Kraugel

Kraugel is a player whose extraordinary control, judgment, and persistence make him the long-reigning first-ranked user known as the “sky above the sky.” He begins as Grid's distant standard and greatest rival, becomes the Sword Saint after defeating Grid in the second National Competition, and deliberately rejects the easier path of reproducing Muller's achievements so that he can create a swordsmanship of his own. His solitary pursuit of strength gradually becomes a commitment to Grid, the Overgeared Guild, and the world they protect, culminating in his recognition as an Absolute and God Killer. (Chapters 128, 463–464, 1254, 1722, and 1957)

Biography

Reidan and the Overgeared Alliance

Kraugel is already a legend among players before he appears in person. He holds first place from Satisfy's opening, becomes the first player to reach level 300, and earns a third-advancement normal class called White Swordsman while remaining a Sword Saint candidate. His reputation rests on more than levels: other rankers describe his strength as beyond the limits of a user, and Hao remembers seeing him hunt alone in a forest where top rankers normally required full parties. Kraugel's instinct for terrain, precise control, and ability to diagnose an opponent's delayed skill linkage make him seem less like a competitor than an unreachable standard. (Chapters 128, 240, 252, and 253)

His arrival in Reidan begins to turn that reputation into relationships. Kraugel challenges Piaro, recognizes the overwhelming gap between their levels and experience, and spends a month farming and sparring under him rather than treating the work as beneath the world's top player. Thirty defeats and the physical labor help him cross another wall in the Sword Saint candidacy. When a later rematch devastates the surrounding land, Kraugel apologizes to Grid and offers compensation even though Piaro caused the direct damage; his own desire prompted the fight, so he accepts responsibility for its consequences. That combination of ambition, humility, and respect earns Grid's attention before either man can call the other a friend. (Chapters 241, 259, 349–351)

Their first spar establishes the rivalry that will shape both of them. Kraugel reads and avoids most of Grid's non-targeted attacks, counters his openings, and possesses stats that surprise even a player strengthened by legendary-class rewards and item production. Grid ultimately wins, but Kraugel refuses excuses and interprets the defeat as the result of Grid's effort. He also shares information about the Behen Archipelago, giving Grid a route toward broader experience rather than withholding it from a competitor. Grid repairs Kraugel's damaged weapon and discovers that the Sword Saint candidate values a useful challenge more than an easy advantage; each man leaves the encounter treating the other as both an obstacle and a source of growth. (Chapters 352–355, 362, and 370)

Kraugel enters the second National Competition for a purpose that makes victory compulsory. The Russian government has secured a new medicine for his ill mother, and the price is that he lead Russia to first place. He therefore suppresses his wish to enjoy a fair contest with Grid and approaches every event as work that must be completed. Even so, he respects Grid's versatility and privately hopes they reach each other in PvP. Their final becomes a contest between Kraugel's technical mastery and Grid's accumulated class, item, and combat growth. Kraugel wins and secures the medicine. Conditions devised by Lauel also give Overgeared the right to recruit him, but Grid explicitly refuses to exercise that right; he preserves Kraugel's independent path and instead asks him to answer future calls for help as a friend and competitor. (Chapters 422, 445, 447–448, and 459–464)

Kingdom Building and the Great Demons

Kraugel's victory over Grid in the second National Competition completes his Sword Saint class change and imposes the defining cost of a legendary class: his level is reset to one, leaving him near level 100 while rivals and enemies remain above 300. The loss changes his public rank and makes even ordinary encounters dangerous, but it does not change his standards. He hunts monsters dozens of levels above him, resumes the climb without self-pity, and tells Grid that rivals should respect each other's independence before acting as friends. This principle explains why he does not intervene in Overgeared's war merely because he likes its members; he believes Grid would reject help that compromised the rivalry, and he waits until the great demon crisis creates a different obligation. (Chapters 463–464, 489–490, 493, and 551)

Great Demon Belial turns Kraugel's new class from private advancement into public history. He arrives after Overgeared has endured for hours, cuts through the succubi, and joins Piaro in the raid. Swordsmanship Creation lets him redesign Piaro's peak technique as Splitting the Sky. He spends a finite creation opportunity not to steal an efficient skill, but to preserve a trace of the swordsman's blood and sweat on the path Kraugel will develop. The new technique helps break Belial's defense, while Sword Saint Aura doubles the power of sword skills used within its influence. Kraugel emerges badly wounded and takes third place in contribution, but the raid succeeds and the world finally learns that the vanished top ranker has become the Sword Saint. (Chapters 570–574 and 577–578)

The aftermath deepens his bond with Grid without turning it into dependence. Kraugel refuses Grid's thanks by pointing out that Overgeared delayed its retreat while waiting for him; characteristically, he assigns himself responsibility for the danger rather than claiming sole credit for the victory. He shares information about the seven malignant saints and warns Grid about Agnus and Ares, then declares that he intends to become the best again even though both are stronger at that moment. Grid answers that Kraugel remains the only rival he intends to watch. Their encouragement is mutual: each wants the other to keep advancing because the continuing contest gives meaning to his own growth. (Chapter 581)

At the third National Competition, that contest has changed. Kraugel no longer follows Muller's shadow automatically and begins pioneering a personal form of the Sword Saint, while Grid has become the Hero King and learned from their previous matches. Kraugel's Space Sword can split the battlefield and force defensive resources, Condemnation Sword can punish a defended target, and his cursed weapon can summon an image of Bunhelier, but none of these removes his material disadvantage. Grid's attack power overwhelms him, and Grid wins the final. Kraugel accepts the result as evidence that Grid has moved ahead rather than as a reason to abandon the race. The defeat frees him from being merely Grid's finish line and pushes him toward rebuilding the meaning of the Sword Saint itself. (Chapters 760–761, 764, and 766–773)

East Continent and Imperial Reckoning

Kraugel's reconstruction is patient and deliberately inefficient. After losing to Grid again at the fourth National Competition, he seeks Kirinus, the continent's greatest spearman, and insists on learning the spear even though Kirinus says following Muller would be faster. Kraugel has learned from Grid that a swordsman can broaden his options by understanding different weapons, and he accepts a three-year quest that prevents him from leaving Kirinus's side. His level stagnates while other players explore, but he values the process over visible ranking gains. He wants to keep meeting Grid as an equal, and that requires creating possibilities that a second-hand inheritance cannot provide. (Chapter 970)

The training changes both technique and outlook. Kraugel studies the breathing and intent behind attacks, recognizes that combat methods converge even when weapons differ, and acquires Heart Sword after completing Kirinus's training quest. At its first entrance, Heart Sword has a twenty-four-hour cooldown, consumes half of his maximum sword energy and ten percent of his health, and initially deals only ten percent of the target's current health. Its real value is that the target is cut the moment Kraugel wills it, without a precursor that can be avoided or defended against. Spending years beside Kirinus also changes how he sees NPCs. What began as deliberate immersion becomes genuine attachment, and he finally understands why Grid mourned Khan as a real person rather than as lost game data. (Chapters 1049, 1051, and 1101)

Kirinus's teaching bears fruit during the Berith crisis. Kraugel's Space Sword cuts through the canyon, devastates the demon army, and severs Berith's arm, but he immediately recognizes the technique's limits: it is an exceptional wide-area attack whose apparent miracle depends on terrain and does not guarantee a kill. He therefore buys time instead of chasing spectacle, brings Kirinus and Rachel into the battle, and coordinates with allies until Grid arrives. His later use of Heart Sword shows the other side of his arsenal—an inevitable, targeted cut rather than a vast line through the world. The campaign demonstrates that his years of apparent stagnation produced a more complete Sword Saint and a network of companions, not merely another collection of levels. (Chapters 1045–1047, 1049–1051, and 1053)

Yangbans, Gods, and New Legends

Kraugel's independence from Muller becomes explicit when the Sword Saint's reputation system pressures him to learn the Matchless Heart Technique. The technique would provide infinite sword energy and solve a central resource limit, but accepting it would make him “the second Muller.” Kraugel wants to transcend Muller, so he endures warnings, public defeats, and slower growth rather than closing off that possibility. Biban initially regards this refusal as obstinacy; Grid instead recognizes that Kraugel has understood the necessary direction from the beginning. If Kraugel can create a swordsmanship beyond Matchless Heart Swordsmanship, he may become the Sword Saint capable not only of cutting gods and dragons but of killing them. (Chapters 1254 and 1336)

The defense against Great Demon Saleos proves the cost and promise of that decision. Poetry that Praises the Sword lets Kraugel replace his own durability and defense with those of his swords and multiply a following technique's power, but Saleos destroys the spare weapons sustaining him. Kraugel responds with techniques developed from his own experience: True Clouds deceives the senses, Bunhelier's Scream reproduces a dragon's irrational power across attributes, Quick Command leaves an afterimage, and chained sword techniques repeatedly interrupt Saleos's regeneration. The sequence inflicts meaningful damage on a being who had dismissed him for refusing Muller's art, yet it also exhausts his stamina and leaves him unable to finish the raid alone. Saleos departs acknowledging his name as that of a new Sword Saint rather than a successor. (Chapters 1252 and 1254–1255)

On the East Continent, Kraugel turns repeated defeat into measurable growth. He infiltrates Kaya, kills lesser yangbans, and repeatedly challenges Mir, losing levels, experience, and items in exchange for increasing the Super Sensitivity stat unique to the Sword Saint. Eight deaths raise that stat enough for him to survive longer and wound Mir more often; the relationship between hunter and prey gradually reverses as Kraugel learns to ambush other yangbans and finish them before reinforcements arrive. When Grid later challenges Mir, Kraugel joins him without needing a plan spoken aloud. Their pincer attacks flow naturally from independent judgments, showing how two rivals who developed along different paths can cooperate without surrendering either identity. (Chapters 1372 and 1376–1378)

Apostles, Dragons, and the Overgeared World

The Great Human and Demon War places Kraugel among Grid's most dependable independent fighters. He fights the souls protecting Gamigin, arrives at the decisive moment to cut away the great demon's arms, and opens the path for Grid's finishing attack. In the aftermath he rejects the idea of abandoning the mortally wounded Leraje merely because their assigned task is complete, reflecting how far he has moved from a player who treated immersion as a concentration technique. When Raphael later attacks, Kraugel is one of the few able to respond to the archangel's speed and one of the people Grid considers capable of buying time, even though the difference in stats means that skill alone cannot guarantee survival. (Chapters 1525–1527)

His role in the battle against Bunhelier is more specialized. Kraugel cannot match an old dragon's raw body, magic, or regeneration, but he synchronizes with Hayate's sword energy and reads the Dragon Slayer's intentions so closely that Bunhelier perceives him as another sword Hayate is wielding. Kraugel cuts into the dragon's breathing rhythm and repeatedly interferes with the activation of Breath while Hayate and Marie Rose break its defenses. This is not a claim that Kraugel can raid an old dragon alone; the effectiveness comes from precise cooperation with two Absolutes whose powers suppress Bunhelier in different ways. It nevertheless shows that his sensory development and control now matter in battles far beyond ordinary player scale. (Chapters 1656–1658)

The battle also transforms his equipment and his place among Grid's people. Kraugel gives Grid the old White Fang, whose blade is a fragment of Bunhelier's fang, and collaborates with him on a replacement dragon weapon. Grid translates Kraugel's ideals into a design while Kraugel contributes his knowledge of swords, producing a weapon both men independently name Twilight. By this point, Kraugel is no longer uncomfortable relying on a guild: he helps defend Reinhardt, regards the Overgeared Empire as something he loves, teaches Lord, and accepts that companionship can fill weaknesses rather than dilute his achievement. The sword is therefore both a combat upgrade and the material expression of a friendship that has become collaborative. (Chapters 1678–1679, 1681–1683, and 1722)

Baal, Asgard, and the Complete Ending

During the holy war between Asgard and the Overgeared World, Kraugel's Sword Saint power proves unusually suitable against a god. He uses Space Sword through Twilight to split his opponent and begins developing the qualification of a God Killer. The achievement gives him a path distinct from companions who may become gods, which initially feels lonely; he resolves that being alone is acceptable if the power lets him help them. This is a mature reversal of his early solitude. Kraugel no longer avoids belonging because he wants every achievement to be exclusively his. He accepts a singular, potentially isolating role because he cherishes the people and world it can protect. (Chapters 1716 and 1722)

Kraugel continues learning even after reaching that threshold. He meets the returned Muller, pursues him through Control Sword, and refuses to assume that the former Sword Saint should automatically be obeyed or surpassed through imitation. He also undertakes missions with Hwang Gildong, reasons his way out of an unnecessary fight with a Sword Immortal, and uses Twilight's evolved spirituality to cut the magic at the core of hostile techniques. When the dragons organize against humanity, Kraugel leads Overgeared forces against Kubartos. He can cut an old dragon's Breath, an achievement neither Muller nor Biban had matched, but repeated cuts tear his hands, arms, and wrists, and even Space Sword fails to behead the dragon. His late strength therefore remains extraordinary but conditional, costly, and dependent on allies. (Chapters 1749, 1890–1891, 1893–1894, and 1940–1941)

The struggle with Kubartos leads directly to Kraugel's completed God Killer status. After Judar steals the dragon's heart, Kubartos advises Kraugel to absorb the dragon's remaining traces into Twilight and aim for killing gods rather than becoming another Dragon Slayer. Kraugel and Grid then cut through Judar's final defense together, with the system crediting Kraugel for killing the God of Wisdom and gaining God Killer energy. By the arrival of the cultivation world, Kraugel has clearly become an Absolute, can use Shunpo, and overwhelms hostile cultivators while investigating their techniques, affiliations, and power differences for the guild. He remains a student even at the summit, reporting uncertain conclusions to Grid for cross-checking and returning immediately to practice what he has learned. (Chapters 1946, 1950–1951, 1957, 1959, and 1965)

In the final world war, Kraugel places second only to Grid in player contribution and receives acknowledgment from a Sword Saint of the previous generation. He immediately minimizes his own rank and lists the tactical, support, and defensive achievements that made victory possible, showing that his expanded idea of strength now includes work the system did not reward equally. His latest appearance is quieter. He waits for Grid after the battle with Chiyou, recognizes his friend's exhaustion, and uses ordinary conversation to draw him out of melancholy. The two spend the night drinking, practicing swordsmanship and blacksmithing, and talking about their families as other guild members gather. The former solitary sky ends the supplied corpus not above everyone else, but comfortably among them. (Chapters 2043 and 2055)

Appearance and personality

Kraugel's avatar is a young man whose beauty is repeatedly described as striking enough to appeal to men and women alike. He has dark hair that reaches his waist and is tied back, beautiful eyes, a high nose, and fine skin. His slim, elegant appearance can obscure the physical strain of his battles: the narrative often contrasts his composed face with sweat, blood, damaged wrists, or a body pushed past its stamina. The supplied corpus gives recurring facial and hair details but does not establish a single permanent outfit, because his armor and weapons change throughout his progression. (Chapters 415, 551, and 1254)

He is calm, observant, and unusually willing to judge himself without excuses. Defeat makes him study what the opponent's effort accomplished, while success rarely prompts him to claim more credit than the facts support. His calculations can be severe—he accepts level loss, destroyed equipment, long periods of stagnant ranking, and repeated death when they serve a meaningful training goal—but the severity is directed primarily at himself. He is also courteous to NPCs and players regardless of rank, takes responsibility for collateral damage, and responds to provocation with a restraint that repeatedly earns the respect of older masters. (Chapters 350–352, 581, 970, 1125, and 1951)

Kraugel begins as a private person who avoids groups and treats Satisfy as something that must support his mother's recovery. His filial devotion makes him accept the Russian government's terms even when they strip enjoyment from the National Competition. Once her treatment succeeds, he can pursue the game for its own sake again, but his habits remain solitary until sustained ties with Piaro, Kirinus, Grid, and the Overgeared members change them. By the end, he openly says he changed after joining the guild, mentors Lord with warmth, worries about his companions' safety and public burdens, and can comfort Grid through companionship rather than advice. (Chapters 422, 448, 489, 1722, 1941, and 2055)

Abilities, classes, and skills

Control, judgment, and broad weapon training

Before gaining a legendary class, Kraugel reaches first place with a normal class through battle sense and control. He reads terrain, skill linkage, attack trajectories, and the state of an opponent's equipment in real time, then chooses movements small enough to preserve stamina while creating a counterattack. His reactions are not omniscience: unfamiliar sound-based fighting can disrupt his insight, false information can spoil predictions, and overwhelming speed or area can close the space in which technique matters. His later spear training under Kirinus broadens his understanding of range, breathing, intangible will, and the common principles behind different weapons instead of simply adding a spear to his inventory. (Chapters 241–242, 250, 252–253, 899, 970, and 1101)

Kraugel's combat style uses every part of his body and equipment. He fights at close range with elbows, shoulders, kicks, sheaths, and changes of grip, and he can adapt Grid's and other masters' techniques after observing their principles. Control Sword lets him direct multiple swords independently, occupy the God Hands, interfere with footwork, and later ride a pursuing sword through the air. This multitasking is limited by concentration, available swords, and the abilities of the target; it augments his personal swordsmanship rather than replacing it with autonomous weapons. (Chapters 944–946, 950–951, 953, 956–957, 963–966, and 1749)

Sword Saint class and sword energy

The Sword Saint is described as the strongest combat class and embodies the principle that there is nothing its sword cannot cut. Changing class resets Kraugel's level, but grants legendary resistance and immortality, fifteen stat points per level, Sword Saint skills, and a form of authority over swords. Sword energy fuels many of those techniques. Larger attacks consume more of it, which is why the Matchless Heart Technique's infinite sword energy would be so valuable. Kraugel refuses that inherited solution and accepts resource scarcity while developing his own system; the corpus does not provide a final numerical account of his maximum sword energy or every class modifier after he becomes an Absolute. (Chapters 489–490, 493, 945, 1252, 1254, 1336, 1428, and 1436)

Swordsmanship Creation allows him to create original sword techniques rather than merely copy an observed move. Splitting the Sky is a representative early result: Kraugel asks Piaro to show his peak technique, redesigns it for his class, and spends one of four finite creation opportunities so that Piaro's years as a swordsman will leave a trace on Kraugel's path. This motive is respect, not an attempt to obtain a powerful technique for free; the result is initially less efficient than established Sword Saint skills. Later creations such as Bunhelier's Scream draw on personally endured threats and reproduce their essential character through swordsmanship. The skill rewards understanding and experience, but it does not provide instant mastery without observation, testing, or the costs attached to the completed technique. (Chapters 571–572 and 1254)

Perception, movement, and survival

Super Sensitivity begins as a skill and becomes a hidden stat exclusive to the Sword Saint. It lets Kraugel detect threats, read trajectories, and respond at a level beyond ordinary sight; its growth accelerates when he survives or reacts to attacks near the limit of his ability. Repeated battles with Mir raise it from below forty to sixty-seven at the cost of eight deaths, three lost levels, substantial experience, and several items. Super Sensitivity can still be late against unfamiliar escape techniques, cannot make his body fast enough to answer every perceived threat, and does not substitute for information when an attack changes behavior after launch. (Chapters 943–945, 1428, and 1957)

White Light Steps is footwork used to misdirect or overlap enemy movement, while Quick Command greatly accelerates Kraugel and can leave an afterimage that receives an attack in his place. Shunpo becomes available once his status reaches the Absolute level. These tools let him cross gaps, disengage, and set the geometry required for a sword technique, but each has situational limits: prediction can catch a repeated route, area attacks can remove safe destinations, and acceleration cannot erase the physical recoil of cutting a dragon's Breath. Kraugel's movement is strongest when paired with advance reading rather than used as a guarantee of evasion. (Chapters 965, 1254, 1722, 1941, and 1957)

Wear the Sword and Poetry that Praises the Sword illustrate his unusual defensive conversion. Wear the Sword integrates Kraugel with a blade so that the weapon's durability can absorb attacks against his body. Poetry that Praises the Sword can replace his health and defense with the combined properties of swords and multiply the next sword skill by five to eleven times. The price is material: strong attacks damage or permanently destroy the supporting weapons, and once the inventory is depleted the protection collapses. These abilities are powerful precisely because Kraugel understands when sacrificing valuable equipment is worth the opening it creates. (Chapters 944–945 and 1252)

Major offensive sword techniques

Space Sword cuts the world itself and every enemy along its path. It has the highest damage coefficient among Kraugel's wide-area skills, can inflict irreversible damage, reduce stats and speed, and expose weaknesses for enhanced critical damage. Its scale makes it devastating in a canyon or against an army, while its cutting principle later lets Kraugel split gods and cultivator defenses. It is not an automatic execution: Berith regenerates a severed arm, Saleos survives being bisected, and Kubartos's dragon body resists even a carefully saved strike. Its wide-area nature, resource demand, and cooldown make timing and terrain central to its value. (Chapters 1045, 1254, 1708, 1722, 1941, and 1957)

Heart Sword is the opposite kind of ultimate technique. At First Entrance, Kraugel strikes with will: the moment he decides to cut the target, the cut occurs with no visible precursor, cannot miss, and cannot be conventionally avoided or blocked. It deals ten percent of the target's current health regardless of Kraugel's attack power or the target's defense, consumes half of his maximum sword energy and ten percent of his health, and has a twenty-four-hour cooldown. Its importance lies in certainty and growth potential rather than immediate spectacle. Kraugel uses it to strike transcendent opponents, interrupt Saleos after engineering overlapping bodies, and demonstrate how a technique that seems weak numerically can become decisive through setup. (Chapters 1049, 1051, and 1254)

Bunhelier's Scream is an original ultimate technique created from Kraugel's long encounters with the evil dragon. It takes advantage of every attribute and still deals peak damage to a target without an attribute, reproducing through swordsmanship a portion of a dragon's irrational force. Against Saleos, it inflicts extreme damage and leaves weaknesses for following techniques, but the recoil causes Kraugel's limbs to cramp and sharply drains his stamina. It is therefore a representative finisher or combo starter, not a technique he can repeat freely. Its latest numerical scaling and cooldown are not specified in the supplied evidence. (Chapter 1254)

Kraugel's broader arsenal includes Storm Sword and its transcended variants for persistent or multi-hit sword-energy attacks; Meteor Sword for a heavy descending bombardment; Earth Dragon's Ascension for an upward strike whose recoil can reposition him; Condemnation Sword, which scales against evil and can use a target's defense as part of its power; Sword Curtain for defense; and True Clouds for sensory disruption. Many are strongest in sequences: True Clouds creates the false position, a high-power cut exposes a weakness, Storm Sword prevents regeneration, and Heart Sword closes an unavoidable line. The exact later cooldowns and coefficients of most of these techniques are not fully stated in the corpus, so their effectiveness should be understood from representative uses rather than assumed values. (Chapters 241, 570–574, 760–761, 764, 766–773, 944–946, 950–951, 953, 956–957, 963–966, 1252, 1254, and 1438)

Transcendence, God Killer energy, and latest state

Kraugel builds transcendence through prolonged combat with named beings, gods, and dragons. By the cultivator invasion he can use Shunpo and is explicitly described as an Absolute. His emerging God Killer qualification begins when Space Sword and Twilight split a god during the holy war. After Kubartos's traces enter Twilight, Kraugel and Grid destroy Judar's final defense, and Kraugel receives credit for killing the God of Wisdom and gains God Killer energy. This energy exerts pressure strong enough to inhibit a weaker cultivator's movement and marks Kraugel as a being capable of permanently threatening gods. (Chapters 1716, 1722, 1946, 1950, and 1957)

This status does not remove the series' relative-power constraints. Kraugel still depends on weapon quality, bodily condition, allies, terrain, and correct information. Cutting multiple dragon Breaths tears his muscles and breaks both wrists; Space Sword can fail to penetrate a top dragon deeply; and hostile laws or unfamiliar cultivation techniques can produce effects his senses do not immediately interpret. His latest strength is best defined as specialized lethality joined to elite judgment: he can take a decisive role against Absolutes and kill a chief god under the right conditions, but he continues gathering evidence, cross-checking conclusions, and training because neither the limits nor the final development of his personal swordsmanship are fully settled. (Chapters 1890–1891, 1893–1894, 1940–1941, 1943, 1946, 1950–1951, and 1965)

Power progression

Relationships

• Grid: Grid begins as the challenger who defeats Kraugel in Reidan, becomes the rival he must beat to secure his mother's treatment, and eventually grows into his closest friend and collaborator. Their competition drives both men, but neither treats the other's progress as a threat to be sabotaged. Grid makes Kraugel's weapons and believes he can surpass Muller; Kraugel shares information, protects Grid's people, and helps him carry burdens that raw strength cannot remove. By the end, they practice their crafts together and discuss their families without needing a contest to justify the friendship. (Chapters 352–355, 448–449, 452, 457, 459–464, 581, 1336, 1679, and 2055)

• Piaro: Piaro is Kraugel's first great Satisfy teacher. Farming, repeated spars, and defeat help Kraugel advance his Sword Saint candidacy, while Piaro's peak swordsmanship becomes the inspiration for Splitting the Sky. Kraugel's desire to preserve a trace of Piaro's achievement through an original technique shows that he regards him with gratitude rather than merely as a useful quest condition. (Chapters 241, 259, and 571)

• Kirinus: Kraugel chooses Kirinus's slow, restrictive training instead of following Muller's ready-made path. Kirinus becomes his master, friend, and proof that learning another weapon can deepen swordsmanship. Their three-year training produces Heart Sword and helps Kraugel form lasting bonds with NPCs. Kirinus later enters the Berith battle to protect his disciple and buy him time. (Chapters 970, 1045–1047, and 1049–1051)

• Muller and Biban: Kraugel respects both previous Sword Saints but refuses to define himself as their successor. He declines the Matchless Heart Technique because reproducing Muller would cap his path at Muller's achievement. Biban first interprets the decision as failure, then recognizes the possibility that Kraugel can create a swordsmanship beyond Matchless Heart Swordsmanship. Kraugel later meets Muller directly with competitive caution rather than worship. (Chapters 1254, 1336, and 1749)

• Lord: Kraugel is one of Lord's teachers and treats the prince's growth as a personal responsibility. He encourages Lord's ambition to stand beside Grid, recognizes his Divine Sword Unity, and worries about his safety during later wars. Their bond is warm enough that Kraugel wishes Lord could exist in reality, while Lord regards him as a model of both skill and humility. (Chapters 1722, 1941, 1943, and 2043)

• Yura, Jishuka, and the Overgeared Guild: Kraugel progresses from an admired outsider to a trusted member whom Grid and Lauel ask others to support. He coordinates naturally with the guild's snipers and support players against gods and dragons, takes missions on behalf of the empire, and comes to value the companionship that fills his deficits. His statement that joining the guild changed him is borne out by his concern for their safety, his acceptance of collective credit, and his ordinary presence in Grid's crowded smithy. (Chapters 1525–1527, 1722, 1940–1941, 1943, 1946, 2043, and 2055)

Items

• True White Fang: A legendary +9 sword originating from Great Demon Drasion and made from a fragment of Bunhelier's fang. Grid's repair reveals its true name and strengthens its performance, including Heart Selection, which rewards striking an enemy's heart. It also exposes the singular curse Bunhelier's Gaze: the evil dragon watches the owner and may be summoned to attack at random. Its one activation during the National Competition brings Bunhelier himself into the arena, making the weapon both exceptional and catastrophically unpredictable. Kraugel later gives its fang material to Grid. (Chapters 354, 460–461, 769–771, and 1678–1679)

• Kraugel's White Tiger Sword: A growth-type sword Grid designs for Kraugel from White Tiger materials after their rivalry has matured into friendship. Its earth-associated effects create thorns and other positional pressure, and it grows through continued use from its lower initial rating. Kraugel uses it with Control Sword, Wear the Sword, and Poetry that Praises the Sword, so its durability can function as part of both his offense and survival. Sword-breaker effects expose a major limitation: even a sword synchronized with a Sword Saint can be forcibly damaged or controlled by a hard counter. (Chapters 790–795, 943–946, 950–951, 953, 956–957, and 963–966)

• Kraugel's Twilight: A growth-type dragon weapon created collaboratively by Grid and Kraugel from Xenon's scale after Kraugel gives Grid White Fang. It shares Grid's Twilight's design and intention, but later comparison confirms that Kraugel's version is one grade lower because Xenon's scale is inferior to the old-dragon material in Grid's sword. Its spirituality develops with Kraugel, sharpening the Sword Saint's power to cut the essence of magic and techniques, binding multiple attributes and spells, and later accepting traces connected to Kubartos and God Killer energy. The weapon amplifies his path but does not replace it; the strongest feats still require his judgment, status, and physical endurance. (Chapters 1679, 1681–1683, 1708, 1794, 1890–1891, 1893–1894, 1946, and 1950–1951)