Completion
It was something no ordinary god would ever stoop to, if only for the sake of their own dignity.
Crawling on all fours for more than ten days just to escape the Nabelung Forest!
If that didn't make him a dog of a god, what else could you call him?
Of course, even Wilhelm had to concede one thing — the sheer, unyielding will that refused to give up.
But escaping the forest was only the beginning.
Armed with nothing but a wooden practice sword, he arrived at the foot of a colossal mountain.
What the hell is he doing?
He should have been racing to a city to buy the bare essentials for survival. Instead, the moment he left the forest, he marched straight into a mountain.
Was he trying to renounce the world and pursue some hermit's enlightenment?
If so, he had chosen the worst possible place. The mountain swarmed with orcs.
…He's going to crawl again? Up this mountain?
And once more, the dog of a god did exactly what a dog of a god would do.
Wilhelm never imagined he would watch himself scale a mountain on his belly. The only mercy, compared to the Nabelung Forest, was the abundance of drinking water and fruit to keep from starving.
Why are you avoiding them?
The orcs of this mountain were weaker than the monsters of the forest. A proper ambush could have killed one or two of them easily. And yet, for a full seven days, he climbed without slaying a single orc.
When the dog of a god finally reached the summit, he did something only a madman would attempt.
……Has he lost his mind? He's challenging the master of the mountain!
He issued a challenge to the king of the orcs — the lord of the mountain itself!
It was so absurd Wilhelm nearly laughed out loud. Had he crawled out of the forest without killing, had he scaled the entire mountain without drawing blood, all for the sake of challenging this mountain's master?
There was no chance of victory. Even if, by some miracle, he won — surviving the descent was even less likely.
"Great King of Bloodhorn Mountain! I challenge you to a Warrior's Duel!"
……It was enough to drive a man insane.
Only at the summit did he finally rise to his full height — but this was the dwelling of the orc king. Orcs poured in from every direction. And the King of Bloodhorn Mountain was no monster a wooden sword could hope to face.
"…An interesting human has appeared."
His frame was easily more than twice the size of any other orc. The scars covering his body were proof enough that he was a warrior of terrifying strength.
And what if he simply refused the challenge?
"The countless orc souls of Bloodhorn Mountain have acknowledged you. I do not know how you climbed this mountain without killing a single one of my kind — but you who know honor! Your challenge is accepted!"
……He accepted.
Wilhelm felt dizzy. Before he knew it, his palms were slick with sweat as he watched the two face each other.
"But you cannot fight a proper battle with that wooden stick. Take this!"
The King of Bloodhorn Mountain tossed one of the scabbards hanging at his waist. They were trophies stripped from every challenger who had come before. Among them, he chose a rare and powerful treasured blade.
"This is a warrior's fight! Defeat me, and that sword is yours — and your life is spared! But if you lose, your life is forfeit."
Shiiing!
The Warrior's Duel began.
At least it was one-on-one — a small mercy — but the gulf in power remained absolute. Did the dog of a god truly believe he could win this fight?
Clang!
The sword shuddered. His body shuddered with it. No amount of sword training could bridge an overwhelming difference in raw strength.
Without realizing it, Wilhelm was swinging a blade of his own inside the swamp of his mind — desperately, with the absolute conviction that he had to win.
I don't have the power to pierce his hide. The only way is to turn his own strength against him!
Even the finest treasured blade was useless if you lacked the force to land a blow. And the monstrous power of the King of Bloodhorn Mountain was enough to make one's tongue go dry. If that power could be used… even that iron hide could be split open.
That was the moment it began.
The special stat Evasion has surpassed a critical threshold.
Blade Deflection
Wilhelm's will had crystallized into a skill. Of course, it wasn't his will alone. All that relentless, dog-like crawling had built his Evasion high enough to forge the skill in the first place.
Hooooooosh—!
In that instant, time itself seemed to slow. The King of Bloodhorn Mountain's killing blow was visible — crystal clear.
Blade Deflection
He deflected the blade at the precise instant. But that alone was not enough.
Counterattack activated!
He turned the force against its owner. The King of Bloodhorn Mountain lost his balance and toppled. Deflect, redirect, strike the weight that had collapsed onto the knees — the counterattack landed clean.
The fallen king's eyes trembled violently. But a smile lingered at the corner of his mouth.
"Magnifi——!"
Thud!
The blade pierced his throat and carved clean through.
Ah……!
A rush of pure ecstasy flooded through him at the same moment. Wilhelm's entire body shuddered.
He was alive.
This — this was the sensation of being alive!
But that was not all.
Slay the King of Bloodhorn Mountain — Completed at Level 1
After his victory over the King of Bloodhorn Mountain, Wilhelm felt, for the first time in his life, a fierce and overwhelming joy.
To challenge an impossible trial — and win. The ecstasy of that moment was what made Wilhelm feel truly alive.
And yet, at the center of every situation stood not Wilhelm himself, but that dog of a god.
I simply cannot understand him.
Escaping the forest. Climbing Bloodhorn Mountain. Both were acts that all but guaranteed death. And still he never hesitated to challenge them — and he succeeded.
Why?
It wasn't even his own body. He was merely controlling it. So why did he throw himself into these challenges with such desperate, almost pitiful intensity?
It was beyond anything Wilhelm's common sense could grasp.
His next move was no different.
A port city?
The dog of a god did not head for the Balan Kingdom. He went instead to a harbor city called Yasum — a place where countless ships came and went, a hub of trade where every rare and precious thing in the world gathered, and a city that had flourished because of it.
"Sa…ve me……"
"Ugh……"
"Move faster!"
Crack!
The slave trade thrived there as well. Slaves came down from the ships in single file, bound in chains — men, women, old and young, every one of them so emaciated their bones showed through their skin. In this place, a slave was not a human being. They were merchandise. Consumables. And so there was not the slightest twinge of guilt when a whip cracked or a fist fell.
What is he planning to do here?
Of all places, why come here? Wilhelm had assumed he would go straight to the Balan Kingdom for the bounty.
Surely he wasn't going to buy a slave?
……He got one, all right.
The unexpected had come true. He had acquired slaves — not by purchasing them, but by liberating every last one of them. It earned him the pursuit of countless soldiers, and still he paid it no mind, freeing every slave in Yasum.
But why?
Why did that dog of a god keep volunteering for such pointless acts? There was no profit in it — only loss upon loss. Wilhelm could not understand. Unlike the earlier challenges, this was pure, self-inflicted hardship.
And yet the incomprehensible acts kept coming, one after another.
He saved the weak. He performed good deeds. He refused to bow to the powerful. And at last he arrived in the Balan Kingdom and was granted a knighthood.
For a moment Wilhelm wondered if everything had been calculated for the sake of becoming a knight — but even after that, the man's path never faltered.
……And then.
Before he knew it, Wilhelm was walking that path alongside him.
I will not lose.
Perhaps it was nothing more than a childish impulse. But for some reason, he did not want to lose. That grit that would crawl like a dog to achieve a goal. That absolute, unbending confidence. That must have been it.
Wilhelm kept swinging his sword. If there was one single thing he possessed that surpassed that dog of a god, it was his blade.
Someday. If he just kept swinging without end, he felt he might finally reach that dog of a god.
I want to know you. I want you to know me.
…Perhaps he simply wanted to make his own existence known.
And then, at some point, Wilhelm came to be called the Knight King — an honorable being revered by all. He created the sword style of Creation of Heaven and Earth. He launched the Great Expedition that everyone tried to stop him from undertaking.
……And still, he never reached him.
That dog of a god.
He had cursed him. He had resented him. But now, at last, he understood with certainty.
Only now…… do I finally know myself.
Who he was as a human being. Who he was as an existence. After circling and circling, only after death had he arrived at the answer.
And yet once again he stood on the brink of death. All of these memories were nothing more than the flash of a life before dying. It was far too late to awaken and move forward.
But even so — it was enough.
Behold. This is the final question I send to you.
His final question — and the final assignment he would leave behind.
Wilhelm gripped his sword.
Because at last, it was complete.
Know thyself. Open thyself.
The Byeok — the Creation — of Creation of Heaven and Earth.
But this sword style was never meant to be torn apart and used as a single fragment. It was a technique that became complete only when every part fused into one.
Creation of Heaven and Earth
And so I will reach you.
…You dog of a god.
KRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANG—!!
The moment the Supreme Sword touched the earth, a catastrophic roar of splitting air summoned death itself.
The absolute proposition of death! No living thing could withstand the death this blade carried.
"……What?"
But Randolph could only frown. The Supreme Sword had not fully reached the ground.
Someone had stopped it.
Wilhelm. He had.
"You……"
But something was wrong. The Supreme Sword was a blade that could not be stopped. The only thing that could block a blade beyond all standards was something equally beyond all standards.
And yet Wilhelm did not possess a blade beyond standards.
If this was possible at all—
He himself has become something beyond standards……
Beyond standards. To become a god by one's own hand!
But that, too, was strange. Anyone could awaken, transcend, and attain a divine rank. But becoming a god itself was impossible. Gods were not made. A god was a being born alongside the world itself at the moment of its genesis.
Even Randolph, who held the Hidden Traits Eternal God and God of the Demon Blood Species, was not a true god. He merely possessed qualifications equivalent to one. Similar words — but they were never the same thing.
And yet.
……Even so.
Randolph could not help but be shaken. Even the Gate of Truth held no information about a phenomenon like this.
Wilhelm's swordsmanship was the manipulation of phenomena. And at its absolute end — he had become the phenomenon itself!
As the dust settled, the figure of Wilhelm that emerged—
"He made himself into a god……?"
He had caught the Supreme Sword — not with a blade, but with his bare hand.
He had rewritten the fate of death into the fate of life. He had become a being who could decide his own destiny.
And that form was, without question, something that could rightly be called a god itself.