I Became a Mythical Hunter After Killing the Golden Goblin - Chapter 163

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————

Chapter 163. The Holy Divine Celestial Demon
〖Heavenly Demon Flying Cave – 90th Zone – The Field of Awakening〗
〖Objective: Establish your hierarchy.〗
〖Restriction: Murder is prohibited.〗
〖Reward: Differential compensation based on rank〗
After conquering exactly thirty-nine zones, I arrived at the 90th Zone, where a handful of warriors awaited me.
The numbers that had exceeded one thousand when I first encountered them in Zone 50 had now dwindled to barely fifty.
All eyes turned toward me—the final warrior to arrive.
Unlike the trials imposed by the Celestial Demons, I had absorbed everything from them and trained accordingly, so naturally I arrived later than the rest, and they had undoubtedly been waiting for me.
I surveyed them all. Every one of those hailed as championship contenders was present, including that woman who had challenged me to test my Celestial Demon Divine Art.
They had all grown stronger. Some by one or two grades, others to the point where their letter rankings had shifted. Yet none surpassed me.
To be precise: save for one existence nearly equal to my level, they all stood beneath me.
In truth, further competition among lesser Celestial Demons had become meaningless. I had already acquired everything necessary to be called a Celestial Demon—except for the title itself.
Of course, that title was the most important thing. Regardless, I accepted their stares and moved toward a corner of the chamber to grant my body rest.
I was exhausted. My body had been relentlessly tormented through endless learning and refinement, and I needed to stabilize the power that had surged so violently within me.
I closed my eyes quietly and began to settle my physical form. Yet even as I did, the trials continued.
All eyes fixed upon me, then withdrew as they recalled the overwhelming, spine-tingling performance I had demonstrated years before.
These were fifty warriors who had survived among hundreds of thousands, having passed through the exacting and ruthless trials of the Celestial Demons themselves. Only a fool would judge them weak simply because they had completed their trials slightly later.
Moreover, witnessing my body emanate nothing at all, they could only be astonished.
Return to Simplicity—a realm where ascending to such heights causes one to appear as an ordinary person untrained in martial arts. Strictly speaking, I had not reached that realm.
Yet through stat evolution or rapid ascension came natural metamorphosis and stat divinity, granting me perfect control over my aura—I simply concealed it.
‘Technically, it is Return to Simplicity.’
I opened my eyes quietly and observed the situation. They had not yet turned hostile toward one another, but the interior of the Flying Cave had already taken on the appearance of mutual surveillance.
They were told to establish hierarchy, so this was inevitable. Moreover, with rewards varying by rank, they would naturally desire to climb higher.
Having endured eighty-nine trials, they must have gained considerable strength.
The first to move was a warrior who appeared unremarkable. As the saying goes, the weak instinctively seek out the weak—he immediately drew his weapon against a warrior weaker than himself nearby.
He would not kill. The Flying Cave’s conditions themselves prevented murder.
The moment combat was deemed to have begun, the Flying Cave erected a barrier, allowing only the two warriors to duel while preventing all others from interfering.
The warriors watched the match while remaining vigilant toward one another, and victory went to the one who had struck first after a fierce exchange.
Between victor and vanquished, an invisible hierarchy materialized. Simultaneously, the barrier restored both warriors’ bodies to peak condition.
Witnessing this, I rose from my seat. There was no longer need to laboriously adjust my body and rest.
I would settle everything with the Flying Cave’s power in one stroke. The moment I stood, all tensed. Those of lower rank, aware of their strength, instinctively avoided my gaze, while those of middle rank, clinging to pride, did not avert their eyes but instinctively retreated, and those of upper rank grew tense, hoping not to be chosen.
But I had never intended to select any of them.
I turned my gaze toward one warrior—the woman who had touched me before, the only existence among all warriors here who could stand as my equal.
Behind my back, brilliant radiance and abyssal darkness manifested, a pair of horns and a halo activated. Buffs enveloped my body, and with equivalent exchange added, I forged my optimal form.
I drew the Myriad Demon Sword and walked toward her, releasing the inner force coursing through my entire being without restraint, letting it scatter freely.
“Insane!”
“That’s not human!”
“What exactly is that thing?”
One might attribute it to instinctive overwhelming presence. But that would be wrong. Having accepted the power of Pride without resistance, treating it not as a flaw but as my true nature, the amplified characteristic of Pride now dominated the surroundings as naturally as breathing.
Heavenly Demon Saint Divine Art
Ability: Absorbed beneath arrogance and fused with the Heavenly Demon Divine Art, the Sun Divine Art, and even the Primordial Chaos Divine Art to create a single martial technique. In essence, the Heavenly Demon Divine Art—which could be called the pinnacle—reveals its true form to the world.
First Form
Its inaugural manifestation.
White Night
A night that never darkens. A world where darkness and light coexist.
Such a world reveals itself through the blade.
Just as the Primordial Chaos Divine Art had done, this technique absorbed nearly two hundred Heavenly Demon Divine Arts, shattering the very framework of forms and sequences that defined martial techniques.
Every movement I make becomes a form, and within each form branch countless variations—tens, hundreds, thousands of them—so that any motion can become White Night.
Light and darkness, arrogant chaos dwelling within me. The moment it took root, I pushed off the ground and ran.
The woman, Ma-hwa Un-yeong, seemed to grasp my intent instantly, drawing her blade from her waist and rushing toward me.
Seeing the demonic energy erupting from her body—almost a frigid aura—I drew my sword in response.
From above to below. A stroke so simple and straightforward it was almost crude. There was no mystery of strength, no mystery of speed, no mystery of flow or transformation. It was merely a downward slash, no different from the Three Realms Sword Technique, and yet.
It was enough.
Light vanishes from the Chamber. Simultaneously, light is born.
Light illuminating the world within darkness that should be dark. Shock etched itself across every face.
That power clearly bears the mark of Heavenly Demon divinity. Yet at the same time, sacred power dwells within it equally.
A single being embracing both light and darkness.
Despite the shock of all present, Un-yeong had no time for amazement or astonishment. She had to block the power descending upon her by any means necessary.
‘This is impossible!’
Nearly ten years had passed since our meeting in Zone 50. Potential naturally deteriorates over time.
As people age, they expend their potential, and potential left undeveloped withers away.
Yet this man’s potential had only grown. To a degree now beyond all measurement.
The light of potential radiating from his body had already filled this Bi-dong and overflowed, beyond what the eye could contain.
Even the Heavenly Demon Emperor herself, the absolute ruler of this world, did not possess potential of such magnitude. She, called a monster and the calamity of martial artists, had possessed at her peak only enough potential to fill this Bi-dong.
‘He was only at that level in Zone 50!’
Filling the Bi-dong with a slight overflow. But now, with only slight exaggeration, it was light that would cover the entire Ten Thousand Great Mountains, the very headquarters of the Demonic Cult, and still have excess.
What was even more shocking was that his very existence had transformed in quality—what had he learned from the Celestial Demons, what had he comprehended, what evolution had he achieved?
Yes, like immortals. Those arrogant and presumptuous beings—half-gods who had fallen from the heavens to the ground by her master’s hand and met their end. That was the feeling.
Or perhaps even more than that. Noble, lofty, and pure.
A pressure that made one want to immediately kneel and bow in reverence.
Un-yeong clenched her lips, sharpening her mind with the acrid pain and metallic taste of blood, and moved with her blade gripped firmly.
Frigid Ice Demonic Art
Eight Cold Hells
First Demon
Arbuda Hell
A form inspired by the eight coldest hells unfolds. In an instant, the chill of hell begins to crystallize the surroundings, and the barrier between the two warriors becomes engulfed in frost.
Yet I moved without flinching.
It is cold. Freezing. My body grows sluggish.
But that is all.
“Your frigid power cannot overcome the light and darkness that dares to shroud all things.”
Whether from the influence of the Celestial Demons or not, grandiose words spilled forth unbidden—majestic, disagreeable, and utterly arrogant.
The brightest darkness greedily devoured and absorbed the cold, and the startled woman hastily unleashed her second technique.
Glacial Demon Art
Eight Cold Hells
Second Demon
Nirarbuda Hell
My blade, rushing in pursuit, forged another daybreak of white, and the woman’s body, unable to withstand two such daybreaks, bore a massive wound.
“Cough… Impossible?”
Ignoring her as she looked up at me in bewilderment, I felt the power flowing from Bi-dong.
As though celebrating victory, I sensed the Celestial Demon energy entering my body.
‘The power of the Seventh Celestial Demon.’
Among the dead Celestial Demons enshrined in Bi-dong throughout history, it was the second strongest after the Thirty-Eighth Asura Celestial Demon. Where the Asura Celestial Demon had projected the power of the god Asura from the Asura realm—a power granted by the First Heavenly Demon’s Celestial Demon Divine Spirit—
The Seventh Celestial Demon, the World-Ending Celestial Demon, was literally an existence that had once brought about the destruction of the world.
A Celestial Demon who broke down martial arts, created martial arts, and studied martial arts. An existence that reached the pinnacle through martial arts alone.
In truth, their appearance and inquisitive nature suited a scholar more than a martial artist, yet their scholarship only made them stronger.
I too absorbed vast knowledge of martial arts from them, achieving growth in my understanding of the martial way itself.
In any case, being a Celestial Demon with such extensive knowledge of martial arts, inner energy, and the body, their Celestial Demon Divine Technique could even restore itself. Now that power circulated through my body.
It swiftly calibrated my body, which had been creaking from rapid growth, into an optimal state, dispelled the fatigue of my exhausted frame, and healed the minor wounds covering my appearance from training.
The only thing left unrecovered was my inner energy.
But it mattered not. This heart of heaven, pounding wildly in my left chest, was restoring my inner energy in an instant. If nothing else, my inner energy recovery speed alone could be called the pinnacle without exaggeration.
Even after completing my recovery, I looked down at the woman still sprawled on the ground in shock.
“What are you? For someone called a late-stage cultivator, you are far too exceptional.”
“That is what I wish to ask. What exactly are you? How do you possess such impossible power and potential?”
She answered my question with a question. She had no intention of conversing.
I asked nothing further and turned away. I had defeated the strongest being in this chamber.
First place would be mine. Settling myself in a corner, I waved my hand toward the silent chamber as if to say continue.
Unable to refuse the words of the first-ranked, they resumed their hierarchical war.

—————
This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
—————