The Eleven Sacred Heavens
It was a four-character idiom from Park Hyunmyung’s homeland.
Hudson had been studying Hangul in every spare moment. Of all the phrases he had learned, the one that resonated most deeply was nakjang-burip—once the game has begun, there is no taking it back.
Hudson drew a long, steady breath and set the bone necklace upon the scale.
In that instant—
Creeeak.
At last, the scale moved.
The goods placed upon the scale have reached a value of ‘100,000’.
The ‘God of Merchants’ bestows a blessing equal to that value.
‘Poring’ begins evolving into ‘Angel Poring’!
“Ah…!”
Hudson’s entire body trembled. At the same moment, tiny wings sprouted from either side of the Poring. The newly born Angel Poring shot into the sky and, in the blink of an eye, seized the Harpy from behind.
Then—
Kyaaaaaaah!
The Harpy screamed. That was all it managed. Angel Poring swelled in size and swallowed the Harpy whole in a single gulp.
Hudson (Angel Poring) is victorious!
He had won.
…He had won!
⊳ The Round of 10 begins immediately.
⊳ Hudson (Angel Poring) VS White King (Annihilation King Mork)
There was no time to celebrate. Of all possible opponents, his next match was against the White King.
With trembling eyes Hudson watched the White King take the field. The moment the White King appeared, however—
Thud!
—he simply sat down. Annihilation King Mork did the same. Neither showed the slightest intent to fight.
“You sit as well.”
“……?”
“Let us simply watch. The duel between the Druid of the Golden Rule and the Forgotten God.”
Rather than battle, the White King proposed they spectate someone else’s fight. It was an offer Hudson could not refuse—he was curious himself.
Better this way, honestly.
Angel Poring needed time to recover its stamina. A being of the White King’s caliber would not lie. Hudson sat down as well and turned his gaze toward the clash between Park Hyunmyung and the Forgotten God.
“Hmm… the situation is unfolding more interestingly than I expected.”
The watching White King stroked his chin, clearly intrigued. Hudson, however, could not utter a single word.
What… what is that?
He was simply overwhelmed. The duel unfolding before him belonged to an entirely different realm from the one he had just fought.
After the Primordial Dragon, the Forgotten God had next unleashed the Monster Soul of a Primordial Necromancer. Countless curses rained down while Death Knights were summoned to assault the Angel Behemoth. Dozens of Death Knights herded the Angel Behemoth exactly as if they were driving prey in a hunt.
“Oh-ho. Those Death Knights are all ‘Souls of Forgotten Knights,’ are they not?”
They were no ordinary Death Knights. Each individual was absurdly powerful—forged from the souls of forgotten knights.
“Even the Druid of the Golden Rule seems to have no answer. At this rate… hmm?”
Then it happened. Just as the Angel Behemoth’s defeat seemed certain—
“It evolved again?”
—it evolved.
Dianax. Angel Behemoth. And now—
“A fox with ten tails…”
“The Ten-Tailed Fox!”
A Ten-Tailed Fox. In an age when even the Nine-Tailed Fox was dismissed as legend, the Ten-Tailed Fox was naturally revered as a fox deity.
It kept evolving. It kept raising its phase, exactly like a Raid Boss monster.
“Now this is starting to look like a real fight.”
For the first time, genuine interest filled the White King’s eyes. Yet even he believed there would be no further evolution.
The Primordial Dragon’s self-destructive assault had been blocked by evolving into Angel Behemoth. Its overwhelming bulk and matching vitality had kept it from dying. Thus the Forgotten God devised her next plan: she fielded a species the Angel Behemoth could never defeat.
…How far will you evolve?
As expected, the Forgotten God succeeded in hunting the Angel Behemoth through the Primordial Necromancer. She had succeeded—until the creature, driven into a corner, changed form once more.
The Ten-Tailed Fox…!
A sacred fox that had long been forgotten, yet had once truly existed. That fox had reappeared in the world.
Two consecutive evolutions. Every gaze in the arena converged upon a single point.
“Beautiful.”
“Haaah!”
“My heart feels like it’s going to burst!”
Every onlooker cried out in admiration at the sight of the Ten-Tailed Fox. Its power of allure transcended cognition; merely looking at it made hearts pound wildly. Even the dead were no exception. The Primordial Necromancer and the Death Knights halted their assault.
Six of my children fused into that one…
Of the thirteen beasts, six had merged to create the Primordial Necromancer—nearly half their number, born with dark power that stood in opposition to divinity. The Primordial Necromancer was a monster on par with a demigod. And yet it was left helpless by mere allure.
—Come to your senses.
She spoke with a curse laced into her voice. Only then did the Necromancer and Death Knights begin to move again. But the holy power fired from the Ten-Tailed Fox’s tails was a force of absolute superiority. The situation reversed once more, and the Forgotten God’s face twisted.
The repeating pattern of events made irritation surge.
—Dark Lord. Wearer of the Cursed Crown.
The Forgotten God laid an even stronger curse—not upon the Ten-Tailed Fox, but upon her own Primordial Necromancer.
Then—
Kooong! Kurururung!
A small black hole formed. The Death Knights and the Primordial Necromancer were sucked into it.
Jwaaaaaak!
Moments later a giant skeletal soldier tore the black hole apart and emerged, still wearing the Cursed Crown. That was the true body of the Primordial Necromancer—an undying immortal, a monster without precedent upon which no allure and no supernatural power could take hold.
—Let us finish this now, child of those two detestable goddesses.
The Forgotten God was certain. No matter how sacred the Ten-Tailed Fox might be, it could not defeat the Dark Lord. In the distant past he had been known as the most powerful necromancer of all—a genuine monster who had offered his own body as sacrifice to form a contract with an evil god.
My child.
She herself had been the evil god who granted that contract. No one understood the Dark Lord’s power better than she. There would be no further evolution. No—even if it evolved now, it would be useless. Once the Dark Lord had appeared, nothing else would matter.
—Can you escape this crisis as well?
A smile touched the Forgotten God’s lips. At the same time the Dark Lord drove the Ten-Tailed Fox back. None of the fox’s attacks had any effect. Just as the Dark Lord was about to bring its blade down upon the fox’s neck—
“……Wh-what is that?”
“Insane. It’s evolving again?”
“That’s already the third time!”
“This time… a white dragon?”
“Th-that… don’t tell me those are all Wish Orbs?”
They had thought it impossible, yet it evolved once more—this time into the form of a white dragon. What made the spectators reel in shock, however, was the number of Wish Orbs the white dragon carried.
Fully eleven of them.
—Eleven Sacred Heavens…!
The Forgotten God’s astonishment was even greater. It could not be otherwise. Dianax, Angel Behemoth, even the Ten-Tailed Fox—none of them were anything compared to this existence.
The one who bore the name of the Sacred Heavens. It was a matter from long, long ago… from before the Heavenly Realm had been united into one.
In the beginning the Heavenly Realm was shattered into countless fragments, and the being that ruled eleven of those skies was none other than the Eleven Sacred Heavens.
That was why she could not understand. The Eleven Sacred Heavens lay on a path that could never evolve from a Monster Soul. Because it had received a goddess’s love? Nonsense. Even that would not make it possible. That being existed completely outside.
It no longer existed—and could not exist.
—You… what in the world are you? How can you summon an existence from outside the Truth…!!
…It had been erased by the Truth.
A proposal.
The most critical factor in evolving a Monster Soul was the summoner. When the summoner’s rank and soul synchronized with the Monster Soul, it evolved into the form most similar and most essential to that soul. In short, the third floor was a testing ground that revealed the essence of the soul. One either evolved the soul into the form most like oneself, or into a form one had never known, and then waged a war of essences.
Yet an existence from outside the Truth could not exist here. Something erased. Something deleted and gone forever—how could it be called forth?
If such a thing were possible, the one who performed the summoning would themselves have to be an existence from outside the Truth. Meaning the Druid of the Golden Rule standing before her eyes was such a being.
‘The Truth erases or overwrites whatever does not fit the Truth.’
The Forgotten God knew the terror of the Truth. The Truth had taken the countless fragmented Sacred Heavens and fused them into a single Heavenly Realm; it possessed a dread power that made even the gods themselves tremble. Because the Truth held the ability to erase or overwrite any existence outside the rules it had established, turning that existence into something entirely different.
Once erased or overwritten, what had come before was annihilated forever. Annihilation—in the literal sense of being wiped away. No one would ever know what it had originally been. Everyone would naturally believe it had always been that way, and it would exist outside the cognition of every being; that was what it meant to be “outside the Truth.”
Ordinarily she herself should not have known of it. Yet because she was the Forgotten God, she instinctively understood the concept. Being forgotten was of a piece with being erased.
It was neither erased nor overwritten…?
Yet this creature was different. If the Druid of the Golden Rule were an existence from outside the Truth, he could not be standing before her eyes right now. That he nevertheless existed and revealed himself meant—
The one who cut the Gate of Truth…!
The Forgotten God could not help but flinch in shock.
…He had cut it. The Gate of Truth. If he had cut down and destroyed the absolute Gate of Truth that contained every law of the world, then it became possible. Yet unless one possessed the power to create heaven and earth, such a feat was impossible. He had cut what could not be cut. He had made the impossible possible.
Then this creature was not merely the Druid of the Golden Rule. Something beyond that. A being who possessed an ability beyond imagination.
How is such a thing even possible?
But the Forgotten God shook her head. That a mere mortal had cut the Gate of Truth—something she herself had never been able to cut, something she had never even dared to think of cutting—was not easily accepted.
Gyaaaaaaaaah!
In that instant the Dark Lord screamed. Then its bones began to collapse. The Dark Lord turned its gaze toward her, the Forgotten God.
—…….
The Forgotten God could say nothing. It was letting out a final death cry, and she could read the plea for salvation in its eyes, yet the matter already lay beyond her power. The eleven Sacred Heavens—true to their name—shone with eleven Wish Orbs and hastened the death of the Dark Lord she had reserved.
Now I understand why the Eleven Sacred Heavens were erased.
Because it had governed time. The Truth could never have left such a thing alone. Everything that had been erased and vanished had been beings that handled absolute concepts. Even if their power was not great, the mere fact that they “possessed” such a concept meant the Truth would never leave them be. It would always erase them, or completely overwrite them into different existences, so that they could never again use the related power.
‘Druid of the Golden Rule (Eleven Sacred Heavens)’ is victorious!
The creature had won, and she had lost. Yet what stirred her curiosity far more than the sting of defeat was something else entirely.