I Shall Show You True Darkness
She's... mimicking emotion.
Nothing more than an imitation, surely.
But why?
Why was Lilith so obsessed with the Druid of the Golden Rule that she would weaken the Forgotten God's hold over her just to pursue him?
The Origin of All Evil. The First Woman. Never before had she behaved this way — and that made it all the more unsettling.
What, exactly, had she responded to?
If she was only mimicking emotion to win his favor, it meant the Druid of the Golden Rule had become something she coveted that deeply.
The Druid of the Golden Rule has changed. Grown more sacred still — taking the form of a Primordial Beast.
A Primordial Beast fused with a human. That was the only way to describe what he had become. It was as if a Nameless Predator had simply assumed a human shape.
But... was such a thing even possible?
A Primordial Beast can never be tamed by anyone's hand. Assimilation — fusion — is an impossibility.
The Primordial Beasts.
Those vast, savage creatures had sought to become gods themselves. They killed and devoured one another in an endless cycle of evolution. Their bottomless greed eventually drove them to self-destruction — yet among them, the ones called Old Ones possessed power that even the gods envied.
In their particular domains, they were overwhelming. Transcendent.
The problem was that every last Primordial Beast had been at war with the others. Too destructive, too instinct-driven — and so they all vanished, forgotten.
Had the Primordial Beasts continued to exist, no brilliant civilization could ever have risen.
Every great civilization would have been crushed at its foundation. Flowers snuffed out before they could bloom.
And someone claimed to have tamed one of those Primordial Beasts — an Old One?
Absurd.
Primordial Beasts had no concept of a master. Showing goodwill, feeling affection — both were impossible. They had been designed that way from the start. The destructive instinct etched into their genes did not vanish even when evolved through a Monster Soul. If anything, it only amplified and intensified.
And yet... the Druid of the Golden Rule had tamed one completely. He had even demonstrated the impossible: harmony and fusion with a Primordial Beast.
If such a thing were possible, then he could only be—
The god of the Primordial Beasts.
...Nothing less than the Chief God who designed the Primordial Beasts themselves. A god of the primordial age, pure and simple.
Gods were said to be immortal, undying — but that was only half true. As time passed and ages turned, gods were forgotten and faded away. Of all the gods of the primordial age, not a single one remained.
So the Druid of the Golden Rule could not possibly be a primordial god.
It's a lie. He's merely seducing them with a convincing facade. They've all been deceived by that creature.
His fist clenched tight.
Setting everything else aside—
"Uwah! Auwuu!"
—he simply could not stand to watch this any longer.
His own puppet — Lilith — wagging her tail at a man like that was more than he could bear.
Stop it.
Cease.
"Auwuu—!"
That thing is a fake. He is deceiving you.
"Aung!"
...You refuse to listen to me to the very end?
The Forgotten God's body trembled with rage. She would not obey him at all.
In that case, only one option remained.
I shall have to move myself.
In an instant, the Forgotten God's form evaporated — and then—
"Ah...!"
Lilith's movements stopped.
"Nnngh!"
She squeezed her eyes shut and shuddered, trying to resist, but it was useless. When every last tremor finally stilled, Lilith opened her eyes.
The girl from before was gone.
Pupils dyed pure black. Above her head, a black sun rose — scarred with crimson points like open wounds.
Crack.
The Forgotten God, now occupying Lilith's body, twisted her wrist. Then he smiled — bright and wide, a smile utterly different from before, steeped in something damp and foul.
"...I shall show you what true darkness is, child."
At first he had planned to snatch the boy away from the goddesses. Now his mind had changed. He finally understood why the two goddesses protected that creature.
They had all been deceived.
The boy clearly possessed some power that beguiled women. To seduce two goddesses, the Forgotten God himself, and even Lilith—!
He would have to kill him. Without fail.
I shall smother you in a darkness you have never experienced.
...So that nothing like this would ever happen again.
Darkness surged in.
A vast, overwhelming darkness — enough to swallow the entire Colosseum and still have more to spare. One by one, people were swallowed by it and vanished.
"Druid of the Golden Rule...!"
"This is..."
Even Albino and Raiga could not escape. Everyone was buried beneath a malice beyond anything they had ever experienced — beyond imagination itself.
"Stop! No!"
"Aaaagh!"
All of them were trapped inside dark glass, unable to move an inch. They could only scream, claw at their own bodies, and cry out in agony. Their eyes burned black; they could no longer even recognize themselves.
I alone remained untouched — for now.
Origin of Malice is being scattered.
Sacred effect strengthened by the Nameless Eagle.
Primordial Divinity effect has been added.
The darkness — the malice — circled me endlessly, probing for a gap. The moment I left even the smallest opening, it would invade without hesitation.
"How long can you hold out? Even if you endure, what of the others?"
The Forgotten God sneered. This was a far cry from any honorable duel.
I looked at him and shook my head.
"Pathetic."
Because it was. I had never seen a god this ugly. The Forgotten God I first met in the World Tree Dungeon almost seemed decent by comparison — unpleasant, yes, but at least fair.
The one standing before me was different.
"Stop it!"
"It wasn't my fault!"
"I'll kill him. I'll kill him...!"
The darkness writhed. Those swallowed by it began to seethe with rage — and every last one of them turned their eyes on me.
...I had to admit one thing. The darkness Lilith wielded with the Evil God's power fully intact was terrifyingly dense. Dense enough that no one without true divinity could withstand it.
So this is the power of an Evil God.
I hadn't expected it to be this vile.
And then, one by one, those who had been staring at me—
"Die—!"
"Uwaaaaaaah!"
—charged straight at me.
Every knight of the Golden Rule. Every knight of the White King.
The White King had been confident.
No matter how formidable the boy was, the vessel of his soul would still be smaller than the White King's own. That was why he had crafted the Sphere of Evolution — waiting for a chance to devour the boy's soul.
But the White King had been wrong.
The boy's soul was far vaster than expected. No — it went beyond mere vastness. The moment the White King read its grain, his mind went blank.
What... was I...
Two grains ran through that soul.
One was the Druid of the Golden Rule and all manner of sacred things. But the problem was the other grain — something incomprehensible, utterly unlike anything he could have imagined. Something alien that could never coexist with him, that must never coexist with him.
And yet the grain of a soul could never be divided. Just as a living being could not separate its desires, everything within a soul existed as one.
Which meant—
I'm being devoured...!
The moment he saw it, he knew. This was not something he could consume. Touch it, and he would be the one consumed instead.
So he did not touch it. Merely looking at it had been enough to knock him unconscious.
Get away. As far as you can.
That thing does not exist on the line of evolution.
You must not see it. You must not feel it. Turn your back and run.
Forget it. Erase it. You saw nothing.
The blood of the White Tiger Emperor — even the collective will of the White Tiger Clan — rejected that soul. The same voices that had always told him never to show his back, that a king of the White Tiger Clan must always fight, were now telling him to flee. To forget.
Only then, in the moment before his mind slipped away, did the White King understand where that unpleasant scent had come from.
It was that dark grain.
Touch it, and it erased. It ate everything. Not death. Not defeat. Annihilation.
That was why it had been so deeply unpleasant.
And yet even after that, the White King felt as though he were still dreaming. He was being swallowed by darkness, stained by malice.
"Oh, Wilhelm."
For some reason, the figure before him looked like Wilhelm. The White King was more than willing to fight him again.
But the figure kept changing.
"Ojuryeok? You're alive!"
Joy flooded him. He had thought the man dead — devoured. Come back. Return to Kramdel. Return to his side. He would gift him Aria. If Aria was not to his liking, there were other children. He would grant him the right to claim the North.
But then... in that very moment, the figure changed again.
For the first time, the White King's expression hardened.
"Who... are you?"
"Give up and accept the darkness."
The Forgotten God spoke with easy leisure. The shadow of death had already begun to fall — and just as he said, I was hitting my limit.
There would be no further evolution. What I had now was not enough to face all of them. Even fused with the Nameless Eagle, taking on Albino, Raiga, and the White King at once was far beyond my reach.
If I can just hold on...
There was still hope. The stronger a being was, the faster they would wake from the darkness. Albino, Raiga, and the White King were already beginning to pull free of it, bit by bit.
The problem was that my death would arrive first.
Conduct an honorable duel.
Suddenly, I found myself wondering. Was this truly an honorable duel?
The rule that appeared the moment we entered the dungeon had said as much — that we were to engage only in honorable combat. But why was I the only one who had to uphold that honor?
And that wasn't the only strange thing.
The Forgotten God hates notoriety? Hates evil deeds?
That Evil God? He'd practically revel in them.
Perhaps...
What we call honor and what the Forgotten God calls honor are two different things.
They might well be. Honor had always meant different things to different people — and it shifted with every age. From their perspective, perhaps winning was the only honor that mattered.
And so I said—
"You've won. I concede my defeat."
I admitted it. The Forgotten God smiled, curling his lips.
"Too late, child. Die quietly."
...Of course.
I nodded inwardly. Admitting defeat meant nothing. He had no intention of stopping. Was that honor?
This fight had been unfair from the start. If he was going to act like this, I had no reason to observe any courtesy. The last reason to show this Forgotten God any honor had just vanished.
I had fought by the rules until now. I had evolved my Monster Soul, held cards in reserve, and tried to see the duel through to the end. I had done everything I could to build as fair a fight as possible.
Because I had believed that was the respect due a god.