Sanctuary of Honor
Another Ruin.
And the Primitive Heavenly Demon!
At their core, the two were much the same. Both classes were rooted in evil and the demonic.
The affinities of light and glory had settled upon Park Hyunmyung; every opposing affinity had poured into Randolph. And the result surpassed anything I had imagined.
Just existing — just switching — and the power was already this overwhelming. It had long since left the realm of something I could restrain or carefully manage.
…Strong. Far too strong.
The demonic energy. The shape of pure evil. The dark affinities that had already been formidable had gathered, fused, broken past their rank into transcendence, and at last become complete and absolute.
And at the same time—
‘Another Ruin’ is one who summons Ruin.
Select a World and trigger its Collapse.
Collapse worlds and be reborn as Complete Ruin.
Each world collapsed grants Ruin Points.
Destroying a Divine Symbol also grants Ruin Points.
Ruin Points may be used to strengthen the power of Ruin.
Each world destroyed increases your number of familiars.
First familiar unlocked: summon the Crow of Ruin.
The description of Another Ruin. A selfish class that destroyed worlds and drew power from the wreckage. The contents were overwhelming — far beyond a mere Hidden Class.
And a Divine Symbol was almost certainly something that represented a god’s rank: a sacred relic of great importance, or structures like a Tower. To destroy those for points and reinforce the very essence of Ruin…
Had the Ruin that once annihilated Pangenia possessed an ability like this as well?
Still, I had no intention of destroying Pangenia or Earth. If anything ever needed to be shattered completely, it would be the Heavenly Realm.
Familiars, huh.
And on top of that, a first familiar derived from me — something in the same vein as the Four Calamities. Why a crow, of all things, was simple enough once I thought about it. The crow’s power had evolved again and again under the gods of Calamity and Ash. This was simply its final evolutionary form.
And that was not all. The text kept rising.
This time, regarding the Primitive Heavenly Demon.
The Primitive Heavenly Demon is the first demon to ascend to the Heavenly Realm.
A name that threatened the heavens and scorned the world — sealed by the Heavenly Realm itself for being far too powerful.
Every demon that followed was influenced by the Primitive Heavenly Demon and sought to inherit that great name, yet none ever reached its rank.
They created arts such as the Cheonma Shingong and the Star-Devouring Great Method, called themselves Heavenly Demons, and imitated the Primitive Heavenly Demon’s techniques — but never approached the original source.
The Primitive Heavenly Demon is the strongest of all demons.
The Primitive Heavenly Demon devours every other demon.
Unique Hidden Skill unlocked: World-Ending Heavenly Demon.
Everything I had possessed related to the Heavenly Demon had fused together and been completed as the Primitive Heavenly Demon — the original source, under that most powerful of names.
Neither of the two new titles was anything less than overwhelming. If anything, they were too powerful. Power far beyond what I could currently bear!
Gloves of Ash
Transforming into Park Hyunmyung.
I switched at once. There was no telling what might happen if I remained as Randolph. This was the heart of the Empire. If I were discovered, combat would break out on the spot — and the demonic power boiling off me was so intense that remaining undiscovered would have been nearly impossible.
…Raising levels alone isn’t enough.
Only then did I understand. Before the affinities had been separated, Randolph had been chaos itself. And simply raising my level would never achieve true balance.
I had to grow the power of light. Only then could I control Randolph’s darkness. If I failed, merely transforming and existing would accelerate the world’s destruction. The Seven Deadly Sins and Demon Kings might come running, begging to be friends.
…Just imagining it made me dizzy.
Barely a few minutes later—
“What is going on!”
The door burst open. Raiga appeared in full armor, tension raw in his eyes.
“Feromone and Laktusha are dead…?”
Having received the report from the Dark Elf Lord, the Black King furrowed his brow. He had sent his closest subordinates, believing they could never lose. And yet they had died without even recovering Baal or the fragment — even after both had been further strengthened by his own grace.
“Who killed them?”
“Laktusha fell to Feromone. Feromone fell to Wilhelm.”
“…”
The Black King shut his mouth. His frown remained, but for a moment the story from the Dark Elf Lord simply failed to make sense.
Those who had received his grace could not kill one another. The Black King did not permit it. Of course, there were exceptions.
“Did Feromone lose my grace?”
That was one possibility. But if Feromone lost the grace, he would simply become a stupid monster — stripped of intelligence, degenerated. He would never have been able to kill Laktusha. And yet he had. How?
“He evolved into his complete form.”
The Dark Elf Lord answered — but he did not explain the exact path by which the grace had been lost. He said nothing of the Black King’s natural enemy appearing: the being that destroyed mystery and shattered grace. He merely glossed over it as a complete evolution.
The lines carved into the Black King’s face deepened.
“And even so, he died to Wilhelm?”
Evolving into a complete form meant he had been shaped into the final design the Black King himself had laid out — the cells of Despair maximized. Killing Laktusha would have been possible. But to lose to Wilhelm even after that…
Wilhelm. The one who tore out one of the White King’s fangs.
He knew the name well enough, and the feat of severing the White King’s fang. But hadn’t that man died?
“I have brought the corpses of Feromone and Laktusha.”
“Well done.”
Analyzing the bodies would yield clearer answers. But the moment he saw them, the Black King frowned again.
Laktusha’s corpse had been crushed. Feromone’s, on the other hand — refined and completed into the form of a black human — was far too intact for someone who had supposedly lost to Wilhelm.
The Black King murmured under his breath.
“…Killed in a single blow.”
An overwhelming gap in skill. A single strike that had severed the very root of life, leaving no chance of regeneration.
Tch. He clicked his tongue softly.
The limits of an ant, I suppose.
An ant was still an ant. Laktusha was still only an orc. No matter how much grace he bestowed or how strongly he raised them, the limits of their species seemed unavoidable.
Still, the two corpses would allow him to run a certain experiment. A smile touched the Black King’s lips.
“How are matters proceeding in the Forest of Beginning?”
“We have secured a number of High Elves, including the Elf Elder. However…”
“However?”
“An unexpected presence made capturing the Queen impossible.”
“An unexpected presence?”
“The White King.”
The White King? Why would a creature that should have been holed up in northern Kramdel suddenly appear in the elves’ stronghold, the Forest of Beginning?
Even so, the White King’s appearance changed nothing. A tiger without its fangs was nothing to fear.
The Dark Elf Lord continued.
“It seems the White King has recovered his power.”
“He reclaimed his fang? Hmm…”
The Black King stroked his chin. If the White King had restored his prime by reclaiming the fang, the Dark Elves alone might struggle. Still, it was fine. Failing to secure the Queen was regrettable, but the High Elves alone were enough — and with the Elder among them, all the better.
…Then it happened.
“…!!!”
In an instant, the Black King’s eyes began to tremble violently. Without thinking, he shifted his gaze toward the far horizon beyond the edge of the world.
Somewhere — right now — an immense evil had appeared.
Thought stopped. He had unmistakably felt a presence of evil like Ruin itself — a force that seemed ready to annihilate the world.
It was not only the Black King.
“Hm?”
The Demon of Pride — King Friedrich — also looked out beyond the horizon. A strangely familiar energy had brushed against him.
“‘Ruin’…?”
The aura of Ruin itself. Pride and the other demons felt it as well. But it was too soon. This was not yet the time for Ruin to appear.
Pride looked up at the sky, then tilted his head.
The time is still far off.
Ruin appearing now made no sense. The conditions for its manifestation had not been met. There was only one case in which the Heavenly Realm sent Ruin: when civilization flourished and the gods grew arrogant — when a civilization reached its most brilliant peak, its level soaring high enough to reach for the heavens.
But Pangenia was nowhere near that. Only Martial God Karas and a single Dragon God had been restored so far. Far from flourishing, civilization still had a long road ahead. And if the conditions truly had been met, simply looking up at the sky should have revealed countless gods. None appeared. Both the gods and the level of civilization were still woefully inadequate.
It vanished?
Moreover, the presence of Ruin had disappeared in the span of a single breath. What was this? It had not been a mistake — he was certain of that.
“…”
And Pride was not the only one left with that question.
The Demon King. Seated upon the throne of the Demon Realm, occupying Wilhelm’s body, he gazed into the far distance with eyes like a bottomless abyss.
Raiga, still wound tight with tension, could only tilt his head. The bone-chilling aura of evil he had felt only moments before had suddenly vanished — as if it had never existed at all.
A hallucination? It had lasted only an instant before disappearing, so he could almost call it that. And the only one present in that place had been Hyun.
“Is something the matter, sir?”
“…”
Raiga found himself at a loss for words. It seemed he alone had felt that dreadful power — here, inside the Empire, within the imperial palace itself.
Then…
Have I truly reached the hour of my death…?
…Or perhaps it really was a delusion. As if his senses were failing because his end was near. After all, Hyun of Adrium was as far from evil as one could be. The holy capital of the Goddess Sect was sealed by the goddesses’ barrier; no evil could enter. And his faith ran so deep that Aron, son of a Goddess Sect cardinal, followed him with fervent devotion.
Yes. A mistake. It had to be a mistake.
Raiga let out a quiet breath and looked at Hyun.
“…Prepare yourself.”
“Where are we going?”
At Hyun’s question, Raiga nodded.
“We will go to the Sanctuary of Honor and perform the Ritual of the Eight Houses.”
A ceremony that had to be completed for formal recognition as a disciple. Even if the families of the Eight Houses refused, he intended to force it through. And he would hand everything over intact — his power, and the will of every generation that had led the Eight Houses.
Even if Hyun never swore loyalty to the Empire, that was fine. So long as he did not turn his sword against the Emperor. Raiga no longer intended to pass on that particular burden.
He simply hoped Hyun would live freely, unlike himself — that he would leave the dark Abyss behind, explore the world, and make a name. That he would rise to the realm of a Martial God and fulfill the long-held wish of the Eight Houses. Even simply proving to the world that the name of the Eight Houses still stood would be enough.
That, after all, was surely what the first Immortal who founded the Eight Houses had intended.