The World’s Greatest is Dead - Chapter 286

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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 286
Clang! Clang clang clang!!
Screech!!
Sharp sounds continue relentlessly. Successive bursts echo as sweat drips to the ground with every movement.
“Ugh!”
I swing the sword again and again with stubborn determination. Twisting my waist, I rotate my wrists rapidly.
And I attempt to wield it like a whip, but.
“Too slow.”
Clang!
“…!”
With the sound, my sword form crumbles. Impact erupts across my trapezius.
Crack!
“–!”
Before I can even cry out in pain, my ankle is swept. I tumble to the ground as if spinning through the air.
Boom!
“Ugh….”
Dust clouds rise and obscure my vision, and by the time it clears.
A wooden sword rests before my face.
The owner of that wooden sword is the expressionless Sword Emperor.
He gazes down at me with the same look as always.
“That concludes today’s lesson.”
“…Thank you for your instruction.”
Today’s lesson has ended. As expected, there was no lesson to speak of—I was simply beaten for an entire hour, and the result remained the same.
“Haaa….”
I wipe my face with my palm.
‘…What am I supposed to do?’
How exactly am I supposed to do this? I couldn’t grasp it.
‘How am I supposed to fight without thinking?’
When facing a situation, thoughts arise naturally. Countless paths to overcome it flood my mind, yet they tell me to suppress this and move my body first?
‘That makes no sense.’
These people aren’t beasts, and I don’t understand how this is supposed to work.
My mind cannot comprehend it, and by my common sense, it’s absurd.
‘Yet I need it.’
I felt necessity in this damnable thing.
The battle with Yoo Yeon earlier today was the reason.
Losing the advantage because I was thinking.
I never believed in abandoning thought and fighting instinctively, yet I lived by that disbelief.
After experiencing it, I began to see things differently.
‘I think too much….’
Both the Sword Emperor and Yoo Cheon-gil say this constantly.
Excluding this was also the Sword Emperor’s teaching.
But I have no idea how to do it.
“…Sword Emperor.”
“….”
The Sword Emperor, about to turn away, pauses at my call.
“…How should I do this?”
The old man regards me with an impassive gaze.
“No matter how much I think about it… I cannot find a way.”
Not thinking is an impossibly difficult task.
Especially for me.
So I couldn’t help myself and asked for a method. Then.
“This is the first time.”
“Pardon?”
The Sword Emperor speaks to me.
“You have asked me a question. This is the first time.”
“…Ah.”
Was that so?
Now that I think about it, that was true. I never asked the Sword Emperor any questions during his lessons.
‘I just had to do as instructed.’
I did as I was told. I valued that and truly followed through.
However, in this matter, no matter what I tried, there was no answer, so I had no choice but to ask him.
Even if that weren’t the case.
‘It seemed he wouldn’t prefer being asked questions.’
I hadn’t grasped the Sword Emperor’s nature as a person, but that was my preconception.
‘A man like a sword.’
If Yoo Cheon-gil felt like a monster, the Sword Emperor was a single blade.
Because I sensed something cold and sharp that hadn’t been visible when he played the role of a coachman.
I thought it would be difficult to draw near.
“If you don’t know, ask.”
“Yes…?”
The Sword Emperor spoke words I hadn’t anticipated.
“If you don’t ask what you don’t know, you cannot understand. So ask.”
“…Ah, yes, I understand.”
To say ask if you don’t understand—it was quite a kind thing to say.
“Then, that… how am I supposed to erase my thoughts….”
“Literally. When facing a situation, your body must move first.”
“But isn’t it important to find the optimal path and the best method in that situation?”
Having your body move first regardless of the situation could lead to the worst outcome if things went wrong.
Shouldn’t thinking of the best approach come first?
Though I speak thus
“In combat with a martial artist, hesitation is the worst possible outcome.”
“….”
I had to close my mouth at the Sword Emperor’s resolute words. There was something I had felt today.
“A martial artist loses their life by failing to seize that fleeting moment. That’s why I tell you to move your body first. And you’re not doing that.”
Thwack.
The Sword Emperor swung his wooden sword briefly.
“I’m making you learn it repeatedly through your body.”
“…Learn through my body?”
“I don’t give you time to think. I introduce unpredictability and variation so your body remembers.”
“Making it remember means…”
“If you want to live, you’ll dodge, won’t you?”
“Yes.”
“You engrain those dodging movements into your body. By force if necessary.”
“…!”
After hearing the Sword Emperor’s explanation, I understood. I had been focusing only on erasing my thoughts.
‘Now that I think about it.’
There was definitely something peculiar about the Sword Emperor’s sparring.
‘…It was fast.’
Fighting without placing bets.
Even while doing that, the Sword Emperor’s speed was remarkable.
‘Before I could even think about anything.’
Whenever I tried to think, he struck at vital points.
Making me realize that without instinctively dodging, I’d be in danger.
“Ah….”
So the Sword Emperor was…
“Making me learn through my body, weren’t you?”
“Erasing your thoughts is something you must do yourself, but everything else requires your body to adapt. That’s why.”
“….”
I thought he was just beating me one-sidedly.
‘…Unexpectedly.’
It’s quite systematic?
I looked at the Sword Emperor with curiosity.
“Difficulty in erasing your thoughts is equivalent to ignoring your instincts. Focus on grasping this point clearly.”
The Sword Emperor finished speaking and continued walking.
“…Ignoring my instincts….”
I concentrated on the words he left behind.
It felt like I understood yet didn’t.
“…Hmm….”
While scratching my cheek like that, I looked up and spoke.
“There’s something, sir.”
“You’re teaching better than expected, aren’t you?”
Yoo Cheon-gil was already smiling as if he knew everything I was about to say.
I didn’t like that smug expression.
Still.
“Indeed, that’s true.”
I understand now that the Sword Emperor is a different sort of person than I anticipated.
I thought he’d just leave me to fend for myself.
‘If you don’t know, ask.’
‘That phrase too.’
Seeing how he pointed out that I asked him a question for the first time.
‘He was waiting for me to ask first.’
Waiting for the question to come from my side, not from the Sword Emperor’s.
That’s what it meant.
‘This old man Yoo Cheon-gil doesn’t seem to have any aptitude for this.’
The Sword Emperor appeared to have at least some experience in teaching.
“What’s with that look? You’re cursing me again with your eyes, aren’t you?”
“Your perception is always sharp.”
“…This bastard?”
“I simply thought that what the Sword Emperor teaches is rather decent.”
Unlike someone else, that is.
“He was always like that.”
“Always?”
“Yes. His temperament is as cold as ice and he has no interest in people. But when it comes to nurturing disciples, he operates on a different level.”
“…Is that so?”
“That’s right. So his disciples are…”
Hmm.
Yoo Cheon-gil, who had been speaking, closed his mouth.
“I shouldn’t speak of this.”
“Leaving it unfinished—how cowardly of you.”
“It’s a matter of basic courtesy.”
“Wow…”
A man with not a shred of decorum suddenly showing courtesy here?
It was a chilling statement.
“Your eyes are clearly dis—”
Yoo Cheon-gil wagged his finger, having caught me in my contempt.
‘A disciple?’
Does the Sword Emperor have a disciple?
‘I’ve never heard of it.’
All the disciples of the Celestial Demons were known.
Even excluding Yoo Cheon-gil and Seongheon, who came from sect leadership positions.
‘Shin Chang’s disciples are famous too.’
It’s a fact known among the other Celestial Demons as well.
‘But the Sword Emperor had no such stories.’
I had never heard that the Sword Emperor had a disciple.
Not even once.

* * *
“….”
The Sword Emperor walks along a moonlit path at night.
He slowly climbs the empty mountain path, again and again.
Even with the moon gone, the Hwasan Sect’s night still carries signs of life, but such things held no importance to the Sword Emperor.
The Sword Emperor was the kind of being who could silently kill anyone among those people if he so desired.
Crunch.
He steps on fallen leaves and leaps into the air.
His body rises lightly and settles onto a tree branch.
The Sword Emperor gazes quietly at the night sky where the moon hangs.
“….”
Eyes that reveal nothing of what he thinks.
As he stares at the sky, the Sword Emperor recalls someone in his mind.
‘…What should I do?’
The Blue-Eyed Young Man he had just been striking with a wooden sword.
What should be done.
The Sword Emperor’s eyes narrow at the sight of him desperately seeking guidance, unable to find a way.
It wasn’t because of the question itself.
‘Dull fellow.’
Over the past several days or months.
Every single day during that time, he had beaten him with the wooden sword.
Even calling it training, by now he should have asked something.
But that man never asked a single thing until now.
Normally he should have asked from the first day, yet he was either dull or stubborn—impossible to tell.
Just like.
‘That child.’
‘Master, how am I supposed to do this…?’
Like that incompetent one who would ask questions only after a long time had passed, even when learning something simple.
That man’s actions were identical.
“….”
The Sword Emperor closed his eyes.
‘Wol Seon-geom.’
He recalls Wol Seon-geom, who had entrusted him with this task.
‘Did he know this would happen and entrust it to me.’
It couldn’t be. Even Wol Seon-geom wouldn’t have foreseen things reaching this point.
Had he known, he wouldn’t have asked me to teach his own disciple in the first place.
And.
‘Had he known.’
Had I known it would come to this, I wouldn’t have accepted the task either.
Even if I needed that man’s eyes, taking on the responsibility of teaching someone was problematic.
‘I shouldn’t have.’
Should never have done it.
Especially if I’d known he was that kind of man.
‘…Master.’
The Sword Emperor, overlapping someone else in his mind, opened the eyes he had been keeping closed.
In that instant.
파스스스스스스—!!!!
The energy erupting from his body sent the birds nearby soaring into the air.
Among those scattering birds.
“Do not worry.”
The Sword Emperor murmured.
“I have no intention of forgetting you.”
The Sword Emperor’s voice as he spoke was far too low and cold.

* * *
Only after training with the Sword Emperor ended did night finally fall.
As everyone else drifted to sleep, I remained in my quarters.
For the sake of the schedule ahead, I should have normally gone to bed.
[My apologies for this.]
Instead, I lay awake on my bedding, facing Seongheon.
I clicked my tongue softly at his apology.
“…I didn’t know there had been a wager.”
[Aha. There was one indeed. Wasn’t there, Cheon-gil.]
[…Ahem.]
Seongheon and Yoo Cheon-gil, appearing as Saengryeong, face each other and laugh awkwardly.
Seongheon remembered everything from the day, but had no memory of when he was Saengryeong.
This meant he knew nothing of the conversation we were having now.
Perhaps because my relationship with him had shifted somewhat, Seongheon as Saengryeong appeared to me and offered an apology first.
[I suppose I did it thinking I needed to send you away quickly.]
“I understand. I know what you meant by it.”
I harbor no resentment.
I understood Seongheon’s position well enough.
The fact that I too viewed Seongheon during the day differently from Seongheon as Saengryeong played its part as well.
“…For now, let us set aside the matter of the robe.”
The sparring match with Yoo Yeon—that was not something to dwell on now.
“We should be heading out soon.”
I spoke while loosening my body, which had grown stiff from the blows exchanged with the Sword Emperor.
From this moment forward, my schedule would be quite full.
And for good reason, because today was precisely the day when—
“…it’s time to work.”
The first operation to assassinate Seongheon was beginning.

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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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