Immortal Paladin 535 Great Beast

The mories churned around like a storm devouring itself. One mont I stood within the fractured remains of Wendell’s childhood ho on Earth, hearing rain batter the rooftop while his mother prayed beside a flickering candle, and the next I found myself in the suffocating jungles of Vietnam where artillery fire tore apart the night sky in bursts of orange fla. The transitions happened violently, as though the mories themselves were alive and trying to reject my intrusion. Faces blurred together. Screams overlapped. Entire decades collapsed into seconds before reforming again. Yet through all of it, one thing remained constant.

The mysterious figure watched everything in silence.

He stood outside the mories while simultaneously existing inside them, untouched by ti, unaffected by emotion, observing the life of Wendell as casually as soone flipping through pages in a book they had already finished reading countless tis before. His form remained indistinct beneath the shifting darkness surrounding him, but his eyes never changed. They carried the detached calm of sothing ancient enough to regard civilizations the sa way mortals regarded passing weather.

I stared at him while Wendell’s younger self stumbled through mud and corpses sowhere behind us.

“So you created Legacy World Online,” I asked slowly. “Not the Yellow Emperor?”

The figure smiled faintly.

“Indeed, I did. Though calling it my creation alone would be inaccurate. It was more of a group project than anything else.” He glanced sideways as another mory unfolded nearby, revealing Wendell dragging a wounded soldier across blood-soaked ground while gunfire erupted overhead. “The Yellow Emperor was one of the collaborators. As one of the mythologized progenitors of humanity, he possesses a rather irritating level of ingenuity. He understands how to manipulate forces against one another better than almost anyone. Supre Heart’s quite similar in that regard.”

His expression deepened slightly with amusent.

“Ah… I see now. So this eting was engineered by him as well. He wished to test my ttle while isolating himself from my influence. Clever.”

I watched Wendell scream at dics to save a dying boy whose stomach had already been torn open beyond repair. The desperation in his voice struck harder than the battlefield itself. Even knowing they were rely mories, I could still feel the terror and helplessness crushing him from within.

This power was honestly starting to annoy .

Being able to understand people like this, always left with unpleasant feelings.

“Are you disappointed?” the mysterious existence suddenly asked. “You sought the Supre Death hoping for a grand dialogue, but instead you found and a corpse pretending it’s still alive.”

My eyes narrowed.

“Why are you doing this?” I demanded. “Why bring him here? Why bring any of us here? You plucked people from Earth and threw them into this universe like pieces on a board. I need to hear the answer directly from you.” My voice hardened. “Are we your toys?”

The figure sighed softly, almost tired.

“I think you misunderstand sothing fundantal.” He raised a hand, and the mories around us slowed. “The epithet ‘Ga Master’ is rely one face among countless others. Epithets can be inherited, stolen, bestowed, or abandoned. The Yellow Emperor wore the title once himself. No one truly rembers where it originated from. I claid it because it was useful. Convenient. A fitting authority for one who arranges the board.”

The air around him distorted subtly.

“You see, epithets are manifestations of destiny itself. They are powers born from collective belief. If enough minds acknowledge an existence as sothing absolute, reality eventually bends to accommodate that perception.”

He gestured toward the mories.

“The Heavenly Demon beca feared because the world believed him invincible. The Divine Physician beca miraculous because humanity desired salvation badly enough to create it. You…” His gaze settled on . “Did you truly believe your rise as the Holy Emperor was solely the product of effort? That the title of Immortal Paladin belonged to you alone?”

His voice remained calm, but every word carried unbearable weight.

“We are all slaves to destiny, Da Wei. Every one of us dances according to its tune whether we acknowledge it or not.”

A chill crawled down my spine.

“The Supre Death’s about to fulfill his destiny,” said the Ga Master. “And no, you are not toys. Because toys break, and a Supre Being overcos.”

The words lingered in my mind like poison.

I already knew this pattern too well. Every major battle of my life unfolded the sa way. I would fight through impossible odds, defeat what seed to be the ultimate enemy, only for another monster to erge from behind the curtain afterward. A final final enemy. Sothing worse. Sothing waiting patiently for to exhaust myself first before revealing its existence.

This damned universe genuinely hated .

The Ga Master continued speaking while the mories shifted again, revealing Wendell sitting alone beneath pouring rain beside a pile of body bags.

“Every Supre Being summoned into this existence was brought here for a purpose,” he explained. “The Supre Fallen was summoned because the Yellow Emperor required a force capable of opposing the Six Supres. Your friend Ru Qiu will eventually fulfill that role.”

The mont he ntioned Ru Qiu, I felt my chest tighten slightly.

“And you?” he asked. “Have you figured out why you were summoned?”

I remained silent.

“You already know the answer instinctively,” he said. “You simply refuse to acknowledge it fully. You are not here rely to wage war against the Six Supres or confront the Origin. Your role transcends that.”

The unease inside deepened further.

“How about Wendell?” I asked imdiately. “You said the Supre Death is about to fulfill his destiny. What does that an?”

The Ga Master’s smile returned.

“How about you witness it personally?”

The mories surged forward before I could respond.

The world twisted violently around . My perspective collapsed inward as though an invisible hand had seized my consciousness and hurled it back into the stream of Wendell’s life. The jungles of Vietnam consud everything again. Humid air filled my lungs. Gunfire roared in the distance. I could feel Wendell’s exhaustion, his despair, his fractured state of mind threatening to shatter beneath the endless horrors surrounding him.

For a brief mont, the sheer emotional weight nearly drowned alongside him.

But I steadied myself imdiately.

Transcendent Heart activated silently within my soul, anchoring my consciousness against the flood of despair trying to consu . My breathing stabilized. My thoughts sharpened.

I beca Wendell again, and I held to him strongly.

The sensation struck with horrifying familiarity. My consciousness folded inward before plunging through endless darkness while freezing winds howled around . I was falling from the heavens exactly the sa way Ru Qiu and I once had when we were first dragged into this cursed existence. I rembered Ru Qiu obtaining his system interface upon arrival, gaining that absurdly unfair guidance that shaped his rise. I rembered receiving the max-leveled Paladin class the instant I entered this universe, as though destiny had already prepared a path for before my feet even touched the ground.

But Wendell…?

Wendell received death.

Not taphorically.

Not symbolically.

Death itself.

The mountain rushed upward beneath . Jagged ridges tore through clouds like blades waiting to gut the sky. Then impact ca.

My body exploded against the stone.

Bones shattered instantly. Flesh ruptured. Blood painted the cliffsides while organs scattered across frozen rock. Agony swallowed everything before darkness rcifully followed afterward.

Then I revived.

The mories dragged forward relentlessly. I stopped resisting and allowed them to guide completely. I experienced every death alongside him. Every scream. Every mont of despair clawing through his soul. Wendell stumbled through this alien world like a man abandoned by heaven itself. He learned the language slowly through humiliation and suffering, repeating words wrong while strangers mocked him for speaking like a broken child. He t companions. Lost them. Trusted people. Buried them. Entire years passed in misery while this reality crushed every fragile hope he still possessed.

Yet the cruelest part was that none of it surprised him anymore.

Earth had already taught him suffering long before he arrived here.

War.

Loss.

Trauma.

Faith stretched to its limit.

But cruelty remained cruelty regardless of where it existed. Pain did not beco lighter simply because soone had endured it before. The burden only accumulated until it hollowed out whatever remained inside a person.

And throughout all of it, one thought continued moving Wendell forward.

Ho.

It was not revenge, glory, or power.

Ho.

He wanted salvation through death because death ant returning to his family. Returning to Earth. Returning to the people he loved before this nightmare stole him away. Every resurrection deepened his despair because every resurrection proved he was still trapped here.

The more he died, the stronger he beca.

What a horrifying curse.

I watched him stand atop a burning star after countless centuries had already passed. His body had beco monstrous by then, able to survive environnts that should erase existence itself. Solar flas engulfed him while entire continents of fire exploded beneath his feet.

Wendell laughed weakly.

“I’m tired,” he whispered.

The words nearly broke .

“So damn tired…”

Then he threw himself deeper into the sun thoroughly and eliberately.

He unleashed every ounce of power he possessed while ripping apart his own defenses, forcing the stellar inferno to consu him completely. Flesh lted away. Bones dissolved. His consciousness disintegrated beneath temperatures capable of annihilating civilizations.

And then he revived again.

Not even the sun could kill him.

The mories accelerated afterward.

I witnessed Wendell hurl himself into a black hole large enough to swallow entire galaxies. Reality bent apart around its event horizon while stars twisted into spirals of oblivion. Even then, he did not hesitate. He descended willingly into the cosmic abyss, surrendering himself to absolute destruction.

Failure.

He resurrected from the ether once more.

Then ca the underworld.

I saw him descend beyond the realms of living existence into domains where reapers governed death itself. Endless rivers of souls stretched across darkness while monstrous officials watched him with unease bordering terror. Wendell begged them to end him. Pleaded with them.

But none dared.

Because to truly touch the Supre Death ant invoking the concept of his death itself.

And that was forbidden.

Even the rulers of death feared the consequences.

They would die, they said.

So Wendell continued wandering.

He explored the Greater Universe endlessly in search of sothing capable of granting him oblivion. Ancient monsters. Primordial entities. Supre Beings. Cosmic catastrophes. Nothing worked. Not one existence among them could kill him permanently.

My own existence began recoiling violently as I continued imrsing myself deeper into the mories.

Divine Qi drained from at an alarming rate.

I finally understood why.

The Supre Death had died too many tis.

The accumulated weight of those deaths transcended normal comprehension. Experiencing them secondhand caused parts of my existence to destabilize. My vision flickered repeatedly while cracks spread across my spiritual body. I could barely perceive the other Supre Beings clearly anymore within these mories because my consciousness was too busy trying not to collapse.

Still, I endured.

I forced more Divine Qi into myself while embracing my Supremacy Trait fully.

The mories shifted again.

The war against the Supre Void unfolded before .

The scale dwarfed everything I had ever witnessed.

Entire realities collapsed during the battle. Lost Gods scread while dinsions ruptured apart beneath attacks powerful enough to rewrite universal laws. The Six Supres fought together against the endless darkness of the Supre Void while Wendell died over and over throughout the conflict.

Each death shook harder.

By the hundredth death, pieces of my own soul started dying alongside the mories.

By the thousandth, I nearly lost consciousness.

But Wendell continued resurrecting every single ti.

Even after the Supre Void finally fell?

Even after the Lost Gods were exterminated or exiled?

Even after victory arrived?

The Six Supres stood triumphant amidst the corpse of a dying cosmos while the remnants of battle ford an enormous black hole nearby, a wound in existence itself created from forces beyond comprehension.

And what did the Supre Death do after saving reality?

He walked toward the abyss created from there fight.

The others noticed imdiately.

I saw one of the Six Supres trying to stop him, but Wendell rely smiled weakly before stepping forward into the abyss. The black hole devoured light, matter, laws, and concepts themselves. Nothing should have survived within it.

Wendell looked at it like a starving man staring at salvation.

Then he spoke softly.

“I kept my faith all this ti,” he said. “I endured every nightmare because I thought God would eventually let co ho.”

His voice trembled.

“But why won’t He let die?”

The despair inside those words eclipsed every scream I had heard throughout his mories.

Wendell stared into the abyss while tears burned away before they could even leave his face.

“My wife’s probably gone by now. My children too.” He laughed weakly, though it sounded more like sothing breaking apart. “Maybe even their graves disappeared centuries ago while I kept surviving here like so kind of mistake.”

Then he closed his eyes.

“I just want to see my family again.”

Wendell stepped into the darkness, only to resurrect once more.

It was horrifying.

No.

That word was too small for what I experienced.

I relived every suicide attempt the Supre Death committed across eternity. Every desperate plunge into oblivion. Every hope that this ti would finally be the end. At first, I thought his deaths were rely acts of despair from a broken man unable to return ho. But as the mories continued, I realized sothing worse.

The Supre Death had never stopped thinking.

Even in despair, he searched endlessly for an answer.

And eventually, inspiration struck him.

If death could not kill death… then perhaps life could.

The realization echoed across the mories like blasphemy.

The Supre Death understood himself better than anyone else. He was death incarnate. Every power he possessed reinforced the continuation of death itself. Destruction nourished him. Oblivion strengthened him. Even anti-existence rely beca another extension of his nature. To kill himself permanently required the opposite of death.

Life.

True life.

Creation untouched by entropy.

But where could he obtain such a thing when everything he touched inevitably decayed?

The answer beca clear soon afterward.

The Shén.

I watched Wendell begin hunting them across the Greater Universe.

The Shén were privileged beings entrusted with creation itself, entities capable of birthing life from nothingness. They carried divine authorities over genesis, evolution, growth, and possibility. They were living manifestations of creation’s laws.

And the Supre Death slaughtered them.

Entire worlds burned during his hunt. Civilizations vanished screaming beneath waves of annihilation while Wendell harvested fragnts of creation from the corpses of the Shén. At first, I wanted to condemn him for it, but the mories forced to feel his thoughts alongside his actions.

He hated every mont of it.

But his longing to return ho eclipsed morality long ago.

He accepted jobs to destroy galaxies because destruction gave him access to more fragnts of life. He tore apart empires and butchered godlike races while collecting every trace of creation he could find, all for one purpose.

To unmake death itself.

And eventually…

He succeeded.

The revelation struck so hard my soul nearly destabilized.

Everyone believed the Supre Death failed to die.

They were wrong.

He did die.

The Supre Death truly killed himself.

I witnessed the mont firsthand.

He stood alone within a silent corner of the Greater Universe while countless fragnts of harvested creation revolved around him like stars. Then he turned his power inward completely, combining death and life simultaneously until both concepts collapsed into one another.

The Supre Death died by his own hands.

But from the corpse he left behind? Sothing else was born.

Four existences erged from the remains of the Supre Death, each carrying a portion of his essence, mories, and authority.

The Four Horsen.

Conquest.

War.

Famine.

Death.

I watched their birth in stunned silence.

The eldest among them was Death, yet despite being firstborn, he retained the appearance of a young boy. Pale skin. Dark curls. Exhausted eyes far older than his body. I imdiately understood why.

He inherited the most precious pieces of the Supre Death. Childhood. Joy. Faith. The longing for acknowledgent. The fragile humanity the Supre Death fought desperately to preserve.

The Four Horsen were not children.

They were organs.

Fragnts of the original Supre Death divided apart to create sothing capable of escaping destiny itself.

Conquest inherited the mind.

War inherited the spirit.

Famine inherited the heart.

Death inherited the soul.

Then the mysterious existence spoke again from sowhere beyond the mories.

“What a tragedy,” the Ga Master lanted quietly. “Famine lost his essence first after becoming infected by the whispers of the Supre Void. The heart corrupted so easily. How disappointing.”

My thoughts raced violently.

“What about Conquest?” I demanded. “How does he fit into this?”

The mories answered before the Ga Master could.

I saw an old woman standing beside an enormous wheel that eclipsed entire realities.

ng Po.

She held bowls of tea within trembling hands while the Four Horsen stood before her silently one by one. The tea carried the power of forgetfulness itself. Oblivion for mory. Oblivion for identity.

The Ga Master’s voice echoed across the scene.

“Only when there is no self can there be true death.”

ng Po handed the tea to each Horseman.

“The Supre Death made a bargain with her. In exchange for the Wheel of Reincarnation, she would erase the identities of the lives birthed from his corpse.”

The mories trembled violently afterward.

“This was the Supre Death’s destiny,” the Ga Master declared. “To birth the Four Horsen. Harbingers of apocalypse. Heralds ant to prepare the coming of the Great Beast.”

Suddenly, the mories fractured apart.

A face appeared directly before .

It had no eyes and no mouth.

Only smooth flesh stretched unnaturally across sothing screaming beneath the skin. The surface bulged repeatedly as though countless people were trapped underneath it, clawing desperately to escape.

Then the Ga Master spoke.

“AND YOU ARE NUTRITION.”

The voice ruptured reality itself.

“THE HEAVENLY DEMON IS THE SA.”

Pressure exploded around .

“OVERCO FATE OR BECO PART OF IT!”

The screaming thing leaned closer.

“IS IT THE GREAT BEAST’S DESTINY THAT WILL DEVOUR YOURS… OR WILL YOU PREVAIL?”

The skin stretched harder.

“SHOW !”

The entire mory realm shattered.

“SHOW IF YOU CAN BE THE TRUE AVATAR OF THE SOURCE!”

Agony ripped through my consciousness.

I was violently ejected from Divine Possession.

My body slamd against the ground of the Palace of Endings before skidding across broken stone and corpses. I coughed violently while Divine Qi surged chaotically inside . My soul still reeled from the mories, fragnts of countless deaths lingering like poison within my thoughts.

I forced myself upright.

Undead remains surrounded us everywhere.

The battlefield had beco a graveyard.

Ru Qiu stood nearby barely holding himself together. Blood covered his clothes while wounds layered his body from head to toe. Even his breathing sounded strained now.

“It took you damn long enough,” he muttered. “Please tell you found good news.”

I opened my mouth, but nothing ca out.

Because there wasn’t any good news.

I noticed Wendell.

Or rather, the boy.

The dark-skinned child with curly hair stood silently nearby, but sothing about him felt fundantally wrong now. His presence distorted the surrounding space subtly, like reality itself struggled to tolerate him.

“Wendell,” I called carefully. “Can you hear ?”

Another figure stood behind him. It was Conquest still pretending to be the Supre Death and the boy’s father. He rested both hands gently on the boy’s shoulders while smiling softly like an older brother comforting family. “Everything’s going to be alright,” Conquest whispered. “You don’t need to be afraid anymore. I’ll protect you. We’ll go ho together eventually. I promise.”

The boy remained silent for several seconds.

Then he slowly raised his head.

“I grow tired of your lies.”

The mont he spoke, the number 666 burned onto his forehead.

The Palace of Endings shook violently.

Candlewax-like figures began crawling from the ground in enormous numbers. Their bodies looked half-lted, malford things with human limbs fused together unnaturally. They clawed upward while shrieking in agony.

Conquest suddenly scread.

His body began lting alongside them.

The wax creatures grabbed him while weeping molten tears, dragging pieces of him into their mass as he cried out in unbearable pain.

The ground itself started groaning afterward.

The corpses beneath us opened their mouths simultaneously.

“THE GREAT BEAST…”

“PRAISE…”

“HE COS…”

“WE SHALL BE CONSUD…”

The walls of the palace churned like living flesh. Faces pressed outward beneath the stone surface desperately, mouths moving silently while fingers stretched against the walls from the inside.

And then I realized sothing truly terrifying.

I could no longer see the future.

My foresight had vanished completely.

The existence before had beco too heavy.

Too absolute.

Too catastrophic for even possibility itself to continue functioning normally.

“OH, YOU HAVE GOT TO BE KIDDING !” I shouted.

Ru Qiu imdiately looked toward .

I grabbed him by the arm.

“RUN!” I roared. “RU QIU, RUN NOW!”

The palace scread around us while reality continued collapsing.

“No matter what happens,” I snarled, dragging him backward, “we cannot let that thing eat us!”