Ch-337. **Destruction Appeared**
—
The White King.
The sovereign who ruled the North, and the de facto master of **Cramdel**, the city of monsters.
True—after his defeat at Wilhelm’s hands, he lost a fang and withdrew into seclusion for a time.
But at his peak, he had been a monster without equal.
His ability to sense threats bordering on precognition, and the speed he displayed when transforming into his true body, were utterly unmatched.
*Under normal circumstances, I would never have lost to Wilhelm.*
He had been confident he could force a draw.
No matter how strong Wilhelm was, as long as they didn’t clash head-on, the battle would have dragged on forever without a conclusion.
But Wilhelm took Cramdel—and every last one of the Four Pillars—as hostages.
He created a situation in which the White King had no choice but to step forward.
That was the first defeat the White King had tasted in his life.
And it was the aftermath of that defeat that drove him into long seclusion.
However—
The White King’s true power wasn’t limited to precognition and speed alone.
*We all had to become stronger. Me, Cramdel, and even my core forces.*
Going into seclusion didn’t mean he could truly afford to hide away and do nothing.
The White King sought change.
He resolved to use his abilities without restraint.
And that wasn’t impossible.
…Because the White King possessed a power that could **strengthen** all of them.
Just as the Black King shared his power with his close retainers to empower them,
the White King possessed an authority akin to **nurturing** them.
No—more precisely, the **White Tiger Clan**, which had stood at the pinnacle for ages and led countless monsters, possessed such a **unique skill** from the beginning.
Starting with the hidden trait **Beast Lord**, and extending to a very special ability known as the **Blessing of the White Tiger**, which intervened directly in *growth and evolution*.
One of the reasons so many monsters had followed the White Tiger Clan.
Yet until his seclusion, the White King had never properly used that ability.
To be exact, he had chosen not to.
*The Blessing of the White Tiger causes one to lose their original form.*
Evolution.
And with it, the loss of one’s **inherent traits**—that was not always a good thing.
Of course, if evolution proceeded in the right direction, there could be nothing better.
But the Blessing of the White Tiger forced evolution in a way that pursued **only power**.
And evolution like that inevitably led to rampage.
It stripped away both form and individuality, intoxicating the subject with raw strength.
That was why he had refrained from using the blessing properly.
He did not know how to control it.
But—
*After a long seclusion, lost and weakened after losing my fang… I finally realized.*
If something is emptied, it is only natural to refill it.
Having lost both his fang and his strength, the White King came to master the control of the blessing.
In fact, he became capable of guiding evolution into a more refined and perfect form than ever before.
That was the true reason the Four Pillars had grown so rapidly.
Thus, this battle—
*I cannot lose. This will be my victory.*
…He was certain of it.
It was no different from a guaranteed win.
The evolution of this peculiar **Monster Soul** followed the same logic.
Grant it the Blessing of the White Tiger, let it repeat growth and evolution endlessly, and force victory—
for the current White King, such a thing was trivial.
Rather, he would unleash the blessing without limits and bring it to completion.
The **Monster Soul** was life, yet not life—
and precisely because of that, it was possible.
*A stone of evolution without limits. This… is truly something.*
The World Tree’s Dungeon.
With a Forgotten God participating, the tools provided possessed truly boundless potential.
Worthy of an ancient name—
they were practically the primordial archetype of the very first *Soul*.
A mass of possibility that could become anything, and transform into anything.
The identity of the god who had scattered such tools for a mere contest was deeply intriguing.
And yet, even with a god’s intervention, defeat never crossed his mind.
“Devour them, **Mork the Extinction King**.”
KRRRRRR—!
Before the White King—
a grotesque beast ravenously tearing into the fallen raid boss monster, **Hydrak Mammoth**.
RIIIP—!
Despite being more than three times smaller, it shredded the carcass without hesitation.
Gray skin.
An obese upper body and massive arms.
Two small wings sprouting from its back, and countless **eyes** scattered across its body.
Mork was an aberrant monster from ancient times, once called the **Extinction King**.
Where Mork passed, nothing was said to remain—
thus it was called the Demon, or the Extinction King.
At some point it vanished, and no one knew where it came from.
But the White King knew.
*Mork was the greatest creation ever made by the White Tiger Clan.*
A masterpiece monster completed by the clan at its zenith.
A culmination of evolution driven by insatiable hunger for power.
The problem was that it was far too dangerous—and uncontrollable.
Back then, the mighty White Tiger Clan had succeeded in subduing Mork at the cost of everything.
That victory led the clan down the path to extinction.
But now, that Mork had been born again through **his** blessing meant—
*I am controlling the Mork that the White Tiger Clan failed to control.*
…He could rewrite the history of failure.
It was the perfect chance to prove himself as the strongest White Tiger.
This was destiny.
A chance to fulfill the long-held wish of the clan, and write a new history of success.
The **Monster Soul** was a mirror that proved its summoner.
And no matter what—
there was no one who could defeat Mork.
The White King smiled.
At last, he understood why he had entered the World Tree’s Dungeon.
*
*
Dianax’s supermetal.
And even the **Star Ivory** possessed by the Angel Behemoth.
I gathered them with manic fervor.
And once more, I watched for the moment of **evolution**.
Because if my prediction was right, this was not the end.
*As expected!*
At a certain turning point, the Angel Behemoth began to evolve.
《‘Angel Behemoth (Lv. 50)’ has reached its limit.》
《Runes engraved on the Monster Soul are also engraved upon the user’s body.》
《Current rarity of ‘Angel Behemoth’: Ultra-Supreme.》
《‘Angel Behemoth’ begins evolution in accordance with the user’s alignment.》
《Evolved into the Divine Beast of ‘Boundless—Initial’, **Ten-Tailed Fox**!》
《‘Ten-Tailed Fox (Lv. 50, Divine Beast, Light Attribute, Raid Boss)’ possesses four additional traits.》
A Ten-Tailed Fox.
True to its name, it had evolved into a massive fox with ten tails.
*Boundless (無極)*—the threshold of a world without an end.
I stared blankly at the Ten-Tailed Fox.
*Utterly divine.*
Perhaps because it embodied my current alignment.
It exuded a serene, ancient elegance.
An aura of sacred mystery utterly beyond reach.
Those bearing the name of the Nine-Tailed Fox often wielded powers of *charm*.
But the Ten-Tailed Fox radiated a wholly different, inviolable sanctity.
*A primordial, archetypal divine beast.*
What is a divine beast, to begin with?
A sacred animal.
A being that transcended after attaining status, ultimately gaining numinous power.
Ancient turtles, imoogis that became dragons—such beings belonged to that category.
Divine beasts possessed an exalted nature humans could never reach.
Yet in the present era, **Pangaenia** held no such divine beasts.
They had all vanished after **Destruction** appeared.
Those that existed now were merely descendants of the original divine beasts.
When Destruction manifested, continents rose, and beasts grew ever smaller and weaker—
it was inevitable.
But the Ten-Tailed Fox before me was the real thing.
A sacred beast that had existed before Destruction.
*The World Tree’s Dungeon… this is a place where all archetypes exist.*
And I realized—
just as I had found the **First Flame** in the *Treasury of Primordial*,
this place too held countless **archetypes**.
The true goal was to seek them out and restore them.
A process of reclaiming what had been forgotten and lost.
If so—
*…Then this isn’t the end either.*
A primordial sacred beast.
This was only another beginning.
There had to be something older still—the archetype of all divine beasts.
The very first divine beast.
I was curious.
Curious about what it was.
Farming mattered—but something far more important had taken priority.
For the time I was given, I devoted myself entirely to evolution.
《‘Ten-Tailed Fox (Lv. 75)’ has reached its limit.》
《Runes engraved on the Monster Soul are also engraved upon the user’s body.》
《Current rarity of ‘Ten-Tailed Fox’: Boundless—Initial.》
《‘Ten-Tailed Fox’ begins evolution in accordance with the user’s alignment.》
《Evolved into the Divine Beast of ‘Boundless—Mature’, **Eleven Sacred Heavens**!》
《‘Eleven Sacred Heavens (Lv. 75, Divine Beast, Light Attribute, Raid Boss)’ possesses four additional traits.》
Eleven Sacred Heavens?
One who bears eleven sacred skies?
The form that appeared was worthy of that name.
A white dragon reaching into the heavens, bearing eleven tails.
At the tip of each tail hung a round, jade-like gem.
*They’re all Wish Orbs.*
…Every single one of them.
I had never seen a dragon bearing eleven Wish Orbs.
Wasn’t a single orb the limit?
Even dragons like Issera, who killed others to steal them, could manage only two or three at most.
Yet these orbs were no smaller, no dimmer.
From Ten-Tailed Fox to Eleven Sacred Heavens…
Could the degree of evolution be determined by the number of tails?
One thing was certain—
this was an existence utterly unheard of.
It made Dianax and Angel Behemoth incomparable.
Then what came next?
《‘Eleven Sacred Heavens (Lv. 75)’ has reached its limit.》
《Runes engraved on the Monster Soul are also engraved upon the user’s body.》
《Current rarity of ‘Eleven Sacred Heavens’: Boundless—Mature.》
《‘Eleven Sacred Heavens’ begins evolution in accordance with the user’s alignment.》
《Evolved into the Divine Beast of ‘Boundless—Ultimate’, **Twelve Heavenly Sovereign**!》
《‘Twelve Heavenly Sovereign (Lv. 99, Divine Beast, Light Attribute, Super Raid Boss)’ possesses six additional traits.》
With about an hour remaining on the match timer—
another final evolution occurred.
As expected, the Twelve Heavenly Sovereign bore twelve tails.
But it was no longer a dragon.
It took the form of a colossal bird—
a white crow.
Twelve tails, and above its head burned a sun-like heat.
*Insane.*
I was left speechless.
At that holiness.
Stronger than any divine beast before it, bearing six additional traits—
a true completed form.
But what followed left me even more speechless.
《The divinity of ‘Twelve Heavenly Sovereign’ awakens another dormant ‘???’.》
《‘???’ denies the existence of ‘Twelve Heavenly Sovereign’.》
《‘???’ attempts to usurp the existence of ‘Twelve Heavenly Sovereign’.》
KIEEEEEE—!
The Twelve Heavenly Sovereign screamed.
It writhed across the ground, twisting as though waging an internal war.
HWAAGH!
At the same time, its white skin began to peel away.
Wings, feathers—even the small sun blazing above its head—
all were dyed gray.
And then—
《The existence of ‘Twelve Heavenly Sovereign’ is overwritten.》
《The summoning conditions for the first retainer of ‘Another Destruction’, the **Raven of Destruction**, have been fulfilled.》
《The Raven of Destruction devours the divinity of ‘Twelve Heavenly Sovereign’.》
《The Raven of Destruction regains the power of the archetype.》
《The Raven of Destruction finally completes its existence.》
《**Nameless Eagle (Lv. 100, Primordial Divine Beast, Primordial Attribute, Old One)**》
