covered in feathers of gray.

The ‘Forgotten God’ could do nothing but stare at ‘it’, her gaze locked in place.

It was the only possible reaction.