The Unborn Existence

The Gate of Truth — and the Heavenly Realm?

The names were unsettling. At first I thought I might have misheard, but there was no chance of that.

"Why? Do you happen to hold a key yourself?"

The Sunken Emperor swept a sharp gaze over me. He kept studying me with open suspicion every time I asked about something that should have been obvious. To any resident of the Abyss, these were facts one simply knew — and I did not. If he ever learned that I actually possessed a "key," the Sunken Emperor would stop at nothing to devour me.

"Hardly."

I offered a small smile. The Sunken Emperor chuckled in return.

"Fair enough. Short of Ruin itself, no one could hold every star and every key."

…Short of Ruin itself.

That phrase snagged strangely. It meant only Ruin could possess all thirteen Hidden Traits. But I was not Ruin. I was human — a far cry from some entity that casually destroyed worlds. Wilhelm the Knight King's character had simply been deleted, his accumulated value converted into 1.6 million Soul Points, and I had maxed every talent. That was all it took for the thirteen Hidden Traits to unlock.

‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠

So Soul Points and talents are connected to Hidden Traits?

Certain talents unlocked Hidden Traits depending on investment. Pour three thousand points into each of the Five Great Elements, for instance, and the Void attribute opened. Invest another five thousand into Void and you obtained the Hidden Trait Nothingness. A Hidden Piece born from talent itself. Knowing the path, however, did not mean just anyone could walk it. Acquiring Soul Points was extraordinarily difficult.

Even dying with a Unique-grade weapon only yielded seventy to eighty thousand Soul Points.

A Hidden Trait unlocked by deleting a Unique-grade weapon was one or two at most. And Nothingness was among the easiest Hidden Traits to obtain. The rest demanded far more Soul Points.

Still, 1.6 million Soul Points is enough to max every existing talent. And you can earn Soul Points through various quests or by running the Rift Tower.

The amounts were never large, of course. Clearing the first floor of the Rift Tower had only netted about seventy thousand. But if someone somehow scraped together 1.6 million Soul Points, couldn't they awaken all thirteen Hidden Traits?

It's not completely impossible to gather them.

The odds hovered infinitely close to zero — but they were not zero. In theory, then, even someone who was not Ruin could awaken thirteen Hidden Traits. Strictly in theory.

I did not hold thirteen Hidden Traits because I was Ruin. Still, one thing bothered me.

…The Heavenly Realm.

Among the thirteen Hidden Traits were ones even I had never known. Glutton, Great Sage, and Heavenly Realm. Glutton had become Greed. Great Sage had become the Eye of Truth. Only one remained unchanged: Heavenly Realm. And if another name for that Heavenly Realm was the Gate of Truth…

I have seen the Gate of Truth.

When Hana the Blade Queen was giving birth to a Dragon God's karma, I — linked to her — had also faced the Gate of Truth. It had been inside me, expressed as a vast eye and a vast mouth. Those same things had rewritten my Great Sage trait into the Eye of Truth, calling it a gift. There did not seem to be many such things in existence. The feeling of confronting them had been on an entirely different plane from facing a mere Deity.

So those eyes and mouths were the Heavenly Realm?

And what about the Players?

That was stranger still. Players had been summoned by the Goddess solely to protect ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the continent of Pangenia. They should have had little connection to the Abyss. Yet the fact that Soul Points could grant Hidden Traits — stars — made them feel almost like beings of the Abyss themselves.

"Still, for a recluse, you carry a rather dense Abyssal Force. Like a ruler who governs several domains. Why break your seclusion and come here?"

I cleared my mind. This was the moment to focus on the present. My current form was that of one who kindled darkness — a shape close to the Dreadful Omen.

"I only left my domain recently."

"A newcomer, and already on God's Island? You've got some nerve. Count yourself lucky you met this form of me and not my true body."

"Is your true body different from this one?"

The Sunken Emperor nodded.

"Different. Vastly different. This is nothing more than a projection of myself from the distant past."

"Were you human, long ago?"

"I suppose I was. I barely remember."

He frowned. A memory so ancient that even forcing himself to dig for it yielded nothing — so remote it had nearly vanished.

"Still… one thing remains."

"What?"

"The first emperor to unify the continent. That was me."

The Sunken Emperor. In the far past, he had been the emperor who unified the continent. …It matched what the Ancient Dragon God had told me. Meaning he, too, was a being who had entered the Ancient Dragon God's treasure vault and emerged. This one was definitely a Primal existence.

I condensed my reply.

"How sentimental."

"Hmm. Perhaps because I cannot move my true body? A sliver of the emotions from my human days seems to have returned."

The Sunken Emperor spoke with mild wonder. Emotions lost upon becoming a ruler of the Abyss. In any case, this was enough.

Night.

The sun was already dipping low. Night was approaching from the far horizon. Darkness. No — the Abyss.

It was a shame I had not managed more Expedition Duels with other participants, but if none of them were turning up no matter how hard I searched, it probably meant they had started growing wary themselves.

"Time to move."

Drawing more attention would do no good. First priority: find a safe place to spend the night.

The messages rose as the island sank into darkness. New rules had appeared.

Brutal.

Attack and health both at a full five hundred. Getting caught meant certain defeat. The unexpected part was the ban on duels. All combat had been fundamentally locked down.

Use the night to expand your allies. Is that the idea?

Conversation was possible during these hours. Start a fight and the Night Spirit would come for everyone, so the message was clear: talk nicely and grow your side.

"Weren't we looking for a place to stay? Wandering around and running into a Night Spirit would be disastrous."

I did not settle in one spot. I kept moving — and after reading those messages, I moved even more diligently.

"It won't attack on the first day."

"…? What makes you so confident?"

I only shrugged without answering.

It's like a horror game.

Think of the usual horror-game formula and it was simple. No ghost ambushes you on the first day while you're still learning the controls. Even if one appears, it only scares you — it doesn't kill the player. Or it's made extremely easy to avoid.

There were starlights marked on the map that simply ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠weren't there when I went looking.

Newly appeared starlights. I had gone to the locations written on the map and found nothing. There had to be another condition for them to appear. And that condition was very likely this "night." Real starlight only shows itself after dark, after all.

Bingo.

…Just as expected. A starlight embedded in the ground, glittering crimson. It had definitely been invisible that morning.

Shhhk. Shhhhhk.

Then it came. A scraping sound from behind my back, sudden and close.

"…Close your eyes. And whatever you do, do not turn around."

The Sunken Emperor's warning. What had appeared behind us? All I knew for certain was that it was a presence of bone-chilling darkness. I had faced and dueled countless powerful enemies, but this particular brand of dread was a first.

I closed my eyes.

Shhhk. Shhhhhk. Shhhhhhhk.

After about thirty seconds, the sound faded.

"It's gone. It passed."

The Sunken Emperor exhaled. For a being of his caliber to react like that…

"What was it?"

"…The Unborn Existence."

Meaning the Unborn Existence had just passed behind us. Still, I was puzzled.

"Combat is impossible anyway. Why bother closing our eyes?"

"It doesn't care about that. It has no 'most precious thing' to begin with."

"…So it's cheating?"

"Ah, at least in this game it would be the absolute favorite to win. It simply swallows whatever it meets, destroys it, and walks toward victory. That is all it is."

He spoke as if he knew the Unborn Existence well. He had already forced me into my first Expedition Duel loss, and beyond that he seemed to know a great deal more.

The Sunken Emperor continued.

"In any case, do not collide with that monster."

Collide and you die. There is no surviving it. Better to lose an Expedition Duel and be transferred to the Star's Prison… That was what he seemed to be saying.

"Why help me?"

Even so, it had been a chance to erase one competitor. I had helped him, yes — but he was a being of the Abyss. He cooperated out of necessity; I found it hard to believe he was the type to repay a favor.

The Sunken Emperor tilted his head.

"Who knows. Perhaps because I am in human form right now. But do not expect this kind of help when you meet my true body."

"I'm moved to tears."

"By the way… what did you find?"

"A starlight."

And a very special one at that. The starlight I had found seemed invisible to the Sunken Emperor. Because he had not yet unlocked the condition, perhaps?

I asked the question that had been lingering.

"Sunken Emperor. Are the starlights here named after the twelve stars that first fell into the Abyss?"

"I doubt it. The rule seems to be that each person follows their own Star's Memory."

"Their own Star's Memory?"

"Only starlights bearing the names of the stars you possess will appear."

I held every Hidden Trait. Only I could own every starlight. Yet gathering them all had produced no change. The change had come only when I rearranged them according to the order of first memory.

So I have to collect them in the order I obtained and evolved the Hidden Traits.

What had I obtained next?

It was definitely on the road to Kramdel. I swallowed a Corpse Crow's core there and Glutton evolved.

But that was hardly evolution in the true sense — merely an application of Glutton's trait.

If not that, then the first real evolution was when the Iron-Blooded Lord's ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠heart became the Eternal Lord's heart.

That had been when I killed Maxim. Maxim had stormed Marquis Weiser's Knight's Garden, insulted the Great Expedition, and tried to erase the knights who had fought alongside us. Pure rage had seized me. The Hidden Trait Quest: Iron-Blooded Lord had begun. After I killed Maxim and cleared it, the Iron-Blooded Lord's Heart evolved into the Eternal Lord's Heart.

I need to find the Eternal Lord's starlight.

But the starlight before me was not the Eternal Lord's. Nor did it bear the name of any other evolved Hidden Trait I had held.

This is…!

The moment I checked the starlight, my brow tried to furrow of its own accord. I forced myself to keep still.

…………Why was this showing up here?