SSS-Class Sui**de Hunter - Chapter 67

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This chapter was translated by Lunox Novels. To support us and help keep this series going, visit our website: LunoxScans.com
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Episode 67. The Celestial Demon (2)
The Pharmacist closed her eyes tightly.
A moment later, her lips parted.
“If it weren’t for the King of Death, I’d still be in some back alley of the Slums. All my equipment would’ve been stolen… honestly, I can’t even imagine what would’ve become of me.”
The Pharmacist opened her eyes slowly.
Behind her glasses, her gaze had become far sharper than before.
“Yes, I want to repay what you’ve done for me. I’ll devote myself entirely to creating the cure, without any other thoughts. But I… when I become absorbed in my work, I truly lose sight of everything around me. I won’t mind my manners. I’ll probably act quite arrogantly. Even so…”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said.
I nodded.
“Display your full abilities.”
Now was not the time to worry about trivial courtesies.
I needed the future Philosopher’s Stone Lord.
“I understand.”
The Pharmacist adjusted her glasses.
She turned her head to look at the Herb King.
“Master.”
“Huh? What is it?”
“From now on, support me with your full strength.”
The Herb King’s brow furrowed. The old man’s wrinkles were as deep-set as his stubbornness.
“Support? Full strength? What impudence I’m witnessing. You brat! Even water flows downhill and up—there’s an order to things! How dare some green youngster come to the Herb King himself and demand support…”
“Skill Card, open.”
“…What?”
Cards rose from the Pharmacist’s hand with a whisper.
One golden card. Three silver cards.
Most Hunters would struggle to acquire even one such skill; the Pharmacist possessed four—and only high-grade Skills of B-rank or above.
The Herb King’s eyes went wide.
“What—what is this? Showing off your Skills to me? Tch. Young people these days think Skills are everything; it’s a disaster. True ability, as everyone knows, comes from…”
The Pharmacist spoke.
“You can look if you’d like.”
“What?”
“You’re allowed to see what my Skills are.”
The Herb King seemed taken aback and did not respond immediately.
It made sense. For a Hunter, Skills were trump cards—knowledge that must never be revealed to others. To expose one’s Skills was to lay bare not only one’s strengths but also one’s weaknesses, every flaw and limitation.
In short: a foolish action. Stupidity itself.
“Or would you prefer I demonstrate them directly?”
Yet the Pharmacist pressed on without hesitation.
“This Skill is the Mobile Hospital.”
She flipped the card herself and showed it to the Herb King.
“From blood work to brain wave analysis—I can run everything in real time. I can also retrieve medicinal ingredients I’ve stored beforehand. However, there’s a 2% chance of misdiagnosis. This is the Life Diagnosis Skill. It lets me understand a patient’s condition down to the genetic level. By combining these two Skills, I minimize the probability of error occurring…”
“Wait, wait just a moment! Hold on!”
The Herb King belatedly came to his senses.
“You girl! Why are you showing me your Skills? If I went and blabbed this to the Philosopher’s Stone or my partners, what then?”
“It doesn’t matter. I’ve made a promise not to concern myself with such petty thoughts.”
The Pharmacist said.
“You’re free to disclose them if you wish. But until we finish making the cure, I need you to support me reliably.”
“But that’s exactly why I don’t understand why you’re—”
“Because I need you to shorten the development time, even by a single day.”
“…”
“You find me unpleasant to look at, don’t you?”
The Pharmacist gazed at the Herb King. Her eyes were cold, devoid of emotion. The Pharmacist was usually scattered and flustered, but now her face was utterly expressionless.
“A foolish girl acting beyond her station—that angers you, doesn’t it? The fact that someone like me possesses talent must be infuriating. That I have far more years ahead of me than you do, that I’ll receive deference from people far longer than you ever will—that must drive you mad with frustration.”
“…”
People often compare the human voice to a bird’s song. But I dare say the Pharmacist’s voice resembled no creature anyone could name. If I had to describe it… yes, it sounded like insects.
The crackling whisper of fire ants swarming.
“If you support me with your full strength this time,”
the Pharmacist adjusted her glasses,
“I’ll give you all the medicinal recipes I’ve created so far. I won’t tell a soul they came from me. Take them. Use them. Tell people you invented them…”
In that moment, the Pharmacist’s glasses slipped and fell to the floor.
The old man had struck her cheek.
“”
The Pharmacist picked up her glasses and wiped the lenses methodically with her sleeve. A faint red handprint remained on her left cheek. She put the glasses back on and regarded the old man quietly.
The old man shuddered.
“Obstinate child…….”
“I’ll analyze the Zombie Virus myself.”
“You’ll learn there are heavens beyond heaven.”
“Just do what I tell you to do.”
“The day your pride crumbles and rots will surely come.”
“I’ll provide whatever we need.”
“One day, you too.”
“When that day comes, you’ll.”
The old man and the woman spoke simultaneously.
“Meet someone better than you.”
“Find it and give it to me.”
And the two Hunters fell silent.
The corpse of the Wudang Sect’s sect master lay between them—the Pharmacist on the left, the Herb King on the right. Whenever the Pharmacist murmured something, the Herb King wrote it down. The air was drained of color. These two figures, resembling still-life paintings more than portraits, exchanged only matters of business.
“King of Death, forgive me, but please leave.”
The Pharmacist raised a scalpel to the corpse’s head while speaking.
“Your breathing distracts me. Very much, very much, it gets in the way.”
“On your way out, bring back six more Jiangshi.”
The Herb King peered into the corpse’s dark mouth. The tongue, stained purple and black, he pinched delicately with forceps.
“I need more samples. A child, a young man, an elderly person—each a different gender. And if I name any medicinal herbs, procure them.”
I nodded.
“I’ll see to it.”
From that day forward.
We entered a state of wartime readiness.
We had no time to eat. Bathing was a luxury. Despite the outdoor spring bath mere steps away, neither the Pharmacist nor the Herb King washed. Night or day, the two Hunters nibbled on Grain Avoidance Pills and studied nothing but Jiangshi.
“Hm… the atmosphere has shifted considerably.”
The Celestial Demon observed our party with apparent bewilderment.
“Is some enlightenment being sought? These youngsters work with such dedication.”
“And is it true you’re no longer preparing that clam soup or that dorsipal risotto?”
The Martial Alliance Lord gently needled the Herb King.
“Your culinary skill could make even the imperial chef weep. Had the world remained intact, I would have appointed you head chef of the Dae Namgung Clan.”
“We’re busy. Go.”
The Herb King didn’t even look up as he replied. He thrust a hand into his Dimensional Pouch and, with a flick, tossed a water bottle.
“If you’re hungry, at least fill your belly with water.”
“Ugh.”
Deprived of tasting the Herb King’s cooking, the Martial Alliance Lord lamented deeply. He smacked his lips—yet still caught and drank the Bling H2O the Herb King had thrown without complaint.
“Old fool, stop bothering busy people and let’s go.”
“I know, I know. Ah, my body simply won’t obey me these days—it’s exhausting.”
The Martial Alliance Lord grumbled wearily.
“How scattered will those Jiangshi be today…….”
“Though they wander far, they’ll never travel a thousand li. Enough complaints—come.”
“Very well.”
The Martial Alliance Lord shuffled out of the cave with the Celestial Demon.
The same task as yesterday—rounding up Jiangshi. To survive the 991st day of the Final Demonic Conflict.
Another day passed.
The day the world reached Annihilation drew one step closer.
Then another day slipped away.
A day.
Then another.
Countdown.
Days of merely awaiting Annihilation.
A world no more than a music box that would not stop.
“Mmm.”
A week.
Exactly one week had passed since we fell into the Apocalypse.
That day, the Celestial Demon gazed up at the cave’s ceiling.
“…We won’t be able to venture out today.”
Outside, a Raging Blizzard raged. The wind scattered snow again and again, and the boundary between above and below, sky and earth, dissolved.
The world had become nothing but a dark Snowy Plain.
I learned for the first time that white could be dark.
“Well, even days like this happen.”
The Celestial Demon shrugged both shoulders as if it were nothing.
“If anything, these past few days of clear skies were a stroke of luck. When it’s bad, the Raging Blizzard has been known to last over thirty days without end. With no sunlight, we couldn’t move a single step.”
“But if that’s the case, wouldn’t the Jiangshi keep moving?”
I spoke up.
“Aren’t you concerned? If they wander too far, you won’t be able to recover them.”
“There’s nothing to be done then. We simply lose them.”
The Celestial Demon sighed.
“Three years ago, our sect’s strength reached a thousand. Those upstarts that old man brought along numbered exactly the same. But as time has passed, some of the Jiangshi have wandered so far we can no longer find them at all.”
That would make sense.
Missing corpses. No—not missing. Lost corpses. Each time the blizzard howled down from the sky, the Celestial Demon and the Martial Alliance Lord must have lost several bodies to the snowfall.
“That must be what frightens you most.”
“Hmm?”
“Waking up and going out onto the Snowy Plain, only to find that a Jiangshi from yesterday has vanished somewhere.”
…….
The Celestial Demon regarded me quietly.
“Do you truly believe the leader would feel something so trivial as fear?”
The woman’s eyes were dark as ink.
Her hair, too, and even the martial robes she wore.
Her form—clad entirely in black—seemed to resist desperately against this world that had become a vast snowy plain.
“Yes, I believe you would.”
“Truly, the world has been turned upside down far more than one might expect. Under normal circumstances, the head of anyone spouting such words would not have remained intact. Child of the outside world—you should consider the ruin of this world your good fortune.”
“You and the Lord are masters. Your mastery of martial arts runs so deep that it would be presumptuous of me to even compare myself to you.”
I quietly looked away.
In the Hot Spring Area, the Martial Alliance Lord was sleeping.
“But no matter how skilled, Internal Energy is not infinite.”
“What are you driving at?”
“When will your Internal Energy run out?”
A pause.
“You’re maintaining the cervical pressure points with Internal Energy, aren’t you? You said that your heartbeat, breathing, and the movement of your limbs—everything is sustained by Internal Energy.”
It was the same as using the Eternal Sword continuously, around the clock.
I shook my head.
“No matter how much Internal Energy you possess, you cannot sustain something so tremendous forever.”
…….
“I’ll ask again. When will your Internal Energy run out, Celestial Demon?”
The woman had spoken of this not long ago.
“All people die eventually.”
Those words carried resonance—the resonance of one who has attained enlightenment.
There was only one way for a human to understand something.
To experience it directly.
“…Truly.”
The Celestial Demon groaned.
“Truly, you are perceptive, child.”
“There isn’t much time left, is there?”
“…Let me correct myself. Damnably perceptive, child.”
This world.
How does the Chronicle of the Celestial Demon descend into annihilation?
When I thought about it, the answer was astonishingly simple.
“When your Internal Energy depletes, neither of you will be able to move.”
“Yes.”
The Celestial Demon looked up at the sky.
Through the gaping ceiling of the cave, the blizzard that heaven had spat forth raged down upon us.
“First the toes and fingertips will cease functioning. Then the calves and wrists. The knees. The shoulders. The waist. One by one, the regions denied Internal Energy will become paralyzed, and the flesh devoid of that sustenance will finally rot away.”
Necrosis, in other words.
Like a building whose systems shut down in sequence as its fuel runs dry.
At some point, neither of them will be able to move.
“The heart. The lungs.”
The woman pressed her hand to her chest, where her shabby martial robe lay.
“The Upper Dantian.”
And then he tapped his own crown.
“Three regions remain untouched, and everything else rots. Rather, I abandon everything else to decay.”
“…You already knew.”
“A Shaolin Temple monk endured with me for a year.”
The Celestial Demon smiled bitterly.
“True to form for a monk—that one entered Parinirvana still seated in lotus position. At the end, well. Except for his face, he was hardly different from a Jiangshi. His entire body rotted black in every crevice. He left only a single utterance as his final words: Amitabha Buddha.”
……
“Did I ask if you were afraid? Yes. I am afraid.”
People often compare the human voice to birdsong.
But I could swear the Celestial Demon’s voice was something no beast could ever mimic.
“I am afraid.”
A murmur like a single petal falling.
“I fear the depletion of my Internal Energy. I fear the exhaustion of my True Qi. I fear the raging blizzard, the absence of sunlight, and the disappearance at dawn of those who were once my subordinates. With every breath, I wonder how many more breaths remain. With every heartbeat, I fear whether I will feel many more such throbs. I dread that I might ultimately fail to kill that old warhorse, and equally I dread that she might fail to kill me. I fear the day when she and I lie together in bed, unable to move. I fear lying there, motionless, waiting only for my Internal Energy to wither away to nothing.”
The Celestial Demon sighed.
“I fear that she might not kill me after all, and I fear that I might not kill her. I fear the day when we both lie in bed, utterly still, and simply wait for our Inner Energy to dry up entirely. I fear that day, lying there in that bed.”
A meaningless death.
Even the fact that they struggled until the very end becomes devoid of meaning. They die, and in the world where they have vanished, snow falls and falls again, leaving only a monochromatic landscape.
Ah.
This was the ending that the Chronicle of the Celestial Demon would face.
The ending of the world itself.
“The world is a fearful thing indeed.”
A day passed.
The eighth day since falling into the Apocalypse.
Two days remained until the world’s destruction.
“Demon Lord.”
The Martial Alliance Lord murmured from his bed.
“I can no longer move my body.”
The Martial Alliance Lord was smiling.
And he was weeping.
“I’m sorry.”
A soft whisper.
This was the sound of a world arriving at its end.
S-Rank Hunter: To Live, One Must Die (Serialized)
Author │ Shin Noah
Publisher │ Kim Joo-hyung
Publishing House │ J Plus Media Co., Ltd.
Marketing │ Han Jae-hyuk
Address │ 204 Daeryung Posttower 1st, 288 Digital-ro, Guro-gu, Seoul
Email │ [email protected]
Website │ www.jayplemedia.com
© Shin Noah 2019
※This work has been published by J Plus Media Co., Ltd. under contract with the copyright holder. The contents may not be used in any form or by any means without permission from the company and author.
Violation of this restriction may result in criminal and civil legal liability.

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