Martial Arts Worlds-Chapter 844: The Man Who Escaped Death

The lava ran down the black castle’s walls. It was really hot, like an inferno. The heat was unbearable, making the entire structure glow red in the darkness.

The Death’s servants stumbled down the hallways of the castle. They had gotten used to this heat by now.

It was normal in the hell.

Within the rock-walled throne room, Death sat in his throne with his right leg crossed over his left.

"Where... Are... You..."

He was holding a doll in his hand. A human doll. It was copying the appearance of Kiernan Hunter.

The same hair. The same face. The same body type. The same gray eyes.

With each pull, he plucked one of the hairs from the doll’s head.

"Master Death!"

In that moment, one of the dark Reapers entered the throne room through an open window, his cloak billowing behind him.

"That man has arrived. We saw him near the river of reincarnation. Junior Reapers went to intercept him!"

The Reaper said.

"Hahahahaha!"

Death laughed madly with his eyes rolling to the back of his skull, and he was laughing as if he had lost his goddamn mind.

The servants of the Death shuddered and kept sweeping the floors while trying to avoid eye contact with him.

"Those Junior Reapers are already dead. They cannot deal with him. Let’s see how far he’ll truly get before he is captured.

"Send Field Reapers next.

"If they also die by his hand, send Senior Reapers next.

"If even they cannot accomplish the task, send Elite Reapers, and if they fail, Arch Reapers next, haha!

"And lastly, if he somehow survives Arch Reapers, send the three Head Reapers. That should be enough to bring him down!"

Death said with a smirk.

The Reaper nodded, but then with hesitation, he asked, "What if Head Reapers also fail?" and then gulped once he asked the question.

While he didn’t think that Head Reapers could fail in any way, he had heard just so many scary rumors about Kiernan Hunter.

He was the only being in all of existence that managed to make Death look like a fool, and they knew how impossible a task that truly was.

"If Head Reapers somehow fail... Send them after them..."

Death said coldly.

"...Them... You mean...?"

The Reaper’s eyes widened in shock.

...

Swoosh~ Rustle~ Rustle~

Kiernan stood at the edge of a cliff with his clothes billowing against the cold eerie wind that was coming from the direction of Hell.

From all the way here, he could see the burning land of the Hell in the distance, and its heat was felt all the way here.

’What’ll happen if I jump into the river of reincarnation again? Get reincarnated in a completely different realm many years in the future?’

He wondered.

In that moment, he heard something and turned to look at the dark skies and saw something that resembled a flock of birds.

It was easy to mistake them for birds because of the black silhouettes, but once they got closer, their robes and appearance became clearer.

They were holding those chain hooks, and they resembled the people that he had just killed—the Reapers.

"The cavalry has finally arrived."

Kiernan said.

He’d been waiting, and his fist was already itching to hit something.

"You will answer for your crimes today, Kiernan Hunter. We’re the Field Reapers, and we’re here to bring you to justice."

The Reapers echoed as if they were one mind in multiple bodies.

"Hmph!"

Kiernan pressed his arm against his waist. Then, he leapt high into the air. He was soon surrounded by two dozen Field Reapers.

"Haaah!"

The Field Reapers shot their chain hooks towards Kiernan.

"Iron Smash!"

Kiernan punched, and his fist smashed through the chain hooks and evaporated the nearby Field Reapers with the force of his punch.

"Ah!"

One of the Field Reapers got hit by the shockwave of the punch, and half of his body was disintegrated instantly.

"I-I-Impossible..."

Countless Field Reapers fell from the sky and into their deaths.

"Celestial Scythe!"

Kiernan’s kick sliced through the air, and the Field Reapers got sliced in half, as if they had been cut by a sword.

Like dead birds, they kept falling from the sky and landing in a heap on the ground below.

Down below, in the Fields of the Judgment, the several souls noticed the sight of someone fighting all those Field Reapers.

"...Someone is fighting the Field Reapers?"

"...Wait... Did the Field Reapers just lose?"

The souls were shocked.

They were accompanied by about five Junior Reapers as they had to make sure that none of the souls escaped their judgment.

When they saw their superiors—the Field Reapers—die in such a manner, they all felt a chill deep in their bones.

The Field Reapers were at least twice as strong as them, and yet they didn’t stand a chance against this man.

’This is Kiernan Hunter? The man who escaped Death?’

With a quiet landing, Kiernan landed back at the cliff, overlooking the fields, and he acted like nothing happened.

’This is nothing. I can sense much stronger presences in the distance. They’re just slowly ramping up the difficulty, as if I am playing a video game.’

Kiernan thought coldly.

He was fine with it, as he was quite curious about how strong the forces of the afterlife truly were.

Rumble~ Rumble~

The sky rumbled, and in that moment, a bolt of lightning came crashing down through the dark clouds.

It was heading straight towards Kiernan!

"Lightning Rox."

Kiernan caught the lightning bolt with his two fingers and redirected it towards the ground beside him.

Boom!

The lightning bolt crashed into the ground and slowly dissipated.

Through the clouds, countless robed individuals descended, but there was something different about them.

Sure, they were still Reapers, but they had a strange aura of power emanating from them.

"We’re the Senior Reapers—we’ve been working under Death for as long as the river of reincarnation has flowed through these lands.

"And yet, we’ve never come across as insolent a soul as you are. Come with us, or we’ll drag you there by ourselves."

The Senior Reapers said coldly.

"Senior Reapers? And by sensing the power emanating from you, I can still say that they’re underestimating me quite a lot."

Kiernan said coldly, and then he extended two of his fingers in his right hand—index finger and middle finger—and then he jumped straight towards the Senior Reapers.

"Catch him!"

The Senior Reapers flew towards Kiernan—their hands trying to snatch him and countless chain hooks flying at him—yet he looked fearless.

"Iron Spear!"

Kiernan pushed forward his right hand—the fingers looking like the tip of a spear—and he stabbed through one of the Senior Reapers.

The attack continued, and the shockwave of the attack was shaped like an arrow—it kept flying and piercing through other Senior Reapers—a massive holes appeared in all of their bodies.

"Ah..."

"...T-this i-is not possible..."

With grunts of shocked disbelief, they kept falling from the sky as if they had lost their ability to fly.

Three Senior Reapers were left alive after this attack, and they all looked frightened after seeing their brethren die like that.

"R-Retreat..."

They started flying away, but with a single swing of his arm, Kiernan cut them all down with his hand.

"Ah..."

"To think that we died here..."

"I am sorry... Death..."

With that, the Senior Reapers also failed to retrieve Kiernan, and they all laid down on the ground—even more dead than the souls they’re tasked to reap.

Junior Reapers were newly appointed collectors of souls with limited authority and power. And they were, without a doubt, still weak.

They were tasked with taking the souls from the Chamber of the Beginning, through the Fields of Judgment, to the Hall of Judgment.

Field Reapers were fully trained reapers trusted to work independently. They handle routine soul collections.

Senior Reapers, on the other hand, were veterans. They manage dangerous souls who are so powerful that they wouldn’t be able to be taken care of by Field Reapers.

When Kiernan Hunter died in Earth as an old man, his soul was reaped by Senior Reaper, and even he couldn’t escape from one.

Yet, even they now died by his hands.

’I can sense that it is starting to become quite serious now. Something powerful is approaching. I guess they’re finally sending someone that is worth fighting for.’

Kiernan thought.

At that moment, from a distance away, several white-robed Reapers flew over. Close to ten of them—about nine with a quick count—and they didn’t look like they were here to joke around.

A normal soul would never see this kind of Reaper—Elite Reaper—who was exceptionally powerful and rare.

They were assigned to mass-death events, dimensional breaches, and rogue entities.

Elite Reapers usually handled souls that were strong enough to destroy worlds, but for them, it was just a normal afternoon.

"Come with u—"

The Elite Reaper was about to say, but then Kiernan punched him in the jaw and punched his head off his shoulders.

"CRASH IMPACT!"

With shocked looks, the rest of the Elite Reapers watched as one of them died in an instant.

"You are strong, sure, but you are nothing compared to me. The only one that can stop me is Death, so stop fucking hiding!"

Kiernan screamed.