The Nameless Eagle

······ Because the White King possessed the ability to empower them all.

Just as the Black King shared his strength with his closest retainers to fortify them, the White King wielded a power akin to a divine authority — the power to cultivate them.

No — from the very beginning, the White Tiger Clan, which had stood at the pinnacle for ages and led the beasts, had possessed such an innate skill.

Beginning with the Hidden Trait Beast Lord, they held a truly extraordinary ability that governed growth and evolution, known as the White Tiger's Grace.

It was one of the reasons countless beasts had followed the White Tiger Clan.

But until he went into seclusion, the White King had never properly used that ability. More precisely, he had refused to use it.

The Grace of the White Tiger Clan strips a being of its original form.

To evolve. And in doing so, to lose one's unique traits — that was not always a blessing.

Of course, evolution in the right direction left nothing to be desired. But the White Tiger's Grace forced evolution in a form that pursued nothing but raw power.

In the end, such evolution birthed only rampage. It made a creature lose both its original form and its inherent nature, drunk on strength alone.

That was why he had never properly used the Grace until now. He had never known how to control it.

But then—

After a long seclusion of wandering, stripped of my power, I finally understood.

What is emptied must be filled — that was the natural order of things. Having lost his fangs and his strength, the White King had mastered the art of controlling the Grace.

Rather, he could now guide evolution into forms more refined and perfect than ever before. That was the reason his forces had grown so rapidly.

And so, this contest—

I cannot lose. Victory is mine.

······ He was certain of victory. It was as good as decided.

The evolution of this peculiar Monster Soul followed the same principle. Bestowing the White Tiger's Grace, then driving endless cycles of growth and evolution until victory was secured — for the White King as he was now, that was a simple matter.

He would unleash the Grace without restriction, forging it into a completed form. Because a Monster Soul was life and yet not life, such a thing was possible.

An Evolution Stone without limits. This······ is truly something special.

The World Tree's Dungeon. With a forgotten god having entered the fray, the tools provided held truly infinite potential.

Worthy of the name Primal — it was the very prototype of the original Soul. A congregation of possibility that could become anything, transform into anything!

He was genuinely curious about the identity of the god who had scattered such things as tools for a contest.

But even with a god participating, the thought of defeat never crossed his mind.

"Devour it, Annihilation King Mok."

Grrrrrrr!

Before the White King, a bizarre beast greedily tore into the fallen Raid Boss monster, the Hydrak Mammoth.

Slaaash!

Despite a size difference of more than threefold, it ripped the carcass apart without hesitation.

Gray skin, a massive upper body and enormous arms, two small wings sprouting from its back, and countless eyes appearing across its entire form.

Mok was a heteromorphic monster who, in the distant past, had been called the Annihilation King. Wherever Mok passed, nothing remained — and so he had been called a Demon King, or the Annihilation King.

He had vanished at some point, and no one knew where he had come from or what his origins were. But the White King knew.

Mok is the greatest masterpiece the White Tiger Clan ever created.

The monster completed by the White Tiger Clan at the height of its glory. A masterpiece finished after evolving in endless hunger for power!

The problem was that he had been too dangerous, impossible to control. The White Tiger Clan, then at the peak of its strength, had poured everything into subduing Mok — and as a result, had been forced onto the path of extinction.

And yet, for Mok to be born through his own Grace meant, in other words—

I will control the Mok that the White Tiger Clan failed to control.

······ That he could rewrite the history of failure. That this was the perfect opportunity to prove himself the strongest of the White Tigers.

This was destiny. A command to resolve the clan's bitter wish, and go further still — to write a history of success.

The Monster Soul was an object that proved the one who had summoned it. And even so, there would never be an opponent who could defeat Mok.

The White King smiled. He felt he finally understood, with certainty, why he had entered the World Tree's Dungeon.

Dianax's supermetal. And the Star Ivory of the Angel Behemoth as well.

I swept them up in a frenzy. Then I watched once more for the moment of evolution. If my prediction was correct, I was certain this was not the end.

Just as I thought!

And from a single tipping point, the Angel Behemoth began to evolve.

A Ten-Tailed Fox.

True to its name, it had evolved into a colossal fox bearing ten tails. Limitless — meaning it had reached the threshold of a world without end.

I stared blankly at the Ten-Tailed Fox.

It's insanely sacred.

Was it because the creature embodied my current nature? It was a fox of boundless elegance, radiating an antique, refined atmosphere. One might say it exuded a mystical aura that no ordinary being could dare approach.

Those who bore the name of the nine-tailed fox typically possessed the power of allure — but the Ten-Tailed Fox radiated an entirely different dimension of inviolable sanctity.

An ancient Divine Beast of the original form.

What, after all, was a Divine Beast? A sacred animal. A being that had attained rank, transcended, and finally come to possess spiritual potency. A turtle that had lived ten thousand years, a serpent that had become a dragon — such creatures belonged to this category.

Those Divine Beasts possessed a loftiness that humans could never approach. But in the present age, no such Divine Beasts existed in Pangenia. After Ruin appeared, they had all vanished.

The Divine Beasts that remained now were merely descendants of the originals. After Ruin emerged and the continents rose into the sky, the beasts had grown endlessly smaller and weaker — an inevitable result.

But the Ten-Tailed Fox before my eyes was a true Divine Beast. A sacred animal that had existed in its original form, before Ruin.

The World Tree's Dungeon. This place holds every original form.

And I understood. Just as I had found the First Fire in the Primordial Treasure Vault, countless original forms existed here as well. Seeking out those originals and restoring them — that was the true objective. A process of reclaiming what had been forgotten and lost.

In that case—

······ This, too, is not the end.

An original sacred beast. This was merely another beginning. There would be something older still — the original form of all Divine Beasts. The first Divine Beast to ever appear.

I wanted to know what that beast was. Farming was important, but a higher priority had taken shape.

For the time remaining, I devoted everything solely to evolution.

Eleven Sacred Heavens?

Did that mean one who possessed eleven sacred skies? The form that appeared next was every bit as holy as the name suggested.

A white dragon whose body seemed to touch ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠the heavens themselves, bearing eleven tails as its name implied. At the tip of each of the eleven tails hung a jewel like a rounded jade orb.

Every one of them is a Wish Orb.

······ All of them were Wish Orbs. I had never seen a dragon that possessed eleven Wish Orbs. Wasn't a single one the limit?

Even someone like Isera, who killed other dragons and stole theirs, could manage two or three at most. Yet neither the size nor the brilliance of these orbs fell short in the slightest.

After the Ten-Tailed Fox, the Eleven Sacred Heavens. Did the degree of evolution perhaps depend on the number of tails? What was certain was that a being never before seen or heard of had appeared — one that Dianax and the Angel Behemoth could not dare to compare with.

Then what would come next?

With roughly an hour remaining on the contest's time limit, I attempted one final evolution.

And as expected, the Twelve Heavenly Sovereign possessed twelve tails. But it was not a dragon — it had taken the form of a colossal bird. The form of a white crow. Twelve tails, and atop its head a heat like the sun itself seethed and crackled.

Insane.

I was left speechless — by that sacredness. Stronger than all the Divine Beasts that had come before, bearing six additional Traits, it was a true completed form.

But at what followed, I lost the ability to speak entirely.

Kieeeeek—!

The Twelve Heavenly Sovereign screamed. As if waging war within itself, it twisted its entire body and thrashed across the ground.

Hwaaaaak!

At the same time, its white skin began to peel away. Its wings and feathers — even the small sun seething atop its head — all of it was dyed in gray light.

And then—

Ruin had appeared.

The Nameless Eagle. The being that emerged wearing the Twelve Heavenly Sovereign like a skin — the Crow of Ruin. The first vassal Randolph could summon upon acquiring the class of Another Ruin!

But I had not known how to summon the Crow of Ruin. I could not recklessly transform into Randolph, and it was not a being that could simply be called forth by willing it.

But to think it would be summoned like this······

A ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠method that activated only when conditions were met. It seemed a vassal could only appear by devouring a completed shell prepared for it to wear.

Come to think of it, hadn't the vassals of Ruin also appeared in the ‍‍‌‌⁠​​⁠‌​​‍​​‍​‌​⁠‍‌‍⁠⁠‌⁠‌‍‌‍‌‌‌‍⁠​‌​‌​‌‍‌‌‌⁠‍​​‌‍⁠‌‌⁠⁠world already complete?

Moreover, the Crow of Ruin that had consumed its shell took a form different from anything I had imagined. Its long, outstretched gray wings looked as though they could cleave the great sea itself, and its sharp beak seemed capable of piercing anything. The tips of its twelve tails bloomed like lotus buds unfurling into full flower — breathtakingly beautiful — and the long plumes rising from either side of its head blazed with a light as fierce as the sun.

For a vassal of Another Ruin, was it not far too radiant?

Soon enough, I understood why.

······ The cascading entries of the status window. Reading through a total of eight Traits, I could not help but tremble deeply. I had never once seen a summon of this kind.

Something that could become anything, transform into anything — the true form of a Soul.

But evolving into the Nameless Eagle did not seem to be mere coincidence.

The Nameless Eagle is a being that represents me.

This creature was the very embodiment of my identity. Having it nest in my soul and be etched into my body seemed to mean precisely this. After endless evolution, it felt as though it had finally met me.

A strange sense of kinship washed over me.

······ I'm glad I kept pushing.

I had worried whether forcing the evolution so aggressively was a mistake. Evolution in the wrong direction would have been worse than not evolving at all. But the result of trusting myself and stubbornly pressing forward had been the absolute best. It could not have turned out better.

Having inherited my experience gain rate and proficiency growth rate, its growth itself is bound to be faster than anyone else's.

The reason such growth had been possible was not simply because I had hunted at higher tiers. It was because the creature had inherited my auxiliary stats wholesale, building an enormous foundation of growth potential underneath.

An overall experience gain rate exceeding 500%. A proficiency efficiency surpassing 2,000%. And on top of that, all manner of additional yet powerful options.

Of course, there was one more reason besides.

······ The Gloves of Omen and Calamity.

The Primal gloves that the God of Omen and the God of Calamity had bestowed as a final reward. Beyond simply enabling the switch between Park Hyunmyung and Randolph, another ability had been hidden within.

The two gloves possess a linking function. I called it transformation, but its true name is Link. Connection.