The Nameless Predator
The true nature of that thing had already surpassed anything the Forgotten God could have imagined.
It was simply beyond comprehension.
……A king of beasts, was it.
But that thing was no mere king.
In the beginning, countless species of beasts had risen and even claimed divinity for themselves — yet among them all, not a single one had ever been called a true King.
And yet.
The King of Primordial Beasts……
That was a being that could dare claim the title of King of Primordial Beasts!
And the power it wielded surpassed even that.
It evolved, and evolved, and evolved again.
Endlessly. Infinitely. It was still evolving.
It had reached the point of sheer exhaustion just to watch.
The moment you thought it was over, the next stage arrived. The moment you believed surely this is the end, something further still appeared.
But it didn't matter.
There was no way anything could stand against Demon King Moke, who had reached the absolute terminus of his species.
……Or so he had believed, until he saw the Gray King.
Grrrk. Grrrrrk.
Demon King Moke let out a strange sound and settled into a wary stance.
At the same time, the White King frowned.
The scent……
The scent had grown thicker.
But it was not the scent of defeat.
It was an unknown fragrance — strange beyond measure, a kind he had never smelled before.
What is this?
Had it been the scent of death, he would have recognized it instantly.
And yet this was gloomier, more stifling, even than that.
Moreover—
"The Fifth Lord……"
That one's scent had grown thicker as well.
So intense that no one but the original could possibly produce it.
And above all — for a being evolved by the Druid of the Golden Rule, wasn't it far too dark?
That meant this was the true color of the soul the Druid carried.
The Gray King.
The Nameless Predator.
For an instant, a question rose in him.
If that truly was the identity of the Druid of the Golden Rule's soul—
If he was the Gray King, and simultaneously a predator—
"You……"
The White King's expression hardened without limit.
It was only a hypothesis.
But even imagining it was unbearably foul.
"Did you…… eat the Fifth Lord?"
……He could think of nothing else.
Unless the Fifth Lord had been devoured, the scent hanging in the air right now was utterly inexplicable.
"……"
The Druid of the Golden Rule gave no answer.
But that was enough.
That reaction.
The atmosphere of someone who could not bring himself to reply.
That alone was sufficient.
The White King's face set like stone.
No matter how ominous the Fifth Lord was — no matter that he was a mad crow with no concept of hierarchy—
Even so, he is the Fifth Lord. He is my retainer.
Blood runs thicker than water.
The Fifth Lord was one of the five vassals the White King himself had appointed.
Had the Fifth Lord not chosen him over the Star Guardians?
He shared a deep bond with his daughter Aria, and had restored her fangs — a relationship that could never be severed, no matter how hard one tried.
And the Druid of the Golden Rule had devoured that Fifth Lord.
So now —
All goodwill toward the Druid of the Golden Rule, all courtesy —
"Kill him, Moke."
— was gone.
GROOOOOOH—!
Demon King Moke inflated his entire body.
I'll tear you to shreds.
"The difference in dimension is…… staggering."
"……As expected of the Druid of the Golden Rule."
One by one, the watching members of the order began to speak.
The battle unfolding before them was suffocating.
The gap between them and what they were witnessing was simply too vast.
The druid Albino spoke with a dazed look in his eyes.
"We call it a soul…… but in truth, it is no different from desire."
A monster's spirit projects the summoner's soul.
But what, then, is a soul?
By what measure are a soul's rank and magnitude determined?
Albino defined it as desire.
In the end, he believed soul and desire were not so different in their greater current.
How vast a desire one carried determined the size of one's soul.
The desire to grow stronger the stronger one became.
To surpass walls, transcend limits, and reach the extreme — one had to desire it, and one had to know.
The more one knew, the greater desire grew — and with it, the soul.
"So that eagle's form is the desire Hyun carries, then?"
Raiga asked.
If soul and desire were one and the same, how was that form to be explained?
It was not simply because it was the Gray King.
The moment the battle began—
That gray predator had dissolved into smoke and clouded Demon King Moke's eyes.
The smoke had then become twelve separate bodies, and at the center of every one of them rose a violet sun.
Those violet suns were gradually staining themselves black.
And each time they did, the eyes carved into Moke's flesh snapped shut in rapid succession.
No — they were not merely closing.
……They're being erased.
The eyes were vanishing.
As if being preyed upon.
They were being eaten.
Raiga watched the scene with a complicated expression.
If that was the identity of Hyun's soul, then it meant he was ultimately a being that preyed upon everything.
Truly greedy. Truly desirous, was it not?
The scale of it was overwhelmingly vast.
GROAAAAAAAK—!
Demon King Moke screamed.
He reached out, but nothing connected.
His hands only brushed through smoke.
The twelve separate bodies were the same.
And yet every time those things pecked with their beaks from within the smoke, chunks of Moke's flesh were torn away in ruinous strips.
Then—
"……I will not leave this to run its course."
Shiiik—!
KWAAAAAAANG!
In the midst of the two spirits' clash, the White King forced his way in.
The instant he entered, he struck the true body of the Nameless Predator with perfect accuracy.
With senses and instinct beyond all comparison, the White King could distinguish what was real from what was false.
However.
His action was a clear violation of the rules.
White King has been disqualified.
Druid of the Golden Rule is victorious!
But it didn't matter.
Disqualification or defeat — neither meant a thing.
How dare you.
Jjeok—
In that instant, the White King's entire body began to swell.
He cast off his human form.
Not a suppressed state — his true body.
A form he had not shown even once since his duel with Wilhelm.
And he was even larger than he had been then.
In bulk, in power, in everything else.
The true form of the White Tiger Clan that had reigned as the North's absolute ruler for long ages.
He had expected to reveal it only when facing the Black King — but the Gray King was a threat of that magnitude.
Still, he did not care.
How dare you—
This was the creature that had dared devour his own retainer.
……How could he possibly leave such a being alive?
The Forgotten God furrowed her brow as she watched Demon King Moke being overwhelmed.
—He even imitated the power of Truth……?
That was no mere predation.
An authority that went beyond devouring.
A power that ate — and then erased.
Had it succeeded, the spirit would have vanished entirely.
Demon King Moke would never have appeared in the world again.
It was unmistakably the power of Truth.
But how could anyone imitate the power of Truth?
He once defeated Truth itself.
Now it was certain.
Truth had clearly tried to erase the Druid of the Golden Rule.
But he had survived Truth's interference.
How he had managed it remained unknown — yet he had overcome it, and had even, somehow, engraved a fragment of Truth's power into his own soul.
And that was what had been projected onto that predator.
……You really are an absurd existence.
Ha.
The question of just what she had created welled up from deep within her.
Demon King Moke could not withstand that thing.
Neither could the White King.
But—
—The White Tiger Emperor……
What about the White Tiger Emperor?
The one who had created Demon King Moke, and the one who had slain Demon King Moke, had both been the White Tiger Emperor.
The one who had stood at the absolute pinnacle of the White Tiger Clan throughout its long history.
Not a single member of the White Tiger Clan had ever approached the White Tiger Emperor's achievements.
And the White King, having revealed his true body, was no different from the White Tiger Emperor she remembered.
The Forgotten God watched the White King, the Gray King, and the Druid of the Golden Rule with eyes grown even more intrigued.
She was honestly curious.
Whether the White King, who had awakened the blood of the White Tiger Emperor, could slip free of that authority.
Who was stronger — between the White King and the Druid of the Golden Rule, who could now wield even an imitation of Truth's power.
And besides, the White King no longer seemed to care about victory or defeat at all.
The White King had only one purpose.
—……!
KWAAAAAAAAAAANG—!
End it as fast as possible.
KWAAAAAAAAAAANG!
An explosion that shook the entire Colosseum.
"……Have you lost your mind and decided you want to die?"
As the dust cleared, what appeared were the White King, Albino, and Raiga.
They had sensed the White King's attack in an instant and stepped in to block it.
"……"
But the White King did not answer.
Transformed into the form of a colossal white tiger, he glared at me like an enraged beast.
I met his gaze head-on.
He's changed.
Honestly, I was surprised.
This was not the White King I knew.
The White King had always put his own safety first above all else.
He never entered a fight he could not win.
Even transformed into his true body, facing Albino and Raiga at the same time should have been impossible.
He must have smelled the thick scent of defeat — and yet he had attacked without the slightest hesitation.
Why take that risk just to come at me?
The Fifth Lord. King of the Corpse Crows.
There was only one answer.
The Fifth Lord.
The ominous crow form that Randolph had become.
Park Hyunmyung and Randolph had split in appearance and temperament — but the soul itself had not been cleaved in two.
My soul was still only one.
So the White King must have caught the scent of the crow from my soul.
And he was clearly convinced that I reeked of it because I had eaten the Fifth Lord.
In short—
A misunderstanding.
……He had it completely wrong.
The problem was that I couldn't mention the Fifth Lord myself.
There were far too many watching eyes here.
I could hardly go announcing that the sacred Druid of the Golden Rule was, in fact, connected to the ominous King of Corpse Crows.
Even if I simply said it was a misunderstanding, that I knew nothing — he wouldn't believe me anyway.
No one here knew the White King's stubbornness better than I did.
In times like these, saying less was the wisest course.
Still—
Wait. Is he actually grieving the Fifth Lord's death?
……No matter how I thought about it, the White King and I had never exactly been on good terms.
We fought every day, if anything.
We were nowhere near the kind of relationship where we laughed and chatted together.
A purely business arrangement.
That was why.
I had never imagined the White King would react to the Fifth Lord's death.
And to this degree — risking danger itself.
Taking on the risk of facing Albino and Raiga at the same time, right here.
GROOOOOOOOOH!
The White King roared.
In that moment—
Jjeok! Jjeeeok!
Another change overtook the White King's body.
Demon King Moke's eyes began to carve themselves into the White King's flesh.
And then—
Shiiik!
"……!"
"……!"
It was over in a fraction of an instant.
The White King's form vanished without a trace.
Fast.