The World’s Greatest is Dead - Chapter 12

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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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The Heavenly Supreme Has Died – Episode 012
I’ve heard the news.
Four days have passed since I fell asleep.
As I witnessed then, Dongbaek-u and the other team members who participated in the search have died.
The Leader who was attacked has also died, it seems.
Yoo Hyeong-in would have died if he’d been even slightly later.
Yeon So… Cheon Euijin’s condition was also said to be far from good.
The same applies to me.
I was in a state of severe blood loss due to bleeding from my back and thighs.
I recovered enough strength to wake, but I’d been asleep for four days straight.
It’s fortunate I survived in the end, but it was truly dangerous.
However, now a problem has arisen here.
“…I killed Sanchen Gwiin and this man called Pung Yeon? Me?”
The fact is, I was the one who saved people in that crisis.
Or rather, I was me, yet I wasn’t me.
“How on earth did you do it?”
I immediately turned to the Old Man and asked.
The Old Man was clearly the cause of this outcome.
If not for him, there seemed to be no other conclusion.
[Hmm? What are you talking about?]
“I’m asking why the situation turned out this way.”
Suddenly, what’s this Sword Saint’s former self, and what are these blue eyes.
I can’t even remember properly, so how did I kill Sanchen Gwiin?
When I asked about this, the Old Man answered with an indifferent expression.
[Didn’t you ask for my help?]
“Pardon?”
[You asked for help, so I simply obliged.]
“…”
At those words, I recalled the final moment.
[Shall I help?]
At that moment of absolute crisis, the Old Man spoke to me thus.
And my answer at that time was.
‘Yes… Please help me.’
That was it.
I had no choice.
Yoo Hyeong-in was dying beside me, and Sanchen Gwiin was approaching from ahead to kill us.
In desperation, like grasping at straws, I simply blurted it out.
And yet.
“This is the result of that?”
[Wasn’t it resolved well?]
“…Resolved?”
Could this really be called resolved?
“What did you do? How does a situation even become like this?”
I asked how this had come to pass, and the Old Man answered.
“He entered my body.”
Possession.
The Old Man said he had possessed my body and moved it directly himself.
It was an absurd explanation.
‘Possession?’
I had never experienced such a thing.
At least not in my past life.
Ah, but I had heard of it.
‘That only happens to those with weak spiritual energy.’
My grandmother had told me in my past life.
If one’s spiritual energy was of low grade, ghosts could easily seize control of the body.
Of course, I had never experienced it.
My spiritual energy was never weak enough to fall victim to such a thing.
But now.
‘…This is ridiculous.’
So I had experienced it now, after all?
And to this old man, no less?
‘Then the information was correct after all. Did I do something I should apologize for?’
The Old Man had explained it to me.
If he truly used my body to resolve the matter, then everything he said must be true.
‘That he administered emergency treatment to Yoo Hyeong-in.’
It was none other than I myself who saved the dying Yoo Hyeong-in.
He said I had used my energy to stop the bleeding and saved his life.
So when I awoke and questioned why I hadn’t mentioned Yoo Hyeong-in, he must have been somewhat bewildered.
‘In any case….’
I furrowed my brow slightly and looked at the Old Man.
“How did you manage that…?”
[Hmm?]
The Old Man voiced his confusion, though it was indeed something I was curious about.
‘I’m at best third-rate.’
Even with possession, could this body possibly kill someone at the peak realm?
Perhaps possession granted some effect that drastically increased one’s inner energy.
With such hope, I asked the Old Man in a subtle tone.
[What a naive dream you have.]
The Old Man spoke to me with a deeply wrinkled face.
[I struggled mightily while sharing that pittance of inner energy. What? Your energy increased?]
It seems that’s not the case.
What a shame.
‘Which means…’
I killed a peak-stage martial master using this frail body.
How was that even possible?
[Well, because I’m extraordinary and doubly so, what else would it be?]
“….”
His self-praise cuts sharply. I forced myself to suppress my grimace.
It grates on me that he speaks it himself, but truthfully, his words ring accurate.
After all, I’m standing here now with my eyes wide open because of him.
[Hmm.]
Perhaps my reaction bores him? The Old Man’s expression shifts to disappointment.
[You don’t seem particularly amazed.]
“I’m sufficiently amazed. It’s just not showing on my face.”
[No, that’s not quite it.]
He insists he’s right, yet the Old Man speaks with certainty that it’s otherwise.
[A mind sharper than I anticipated would understand precisely why you react this way.]
“‘Sharper than anticipated’ stings a bit, you know.”
[Ah, so you already know who I am.]
“….”
His words strike the mark, and I clamp my mouth shut.
[Isn’t that right?]
‘Tsk.’
Yes.
The reason I can respond relatively calmly is because the Old Man’s identity is what it is.
Capturing two peak-stage martial masters with a third-rate body.
Moreover, despite being a specter, he manifests with such clarity, and considering the state of my eyes along with the information I’ve gathered since waking.
Combining just a few pieces, I could deduce who this Old Man is.
But.
‘I just hope I’m wrong.’
I simply hope my guess is mistaken.
If my prediction is correct, he’s someone I absolutely don’t want to be entangled with.
And yet, clearly in this situation.
[So, who do you think I am?]
The Old Man asks this without tact—or perhaps precisely because he’s tactful, he asks anyway.
“….”
What should I do? Answer honestly? Or try to lie?
I hesitate for a moment.
“The Sword Sage, Yoo Cheon-gil. The previous Alliance Master and the Heavenly Supreme of his time.”
But contrary to my deliberation, I speak the truth plainly.
There’s no point in lying anyway—I’m in no state to pull it off.
“Is that your true identity, sir?”
[Tsk, tsk, tsk.]
The Old Man bursts into laughter upon hearing my words.
[Yes, that’s right.]
His piercing blue eyes gleamed as he spoke to me.
[I am Yoo Cheon-gil.]
“….”
Damn it.
I was right.
I barely managed to suppress the sigh threatening to burst from my lips.
[Can you see it on your face? You clearly don’t like this one bit.]
“Yes, sir.”
[Yes, sir…?]
“Ah, my mistake… I misspoke.”
My irritation was so intense that my tongue wouldn’t obey me.
‘This is exactly right.’
I stare at the Old Man with a groan.
Thick white hair, a massive frame, and those luminous blue eyes that seemed to glow.
The Heavenly Supreme from Cheonwol Gate.
The Sword Saint Yoo Cheon-gil stood before me.
A historical figure, the martial artist most revered by all in the Central Plains, a hero.
And yet, facing such a person.
‘Of all people to get entangled with… damn it.’
I cannot say I’m pleased. Rather, irritation is the only honest word for it.
That was what the Heavenly Supreme’s existence meant to me.
And worse still.
‘He’s even put a collar on me so I can’t refuse.’
Every situation that has befallen me has been nothing but difficult.
Whooooom—!
The dantian below my navel.
An alien energy emanating from that place.
The moment I sensed this, my brow furrowed.
“…Why did you do this to me?”
My body contained not the protective cultivation technique I learned at home, but a different internal art.
The martial technique of Cheonwol Gate, no less.
The Cheonwol Heart Method.
[Looking at your condition, it seems to have settled in well. Not bad at all.]
“Not bad is…!”
A new internal art has taken root within me.
You have no idea how terrifying those words are.
Once you learn a cultivation method, you cannot change it or escape it without destroying your dantian—it’s absolute law.
Yet my body harbored a completely different power as if it were the most natural thing.
Normally, the two energies would have already collided, sending me into demonic possession.
Remarkably, my cultivation method remained perfectly docile.
Right, of course it would.
‘There needs to be a cultivation method to collide with for a conflict to occur…!’
The Bang Clan’s protective cultivation method that had originally taken root in my dantian was gone, replaced entirely by the Cheonwol Heart Method.
How was this even possible?
The Old Man answered this bluntly.
[What else could I do? I erased it and filled it with something new.]
“Erased it? You erased the cultivation method…?”
What kind of insane nonsense is this?
[I couldn’t fit both in there, so I cleanly erased the old one and put in the new.]
“No… how do you even erase it? Erasing it in the first place is the problem.”
Any careless attempt to erase it would cause the energy to reverse and turn me into a cripple—that’s the natural consequence.
How could erasing it even be possible?
[Why wouldn’t it be possible?]
“Because it’s difficult, that’s why I’m saying this.”
[Exactly. If it’s difficult, then you just do it well and erase it.]
“….”
I wrapped my forehead with both hands, throbbing with frustration.
That’s technically correct. If it’s difficult, you just do it well and erase it. Fine, whatever.
Fine, everything’s fine.
As for the erasing—since he did it so well, let’s just say it was erased.
“But… why did you arbitrarily implant a cultivation method into my body?”
Why did he erase my original cultivation method and implant the Cheonwol Gate’s method instead? That was the real problem for me.
[Didn’t you say you’d do anything?]
“Ha… so implanting a new cultivation method is what you desired?”
[It wasn’t so much desired as it was necessary.]
The way he scratched his ear while speaking was incredibly irritating.
Is there really no way to hit him?
And do you know what’s even crueler than that?
“If you were going to erase it so incompletely, you should have erased it all!”
He had erased and replaced the cultivation method, yet traces of the Bang Clan’s protective method remained microscopically.
Mild enough that collision wouldn’t normally occur. However, if I exceeded a certain threshold, it would detonate instantly.
One misstep and it explodes.
That ambiguous statement is the most dangerous of all.
[Heheheh. Well, well.]
The Old Man merely laughed sheepishly at such words.
[I suppose I accidentally left a small trace behind.]
An accident?
Accident, my foot.
Anyone could see this was no accident whatsoever.
This is a leash.
‘He’s planted a bomb that could detonate at any moment.’
A situation where even trivial conflicts between the energies could collide.
If they were to flow backward like that, I lack the ability to control it, and I’d immediately fall into demonic cultivation.
That simply meant death.
[But do not worry, young one.]
The Old Man speaks to ease my concern.
[Those traces can simply be erased, can they not? If you dislike it, I can remove the inner energy I implanted.]
“…Are you joking?”
If it were as easy as he made it sound, I would have done it already.
Moreover, I shouldn’t be surprised by anything the Old Man has done.
[You’re overthinking this. If you cannot do it yourself, I can do it for you whenever you wish.]
“…”
Ha.
I burst into laughter at his words. Just as he had implanted inner energy into my body, he could completely erase those traces if I desired it.
At those words, I grimaced and asked the Old Man.
“When?”
[Well…? Once I’ve completed all the tasks I’ve asked of you…?]
The same conclusion as before.
[Besides, such collisions won’t occur easily as you worry. Not if you continue to cultivate the inner energy.]
It was a comforting thing to hear, at least.
The leash tightened considerably.
‘Of all things, inner energy cultivation.’
The inner energy cultivation my family practiced has disappeared.
I don’t particularly mind such things.
Why would I lament losing some martial technique, however impressive?
Moreover, if it’s Cheonwol Inner Energy, it’s called a divine technique—one of the martial arts known as such.
Especially since the Heavenly Supreme himself laid the foundation for this inner energy, its value must be considerable.
In a sense, my situation is far better than before.
‘There are too many witnesses.’
There are far too many people who know of this.
Everyone believed me to be a hidden martial artist of Cheonwol Gate.
What’s slightly puzzling is.
“But why have I become your disciple?”
[Ah, that.]
The Old Man answers my question.
[I told that child directly.]
“Pardon?”
You told Cheon Euijin?
Ah.
That must have been when you possessed him.
“…Why would you do that?”
[Why? My heart was simply moved, so I tried it.]
This old man’s really something.
“This old man’s really something.”
[Ah, you just revealed your true thoughts….]
My heart was indeed moved.
‘That cunning old man.’
This wasn’t merely something he did—it was a calculated move to tighten the leash around me.
Though we hadn’t spoken many times, I could sense it.
‘He’s skilled at scheming. He’s not just a brute force warrior.’
He’s different from those martial artists who simply destroy everything in their path.
His cunning is no joke.
‘Perhaps this old man is orchestrating everything happening right now.’
Ghosts cannot interfere with the mortal realm, so how it’s possible remains a mystery.
Yet I felt it instinctively.
From the moment he realized I could see him, until now.
Somehow, I sensed this old man had done something.
Now my curiosity turns toward the fundamental question.
“What do you want from me?”
After going this far, what could this old man possibly want from me?
[Want from you….]
“You’ve been dead from natural causes for quite some time now. Why appear before me and….”
[Who said that?]
“Pardon?”
[Who told you I died of natural causes?]
“The Martial Alliance officially announced it…. Ah.”
I stopped mid-sentence, faltering.
The eerie gleam emanating from his eyes was unsettling, and the feeling that washed over me as I spoke was equally ominous.
‘Damn.’
This wasn’t good.
[I did not meet a peaceful death.]
It was not a peaceful death.
Which means.
‘Murder…?’
He had been killed by someone.
The Heavenly Supreme, Sword Saint Yoo Cheon-gil, had been murdered by someone’s hand.
I swallowed hard at those words.
‘Then why did the Martial Alliance announce it that way?’
A chill crept through me from all directions.
Normally, I would have withdrawn before feeling anything like this.
It seemed I’d stepped into something far too deep.
“…So then, you’re asking me to… take revenge instead?”
Now I couldn’t withdraw from this situation.
A conspiracy that made my shoulders heavy just hearing about it.
If the Old Man truly spoke of murder, there would be countless threads entangled in it.
To be caught up in such a situation.
It would have been better if he’d simply asked me to die.
[Hehe, how could I make such a frightening request? Didn’t you yourself say you wouldn’t accept revenge?]
“Yes. That’s right. I certainly did say that.”
Phew… Thank goodness.
At least it wasn’t about revenge.
[So forget about that. For now, you simply need to become the Heavenly Supreme.]
“Yes. That would certainly be better… What?”
[And while you’re at it, you can also take care of the rumors surrounding the Cheonwol Gate.]
I nodded in relief, then froze in place.
“Elder. Just now… what did you….”
What had that Old Man just said?
What Supreme…?
I stared at the Old Man with trembling eyes. How could he have said something so enormous so casually?
My blue eyes and the Old Man’s blue eyes were the same color.
As our gazes met, an inexplicable tremor began to rise through my body.
Thump.
My heart began to beat faster and faster.
[Child.]
The Old Man called out to me.
[Have you ever seen a blue moon in your life?]
I didn’t answer.
I knew the Old Man’s question didn’t refer to the blue moon hanging in the night sky.
[If you don’t know, you will come to know it. It’s the name you must become from now on.]
I wanted nothing more than to remain ignorant.
And I wished to stay ignorant for years to come.
But.
This conversation would remain in my mind for years to come.
Entangled with the unlucky death of the Heavenly Supreme, I would experience something utterly wretched.
And because of that.
It was the reason I would later come to be called the Heavenly Supreme.

* * *
The next day arrived.
I spent the entire night awake, unable to sleep a single moment.
After hearing all manner of things and turning them over in my mind, morning had already broken.
“Ah… I’m exhausted.”
I wanted to sleep even a little, but I couldn’t because of the things Yoo Cheon-gil—that old man—kept saying.
Was it because the story was interesting? That’s ridiculous.
It was because I was unsettled.
So deeply unsettled.
That’s why I couldn’t bring myself to sleep.
‘I heard… far too much.’
Words that would have made me jump in terror after hearing just a single line—yet I listened to an endless stream of such revelations throughout the night.
I felt like I might vomit.
My head ached from thinking too much, and because of it, something felt like it might come up.
But this was merely a matter of perception.
My body was actually fine.
No, if this had been seven days ago, I truly would have vomited.
‘…But now that’s no longer possible.’
Whoosh.
I circulated my inner energy slightly to check.
And it became even clearer.
‘My realm has advanced.’
From Third-Rate to Second-Rate.
My realm had genuinely advanced.
‘Or rather… it was forcibly elevated?’
It wasn’t something I had achieved through my own effort.
It was what that damned old man Yoo Cheon-gil had done.
What did he say?
‘That my original realm was a mess, so he slightly elevated it?’
When I heard those words, I was utterly dumbfounded.
So this was what advancement actually felt like.
To think I’d reach Second-Rate in my lifetime—I thought I’d remain Third-Rate forever. How very kind of him. Damn it all.
“Sigh…”
I exhaled a deep breath.
Isn’t this good? Of course it’s good. My realm rose when it never would before.
However.
“Huff… huff…”
But if you asked whether I was simply pleased, the answer was absolutely not.
[Excellent! You’re doing well!]
The blue-eyed Old Man reacts with delight at my reluctant training.
My limbs tremble uncontrollably.
My breathing has long since passed the point of strain—I’ve reached my limit, and my stamina is nearly exhausted.
Yet still, I must move.
[That’s right. The body only reveals its true value when it reaches its breaking point.]
It’s all because that damned Old Man stares at me with those piercing blue eyes.
‘Damn it all…!’
He told me to come to the Training Hall and practice from morning on.
Then he suddenly filled sand bags—no, that’s not all.
‘…Rot….’
What kind of crude method is this? My trembling arms quiver as I move my body.
-Is that really the training the Sword Saint left behind…?
-Certainly…! It looks different from the usual.
-It can’t be ordinary sand bags. Someone saw earlier that iron seems to be mixed into the sand.
-What? Iron…? That can’t be…! For such a small body to undergo such brutal training….
I frowned at the voices drifting from behind me.
‘Damn it…. Iron? I only selected and put in fine sand.’
Ever since the rumor spread that I became the Sword Saint’s successor, people’s gazes have changed.
Not only how they look at me, but the whispers about me have begun spreading in strange ways.
‘Damn it. Those who wouldn’t even glance at me before.’
They changed overnight like that.
It was absurd.
‘And I’m the one doing this, which is equally absurd.’
I do it because I’m told to. Yes, it’s all because of that Old Man’s coercion.
I’m doing this reluctantly because he said I’d die if I didn’t.
‘It’s absolutely not because his words swayed me.’
He said he’d make me the Heavenly Supreme.
I’m definitely not doing this because I was enchanted by those words.
Then.
“…Bang Disciple.”
A voice reached me while I was still struggling.
I stopped my movements with an exhausted expression and turned my head.
It was Cheon Euijin.
“I apologize for interrupting your training… but could we speak for a moment?”
“…Would you not do it if I said no?”
“Pardon?”
“I’m joking.”
Feeling his response was too disheartened, I gave my permission anyway.
A conversation. If he wants to talk, it must be about what happened yesterday.
I spoke to him.
“Then… shall we go to my quarters and discuss what we were trying to talk about yesterday?”
I decided to get straight to the point, speaking with that intention.
“Ah, Bang Disciple…”
Cheon Euijin hastily stopped me in my tracks.
At his reaction, I looked at him with a puzzled expression.
“That is… before that…”
“Yes?”
“The Branch Leader says there is a guest who came looking to see you, Bang Disciple.”
“A guest?”
Upon hearing this, I tilted my head in confusion.
As I asked with uncertainty, Cheon Euijin answered.
“They are from the Namgung Clan.”
Hearing the unexpected news, I had to narrow my eyes.

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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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