SSS-Class Sui**de Hunter - Chapter 66

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

Episode 66. The Heavenly Demon (1)
1
Heavenly Demon.
This cannot continue as it is.
…Heavenly Demon. Half of the Blood Ghost Corps has been annihilated! The elders declared their emergence to the Murim and scattered across the realm, but we’ve already lost all trace of them. This is no time to be fighting the Orthodox Faction’s fools. It is a crisis for our sect—perhaps for all of Murim itself. The beggars of the Open Doors are spreading rumors….
…Heavenly Demon. Following your orders, we have established Medicine Houses without regard to factional boundaries. Masters from the Tang Sect and the Broken Mountain School have all come. We will put the captured Jiangshi to use for live testing, and we should see results within a short time….
…Heavenly Demon. Even the Lunar Eclipse Demon General and the Blood Demon have fallen. Today we slay a hundred Jiangshi, and tomorrow a thousand new ones spawn. We cannot contain this plague! The Medicine House says that blocking the Awen Point and the Heavenly Axis Point with acupuncture can protect the upper dantian and suppress the Jiangshi, but beyond that, there is no….
…Heavenly Demon. Flee to Fallen Island. Once you enter and seclude yourself, even if the Zombie Plague reaches a million or ten million, those wretches cannot cross the sea. How can all of Murim be contained in this one place? Wherever the banner of our sect stands, that place becomes Murim itself….
…Heavenly Demon. What weight has the promise of the Grand War? It was a covenant forged before the realm grew turbid. If the Way of Heaven has changed, how can the Way of Man remain steadfast? Forget the oath you swore with the Murim Alliance Master, and please, launch a return offensive….
Heavenly Demon.
Heavenly Demon.
2
“…How did you endure it?”
After a long silence, that was the first question I posed.
How had they survived?
A hell where the world had perished and people had become corpses. She herself had become half-dead, and the moment her inner energy’s flow was blocked even once, her heart would stop. Yet somehow she had endured three years of this. That was what I asked.
“…….”
The Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master did not answer hastily. They looked at each other. Then they exchanged a glance I could not fathom, and nodded together.
“Follow us.”
The two of them left the cave.
I followed them as well.
We walked in silence as we exited the cave, careful not to wake the others. Thus we were quiet for a long time.
The moment the cave ended, the silence broke.
“All men die in their time.”
Outside, dawn was breaking.
“There is a tale passed down in the Murim. It speaks of a Supreme Master who achieved Immunity to All Poisons and the Indestructible Diamond Body. No toxin could corrode within his body—hence Non-erosion. No blade could wound without his flesh—hence Non-injury.”
The Heavenly Demon exhaled slowly.
“Truly, he was Invincible. Non-eroding within. Non-wounded without. How could one kill one whom the cruelest poison could not harm, nor the sharpest blade could touch?”
Dawn spread pale across the sky.
In the dimness, the world was but pallid shadow.
“Yet old tales harbor one thing they never forgive—Invincibility itself.”
The world of shadow. Through it walked the Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master. One footstep at a time. Slowly. Where a footstep fell, there was earth. Where it did not fall, there was sky. Thus it was only the measure of a man’s stride that divided heaven and earth.
“Child of yesterday’s birds.”
The Heavenly Demon glanced back at me.
We were walking from the cave toward yesterday’s Snowy Plain—to that place where we had been surrounded by martial zombie hordes.
“Can you guess how that Supreme Master perished?”
“How did he die?”
“The Desire Demon grafted herself to him and killed him.”
The Heavenly Demon’s lip curved upward.
“The ecstasy of Yin-Yang Union is no poison. Nor is the blade.”
“Ah, but surely excessive ecstasy is a poison in itself?”
“True. Yet the Desire Demon never assailed him with a storm of pleasure from the start. She was cunning, patient, taking time. Beginning with the subtlest bliss, she gradually led him to crave the most lethal ecstasy. She trained that Supreme Master again and again.”
The darkness lifted.
The Snowy Plain grew a shade whiter.
That whiteness resembled the breath the Heavenly Demon had exhaled.
“When the Desire Demon struck with her palms, the Supreme Master no longer felt pain. When she wielded her whip, he experienced only pleasure. Her every gesture, her every glance became a source of happiness to him.”
A soft sound.
The Heavenly Demon raised her hand.
“In the final moment,”
And caressed her own throat.
“Gently. The Desire Demon merely, gently, throttled his neck.”
“…….”
“No transcendent martial force was needed. No profound inner energy was required. Just two hands—her own two hands at his throat. As he gasped and suffocated, the Supreme Master, marinated in ecstasy, laughed with perfect clarity. Even in death, the corpse’s face bore a contented smile.”
The Heavenly Demon giggled.
“The Supreme Master died enshrouded in ecstasy itself. Non-eroding, non-wounded, yet not Non-misery. Such was his end.”
In the heart of the Snowy Plain.
Corpses lay scattered. Bodies that moved even in death, as if still alive. They stood rigid in the dimness of dawn, utterly motionless—a forest made of shadow.
“The lesson of this tale is simple.”
“Do not trifle with the Desire Demon!”
The Murim Alliance Master grumbled.
“It’s not just an old tale—it actually happened. Tsk! The Tang Sect had raised her like a precious jewel, grooming her into a master. And that woman sent the Desire Demon to assassinate her in secret.”
“Mm-hmm.”
Jiangshi littered the snowy plain in scattered clusters. Traces, perhaps, of those that had chased our party yesterday. The Heavenly Demon approached them.
“Fledglings emerging into the Murim for the first time are prone to a common delusion—that a martial artist’s goal is to reach the state of invincibility, that we practice our arts to attain immortality and eternal life.”
With a grunt, the Heavenly Demon hoisted a jiangshi into the air.
“Haah.”
The Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master. The two of them carried the jiangshi together.
“Those who attain Immunity to All Poisons die not by poison but by something else. Those who achieve the Indestructible Diamond Body fall not to blades but to other means. Do you understand? A martial artist does not merely choose which art to master.”
The Heavenly Demon moved the jiangshi with visible effort.
“In selecting the warrior one will become, one simultaneously determines the manner of one’s death.”
The Heavenly Demon’s movements were sluggish and slow.
Like a postman trudging under a heavy load, she would carry the jiangshi, set it down periodically, draw a deep breath, then continue.
“All mortals die eventually.”
She repeated this cycle over and over.
“Do you think we don’t know that? How could we not resent the fact of death itself?”
The jiangshi had wandered in all directions throughout the night. The Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master gathered them one by one, restoring order.
“…But we do not wish to die in this manner.”
It took time.
Their strength was meager, and the corpses were countless.
“Let me be assassinated if I must. Let me fall to poison. Let me be ambushed in the Heavenly Net Snare, or take a blow from Shaolin monks. Let me be betrayed by those I trusted and die by their hands. Let me even accept a martial challenge from the rising generation and fall in honorable combat.”
Midday.
By the time the Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master had returned the jiangshi to their places, the sun hung at the zenith. Footprints now crisscrossed the snowy plain in profusion.
“But this death—this we cannot accept.”
The Heavenly Demon looked at me, panting.
“Did you ask how we endure it?”
“……”
“We simply wish to die as we choose.”
The Orthodox Faction elder had arranged hundreds of corpses in a line.
The Demonic Cult woman had arranged hundreds of corpses in a line.
Thus the jiangshi appeared as if divided into two opposing armies locked in confrontation, ready to surge forward and begin battle at any moment.
And I, suddenly, remembered.
「The causes of death are identical, but the dates differ for each.」
When we first encountered the jiangshi after falling into the world of Revelation.
The conversation our party had shared while observing the forest of corpses.
「Someone must have deliberately moved these bodies.」
「Could it be a tomb of sorts?」
「A tomb, yes. From a distance, it resembles a Terracotta Army.」
At night, jiangshi move about at their whim.
Yet nearly a thousand of them gathered in a single place on the snowy plain.
When you think about it, isn’t that itself strange?
“Huu……”
“Mm.”
Yes.
Unless someone had deliberately gathered all the jiangshi in one place.
“Few of them ventured far today.”
Five hundred of the Demonic Cult.
“Last night the moonlight was clear. Though not as strong as sunlight, moonlight also feeds the jiangshi……”
Five hundred of the Orthodox Faction.
The Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master moved their respective followers. It was an enormous undertaking, consuming the better part of a day. Yet both proceeded in silence.
As if performing a natural, inevitable duty.
「We wage the Orthodox-Demonic Grand War thus.」
「And three years have already passed.」
Snow falls.
“The Orthodox Faction will never fall to mere jiangshi.”
People die.
“Our sect’s fate shall not be destroyed by corpses gnawing at our legacy.”
The Nine Schools and One Sect and the Five Great Families vanish entirely.
“If our Orthodox Faction must perish, it shall be only by the hand of the wicked Demonic Cult.”
Even if dust gathers on every martial secret and no one remains to read them.
“If our sect disappears from this world, it will be by the blade of the Orthodox Faction alone.”
This world has not yet fallen to annihilation.
For it to fall, two people must first die.
Even if the world held a billion souls, and nine hundred ninety-nine million nine hundred ninety-nine thousand nine hundred ninety-nine perished by plague, the last one remaining—if that final person takes their own life, the world’s cause of death would not be disease, but merely suicide.
At least, the Murim Alliance Master and the Heavenly Demon saw it this way.
“Murim Alliance Master. Nangung Family, Patriarch. Namgung Woon.”
The old man made a fist salute.
“Buyuel Seon, it is.”
“Demonic Cult Master. So Baek-hyang.”
The woman made a fist salute.
“The Heavenly Demon.”
The sun had passed its zenith.
Years had passed since only these two remained in all the realm.
In those years, their sole occupation had been deciding what the cause of this world’s death would be.
“I request the nine hundred ninetieth duel.”
Was it to be the destruction of the Demonic Cult at the Murim Alliance Master’s hands?
“Life-Death Decision or something else?”
Or was it to be the ruin of the Orthodox Faction at the Heavenly Demon’s hand?
“Life-Death Decision.”
“I accept.”
The two martial masters released their salutes.
Five hundred Orthodox disciples and five hundred Demonic cultists faced each other across the Snowy Plain, as the Murim Alliance Master and the Heavenly Demon rushed toward one another.
Their martial arts remained incomprehensible to me. From where I stood, they barely seemed to be moving their feet—struggling, barely managing to extend their arms.
Their footwork was so sluggish that even a child could have outpaced them.
Their hand movements were so feeble they couldn’t crush a single orange.
……
A genre in decline.
A world in decay.
This Apocalypse was dying slowly across nine hundred ninety days.
“This is……”
I opened my mouth.
Watching their distant duel, I murmured without thinking.
“This can’t be right.”
My heart was churning.
“It’s unreasonable.”
—……
“This just shouldn’t be happening.”
Across the Snowy Plain, a fierce battle raged—or so it seemed. The Murim Alliance Master and the Heavenly Demon, who once rivaled for supremacy and had displayed dazzling martial arts, now could manage nothing more than childish grappling. They rolled through the snow. They stumbled. They grabbed at beards, tore at hair.
“To someone like you, Sword Master, that might look like a tremendous fight. Yes, I’m barely a novice at swordcraft myself. But no matter how profound the mysteries hidden in that grappling, no matter how great the principles concealed within it……”
The daylight faded into evening.
The Murim Alliance Master and the Heavenly Demon never stopped fighting for a moment.
“This is an insult.”
The sun had set.
No victor had been decided today either.
“An insult to both of them.”
A world in decline.
In a land ravaged by an incurable plague, two martial masters had proven strong enough to cling to life. Yet they had become too weak to take each other’s.
“This cannot be.”
The world is cruel because we cannot be born as we wish. Then what is a world where we cannot die as we wish?
To be unable to end things properly.
For life to simply, abruptly break off in the middle.
—What are you going to do about it?
The Backhoe Spirit spoke quietly.
—Will you kill the Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master in their stead? Yes, that too could be a merciful gift. I would do so. But you and I are, after all, nothing but outsiders—you mustn’t forget that.
“I know.”
The two martial masters do not wish for suicide.
If they must die, they wish only to die by each other’s hand.
The Demonic Cult will not fall to plague; it will crumble in defeat to the Orthodox Faction.
The Orthodox Faction will not bow to disease; it will shatter when the age of demonic rule arrives.
Such an ending.
A proper conclusion.
A reasonable, natural endpoint for a life.
Even if I burst in and killed them both, that wouldn’t be an ending or a resolution. Not even a merciful gift.
It would be nothing more than scribbles a child scratched on the back of a fairy tale book.
That won’t do.
“I,” I said to the Backhoe Spirit,
and meant every word.
“I will close this world in my own way.”
-And what way is that?
I didn’t answer the Backhoe Spirit’s question.
Dusk deepened around us.
“Well, it’s evening already, old friend.”
“Winter makes the day fly by… *gasp*. One moment it’s noon….”
“Tomorrow we settle this. I swear it.”
“Who are you to promise that….”
The 990th day of the Orthodox-Demonic Grand War ended naturally in truce.
The Heavenly Demon and the Murim Alliance Master withdrew their hands, their frames more worn than yesterday, and trudged back into the cave.
“Where have you been?”
Our companions met us at the entrance.
Viper stood watch at the cave mouth, while the Pharmacist and Medicine King huddled around the jiangshi, absorbed in some urgent research—the Wudang Faction’s master we’d found yesterday, now undead.
“We’ve been examining the patient. We didn’t have time yesterday….”
“Any progress?”
The Medicine King and Pharmacist exchanged glances. The Medicine King made a soft clicking sound first.
“Not yet.”
“Yes… well, we’ve never encountered a virus like this before.”
That would be true enough.
The Heavenly Demon and Murim Alliance Master said they’d rest and walked deeper into the cave. I watched their figures recede, then turned my attention to the Pharmacist.
“Pharmacist.”
“Yes?”
“Be honest with me. If you could make a cure, roughly how long do you think it would take?”
“Ah. Well, hmm…”
The Pharmacist hesitated, wringing his hands.
“If I’m being truly frank… at least 120 days.”
“Could easily take two, three times that. Schedules like this should always be generous. Even generous estimates fall short.”
The Medicine King added curtly. The Pharmacist’s head sank low.
“…Yes, you’re right. In the worst case scenario, truly….”
I nodded.
“So we’re looking at a hundred days minimum, perhaps three hundred at the outside?”
“Well, that is…”
The Pharmacist’s head sank even lower.
“I, I might not even be able to make it at all. The facilities are poor, the conditions are poor, and right now I can’t guarantee anything. Medicine King, I’m sorry…. You trusted me, brought me to this stage, and now I’m telling you that developing a cure within the time limit is impossible.”
Time limit.
Before sending us into the Apocalypse, the Librarian had said:
“When you open your eyes, you will find yourselves in a world ten days before the Heavenly Demon Records suffers its tragic discontinuation.”
“I do hope you’ll show me a proper ending.”
In other words, no matter what happens,
in ten days’ time, the world will truly end.
Even the Heavenly Demon and Murim Alliance Master, who had struggled so hard to survive, will perish.
That ten-day window—that was what the Pharmacist meant by the time limit.
“I’m truly sorry….”
“No.”
I shook my head.
“That’s enough.”
“Yes, yes…?”
“Don’t worry, Pharmacist.”
I rested my hand on the Short Sword at my waist.
My fingers traced the hilt slowly.
“I’ll handle the time issue however I need to. Don’t give up—keep researching.”
There was silence.
“Do you remember what I told you when I first fell into this world yesterday?”
This is no ordinary book.
It’s a world every bit as real as our own.
We came here to save it.
“…….”
The Pharmacist nodded carefully.
The two of us shared a look of understanding.
“I… I remember. Of course I remember, Medicine King…….”
I nodded as well.
“What I’m about to say is the same as yesterday. Forget the time limit bearing down on us, forget that we’ll be trapped in the Apocalypse forever if we fail this Stage. Cast all such distractions aside. I’ll do my best from where I stand, and I ask that you show me nothing less than your best as well.”
“Cast all distractions aside…….”
“Yes, I promise you. Everything else—I’ll handle it myself.”
I spoke with conviction.
To the man who would one day be called the Philosopher’s Stone Lord.
“Trust me, and do your work.”
S-Rank: Death Must Be Lived (Serialized)
Author │ Shin Noa
Publisher │ Kim Joo-hyung
Published by │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ 204 Daelung Post Tower 1st, 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul, Korea
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
© Shin Noa 2019
This work is published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder, and its contents may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the publisher and author.
Violation of this restriction may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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