The World’s Greatest is Dead - Chapter 436

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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 436
My first meeting with the Death King was far from pleasant.
I was at a point where I needed to secretly clean up the mess that had unfolded, and my spiritual energy wasn’t even properly replenished, so I had to endure this wretched situation.
Already irritated beyond measure, some old man with mold-like spots on his skin suddenly spoke to me.
“Little brat. Won’t you become my disciple?”
He wanted me to become his disciple. To see the world differently through those precious eyes of his. I thought it was nonsense.
‘See differently? What’s there to see differently?’
This irritating gaze of mine already made my life exhausting enough. Why would I learn something else just to see things differently?
I refused outright. In fact.
‘Learn? Not a chance.’
Learn what? In my previous life, I had rolled around desperately and forcibly acquired this through sheer necessity.
Learn it again? Well, I suppose I could if I wanted to. But.
‘Why would I learn that from you?’
From an old man. From the Death King, there was nothing to learn. At least, that’s what I thought.
‘Having a Deity dwelling in your body and then trying to teach? That’s pathetic.’
The Death King served a Deity. A minor one, slightly below the higher Deities. Or rather, he served something in between that was neither here nor there.
That was the end of it.
‘Once you’ve taken a Deity into your service, there’s nothing more to say.’
That’s what my Grandmother often said.
If there are a few regrets in my life, one is that she passed this power on to her grandson.
And the second is.
‘Taking a Deity into service.’
Serving a Deity itself. It seems natural to say that a Shaman serves a Deity, but my Grandmother called it a mistake.
She said it was closer to being bound than to serving.
She had no choice but to walk this path, but she told me not to do the same.
Even if I were to contract divine illness and my entire body were consumed by pain, she told me never to serve a Deity.
I kept that promise.
Fortunately, I never contracted divine illness.
My spiritual energy was so strong that no Deity would dare covet my body, or so they said.
Someone was shocked that such a thing was possible for a mere human, but it was true.
‘That’s why it’s strange.’
That’s what it means for Yoo Cheon-gil to be unusual. He was someone who freely entered and exited my body without hesitation, something even the Deities couldn’t covet.
How could he do it to a body that even the higher Deities couldn’t touch carelessly?
‘Ah well. Let’s set that aside for now.’
It wasn’t important right now. Moving past that.
“You’re really not going to say anything?”
“…Ugh….”
I crouched down and asked the old man groaning in front of me. The Death King. That old man I’d seen in my childhood was struggling right before my eyes.
It wasn’t that his body was in pain.
‘…The Sword Emperor already broke through, so that’s not it either.’
It would sting a bit, though the pain now wasn’t a matter of the flesh.
“How… how is this even possible?”
The Death King spoke in disbelief. What he was experiencing seemed incomprehensible to him.
“If you ask how it’s possible… well, I couldn’t say.”
Perhaps because I can do it, I do it.
“That’s absurd…!”
*Cough!*
The Death King coughed violently. No blood came forth, yet the agony intensified.
“…Release me…!”
A scream pierced the air. For the record, my hand merely rested upon the Death King’s forehead—I grasped nothing tangible.
The flesh was one thing. What I held here was something else entirely.
‘The soul.’
The Death King’s very essence. Along with the divine grip concealed within it.
“Exactly.”
Irritation welled up inside me.
“Why waste arrows on meaningless targets? What purpose did shooting at Cheon Rijin-an serve, even as you’ve come to this state?”
The arrows weren’t aimed at me—they were loosed at Cheon Rijin-an. I wondered what the intention had been.
“Speak. Then.”
Opportunities were scarce.
“If you don’t, your Deity dies here.”
Because I was furious.
“…Kill a Deity?”
Disbelief flickered across his features. Yet the Deity within his body was surely screaming with every cry imaginable.
Of course.
‘Deities don’t die.’
Immortal.
Beings who transcend into souls, ascending to higher existence, living eternally. Those who have reached enlightenment and become something vastly different from humanity—they could be said to stand apart from death.
Yet they weren’t entirely immortal.
“Deities are no different. You simply exorcise them as you would a demon. Do you truly believe that reaching enlightenment washes away all karma from such a being?”
The exorcism of souls—or the concept of salvation—is founded upon erasing the karma and attachments they carry.
Enlightenment is akin to forgetting.
What is abandoned and left behind is not truly lost.
Erasing something from within doesn’t make it completely vanish.
Forgetting doesn’t erase memory itself.
‘That’s why I despise Deities.’
They forget what they’ve done and deem themselves noble—how pitiful and contemptible.
*Grrrgh.*
As spiritual energy flowed through my fingertips, the Death King’s body convulsed violently.
“Gah… ughhhh…!”
“Touching karma causes it to wither, whether in human or Deity. Simple, isn’t it? The Deity you serve is ultimately no different.”
“…How…. Merely a human….”
“Not merely, I’d say.”
I laughed. The absurdity of his words amused me.
“It’s precisely because you’re human. Because you’re beings capable of accumulating karma as you live.”
I sensed the Deity. His screams resonated through my fingertips. If I loosened the noose just a bit further.
‘I could incinerate him.’
I could burn a Deity. In this lifetime, I’d never attempted such a thing, yet it wasn’t impossible.
Shooting arrows at Cheon Rijin-an. That act gnawed at me relentlessly, like a splinter I couldn’t remove.
Had I been that close to Cheon Rijin-an? I didn’t think so. I couldn’t fathom why it bothered me so deeply.
Click. I loosened the noose. Shouldn’t I put the Death King in his place? With that thought, I began to channel my strength.
Crack—!
“…!”
I felt something fracture. I stopped releasing my spiritual energy.
[Come to your senses.]
The Celestial Demon’s voice reached me.
‘…Celestial Demon?’
[So you’re only hearing my voice now.]
‘…What were you saying?’
Had I been speaking all along? I hadn’t heard a word.
[Don’t be seduced by the blade. Your emotions are escalating—the divine sword is beginning to control you.]
The divine sword controlling me? At those words, I checked my waist. The divine sword lay still.
‘What is this.’
Only then did I realize it. Something was undulating from the divine sword. My eyes widened.
‘Insane.’
The energy flowing from the blade was influencing my soul. Was this why I was acting so violently?
I immediately tried to withdraw my hand from the Death King.
“…Young Master…!”
The Death King suddenly spoke to me.
“Young Master…?”
“…The Young Master ordered this.”
My eyes narrowed. The Young Master of the Demonic Sect ordered this? To shoot arrows at Cheon Rijin-an?
“You? The Young Master ordered you? Why?”
The threat worked. I withdrew the spiritual energy I’d been releasing and intimidated him instead.
“….”
He said nothing. Seeing that, I curved my lips upward.
“I’ll tear the Deity apart unless you speak—”
“…Originally, my Mentor should have done this, but since you’ve rendered him unable to move, I acted in his stead.”
“…Oh?”
The Gungwi who came as a spirit form was incapacitated, so the Death King stepped forward?
And the Young Master ordered him to do it?
‘Is what you’re saying true?’
I couldn’t tell if it was fact or fiction.
So I needed to verify.
‘It’s dangerous.’
The seal binding my body had developed cracks. It seemed I’d been releasing it too carelessly of late.
Still.
‘I have to use it now.’
There’s no choice. I apply more pressure to the seal. A soft cracking sensation accompanies my intrusion into his soul.
“…Ugh!”
The Death King trembles, instinctively sensing something invading his soul. Observing his reaction, I ask.
“Tell me again. Was what you said true?”
“…Y… Yes, it’s true.”
The sensation from his soul remains unchanged. It was the truth. The moment I felt it, I immediately withdrew my energy.
The seal fortunately didn’t break. However.
‘That’s all I get.’
If I use it once more, the seal shatters completely. I sense it instinctively.
“…So the Young Master ordered you to shoot an arrow at me. Why?”
“I don’t know the reason… It was simply a transaction.”
“If it’s a transaction, what did you exchange?”
“….”
“A gag order, then.”
His silence confirms it. A gag order. Perhaps if I broke it, things would be different. I consider it, but….
‘I don’t have the luxury to break a gag order.’
I have to let this go. My martial arts alone won’t forcibly dispel it, and using anything else isn’t an option right now.
‘I need to do something else.’
I’ll skip hearing the reason. There’s something else I need to handle.
“I’ll ask about the reason later. For now, I should seal your mouth, shouldn’t I?”
“What?”
A sharp clicking sound.
“…!”
The Death King’s eyes widen like lanterns. My energy locks something onto his soul. It’s only possible because I’m already in contact with him.
“If you carelessly mention what happened today, your soul will burst. Or should I say it’ll be crushed?”
I speak with a faint smile.
“So.”
I erase the smile as I speak.
“Keep your mouth shut. Understood?”
The Death King’s body trembles. Even the forest swaying in the wind falls silent in that moment.

* * *
I disposed of the Death King and went to check on Cheon Rijin-an. Fortunately, he appeared to be unharmed.
He expressed bewilderment at my choice, but offered no further reproach.
It was merely a subtle sense of shallow concern, if anything.
The man already suffered from chronic headaches, and he looked even worse now. So I told him we’d talk later and left first.
That’s how I returned to the Dormitory.
“…Young Master.”
I never believed in that nonsense about agreements, negotiations, and peace.
“That bastard.”
So he was trying to scheme from behind after all. Shooting needles at Cheon Rijin-an—the League Leader was a Celestial Demon-class Martial Artist, so such needles couldn’t pierce him. But Cheon Rijin-an was aged and nearly defenseless, so such tactics would work perfectly on him.
That’s likely how it happened.
‘Damn bastard.’
My eyes grew cold. At the same time, I looked at the Divine Sword and suppressed my emotions.
I needed to be careful so nothing like that happened again.
“That wasn’t your doing, was it?”
I asked the Celestial Demon.
I questioned whether amplifying my rage like before was a side effect of the Divine Sword.
[The Divine Sword responds to its master’s emotions. It amplifies them—it doesn’t manipulate them, understand?]
It doesn’t draw them out; it maximizes them. I’d heard this before.
[Don’t be consumed by the sword. If you’re bewitched by something so trivial, you can never become heaven itself.]
“…Heaven? That’s nonsense. Who said anything like that?”
This is ridiculous.
The Young Master is right here, and yet the Celestial Demon speaks like this.
Does this being truly wish for me to lead the Demonic Sect? This is absurd.
‘If anything, I’d rather—’
I’m dying to make him eat his words instead.
[Make him eat his words, you say….]
The Celestial Demon responds to my thoughts.
[This one happens to have a rather good idea.]
“…Hmm?”
The Celestial Demon spoke.
[What say you—shall you hear it?]
The voice carried a distinctly excited tone.

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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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