A few hours earlier.

The atmosphere in Pureum Co., Ltd.’s video conference room had been heavier than ever before.

“A new story has broken out around the great archdemon.”

“By offering immortal life to the Evil God, she has even placed the restriction on herself that she can no longer resurrect.”

“A great archdemon who, in effect, lives an immortal life giving up ‘resurrection’ itself is an absurd thing. Because of that, Gremory, now in the high 600s, has become capable of calling in the armies from the territories ruled by the Twenty-Two Legion Commanders. And without restriction.”

“It means Gremory is by no means a fool. She offered immortal life to the Evil God and made herself stronger, but she also knows another path.”

“If she offers the blood of countless humans to the Evil God, she will likely be forgiven by the Evil God and remove the restriction that prevents her resurrection.”

That was the conclusion.

What Gremory had done was by no means reckless. It was calculated.

Even so.

“Gremory felt threatened, and her rage toward Hyun was so great that she gave up even resurrection. Dying in a state where resurrection is impossible means annihilation. We need to intervene right now. The current Gremory is too strong.”

“We need to create a reason why high rankers all over the world will have no choice but to kill Gremory.”

“A reason they’ll have no choice but to kill her. Something like a reward of +7 to all stats or a 5-level increase should do it.”

That would be an act that twisted Sejin’s usual principle of not interfering with the worldbuilding of Ares.

It would give the world’s top rankers a reason they could not refuse to join.

The problem was that this was not like the Continental War or the war against Atlas.

If Gremory rampaged, it was only natural that such a quest would pop up for the high rankers.

But even if they saw that quest, the high rankers as they currently were would turn away.

Because they would not want to take that risk.

The real problem was the massive reward required to make them participate.

A +7 increase to all stats or a 5-level increase, exactly as the branch heads were proposing right now.

For the top 0.1% of high rankers, that meant becoming at least 10% stronger, and once that happened, it would lead to complete balance collapse.

The boundaries between the top tier, middle tier, and lower tier would crumble, and the result would be destroyed balance.

Sejin made his decision.

“We will not intervene. There must be no act of arbitrarily inserting a ‘reward’ into a quest that breaks out.”

He did not bend.

Even though most of the branch heads had chosen the side of maximizing the reward.

For a moment, silence spread through the conference room.

“So I’m hearing that you are willing to take full responsibility yourself, sir. Is that correct?”

At the words of the Turkey Branch Head, Sejin nodded.

The US Branch Head spoke.

“Are you perhaps betting on the White Tiger Sword that is being forged right now? Even if a sword that leads an era comes out, it will still be difficult. The balance doesn’t match to begin with! If, one year from now, the White Tiger Sword becomes a sword that leads an era, then maybe. But right now, even if User Hyunsoo holds a sword that leads an era, it still won’t be enough.”

That was true to a degree, and there was a clear reason for it.

“You know this too, sir. As for all current skills and artifacts, the probability drops exponentially each time they move up to the next grade. You need a probability high enough to forge two legendary-grade weapons before a Transcendence can be forged, and only if you can forge three Transcendence-grade weapons can a sword that leads an era be born.”

However.

“Probability is important. That is true. But this is how I see it. If another user with conditions completely identical to User Hyunsoo’s were holding Deng’s Hammer of Replication, would the effect really be the same?”

“......”

“......”

“......” 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝚠𝚎𝚋𝗻𝗼𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝚘𝐦

At that, even the branch heads fell silent.

It would be completely different.

They were receiving the power of the System.

User Hyunsoo, meanwhile, drew from the power of personal experience.

Even so, the branch heads all thought the same thing.

Genius scientist Lee Sejin was insane.

And now.

They thought it once again.

Lee Sejin was insane!

More precisely...

“H-how many effects are activating, exactly?”

“This is insane...!”

User Hyunsoo was insane.

“Can this even happen? This is way too... lucky...!”

The Turkey Branch Head swallowed dryly.

Luck?

That was hard to say.

Just moments ago, Sejin had used Deng’s Hammer of Replication as his example.

Just like that.

The reason Extreme Trance activated was because he was focused the way someone becomes obsessed the first time they try something and completely lose themselves in it. Deng’s Hammer of Replication had indeed come through thanks to good fortune, but even that was reacting to his current skill.

The blessings of the Three Tigers were the road he had carved out.

And the additional 20% increase to buff amplification from Pledge Your Loyalty to Me was, likewise, the effect of a title he had earned himself.

But then the phrase rose before him and blocked his path.

[The White Tiger Sword is already a sword that leads the current era!]

[User Hyunsoo’s blacksmith’s soul does not break!]

He burned even hotter and brought it down.

The tiger’s roar resounding through the conference room made it plain that this was an effect.

And because they were branch heads, they knew.

This effect that announced the birth of an armament depending on the nature of a sword.

Because there had only ever been a single grade like that in all of Ares...

Relying on that announcement, China Branch Head Lee Hwan recalled something one user had once said.

“That line from the Korean ranker Lee Hwan is going to get reevaluated, isn’t it?”

What he had said.

“Hyunsoo, he’s a god...!”

It was being proven that those words had not been wild nonsense at all.

And then—

“I-I’m curious...!”

The branch heads became desperately curious about what kind of power the White Tiger Sword would produce.

But just as the Calamity Church had heretics within it,

Pureum Co., Ltd. always had Sejin, who was thinking about something else.

“There’s something else I’m curious about.”

“...?”

“...?”

“...?”

In this situation, he was curious about something else?

“With this, just how much stronger has User Hyunsoo become?”

*****

The descent of the great archdemon.

And beyond that, Bahala, the World Rank #1, standing against her.

The footage of Bahala’s godlike movements, along with the scene where he mocked Gremory and smashed her head apart, was being broadcast at high speed on giant screens all over the world, and because of it, viewership was skyrocketing to irrational heights.

The ratings, which had initially fallen below 10%, had climbed back above 10% with the appearance of the unidentified heretics.

Then, thanks to Gremory vs. Bahala, they shot up into the 20% range.

People had been expecting it.

“World Rank #1 Bahala, will he succeed in the Gremory raid alone?”

“A crane among chickens. Sword God Bahala. The divine might of the one who will be the first to reach godhood!”

But then, the world seemed to sink into disappointment.

Because Bahala, suffering the aftereffects of Awaken, collapsed helplessly before Gremory.

And before the eyes of viewers all over the world—

The head of Bahala, the highest-ranked ranker in the world, was about to be severed.

That carried symbolic weight.

It would imply that users could never hunt a great archdemon, and that it might remain impossible forever.

In reality, it certainly looked that way.

The viewers, after seeing that “complete Gremory” was in the high 600s, were becoming afraid.

And at that moment, it happened.

KRAAAAAOOOAR—!

An unidentified cry descended onto the battlefield.

And that was not all.

That cry was ringing out across the entire world.

People could not understand it.

“What is that...? Why is a tiger’s roar suddenly echoing across the whole world?”

“An unidentified tiger’s roar is filling the entire world!”

They had no choice but to be bewildered.

It was the first strange phenomenon of its kind since Ares had launched.

On every giant screen in the world, the sound of a tiger could be heard.

“Well then, everyone. Looks like this raid’s a success for me this time... huh? What’s that roar?”

It could even be heard in streamers’ personal broadcasts running somewhere.

Even inside the cars of drivers using fully autonomous driving, 100% hands-free, the sound of a tiger was spreading.

But one thing was certain.

“Right now, is [N O V E L I G H T] Gremory staggered by that tiger’s roar?”

“It’s not just that. The soldiers of the Twenty-Two Legions coming through the gate of the demon realm are afraid.”

The commentators were people who needed to sort out the current situation fast, not drown in confusion.

So they made a prediction.

“Could this perhaps be the White Tiger, the divine beast whose identity has not yet been revealed? Could this be its roar?”

“That sounds plausible. It hasn’t been confirmed, but most people had already guessed that one of the Four Divine Beasts was the White Tiger, hadn’t they?”

That was true.

The Four Divine Beasts.

They resembled the real-world legends called the Four Gods of the Directions.

Though Hydra should have been a dragon and diverged from that.

The Black Tortoise existed.

And Phoenix resembled the Vermilion Bird, the blazing bird.

So at last, people had been guessing the final one was the White Tiger.

“The puzzle pieces fit. The mission of the missing White Tiger. We didn’t know it, did we? Could the mission of this White Tiger have been to save the world from evil!?”

“It’s an obvious thought, but that could be it. This is insane. Are we about to see a divine beast!?”

And then those comments from the commentators

spread to commentators all over the world, causing talk to erupt everywhere that a divine beast was about to appear.

And what that misunderstanding caused—

was for users who had been playing the game to log out and switch over to watching, driving the ratings higher still.

“The ratings have broken 36%.”

“They’ve passed 38%!”

“They’ve now gone over 41%!”

“The Korea vs. China ratings, and even the war against Atlas, have been surpassed.”

“So many people are looking forward to the first appearance of a divine beast.”

At the end of all that anticipation—

[The tiger-roar effect will end shortly.]

“An-an effect!!!?”

“This wasn’t the appearance of the White Tiger, but just... no, an artifact effect!?”

The entire world was thrown into shock.

What was an effect?

“An effect can be understood as the flashy effect that occurs when an artifact is crafted, or the sort of visual flare that happens when an artifact is swung.”

“But how can this tiger’s roar be just an effect? This is absurd!”

“I apologize. It was my mistake to rashly say it was the White Tiger.”

Yet at the commentator’s apology, the viewers were only more astonished.

“This is an artifact effect...?”

“What kind of insane nonsense is that...?”

“...Ares says it’s a tiger-roar effect in the notification, so I guess it really is an effect?”

“Is this a bug...?”

When are people the most excited?

When something they could never accomplish with their own power—

and which, just moments before, they had mistaken for something a divine beast would do for them—

turns out to be something else entirely.

In other words, like right now.

“Breaking news... the current global combined ratings have reached 48%.”

One out of every two people watching TV was switching to this broadcast.

And the greater the effect, the more it proved that an even greater artifact had been born.

That was why.

Gremory.

“......”

She could not hide her bewilderment.

As a higher-order demon, she possessed far more information than ordinary people.

So she knew what an effect was.

And she knew what it meant when this kind of effect occurred in the human realm.

For three hundred years, nothing like this has appeared in the human realm. That can’t be. It can’t be. It can’t be!

Gremory tried to deny it.

And so she acted.

She forcibly controlled her unmoving body, trying to hurry and kill Bahala in front of her, and detonated condensed demonic energy.

BWOOOOM—

But.

“...?”

She was startled.

Bahala was already gone from that spot.

Had Bahala recovered in that instant?

No. Impossible.

Bahala was still under the penalty of Awaken, so even for him, that was a power too difficult to overcome.

Gremory turned her head to look for Bahala, and her eyes went cold.

At last, she found him.

“M-Master Blacksmith Hyun has appeared!”

Turning her head, she saw it.

The one holding the collapsing, half-unconscious Bahala in his arms in the sky.

In the past, he had said he would become king and welcome her.

But Gremory had trampled every one of his plans.

She had deliberately rushed her resurrection so he would not even have the time to become king.

She had intended to trample the territory that was slowly rising under him and tear everything he had down.

And she had hoped.

That he, meeting her again after so long, would fear her and be terrified of her.

“...Gremory. There’s something I’m curious about.”

But then his words plunged Gremory into shock.

“How much experience do you give?”