The World's Greatest is Dead Chapter 387

Sssss.

A murderous intent so imnse it brushed across my throat.

I was only looking at him, and my soul was already trembling.

“Heavenly Demon...”

I spoke in a shaking voice as I faced those crimson eyes.

At my words, the corners of the Heavenly Demon’s mouth curved upward.

“You call rather lightly.”

“...!”

My body locked up.

It was vile.

A calamity god, or maybe an evil god.

The presence of a god ford from hundreds, thousands of evil ghosts. I had felt it before, but that sa vastness radiated from the Heavenly Demon.

If Yoo Cheongil was sothing beyond a general spirit—

...then the Heavenly Demon was beyond even a calamity god.

He was not so crude entity made out of foulness alone.

Things called god-class were not simple, brutish existences like that. They carried one more thing.

Awe.

Supremacy.

Greatness.

A soul holding a value no human being could dare comprehend or judge.

That was what people called a god.

Is the Heavenly Demon a god?

The Heavenly Demon standing in front of held that kind of presence within him.

“...What do you want with ?”

Why was sothing that ought to have been inside the Divine Sword popping out here instead?

I asked, tense.

At that—

“You find it strange that I am here?”

He tilted his head at as he spoke.

“There is no place I cannot go. No matter where it is.”

“...Ah. Right.”

The tone dripping off him was pure arrogance.

The supre ruler of the DEMON CULT, the man said to have stood shoulder to shoulder with the greatest martial artist under heaven.

If it was soone like that, speaking this way was not exactly unbelievable, but—

“Do you need sothing from ?”

I assud there had to be a reason the Heavenly Demon had appeared now.

There had to be so reason.

At my question—

“Need sothing...”

The Heavenly Demon lightly gripped his own chin as he spoke.

“I do.”

“What—”

“And it has to be done now.”

“What?”

“I will ask you one thing. Do you rember what I told you last ti?”

“Which part?”

What the Heavenly Demon had said?

Of course I rembered it, but which part was he talking about?

Just as the question ford—

“The part where I told you not to trust Yoo Cheongil.”

“...”

Ah. That.

He had said that too.

I nodded.

“I rember it.”

“Only rember it?”

“No. I never trusted him that completely in the first place.”

It was a relationship where both sides were obviously hiding things from each other.

Complete trust?

There was no way such a thing could exist.

At my answer, the Heavenly Demon let out a faint laugh.

“Funny thing to say. For soone who says that, you seem to do whatever he tells you well enough.”

“I use what’s useful and spit out what needs spitting out.”

“That narrow way of speaking. You toss out your lack of a center as if it were nothing.”

I had nothing to say to that.

For soone I claid not to trust, I had indeed been taking his words at face value.

Right now was the perfect example.

He said he would give the stroke of fortune that was Reforging the Body, so I believed him, ate the Moonlit Night Herb, and even handed over my body.

“Hm.”

I lowered my gaze.

Below , Yoo Cheongil was rotating energy through my body.

His eyes were closed, his lashes trembling as if he were fully focused.

Watching my body shudder every now and then with those heavy jolts, I found myself wondering just what the hell was happening inside.

That alone had already been hard enough for to endure a mont ago, and Yoo Cheongil was controlling it?

If he pulled this off and actually completed Reforging the Body—

That would be like blowing my nose without lifting a hand.

Wouldn’t it an he was remotely carrying out Reforging the Body for ?

And the funny part was—

I haven’t once thought he might fail.

The possibility that Yoo Cheongil might fail to pull off Reforging the Body using my body.

I had not considered it even once.

That’s a bad sign.

It was not good.

For all my talk about trusting only what deserved trust, it ant I had been giving him more faith than I ought to.

That kind of situation was not good.

I knew that perfectly well myself.

That was why I could not even properly refute what the Heavenly Demon had said.

“So. You said you needed sothing from ?”

I shifted the topic on purpose.

At that, the Heavenly Demon’s eyes narrowed.

The crimson light in them deepened.

My soul shook once more under that gaze, but I ignored it by force.

“That is enough. There is no value in saying more. Creatures like us do not move at another’s word to begin with.”

“...Us?”

That word snagged in .

The way he grouped and him together felt wrong.

“What do you an, us?”

“You already know.”

“...I don’t.”

There was not a single common point between us.

At most, we both had eyes, a nose, and a mouth.

What part of was supposed to resemble the root of all evil?

The absurdity of it made the words co out sharper, and the Heavenly Demon covered his own eyes with one hand.

“What you can see. What you can feel. And—”

The tip of his finger pointed at my chest.

Right at my heart.

“What you can contain.”

“...”

“A body and a fate that can contain even a god. And hearing that, you still claim not to know?”

“...Hah.”

My expression twisted at those words.

Because I knew exactly what he ant.

“This cursed body of mine. Is that what you an?”

The thing that let see ghosts and feel them.

And more than that, let contain things even worse than that.

That was obviously what he ant.

And when I said it—

“Cursed?”

The Heavenly Demon looked genuinely unable to understand.

“It is a blessing. How can you defile karma with such a filthy word?”

“...A blessing?”

This ti, it was my turn to twist my face.

“You call this a blessing?”

“If not a blessing, then what is it?”

“A curse. A filthy, rotten curse.”

I saw things I should never have seen and felt things I should never have felt.

And because of that, I got entangled with things I never should have gotten entangled with, and it ruined my life.

What bigger curse was there than that?

And on top of that—

It carries into the next life too.

I had wanted to live an ordinary life, and instead it had kept poisoning even this one.

And he called it a blessing?

That was fucking ridiculous.

If anything, I wanted to know why the Heavenly Demon saw this miserable shit as a blessing.

“Why?”

So I asked.

“It is simple.”

The Heavenly Demon gave a very simple answer.

“If you can contain even a god, then put another way, it ans you could beco a god.”

“...”

I froze at that.

Because soone else’s words suddenly ca back to .

Would you not beco a great being?

There had been soone who looked at and told to beco a god.

A body and conditions that could beco a god.

That statent dug sharply into so corner of my chest.

“Did you want to beco a god?”

Was that what the Heavenly Demon had wanted?

Was that why he carried such a bizarre presence now, and why his soul had remained inside the Divine Sword?

That was the thought behind my question.

But—

“You are mistaken.”

This ti, the Heavenly Demon denied it.

“...No?”

“Becoming a god was sothing I could have done at any ti. Whenever I wished. But what I wanted was never sothing that trivial.”

“Then what—”

“I wanted to kill a god.”

“...What?”

He wanted to kill a god?

It made no sense.

“How?”

“How is there a separate thod? You simply kill it.”

“...No.”

“I was born able to do it. What could be more blessed than that?”

“...”

Now I got it.

I finally understood what the Heavenly Demon had been saying.

That look in his eyes. That madness.

I felt it and swallowed dryly.

He’s not sane.

The Heavenly Demon was absolutely not sane either.

Granted, there was not a single martial artist who reached that level and stayed normal.

But this bastard is flat-out insane.

The leader of the DEMON CULT had wanted to kill a god.

He reacted as if that alone had been the reason for his life.

There was not much I could even say to that.

At most, there was one thing I could ask.

“So... did you kill one?”

Had the Heavenly Demon succeeded in killing a god?

I asked carefully.

At that—

“Regrettably, I did not.”

The Heavenly Demon shook his head.

“I was a hair’s breadth away. I failed to complete it, and so I never reached it.”

“...A hair’s breadth.”

“It is rely regrettable.”

“So that regret is why you remained in this land?”

Because he had failed to kill a god?

Was that why he had stayed behind here?

But—

“That too is mistaken.”

Again, the Heavenly Demon shook his head.

“...Then why?”

That was wrong too?

Then what was the source of what had kept him here?

“I am not a lingering attachnt. If anything, I am sheer obstinacy.”

The Heavenly Demon looked at with his hands behind his back.

“My failure to kill a god was my own inadequacy. I do not cling to such things. But the obstinacy I set in place for the sake of that goal still remains, and that irritates .”

“What...”

“So there is sothing you will have to do in my place.”

“What?”

At those words, I frowned.

So it was this again in the end?

“...You’re telling to clean up after your kind again?”

And this ti it was the Heavenly Demon?

What a joke.

“Why the hell would I do that?”

“Because only you can.”

“Hah.”

Irritation rose in .

“Find sobody else. There should be plenty of people in the world who can see ghosts.”

“I know. There are plenty who can see. But only I and you can contain them.”

“And how are you so sure of that?”

“Because I was able to reach you.”

Easy for him to say.

What, did he believe in fate or sothing?

“I don’t know about any of that. I have no intention of doing it. Do you not see that I’m already in the middle of sothing with that old man Yoo?”

Back then, neither the Heavenly Demon nor an evil god ant a damn thing to .

They had looked like nothing more than evil ghosts trying to use .

“This is not a request.”

“...Then what, a notice? A threat?”

“As I said before, I know that is not what would move soone like you. This is rely—”

The Heavenly Demon paused, then smiled as he finished.

“A forewarning.”

“...What?”

“You will beco the Heaven of the DEMON CULT in my stead. And in the end—”

Sssssss—!!!

A black haze rose from his body like shimring heat.

It was foulness and killing intent.

And—

...Demonic energy?

It was that sa vile force he had used on Strange Demon before.

“You will complete the Heavenly Demon Divine Art and place even gods beneath your feet.”

“For fuck’s sake.”

I furrowed my brow.

“Learning even one martial art is already a pain in the ass, and what, now the Heavenly Demon Divine Art? What a fucking joke.”

So this lunatic was talking about perfecting a martial art too?

Absurd.

“Cut the bullshit. The little master of the DEMON CULT is already on the move right now. And on top of that—”

His daughter was alive and well too.

I almost said it, then held myself back.

“...There are plenty besides that, and I never had the Heavenly Killing Star in the first place.”

The crimson eyes that had been like the symbol of the Heavenly Demon.

I did not have the mark that proved possession of the Heavenly Killing Star.

“Have you forgotten? Heavenly Killing Star. That pitiful shell does not even qualify as a pretext. Sothing else is what matters.”

Not the Heavenly Killing Star, but karma.

Whether one bore divine eyes or not—that was supposed to be the reason, but—

“No matter what reason you try to stick on it, it changes nothing. To begin with, I’m not even of your blood.”

The Divine Sword could not even be carried unless one belonged to the Heavenly Demon’s bloodline.

And the Divine Sword was the Heavenly Demon’s very symbol.

So the only reason I had been able to carry it around at all was because the Heavenly Demon had shown consideration.

So that I could use the Divine Sword.

Which ant the Heavenly Demon contained within the Divine Sword had permitted it.

At my words—

“You are entertaining a rather amusing misconception.”

The Heavenly Demon smiled brightly as he said it.

“I never permitted any such thing.”

“...What?”

For a mont, I just stared.

“You never permitted it?”

He had never permitted to touch the Divine Sword?

What the hell was that supposed to an?

Then—

“How am I using it?”

How was I able to use the Divine Sword?

At my utterly bewildered question, the Heavenly Demon stared straight at and answered.

“Ask your father. You will hear a very interesting answer.”

“What?”

“Looks like ti is up. Rember this.”

“Wait—”

“You.”

The Heavenly Demon began to fade.

I tried to grab him in a rush, but—

“Before long, you will take my place.”

He spoke in a low voice.

Then—

WHOOOOSH—!!!

He turned into smoke and was drawn straight into the Divine Sword.

“...No...”

I stood there blankly, stunned.

The words I had just heard were too much to process.

Ask my father and I would know?

I froze at the incomprehensible statent.

Then—

KUUUUUNG—!!!

“...!”

A sound burst from the direction of my body.

SHHHHHHHH—!!!

With that heavy noise, an alien smoke spilled out from it.

What the hell was that this ti?

Smoke was pouring from my body’s mouth and ears, and then—

Sssss!

“...Ugh!?”

My soul-form lurched violently and was sucked back into my flesh in an instant.

The sensation made want to vomit.

And after that, once I had been pulled fully back inside—

“Hahk...!!!”

When I opened my eyes,

a hell of a lot had changed.