The One Who Completed an Unprecedented Myth

Clear!

If I had never come to Faisalmer—if I had simply left things alone—Isabella would have died.

Her plan had been to summon the Demon Blood King into her own body, sever every warp, and sink into the Abyss.

"Why…"

As I tore through space and stepped outside, I met Isabella's trembling eyes.

"Why on earth…!"

Her gaze was pure incomprehension—a thrashing refusal to understand why I would do such a thing.

But the reason was simple.

Because I don't want you to die.

The Isabella I first knew had been nothing more than a character I'd played and abandoned. By now, though, she was a steadfast comrade. A fellow soldier I could trust with my back. A friend who had breathed and fought beside me from the moment I first fell into this brutal world.

So, Isabella.

I want you to live.

"I have nowhere left to return to. No one to welcome me, not even a house to stay in… You are not Randolph, are you?"

In transcending, Isabella seemed to have recalled even her own origin—everything that had happened in the Dersian family of the Empire. The memory of being discarded there. That was why she had never gone back.

"We are only bound by a 'contract.' Why would you try to 'sacrifice' yourself in place of someone like me? Why…?"

…Because we are only a contractual relationship.

One year of service. After that, I had promised to find her origin and grant her freedom. Contractor and contracted. An employment bought with a price—nothing more.

Anything beyond that was impossible from the start. I could never reveal my true identity to Isabella. The moment I did, the whole thing would spiral into catastrophe—a bomb of a relationship that could detonate at any time.

I thought of her as a comrade, a fellow warrior, a friend. But this "bond," painted over with lies, was in truth a crude and fragile thing.

Even if everything is a lie.

Even so, it was fine. Call this feeling guilt or pity if ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠you like. Whether I had meant to or not, Isabella had lost her life because of me. I could not let her lose the life still ahead of her as well. I could not simply stand by and watch a woman try to end herself in despair.

"Ah…"

Isabella's vacant, devastated expression. Even this, she seemed to take as her own failure.

And so I did not answer.

I still had to eliminate the final source of corruption and summon the Demon Blood King into my own body. Honestly, I wasn't certain either. No matter how many times this body had miraculously survived, the Hidden Traits never fully manifested for choices I made of my own free will.

Even so, I simply pressed forward.

In that moment—

…I had finished every preparation. I was certain of it.

Beyond the dimensional gate, the Demon Blood King—advancing toward the heart of the corruption—furrowed his brow.

The preparations had been perfect. His daughter was not one to make mistakes. She was a creature who pursued perfection and tolerated not even a hair's breadth of error.

And yet something was wrong. Especially the state of the corruption source.

Why has it still not been seized?

Once only the final source of corruption remained, its mind and body should have been completely dominated. After that it would take on his form as the Demon Blood King, and he would claim the shell for himself. Only after every being's rank had been transferred would the true beginning commence.

But he could not begin.

Neither mind nor body—not a single thing—has been seized.

…Because nothing had progressed at all. The final source of corruption was merely drifting around the surface of the man, circling without purchase.

The Demon Blood King soon found the cause.

Walls. Walls wrapping mind and body alike.

Outer walls vast as fortresses were blocking the corruption's intrusion.

Huh.

The Demon Blood King was almost amused. He had believed that even a god could be corrupted. What in the world was this creature, that it remained uncorrupted to the very end?

Fine. I'll break through.

Walls, after all, could be pierced and shattered. No matter how solid, a wall crumbled when battered by siege engines—and the Demon Blood King's very existence was a siege engine. Now that his being had crossed through the dimensional gate, even the most impregnable wall would fall. And this was a wall being broken from the inside, not the outside. Far simpler work.

Collapse.

KRRRRRRMMMM!

Seated in place, eyes closed, I clenched my teeth. Beads of sweat had long since become a rain, streaming down. By the time my whole body was soaked and blood was seeping between gritted teeth and clenched fists—

The Giant's Magic Resistance that had been holding the corruption at bay was finally pierced.

CRACK!

In that instant the pain doubled. It hurt as if my legs had been severed. Without the boost to vitality and natural regeneration from the Ouroboros Brand, I would have blacked out on the spot.

Twitch. Twitch.

At the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠same time, the surface of the skin on my legs began to rise—evidence that mind and body were slowly being corrupted and eroded.

It felt as if my nose had been torn clean off. But my body had been rebuilt by every Hidden Trait. Simply breaching Giant's Magic Resistance did not mean I would surrender everything. Twelve Hidden Traits still remained for him to break through.

What a monster.

I had no choice but to admit it. I never imagined an existence capable of forcibly punching through Hidden Traits. If a creature like this ever walked free into the world, the thought alone was horrifying.

My body reeled. I couldn't find my center. I pressed a hand to the floor, fighting not to collapse.

Agony flooded both legs, and then even sensation vanished. I didn't think I could stand. Never before had my Hidden Traits been driven this hard.

I lost my sight. Damn it. Already five. Bloody tears ran as I was seized by the urge to tear my own eyeballs out.

But that was only the beginning.

Through Void, Weapon Master, Great Sage, and All Master—nine Hidden Traits in total crumbled in an instant.

I wondered what kind of abomination this was, and in the same breath I understood why Isabella had been so desperate to sink him into the Abyss. I understood, too, why the world-devouring serpent—the Named Jormungandr—had called the Demon Blood King the strongest existence of all.

Thanks to him, my body was already exhausted. My mind was hazy, as if drugged.

In that instant, vitality surged through my body again. It felt as clear and cool as taking a single mouthful of water while ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠collapsed in the desert. Not every thirst was quenched—but it was enough. Enough that I felt I could wage war against him once more.

CRACK.

I clenched my teeth again.

Ten. Four remaining.

The Demon Blood King looked back. The ten walls he had toppled—each a kind of "Truth" in its own right—had still been insufficient to stop him.

Four walls left. And these four are somewhat different from the ones before.

Each wall bore a different name. He had just brought down Dexterity, so four remained.

Heavenly Realm. High Druid of Great Nature. Heart of the Eternal Lord. Eternal Randolphra.

The Demon Blood King stroked his chin. What were these? Things he had never seen before—truths and names that had not existed in his world. The previous ten walls he could roughly grasp. These four, he could not begin to understand.

Every wall I toppled was an Origin.

Origin. A standard—or a name of beginning. Everything that served as a foundation was more than worthy of being called a Truth. So the ten walls had all been truths that already existed.

Each wall I destroyed was different from the others. Primordial keys that other origin-beings had awakened to and left behind.

He roughly understood now—the nature of those traits. That they were names someone had awakened to and left behind. Keys forged to reach somewhere!

A place that even truths of this caliber could not reach. Where exactly were they trying to go, that they left these behind?

Did some dreamed-of utopia even exist? What was certain was this: beings capable of creating truths of this magnitude had, every last one of them, failed to reach a certain place.

The first ten were like that. But the four walls remaining now were all newly written truths. Things the Demon Blood King himself did not know. Things he could not know. Cosmic existences—and he, who had mastered every secret of the universe, was this ignorant?

Is this creature truly a god?

Moreover, he had never before seen a being who held this many truths in a single body. Ordinarily, truths of this magnitude compressed together should rupture under their own weight. No mere human body could endure it. For a human to accumulate that rank and expand that vessel was impossible—unless one were a god, or something close to a god, like himself.

I am a Seeker of Truth. There is no secret I cannot unearth.

Truly fascinating. This human body. The fourteen truths it held. And of those, the final four remaining truths were especially intriguing.

The Demon Blood King stroked his chin. Then he chose one among the four remaining walls.

Heavenly Realm.

The gate—and the wall—that led to the head. Topple and conquer that place, and the rest would be easy.

The Demon Blood King laid his hand upon the wall called Heavenly Realm.

And then—

Hm?

Above the wall, directly before him, a single enormous eye and a mouth erupted into being. The eye looked at the Demon Blood King.

And the mouth—

Grin.

—smiled, as if it found this all very entertaining.

When Indomitable activated, the pain vanished. My mind grew still, and even the will to refuse surrender was reinforced. Dexterity had fallen, yes—but not every Hidden Trait had crumbled. Four remained. And those four were fundamentally different from the ten that had already broken.

It stopped.

Immediately after, the Demon Blood King's rampage halted. Like a runaway locomotive punching through wall after wall, he had touched one of the four remaining traits—and frozen.

What is he doing?

I tilted my head in quiet puzzlement—and then—

BZZZZZT!

A sudden full-body shudder ran through me, and the discomfort in my gut, as if I had swallowed thorns, began to settle and sort itself out.

And then—

Gurgle.

…It was digested.

That was not the end.

"…A new talent?"

"The Rift Tower?"