The Meeting

Looking back on those days, even I have to admit it was pure madness.

Day after day. For nearly ten days straight, I barely slept while playing Wilhelm.

Back then I was what people call a "time billionaire" — unemployed — so it was possible. Job hunting was going nowhere, and the only free thing I could do was game, so a strange stubbornness took root.

Fine. I'll clear it myself!

In Pangenia there is an evasion technique called Crawl.

Nothing fancy — just a command that has you scramble along the ground. It lets you move without drawing the attention of monsters that strike first.

But using Crawl properly is extremely difficult, so almost no one bothers with it. Getting back on your feet from the prone state takes time; if a monster catches you mid-rise, you become free food. Your movement speed is also slow. You can't take any other action while crawling. Most players agreed it was better to just run for it.

There was one thing people didn't know, though.

Survive in Crawl and your Evasion rises. You also rack up high Survival Points.

That was exactly what I was after.

High Evasion means first-strike monsters have a harder time locking onto you. It also raises the chance of attacks simply missing. That was why, before leaving the forest, I crawled back and forth around the cave, grinding Evasion as high as it would go. By walking a tightrope — keeping just enough distance from powerful monsters — my Evasion climbed steeply, until I finally had enough to escape the forest.

But.

…Wilhelm was self-aware from the very beginning.

I already knew that Wilhelm had been conscious inside the character. During his first duel with Raiga, when his Sword Mastery hit level 31, Wilhelm's sealed memories bloomed open and showed me a single scene.

The game's intro.

The moment he called me a dog of a god and swore he would burn the world to ash.

But that wasn't the whole of it.

Wilhelm. His consciousness had existed from the instant the character was created.

Long before he ever escaped Nabelung Forest.

All that time, stuck in this place…

I looked around.

Pitch dark. Nothing to see. This place — the swamp of the mind — was lonely and bitterly cold. Words never reached anyone. Moving never led anywhere. Even the flow of time was wrong. It felt at least dozens of times slower. An hour Wilhelm endured felt like a full day to me. Maybe more. Time here was pure hell.

More than five years since the character was made. How many years had Wilhelm felt inside this mental swamp? A hundred? Two hundred? The longer you stayed, the slower time crawled. I couldn't even guess how long he had been here. It was simply vast.

Any ordinary person would have gone completely mad.

No — not that. Every human being except Wilhelm would have been unable to endure staying here at all.

…Wilhelm simply kept swinging his sword.

Through that hellish stretch of time, Wilhelm swung his blade without rest, desperate to break through the wall and reach me. But I never heard him. I didn't even recognize he was there. Of course I didn't. Wilhelm was just a game character I had raised. I thought he grew faster than other characters simply because I had stacked early mastery well. It never once crossed my mind that Wilhelm might have been helping me obtain special skills or draw out special temperaments.

That's why I wanted to attempt the Hidden Quest.

After escaping Nabelung Forest, there was one Hidden Quest I absolutely had to complete.

Pangenia has seven officially recognized Hidden Quests. Their contents are so impossible that people half-jokingly call them the Seven Wonders. Naturally I had never even considered attempting them. I wasn't joking — even I thought they were genuinely impossible.

The quest: solo, at level 1, hunt the King of Bloodhorn Mountain.

At level 1, you have to kill a Level 7 Raid Boss — the King of Bloodhorn Mountain. Climb a mountain crawling with orcs, challenge him alone, win, and come back down.

I figured if I didn't do it now, I never could.

In Pangenia, most leveling comes from hunting. Quests give experience, but nowhere near as much as kills. Climbing Bloodhorn Mountain means fighting orcs; fighting orcs means experience; experience means levels. The moment you level up, the Hidden Quest becomes unreachable.

That was why Crawl mattered. Even after escaping Nabelung Forest, Wilhelm was still level 1. But with high Evasion, I was confident the orcs wouldn't spot me.

All that remained was a one-on-one duel with the King of Bloodhorn Mountain.

The biggest obstacle was still the King himself. The only real chance was to force a Warrior's Duel for a fair one-on-one. And a Warrior's Duel was only ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠available to a character who had never killed a single orc — so if I didn't try now, I would never get another shot for the rest of my life.

That was why I charged in without a plan.

Without Wilhelm, I would have lost.

The skill that formed mid-duel against the King of Bloodhorn Mountain didn't appear just because my Evasion was high. It was born from Wilhelm's will. Without the Sword Deflection skill in that moment, the duel would have ended in defeat.

…We were both reckless.

Looking through Wilhelm's memories, I couldn't help a dry laugh. The feelings Wilhelm had held toward me were the same ones I felt now.

Trapped in pitch-black darkness, swinging a sword and nothing else. No one watching, no one acknowledging you, no chance of ever getting out — swinging a blade through eons of time. Is that even possible? That long effort…

…I finally understood.

"I exist because you existed."

I knew the words would never reach him, but I offered my thanks anyway.

"You worked hard, Wilhelm."

I praised his effort.

"But looking at me as a 'dog' of a god instead of just a 'damn' god is a bit much, don't you think? I was only trying to survive."

I even threw in a complaint. Because I now knew that "dog of a god" wasn't merely a curse of resentment. The nickname had come from literally crawling on the ground like a dog. Ridiculous — but if he hadn't done even that, he would have gone mad long ago.

"…This 'dog' of a god will cheer you on. Go wild all you want."

Everything Wilhelm was. The form he had wanted to show me!

He was strong. Stronger than I had ever imagined. On a level that couldn't be compared to when he was merely a game character.

But even that wasn't everything.

Once Wilhelm recovered every memory and came to know himself—

"…"

Looking ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠at him, I couldn't say a word. All I could do was stand there trembling.

Wilhelm. He had become a being of an entirely different dimension from anything before.

The completion of Creation of Heaven and Earth.

It was nothing like the sword I knew and wielded. And yet I couldn't grasp it at all. We had clearly learned the same thing, but the trajectories were utterly different.

He no longer shouted at me. He no longer strained to reach me. He simply showed me.

…So now it's my turn?

Now it was my turn to thrash and struggle. Toward something unreachable, something no amount of effort could touch.

"Hahaha!"

Seeing his method, I couldn't help bursting into laughter. I understood what Wilhelm was trying to show me — the feelings he wanted me to experience.

It was, in a word—

"What a real bastard."

I had no choice but to call him a complete bastard.

Randolph changed his strategy.

If even the Supreme Sword that decides fate couldn't kill him, then he would simply press him down with another method.

Mystery Destruction.

Destroy Wilhelm's mystery. The mystery wrapping him now was nothing like what ordinary humans wore. As he raised his own rank, the specifications of everything he wore rose with him. So erase them one by one.

…But it wouldn't break.

Winter.

Whiiiiiiiiing!

He activated the unique skill of his Supreme Unique-grade weapon — Winter (Ultimate Twilight). Freezing the opponent with absolute cold. But this, too, failed. To Wilhelm, that level of cold couldn't compare to the cold he had felt in the swamp of the mind.

Sssssssss!

Randolph's entire body was dyed in darkness.

Eye of the Dreadful Omen.

He expanded his domain of darkness, then drove the Eye of the Dreadful Omen into his opponent to seize control by force. Moments later, an Omen's Eye sprouted on Wilhelm's chest.

But he wouldn't move as commanded. ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠Wilhelm's body and mind had already surpassed any vessel that someone else could freely manipulate. More than that — he had already spent a long time being controlled.

"…As God of the Demon Blood Species, I command you. Protect me."

The authority of the God of the Demon Blood Species. He tried to summon Blade Dragon God Hana and the two children.

They did not answer.

…They had never truly been summoned in the first place. From the start, they had recognized that the current Randolph was not the god they served. What had appeared were only false puppets. Had they answered the summons, the real ones would have appeared in Phase Two.

Grit!

"You refuse me? I am the real one. I am the real Randolph!"

Randolph ground his teeth. They weren't the only ones who refused him. Skills related to the Star's Successor were also unusable.

At the same time, Randolph's eyes sank into cold stillness.

If that was what they wanted—

"…Fine. I'll show you. Why I am the strongest."

He would prove it. How, on God's Island, he had slaughtered the masters of the Abyss and the Primal beings.

Randolph raised his sword.

Thuk!

And drove it into his own heart.

Then—

Fwaaaaaaah!

Black smoke erupted from his heart, and countless eyes rose across his skin.

"You've never seen this either, have you? The proper use of a Fragment of Ruin."

Eternal Randolph. Upon death he could revive once using the Power of Life — but there was another method. Drawing on the Power of Death sealed inside the Fragment of Ruin. A power only the current Randolph could use. The true engine behind the slaughter on God's Island.

Randolph smiled.

"I am your Ruin, Wilhelm!"

He swung his sword.

KRAAAAAANG!

The world was cut. It shattered and vanished. Randolph's movements annihilated every existence they touched. Everything his hands reached was driven into death. He had become a bug unto himself.

ZZZZEEEEENG!

KRRRRRRRUMBLE!

The tower collapsed. It felt as if the world itself were being destroyed.

But as he swung, as he met blade with blade, Wilhelm understood.

—Won't you destroy the Heavenly Realm with me?

The blue bird's true intent. Looking at Randolph fully unleashing the power of the Fragment of Ruin, he finally understood with certainty.

Ruin is a weapon sent down from the Heavenly Realm.

A weapon for eradicating the ground. An instrument that exists solely to destroy worlds. It hadn't simply been born and turned Pangenia into hell — it had been dispatched from the Heavenly Realm to break Pangenia. Not only Pangenia. Countless worlds had ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠been burned the same way.

So he understood. The current Randolph was firmly connected to the Heavenly Realm. Had that dog of a god known this when he set Randolph against him?

How dare they…

And so Wilhelm knew, with absolute clarity, what he had to do. He thought he also understood why that dog of a god had cheered him on.

This is my world.

Not a place you can twist and turn as you please.

This is our world.

So I will show you. The absolute peak of martial power.

Genesis of Heaven and Earth.

An infinite world you have never experienced.

Wilhelm swung his sword.

GUOOOOOOOOOOO—!

The world shook. Centered on the Tower of the War God, everything was being swallowed. And so the entire Tower of the War God was consumed by darkness.

A completely new world.

"Where… is this?"

Randolph looked around. Wilhelm's sword. The countless principles and ultimate secrets contained within it had stolen his mind. It was a blade he had never seen — not even at the Gate of Truth, not anywhere.

And when he opened his eyes again, he was here.

The swamp of the mind, dyed in darkness. Cold. Nothing to see. He couldn't move.

In that state, Randolph endured countless ages. He destroyed the world with the power of Ruin, only for it to be reborn and swallow him again. Worlds without end.

Ah…

Agony. Agony. Agony. As if time had stopped. As if he were trapped for eternity.

How much time passed like that?

Thud!

A single sword dropped before his eyes.

Shing.

Someone appeared, taking up the fallen blade.

"Disappear now, fake."

…Park Hyunmyung revealed himself.

Having unleashed the absolute peak of martial power, Wilhelm's expression hardened as he looked at the Randolph who had appeared once more.

"…You dog of a god."