Arthia

Arthia is the clan that gives Second Life Ranker both its first wound and its longest institutional memory. Cha Jeong-woo begins it as a team of twelve climbers whose extraordinary speed, individual ability, and cooperation make their name known throughout the Tower. The group becomes a top-ten clan and a challenge to powers invested in keeping the Tower's hierarchy unchanged. It is then broken by a combination of external war and internal betrayal, leaving Jeong-woo dead, its members scattered, and its name dangerous even to those who merely helped it. (Chapters 1–2, 15, 30, 50, and 67)

The second Arthia grows out of Cha Yeon-woo's decision to inherit more than his brother's revenge. At first he uses Jeong-woo's memories and techniques while hiding behind a mask. Later he recovers Laputa, reveals his identity, and restores the clan in public. The resulting power is not a replica of twelve friends: it is a layered coalition of companions, military organizations, rescued dependents, undead servants, and allies who rally around the Shadow King. Arthia becomes strong enough to overturn the Tower's political order and help bring the Tower itself to an end. Its final importance is nevertheless personal. Long after formal disbandment, “the Arthia members” still names the people who gather for one another when Yeon-woo returns. (Chapters 423–465, 648–696, and 794–800)

Structure and operating principles

Two Arthias, one inherited name

The name refers to two connected but structurally different institutions. The first Arthia is Jeong-woo's team and later clan. It begins with twelve teammates, expands during repeated wars, and reaches the upper ranks of Tower society. Its legitimacy comes from shared climbing, Jeong-woo's leadership, and the members' trust in one another. The restored Arthia is founded in Jeong-woo's name but organized under Yeon-woo. It incorporates several already-existing organizations and a much larger support network. Calling Yeon-woo the founder would erase Jeong-woo's role; calling him only a member would erase the act of restoration through which the later clan exists. (Chapters 1–2 and 431–444)

The continuity is deliberate. Yeon-woo does not choose a new banner after defeating many of the forces responsible for Jeong-woo's fall. He adopts the old name, installs the clan in the old clan house, and declares its return to the same Tower that tried to erase it. The difference is equally deliberate: where the first Arthia is vulnerable to private divisions among a small circle, the restored clan binds independent groups through openly demonstrated power, debts of rescue, common enemies, and personal loyalty.

Clan master and delegated command

Jeong-woo is the original clan leader and the person around whom the first Arthia's ambitions form. He pushes the group to continue climbing when several high-ranking clans prefer the status quo, a strategic dispute that gives later manipulation room to work. His leadership inspires fierce loyalty, but the surviving record does not establish a detailed permanent bureaucracy beneath him. The first clan is best understood as an elite party that grew into a major power faster than its internal trust could safely adapt. (Chapters 1, 30, and 67)

Yeon-woo exercises more concentrated authority over the restored organization. In the clan-establishment gathering at Laputa, players and subordinate groups pledge themselves to the Shadow King. His ability to defeat clan leaders, rescue whole communities, and control Laputa makes that authority practical rather than ceremonial. Yet he is frequently absent on divine or cosmic campaigns, so operational command cannot depend on his physical presence. Doyle, whose strategic judgment and connections repeatedly hold allied forces together, becomes the principal leader during those absences. Kahn serves alongside him as a senior combat commander. The epilogue's description of Doyle as the leader of the clan that helped bring down the Tower reflects this delegated command; it does not replace Yeon-woo as clan master. (Chapters 437–444, 648–651, and 794–796)

Core members, subordinate organizations, and allies

Arthia's later coalition has several levels that should not be collapsed into a single roster:

Membership sometimes changes with office and circumstance. Phante is a defining Arthia companion, but later assumes responsibility for the One-horned tribe. Leonhardt, the first clan's political strategist, returns as part of its restored political capacity and later creates a separate clan after Arthia dissolves. Agares favors Yeon-woo and even blesses the newly established Arthia, but remains a demonic king with his own society rather than a subordinate player. These distinctions matter because Arthia's reach often exceeds its formal membership. (Chapters 423–465, 651, 794, and 797)

The Four Black Wings

At its mature territorial stage, Arthia's four greatest and most loyal affiliated organizations are known collectively as the Four Black Wings:

The name “Black Wings” expresses their function as extensions of the Shadow King, but it does not eliminate their earlier identities. They transmit orders, administer expanding territory, and give a once-small clan the organizational limbs required to control lower floors and advance its frontier. Other affiliated clans exist beyond the four, and not every friend living in or visiting Laputa belongs to one of them. (Chapters 442–465)

Loyalty, rescue, and chosen submission

The restored clan has no single ideological creed comparable to a religion or sect doctrine. Its cohesion comes from reciprocal history. Yeon-woo avenges murdered companions, saves groups abandoned by stronger clans, recovers people thought lost, and provides a power capable of protecting them. At Laputa's establishment ceremony, those histories become public commitments. Hanatan's decision to bow causes Iron Throne to enter the new order; others whom Heaven Wing once helped or whom the Hoarder later rescued follow. (Chapters 437–444)

This system is intensely personal. It gives Yeon-woo unusual speed in assembling a force because trust has been accumulated through action instead of paperwork. It also makes Arthia dependent on the relationships around one family. When Yeon-woo disappears and the Tower is gone, the clan lacks a reason to preserve a military hierarchy merely for its own sake. Its people can disband without treating their loyalty as false.

Laputa as clan house and strategic platform

Laputa is both the old Arthia clan house and a structure with a history older than the clan. Hidden in an Outer Space connected to the upper Tower, it is the floating castle and Dragon Temple associated with the ancient dragon Kalatus. Jeong-woo's body is kept there after Arthia's fall, and Kalatus's vestige remains connected to the fortress. Arthia did not create Laputa; Jeong-woo made an ancient stronghold the home of his clan. (Chapters 227 and 423)

For Yeon-woo, recovering and activating Laputa joins inheritance to military logistics. The castle supplies secure space for the clan-establishment gathering, quarters for residents and affiliated forces, defenses against hostile clans, movement, and a platform from which large-scale campaigns can be launched. It turns Jeong-woo's hidden grave and ruined headquarters into visible proof that Arthia has returned. The same place holds family, workshop, army, and memory, which is why “clan house” describes more than an administrative office.

History

The Tutorial and the twelve-person team

Jeong-woo enters the Tower in search of the Panacea and rapidly meets the people who become his team. His diary records their early record-breaking ascent and, on December 1, 2013, their choice of the name Arthia. He praises both their teamwork and individual skill and believes the resulting speed will let him obtain medicine for his family sooner than expected. The group begins with twelve people, not as a political project but as companions trying to climb. (Chapters 1–2)

Their conduct in the Tutorial becomes an early measure of the name's meaning. The team clears Section E without abandoning or betraying one another and destroys the Hyena group's human farms. Jeong-woo later returns to check the Tutorial even after becoming a high ranker. Arthia's early fame therefore rests not only on speed but on the belief that strength can be exercised against predators whom the Tower's ordinary competition allows to flourish. (Chapters 21 and 31)

The Akasha's Snake ordeal further binds the party. Shared danger teaches them how to fight as a coordinated unit and becomes one of the formative memories through which later characters understand “old Arthia.” The clan's legend is built before its formal rank: hard floors establish a common story, and the story lets twelve rookies act with the confidence of a much older organization. (Chapters 33 and 36)

Rapid ascent and By the Table

Arthia's progress is extraordinary. It clears the first ten floors in four days according to Jeong-woo's diary, and later accounts describe the speed as unprecedented. Repeated success turns a party into a clan known throughout the Tower. By July 2015, Jeong-woo records that it has become one of the ten largest clans and that all its teammates are high rankers; elsewhere it is remembered as reaching roughly fifth or sixth place at its peak. Those descriptions come from different points in its rise rather than requiring a single permanent rank. (Chapters 1, 15, and 67)

Around the fiftieth floor, the merchant union By the Table sponsors Arthia. Funding and artifacts give the clan the resources to spread its wings, demonstrating that combat ability alone did not produce its institutional ascent. Financial support, information, and access allow Jeong-woo's party to survive the costs of war and compete with powers that have controlled floors for generations. That patronage also makes Arthia part of the Tower's political economy: success attracts partners as well as enemies. (Chapter 259)

Wars with the established clans

Arthia's desire to continue climbing collides with high-ranking clans that benefit from the existing order. Jeong-woo records failed negotiations, war, the collapse of an enemy alliance, and a later renewal of conflict. The clan grows through these struggles, but victory does not resolve the underlying opposition. Its speed and refusal to stop make it a destabilizing force long before Yeon-woo deliberately adopts that role. (Chapters 1 and 30)

Conflict also exposes internal strain. Some teammates agree with the established clans' preference for maintaining the status quo but are reluctant to say so openly, while Jeong-woo continues to press upward. The distinction does not excuse later betrayal, yet it prevents Arthia's fall from becoming a story in which perfectly unified friends are changed by a single surprise. Its external enemies exploit disagreements that rapid expansion and repeated war have already made difficult to address.

The Eight Clans and internal betrayal

An alliance associated with the Tower's Eight Clans moves against Arthia. The enemies' motives and methods are not identical, but they share an interest in removing a rising power. Direct pressure is paired with manipulation inside the clan. Bahal and Leonte defect toward Red Dragon and Cheonghwado for position and advantage. Aether distances himself and takes the Glands of Gods and Demons. Vieira Dune, Jeong-woo's lover, uses mental interference and participates in the final betrayal. (Chapters 1, 30, 50, 203–204, 233, 361, and 375)

Bayluk is the most technically consequential traitor. His alchemical strengthening is one reason the clan grows so quickly, but his experiments treat Jeong-woo as material for the Divine Human project. He leaks and manipulates information while cooperating with Vieira. The talents that made Arthia formidable—alchemy, mind abilities, access to Jeong-woo's trust—become instruments by which the clan is dismantled from within. (Chapters 15, 127–128, 259, 361, 435, 443, and 448)

Not everyone from Arthia belongs in the same category. Valdebich, Jeong-woo's first friend and a founding member, is manipulated into leaving and later lives with guilt rather than profiting from the betrayal. Leonhardt, the clan's political strategist, survives on a different path. Galliard and Henova are important members of Jeong-woo's wider circle, but the text does not require every loyal associate to have occupied one of the original twelve seats. Arthia's history is clearest when betrayers, survivors, and outside friends remain distinct.

Jeong-woo's death and the erased clan

With allies scattered and enemies closing in, Jeong-woo is isolated, tortured, and killed. Arthia is formally disbanded, its property and discoveries are divided, and even people connected to it suffer persecution. Henova's later poverty and isolation show how thoroughly the victorious powers attempt to erase the clan's support network rather than merely defeat its fighters. (Chapters 1–2 and 50)

Valdebich eventually recovers Jeong-woo's body from Laputa and sends it to Earth. That act allows the Pocket Watch and Jeong-woo's recorded memories to reach Yeon-woo. The first Arthia thus survives in two linked repositories: Laputa holds the physical and draconic legacy, while the watch gives Yeon-woo his brother's experiences, grief, knowledge, and unfinished relationships. (Chapters 1–2 and 423)

Yeon-woo's hidden succession

Yeon-woo begins his climb without announcing Arthia's return. He assimilates Jeong-woo's memories, uses knowledge learned from old members, and approaches former enemies under the masked identity of the Hoarder. This concealment lets him determine what happened before the Eight Clans understand that Heaven Wing's brother is alive. His alliances with Kahn, Doyle, Phante, Edora, Henova, Brahm, and others form the human foundation of a new clan before any official establishment. (Chapters 2–227)

Revenge gradually becomes restoration. Yeon-woo destroys or absorbs organizations implicated in Jeong-woo's death, but he also retrieves survivors, gives refugees protection, builds a household, and inherits responsibilities that cannot be satisfied by killing named traitors. Valdebich's return is especially important: Yeon-woo learns the truth of a founding member who believed he abandoned Jeong-woo, while Valdebich receives the chance to serve the brother and name he failed to protect. (Chapters 423–436)

Unmasking and the declaration of return

After recovering Laputa and confronting major enemies, Yeon-woo removes the mask that has separated the Hoarder from Cha Jeong-woo's family. He declares war in both Jeong-woo's and Arthia's names. The act converts rumors about resemblance and inherited techniques into a public succession. His enemies can no longer treat his campaigns as the ambitions of an unrelated rookie; every defeat now demonstrates that the clan they destroyed has produced an heir. (Chapter 426)

The declaration also changes the meaning of vengeance. Yeon-woo is not pretending to be Jeong-woo or claiming his brother's achievements as his own. By stating both names, he identifies a debt to the dead while acting as a different leader. This distinction later permits the restored Arthia to contain people and institutions Jeong-woo never knew.

Recovery of Laputa

The Arthia sequence around Laputa brings several buried histories together. Yeon-woo encounters Valdebich, Jeong-woo's remains, and Kalatus's vestige; learns more fully how the old clan ended; and gains control of the floating castle. A site of mourning becomes an operational fortress. Laputa's return also makes a second clan possible at scale: without a secure house capable of holding multiple organizations, Yeon-woo's companions would remain a network rather than a unified power. (Chapters 423–436)

Jeong-woo's legacy remains present without taking command away from Yeon-woo. Old associates respond to Heaven Wing's name, yet the fortress awakens into a political world transformed by the Hoarder's battles. The recovered house belongs to a past Arthia; the people assembling inside it constitute the new one.

Clan establishment

Yeon-woo formally re-establishes Arthia at Laputa. Illusion Knightage and Children of the Forest are already firmly aligned, while other groups must decide whether to preserve independence or submit to a new clan master. Hanatan bows first among the uncertain leaders, bringing Iron Throne with him. Players helped by Jeong-woo and people indebted to Yeon-woo then pledge absolute submission to the Shadow King. (Chapters 437–444)

The gathering is not merely a victory celebration. It defines the institutional bargain of the second Arthia. Affiliated groups retain the expertise and social bonds that made them useful, but accept a common command and common enemies. Yeon-woo in turn gives them Laputa's protection, access to his growing supernatural power, and membership in a cause capable of confronting the Eight Clans.

Expansion and the Four Black Wings

The restored clan quickly moves beyond defense. The Four Black Wings execute Arthia's orders, affiliated clans extend its administration, and its territory spreads through the lower Tower. Its frontier eventually reaches around the fifty-second floor. The geographic advance reverses the isolation of Jeong-woo's final days: instead of an elite leader cut off from scattered teammates, Yeon-woo builds depth beneath the front line. (Chapter 465)

Expansion does not make the Tower peaceful. Elohim, Devil Army, Blood Land, surviving great clans, and heavenly societies pursue their own interests, sometimes fighting Arthia and sometimes entering temporary alignments. Agares's favor toward the new clan is useful against common enemies but does not make Arthia a demonic society. Its power lies in negotiating among systems—player clans, divine societies, dragons, giants, demons, and the Tower's Guardians—without becoming reducible to any one of them.

The campaign against Allforone

Allforone blocks the path beyond the seventy-seventh floor and embodies the Tower order that Jeong-woo could not overcome. The restored Arthia, Laputa, and subordinate clans take part in the coalition against him. Yeon-woo's personal confrontation is decisive, but the campaign depends on an institution capable of mobilizing fighters, protecting territory, and surviving while its clan master operates on a plane beyond ordinary players. (Chapters 648–651)

Olympus, Ghost Giants, dragons of death, holy-territory followers, and Yeon-woo's familiars also enter the battlefield. They are allied forces, not proof that every being commanded by or related to Yeon-woo is formally Arthia. The coalition's scale shows the clan's achievement more accurately than an inflated roster would: Arthia becomes the political and logistical center around which mutually alien powers can oppose the same barrier.

The fall of the Tower

The final conflicts destroy the conditions that made a player clan necessary. As the Tower collapses and its inhabitants are expelled or evacuated, Arthia and its affiliates help move people into a transformed cosmos. Doyle's later reputation as the leader of the strongest clan “who led the Tower to its demise” records the institutional role of that effort. Yeon-woo may possess transcendent power, but the end of the Tower is also carried by the people organized under his brother's restored name. (Chapters 680, 696, and 796)

The Tower's destruction completes an ambition deeper than ranking. The old Arthia was attacked for refusing to stop climbing; the new Arthia helps remove the structure whose frozen order produced that conflict. It does not become the permanent government of what follows. Once evacuation and reconstruction replace floor conquest, its military unity can give way to separate lives.

Disbandment and reunion

After the Tower collapses and Yeon-woo disappears, Arthia disbands. Leonhardt establishes a new clan, Kahn eventually retires after building the Iron Lion or Blood Sword line, Doyle withdraws to a nameless abbey, and other groups follow their own paths. The dispersal is not described as a second betrayal. The shared mission has ended, and former members possess the strength and communities to continue without preserving an empty command structure. (Chapters 794–796)

When signs of Yeon-woo return, the network reforms socially rather than militarily. Kahn goes to find the friend he had forgotten, Doyle helps gather scattered faith, and Leonhardt travels toward Earth. Former Arthia members, Agares, Fenrir, and figures from Olympus gather at Kronos's home. In the final chapter, Jeong-woo looks at the barbecue crowd specifically as “the Arthia members” before bringing Yeon-woo through the door. The clan is gone; the family recognized by its name is not. (Chapters 797–800)

Original Arthia personnel

The complete identity of all twelve original teammates is not presented as a single reliable roll call. The following are the figures whose relationship to the first clan is directly important:

Henova, Galliard, Ananta, and Kalatus belong to the history surrounding Jeong-woo, his family, and Laputa. Their importance should not be converted into an unsupported claim that each occupied one of the twelve original places.

Major operations

Resources and capabilities

Arthia's first great resource is complementary talent. Jeong-woo is a fast-rising all-rounder and leader; Bayluk supplies alchemy and large-scale methods; Vieira possesses mental abilities; Valdebich supplies extraordinary physical force and protection; and Leonhardt handles political strategy. Their combined ability clears floors and wins wars faster than older clans expect. The same specialization makes betrayal catastrophic because trusted experts already possess the access needed to undermine one another.

The restored Arthia expands that model from a party into a system. Laputa supplies mobility, defense, storage, living space, and a headquarters outside ordinary clan territory. Henova's craftsmanship, Brahm's magic and research, Yeon-woo's undead legion, and the Four Black Wings' independent networks let the clan act simultaneously across many floors. Jeong-woo's Pocket Watch is the inheritance that begins the restoration, while Yeon-woo's Vigrid and Philosopher's Stone are personal instruments rather than clan property.

Its most unusual capability is access across categories of existence. Through Yeon-woo, Arthia can coordinate players with demons, gods, dragons, giants, and the dead. That reach should not be mistaken for stable ownership of every allied force. Arthia creates a command nexus for particular campaigns; personal contracts, divine societies, family relationships, and clan allegiance continue to coexist around it.

External relationships

The Eight Clans

The Eight Clans are the institutional enemies around which Arthia's two histories turn. They help destroy the first clan because its ascent threatens their control, then become the principal targets of Yeon-woo's revenge and expansion. Individual clans and members differ in guilt, and the political category changes as organizations fall or realign. Arthia's war is therefore directed at a power structure and named participants, not at every person ever attached to an Eight Clan.

The One-horned tribe

Phante and Edora connect Yeon-woo to the One-horned tribe from the Tutorial onward. The Martial King acts as teacher, obstacle, and family-adjacent ally rather than an Arthia subordinate. Later leadership changes strengthen the alliance, especially when Phante assumes tribal responsibility. The tribe contributes exceptional fighters and social legitimacy while retaining its own tradition and chain of authority.

Heavenly and demonic societies

Agares, Hades, Olympus, and other supernatural powers develop ties to Yeon-woo that frequently benefit Arthia. Those relationships range from sponsorship and personal attachment to military coalition. They are unstable because heavenly societies have laws and rivalries independent of the clan. Arthia's strategic importance lies in making cooperation possible without pretending that divine or demonic beings have become ordinary players beneath a clan badge.

By the Table and neutral networks

By the Table's sponsorship helps old Arthia rise, while merchants, information brokers, smiths, and independent players remain essential to both versions of the clan. Their history shows that a top clan is never only the people shown on a battlefield. Money, artifacts, information, repairs, passage between floors, and safe settlement turn victory into durable power.

Identity and legacy

For Jeong-woo, Arthia begins as proof that the Tower does not have to be climbed alone. His diary moves from exhilaration at the team's name to the strain of leadership, love, war, and betrayal. The clan's destruction is devastating because it attacks both an organization and his answer to loneliness. Yeon-woo inherits that contradiction through the pocket watch: Arthia is simultaneously the family he never met and the mechanism through which his brother was exposed to ruin.

The restored clan does not solve betrayal by recovering a perfect past. It builds a broader present. Valdebich can return without his failure being denied; independent groups can retain names while submitting to shared command; household members can matter without being forced into an original roster; and Yeon-woo can honor Jeong-woo without impersonating him. Its architecture is therefore an answer to the first Arthia's fall. Redundancy, affiliated forces, a defensible home, and delegated commanders prevent every relationship from depending on one isolated leader.

Arthia also measures the Tower's political change. The first clan becomes famous by clearing floors faster than precedent and is punished for disturbing the status quo. The second becomes so powerful that floors, clans, and supernatural societies reorganize around it. Finally it helps destroy the Tower, making its own identity as a Tower clan obsolete. Ranking first would have left the old hierarchy intact; disbanding after the hierarchy ends is a more complete victory.

Its final legacy is neither territory nor a successor state. It is a durable language of belonging. Centuries after the clan separates, Kahn, Doyle, Leonhardt, Agares, Fenrir, and the others respond to signs of the missing Yeon-woo. The closing barbecue makes that continuity ordinary: former commanders and cosmic beings crowd a family home, argue, cook, and wait. When Jeong-woo calls them Arthia members, the name has shed the competition that created it without losing the people who made it meaningful. (Chapters 794–800)