The World's Greatest is Dead

By the time Ye An finished guiding us around, the sun was already beginning to set.

I returned to the residence while watching the sun sink slowly. The room they had given me had apparently been tidied at some point, though I had no idea when someone had come in.

I had heard that they entered to clean whenever the room was empty. I had already taken out the things I needed, so it did not matter.

“I hope the guidance did not inconvenience you.”

“No. It was good.”

Thankfully, he had only covered what was necessary. At my words, Ye An bowed politely.

“Thank you. Then I hope you rest comfortably... and I will see you later.”

“Yes.”

Would I see him once the training began? They had said we would start meeting a few days from now.

I watched Ye An leave and tilted my head slightly.

As expected.

He bothered me. That faint spiritual energy, and even the Sky-Crushing Palace energy I could feel behind him.

He looks polite on the surface, but...

It was clear he was hiding something. If I had not noticed the energy, it would have been such an elaborate act that I probably would not have realized anything.

Crack.

I put strength into my finger joints and made them pop.

Three to four.

I organized the information in my head. Three to four. That was the number that came to mind while looking at them, and also the number of variables.

“So this is the Holy Cult.”

It did not seem like it would be easy. After seeing only today, it felt even more that way.

When should I make contact with the elder? I was thinking about that again and again when—

[What are you so worried about?]

The Heavenly Demon read my emotions and spoke.

[If you do not like it, destroy it all. That is the path of the demonic way.]

“...I told you, I have no intention of walking the demonic way.”

The demonic way, my ass. I was doing this because I did not want to go that way, so who was saying what to whom?

“Haa.”

At any rate, it felt as though nothing was going smoothly. I let out a faint laugh and swept my hair back.

“I need to keep my head straight.”

There was a lot to do. Where was the time to fall apart?

And.

Destroy it all, huh.

It sounded like such a violent and chaotic thing to say.

But even so—

That might not be so bad either.

The thought crossed my mind that maybe it was not entirely bad.

*****

Time passed. Before I knew it, the day had come for us to join the Holy Cult’s training as part of the exchange.

It was not as though we had made any grand preparations. We simply put on the clothes we had been issued and equipped our gear.

The problem was that we could not wear certain personal armaments separately, so I had to leave the Divine Sword behind.

So I put it in a wooden case and stored it away after setting things up so that I would know at once if anything strange happened.

Does it not matter even if I’m separated from the Divine Sword?

I was wondering what to do about the Heavenly Demon when—

[It does not matter. It has already come into contact with the demonic qi in your body.]

“...Is that so?”

Unfortunately, it seemed the Heavenly Demon would not be separated from me. The Divine Sword had been the medium, but things were different now. That was what he meant.

When I went outside, the others had already changed and were waiting.

“This feels rather unpleasant.”

Cloud Dragon looked displeased. Since he was a younger-generation prodigy of Wudang, wearing the Holy Cult’s clothes probably felt distasteful to him.

The others did not seem to care much. As for Yu Yeon—

It suits her.

The ink-black martial uniform suited her quite well.

I roughly tied my hair back and started walking.

As for Sword Emperor—

Ever since that conversation with the elder last time, he had shut himself in his room and had not really shown himself.

He had not come here as a guard in the first place, so there was no problem.

I had not had any separate conversation with Mi Yeonhwa, Severing Demon, either, so it seemed we were simply supposed to move like this.

“What do you think we’ll have to do once we get there?”

“Can’t we just do what they tell us and beat everything to pieces?”

Peng Dojun and Cloud Dragon were talking when a Holy Cult martial artist came to find us.

“I will guide you.”

We followed him.

*****

The inside of the building was quieter than last time.

Though there was little noise in the place we had moved to early in the morning, a large number of people had already gathered there.

Their ages varied, but there did not seem to be any huge gap between them.

I could tell at a glance.

So that’s them.

The Holy Cult members who would be training with us.

“You’re here.”

And in front of them stood a man with an enormous build. His entire body was covered in scars.

Thud.

He rose to his feet and slammed a large blunt weapon against the floor.

“I was going to give you a thrashing if you were late. You’re lucky.”

We were not late, though. We had come right after being guided here, so what was he talking about?

“I am the instructor for this training, Eight Shadow Blade.”

His broad grin looked extremely brutal. It was not the kind of face I wanted to stare at for long.

“You ignorant fools of the orthodox faction. Welcome to hell.”

Every gaze fixed on us. The eyes of the Cult members were filled with subtle hostility and wariness.

Among them, I could also see faint sneers.

It was what I had expected.

How warmly could they possibly look at us? From their perspective, it probably was not much different from how we looked at Demonic Cultists.

We were the inheritors of those who had brought them to ruin. From the position of the defeated, it would feel even worse than that.

“There’s nothing in particular to introduce, I suppose.”

Eight Shadow Blade sat down again and glanced over.

“Do you want to introduce yourselves? If you do, then do it.”

“Good. I’ll do it.”

It seemed like he had meant it as a joke, but Peng Dojun stepped forward as if he had been waiting for it.

Ah, that lunatic.

Everyone’s eyes were drawn to Peng Dojun as he suddenly walked forward.

“Nice to meet you. I’m Peng Dojun of the Peng Family. This atmosphere suits me just fine. I like this sort of thing.”

There was no sense of incongruity at all. That man looked as though he could join the Holy Cult on the spot.

“I like the look in your eyes. If you’ve got a problem, come at me anytime. I welcome that sort of thing. Ah, I’m not interested in weaklings, so only come if you can actually fight, got it?”

Grrrrk.

At those words, fighting spirit began seeping out from all over. Wow, that madman. He really started by picking a fight?

Has he lost his mind?

It was truly impressive. So much so that a hollow laugh almost came out.

“Ahahahaha.”

Eight Shadow Blade laughed at his words.

“What a funny bastard. I didn’t know the orthodox faction could have someone like that.”

“If you want, I can have a round with you too.”

At Peng Dojun’s words, Eight Shadow Blade’s lips curled upward.

“Interesting. If I followed my heart, I’d pull out that tongue of yours and educate you with it... but there is something to do before that, so I’ll let it pass.”

Tap, tap.

“This is a good thing. It happens to be connected to today’s training.”

Today’s training.

It seemed there really would be no proper introductions or greetings.

“Today’s training, as announced, will be a Holy Cult Battle. And since we have guests from the orthodox faction, this is a good opportunity.”

Holy Cult Battle? The name alone felt ominous. As I was watching—

“Is there anyone who wants a round with this big bastard?”

When Eight Shadow Blade pointed at Peng Dojun and spoke, hands shot up from every direction.

“I’ll tear his head apart.”

“You orthodox bastards. Let’s see how arrogant you can be.”

“Come out. I didn’t like that boar-looking thing from the start.”

“Oh.”

Peng Dojun looked at the hostility exploding toward him and exclaimed in admiration.

“I like this. To think there are people who can come at me like this.”

Among the orthodox faction’s younger-generation prodigies, almost no one could act up in front of Peng Dojun.

Even among the same geniuses, most people did not want to fight that madman and simply let him be.

But every single one of these people looked eager to smash Peng Dojun to pieces.

Their number seemed to exceed several hundred. Just when I was starting to feel sick of it—

Ruuuuumble—!!!

Hm?

A pressure of a different quality forced its way through the gaps. Everyone flinched at that distant presence.

I looked toward the source of the presence I felt.

That guy?

At the rear. A little apart even from the other Cult members.

Some people were gathered there.

As though they stood in a different position from the others, they had clustered together and were watching.

Among them—

Woo Young Jin?

Woo Young Jin, who had disappeared after getting beaten by Poison Dragon, was looking this way with his face twisted.

And this violent energy belonged to—

Gyo Yeon.

The guy I had met yesterday, the one called Gyo Yeon. He was the one scattering that energy.

“...Blood Battle Fist.”

“That man is...?”

Blood Battle Fist. It seemed to be Gyo Yeon’s title.

While scattering that energy, Gyo Yeon walked over. He kept pouring out violent energy as he approached, then stopped.

Not in front of Peng Dojun, but in front of me.

What was with this guy? As I stared at him, he spoke to me.

“I don’t want to fight that big bastard. I want to fight this one.”

“...”

“Instructor, do I really have to deal with that one first?”

“Mm.”

At Gyo Yeon’s words, the instructor tilted his head and said, “Anything is fine. Hey.”

“I am Peng Dojun.”

“Right, Peng Family boy. Do you intend to change the order?”

“Hmm.”

Peng Dojun stared at Gyo Yeon and me. Was he going to throw a fit and say he wanted to fight first? He might.

If so, I could just give way.

I was looking at him as if telling him to say whatever he wanted, but—

“No? It’s fine. Our captain needs to warm up too.”

That bastard.

At Peng Dojun’s words, I clicked my tongue.

“Captain?”

“...That big guy wasn’t the captain?”

“Then that kept pretty-boy is the captain?”

“Ha. That sounds ridiculous.”

Thanks to that, every gaze focused on me. Ah, damn it. I was going to just stay still.

“Captain, is it? You must be more impressive than you look. Yes, you’d have to be, to ignore me like that. Isn’t that right?”

He brought up what had happened last time. Hearing that, I smacked my lips and said,

“...Are you the narrow-minded type?”

“Maybe? I’m the type who has to repay anything done to me.”

“If we’re being exact, you were the one who picked a fight, so why me?”

“Anything is fine. The reason has no meaning. I don’t like you.”

Red energy slowly rose around Gyo Yeon’s hand. It was the same thing I had seen last time.

“Come out, kept pretty-boy. I’ll tear up that proud face of yours.”

“...”

I sighed.

In this situation, it seemed I could not avoid it after all.

Why from the first day?

Why did it have to turn out like this from the first day?

My luck really was filthy. This was the moment when I felt that keenly.

*****

There was no need to move.

A sparring ground was located right in front of us, and it was enough for the crowd to step far away.

The instructor, Eight Shadow Blade, stood in the center and made the two of us face each other.

What had he called it? A Holy Cult Battle? From what I heard, it was just a training method where they made everyone brawl to commemorate the first day of training.

Apparently, they assigned numbers accordingly and called people by those numbers.

With this many people, I wondered how they intended to manage it.

Whatever the case, it seemed they intended to hold the first spar as a one-on-one bout like this.

“Fight when you’re ready.”

That was a remarkably irresponsible thing for a judge to say.

Rustle.

Gyo Yeon heard those words and took his stance.

“Shall I let you attack first? Say so if you’re scared.”

“...”

Were those words fixed or something? They all said the exact same thing.

Hmm.

I watched him and thought for a moment. What should I do? After hesitating for an instant, something suddenly came to mind.

[What is there to think about?]

[All you need to do is destroy everything.]

Those were the words of the evil ghost bound to my sword.

Destroy everything.

What are you holding back for?

He isn’t wrong.

Now that I had come this far, there was no point in holding back or not holding back.

“That is not something the weaker side should say.”

“...Hah?”

I said it to Gyo Yeon. His expression crumpled when he heard me.

“Get your head straight and come at me. I’ll be disappointed if you’re too boring.”

“...You bastard.”

Ruuuuumble—!

Red energy erupted from his body. It was different from the Heaven-Slaying Star’s energy.

There was something fishy about it. A stench of blood. Could energy alone give off that kind of unpleasant sensation?

Swollen blood vessels and muscles bulging violently.

At a glance, he looked like a man who had quite the temper when it came to his fists.

“Fine. Let’s see how arrogant you can be. I’ll beat that visible arrogance to pieces.”

Ruuuuumble—!!!

Gyo Yeon said that and drew in all of his energy.

Baaang—!!!

He shattered the floor and charged. He became a red flash and closed in on me in an instant.

“Oh-ho.”

The instructor watched and exclaimed in admiration.

“His energy is stronger than last time. In that case, this will end more easily than I—”

Before he could even finish speaking—

Crunch—!! Kwaaaaang—!!!

“Ghk.”

“Huh?”

Gyo Yeon let out a short cry and was driven into the floor.

My fist had slammed into the face of the bastard who had been flying at me with all his might.

I smashed him straight down into the ground.

Kagagagagak—!!!

Fragments shot upward.

“Grruh...”

Gyo Yeon’s eyes rolled back, a fist mark clearly stamped into his face.

“Mm.”

I looked at him and said,

“What the hell? He’s insanely weak. Why did he act up?”

It was a more disappointing spar than I had expected.

Extremely so.

Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!