The One Who Possesses All Hidden Traits
Those who lose a Star Expedition duel are transferred to the Star's Prison for a full day.
A compulsion strong enough to relocate even an existence of the Primal rank, like the Heavenly Demon.
Did that not mean the one who had created and orchestrated this game stood at a level equal to—or greater than—his?
Without starlight, you are automatically declared the loser.
One thing was certain: this was no mere game.
You had to gather starlight to raise your attack power and vitality.
Lose, and you forfeited whatever you held most precious—
just as the Heavenly Demon had left behind this single saber.
The Cheonmado.
A raw, thrashing resistance pulsed against his palm.
It felt like mounting a wild stallion.
Simply gripping the weapon was enough to make his stomach turn.
Even set against his own Supreme Unique-grade sword, Winter—Ultimate Twilight—its stature did not seem lesser in the slightest.
So this is the Heavenly Demon's most treasured possession.
And yet it was unexpected.
Of all the countless things the Heavenly Demon possessed, why was this saber the most important?
It could not be merely because of its grade.
He was a being who knew the Primal. Judging by grade alone, it would not have been strange for him to own several treasures of similar caliber.
—Ugh, filthy! Rude! Can you get this disgusting thing away from me?
A familiar voice he had not heard in some time.
Winter, silent for so long, had finally spoken.
A sword with a will of its own.
The moment he took hold of the Cheonmado, she had abruptly begun to talk.
That prim, haughty tone was unchanged—but the revulsion she felt toward the Cheonmado carried all the way to him.
Filthy and rude? What did the Cheonmado ever do to you?
The complaint itself was puzzling.
He was only holding it. How was that rude?
You used the word "rude" when someone had actually given offense.
—Can't you hear that thing? It keeps muttering with that filthy mouth. Only one who has undergone Molting and Annihilation and glimpsed the Asura can fully master the Cheonma Shingong. But accumulating pure demonic energy through human heart methods alone is impossible, and—what the hell is it even saying?
He could not hear it.
But Winter could.
The saber's words. The curse engraved upon the Cheonmado.
It's a martial insight.
What Winter relayed to him was genuinely staggering.
She did not understand it, but this was a martial insight—an enlightenment.
Someone had taken a realization they had attained and layered it, in meticulous detail, into the will of the blade.
And it was a study so distant that even he, as he was now, had not yet reached it.
Not merely the insight itself—concrete methods had been written in as well.
This was…
Jackpot.
Not just a jackpot. Not even a super jackpot. Something on the order of a miracle.
He had struck pure gold.
Had he simply stolen the Cheonmado alone, he would have known nothing.
But because Winter was here, he could perceive the martial insight carved into the saber. Was it not said that a treasure shines only for the one who recognizes its worth?
Now I understand why the Heavenly Demon valued this saber more than his own life.
By now the man would be pounding the ground in regret—
for failing to gather enough starlight.
Once a day had passed, he would come hunting for it with his life on the line.
But a single day was enough.
Enough to memorize and establish the insight.
And even after that day, the Heavenly Demon would not be able to surpass him.
Because the Star Expedition unfolding on this God's Island was a board laid out truly for him alone.
Eight treasures of this caliber.
Just imagining it, the trembling would not stop.
It had been a long time since he had felt excitement like this.
He was concentrating as intensely as he had when he obtained the Archetypal Armor.
In his mind, he was endlessly sketching the situations to come—
the renowned rulers of the Abyss,
and the Primal existences.
How he would defeat them and seize the treasures they held most dear.
"…What are you?"
The old man.
The elder who had been thoroughly thrashed by the Heavenly Demon rose from where he lay and looked at him as he spoke.
Hostile—yet wary in equal measure.
Given that he had blasted the Heavenly Demon away in a single stroke, it was only natural.
"The Sunken Emperor, are you?"
So he asked.
During the fight with the Heavenly Demon, the old man had clearly spoken of "sinking" something.
And among the participants, there happened to be one called the Sunken Emperor—so he had thrown the name out on a hunch.
"…! You know me?"
"Seems I was right."
"Don't tell me… you're in league with that bastard as well?"
"That bastard?"
"The Unborn Existence…!"
The old man trembled once, his whole body shaking with rage.
Come to think of it, there had been one who launched a Star Expedition the moment everything began.
The Unborn Existence!
Could the expedition that creature had initiated somehow be connected to the Sunken Emperor?
He ordered his thoughts, then opened his mouth.
"I am not his ally."
"…You're not?"
"Correct. So—did you duel the Unborn Existence?"
"You mean the Expedition?"
When he nodded, the Sunken Emperor bit his lip.
The hostility had faded a little, but distance still remained.
Even so, hearing that they were not allies seemed to have eased some of his wariness.
"The bastard forced some kind of Expedition on me. Damn him…!"
"You lost—yet you weren't transferred to the Star's Prison?"
"…This body is not my true form."
Ah. That explained it.
No wonder he had been crushed so pathetically by the Heavenly Demon.
Transfer to the Star's Prison was apparently limited to one's true body.
That was fairly important information.
I can dig more out of him.
This was someone who had already fought an Expedition duel before him.
Moreover, he was likely to know the other participants here in greater detail.
After all, he had been waiting for the conditions to be met so the game could begin.
If this isn't his true body, he can't initiate an Expedition duel anyway.
Unlike when he had faced the Heavenly Demon, the starlight he carried was quiet.
Either he could not duel because this was not his true form, or he had already lost once and was barred from dueling for a full day.
This game is about finding the hidden conditions and rules.
Simply gathering starlight was not the end of it.
He had to keep inferring and uncovering information like this.
After sorting the situation, he spoke to the Sunken Emperor.
"I think we could become rather good friends."
Let's be friends, then.
The Owner of the Tomb and Randolph engage in a Star Expedition duel.
The Owner of the Tomb's Attack Power and HP are 0.
The Owner of the Tomb has been defeated.
Randolph seizes the Owner of the Tomb's most precious possession.
Child's Tomb has been seized.
Gooooooooh.
The Owner of the Tomb.
An ancient golem of earth and clay let out a pitiful, lowing cry.
Those defeated in a duel are transferred to the Star's Prison for one day.
But then it vanished.
Just like the Heavenly Demon, it had been transferred to the Star's Prison.
What remained for him afterward was a single small copper-colored coin.
A cheap coin with a tomb etched upon it.
And this was what the Owner of the Tomb held most dear?
There did not seem to be anything else hidden within it.
Regardless—he had defeated two monsters in duels right from the start.
There could be no better opening than this.
"…The Skin Hybrid of God has cooked up something peculiar."
The Sunken Emperor muttered.
They had spent several hours scouring the island together.
Only a few hours, yet they had grown closer than at the beginning.
Simply by following him around, the Emperor had learned a great deal—and in turn, he had managed to extract a great deal from the Emperor as well.
Was this what they called mutual benefit?
"So this God's Island was created by the Skin Hybrid of God?"
When he asked, the Sunken Emperor nodded.
This stretch of the Abyss was clearly the Skin Hybrid of God's domain.
And yet the Skin Hybrid of God was nowhere to be seen among the participants.
Proof that the creature was the master of this island—and the one who had set the board itself.
"To be precise, it did not create it. This island is… one of the few spaces within the Abyss that remains uncontaminated. You didn't even know that?"
Apparently the Sunken Emperor took him for a resident of the Abyss.
He was staring at him oddly for not knowing even the most basic facts.
If the man was already laboring under a misunderstanding, there was no need to invite unnecessary suspicion.
Better to exploit that suspicion instead.
He shrugged as if it were nothing.
"I don't leave my own domain much."
"A recluse, then… Well, there are plenty of those."
The rulers of the Abyss.
They were creatures who lived within their respective territories.
Even among the Abyss's rulers, many had no precise idea of what lay within the Abyss itself.
If you never left your own domain, there would be no exchange of any kind—so of course you might not know.
Having accepted this with a small nod, the Sunken Emperor continued.
"I thought the Skin Hybrid of God was using starlight as a pretext to read the Star's Memory I carry. But watching how this has progressed, it seems to have another purpose entirely."
"Reading the Star's Memory… But why call them stars at all?"
The Star's Memory.
Starlight was, in every case, Hidden Traits.
And when he had first started with thirteen Hidden Traits, arranging the starlight in the order of that original memory had completed the Star's Memory and unlocked a function that had been sealed away.
So why did they call Hidden Traits "stars"?
Hearing the question, the Sunken Emperor looked at him as if he were something strange.
"Are you truly that ignorant just because you're a recluse? What an odd one you are."
He truly knew nothing.
The Abyss was a place about which almost nothing was known.
Even Raiga had only hunted in the Abyss; he would have known none of this information.
When he offered no reaction at all, the Sunken Emperor went on.
"The twelve stars that first sank into the Abyss. Those stars lie Beyond the Gate, and the Abyss was contaminated by the star-energy that leaked through the cracks of that Gate. The Traits you carry were all influenced by the stars as well."
…Wait.
For a moment his head spun.
Could those twelve stars be referring to Hidden Traits?
And the rulers of the Abyss simply called Hidden Traits "stars"?
"Where is Beyond the Gate?"
"The original twelve stars belong to those who have already fallen to Ruin. So no one knows. But those who create new Gates have appeared—and I am one of them. That much is certain."
He laid out his own boast as if it were nothing at all.
Twelve Hidden Traits.
They had all been something like the origin of ruined races.
The Hidden Traits added afterward each possessed their own unique nature—
like the Eternal Randolph he carried, or the God of the Demon Blood Species.
Which meant the Sunken Emperor also possessed a new Hidden Trait.
But he had clearly started with thirteen Hidden Traits.
So why did the man say twelve?
"Is there anyone who holds all twelve of the stars that first fell?"
"Haha! As if such a being could exist."
Absolute denial.
Judging by that mocking attitude, even among the rulers of the Abyss, no such person existed—
no one who possessed every Hidden Trait.
But the Sunken Emperor did not know everything about the Abyss either.
Just because he did not know of one did not mean such a being was nowhere to be found.
As he was thinking that, the Sunken Emperor clicked his tongue softly and spoke again.
"Though they say Ruin is the one who holds them all. That it carries the twelve stars together with the Key."
"The Key?"
A mention of Ruin.
And a Key!
Curiosity burned so fiercely he had to ask again, and the man opened his mouth.
"The Key goes by many names. Among them, two are the most representative."
He focused in silence.
He had heard almost nothing about the true nature of Ruin.
And this was a story connected to the Traits that Ruin itself possessed.
Then the Sunken Emperor grinned and said—
"The Gate of Truth—or the Heavenly Realm."