Chapter 936: Chapter 934: Hanging
When Yi Chen rose from his state of absolute reverence, he felt neither any gaze upon him nor any pressure from above.
Only a dense death aura lingered within this temple.
Suddenly, Yi Chen realized something, and he immediately turned around, mustering all his power, and pushed the slightly ajar door shut to prevent the essence of death from escaping.
Precisely.
There was nothing in the inner hall, no living, no dead, not even concepts.
The death essence remaining in the inner chamber was quite limited; once it flowed away, it would never return. Yi Chen wished he could turn back time to recover the essence lost earlier.
After closing the door, he once again looked around the grand hall.
It resembled a desolate royal hall; many tattered long cloths still hung on the decaying walls, where the national seal should have been printed but had been torn away.
On the vast vacant expanse of the hall, there was no trace of any grand scenes of courtly homage, solitude being the only hue.
At the rear of the hall, a special throne was constructed,
and what made it special was that underneath it lay something—a gallows, the simplest type of wooden gallows seen in every execution ground.
Though wooden, it had not decayed with this temple, retaining its original form, standing firm and supporting the throne.
Upon the throne lay a person, or rather, a corpse devoid of any aura or perception.
Clad fully in a gilded black robe,
wearing a broken crown upon their head,
their face wrapped in damp bandages,
from the robe’s design and the throne, it was not hard to tell that this was likely the master of the temple, or even a ruler of some dynasty.
Combined with the gallows and the wet bandages, Yi Chen could be quite certain this was the person he was searching for, the one who granted him the death divinity.
However, no matter how much Yi Chen tried to permeate death or gazed at the entity on the throne, no response came, appearing as though it was a hollow shell.
With doubts in his heart, he approached the foot of the gallows in a state of devout kneeling, kowtowing every three steps.
As he ascended the steps, he expected some essence to envelop him, dragging Yi Chen towards an execution scene,
yet nothing transpired; it was only an ordinary climb up the steps, reaching the gallows.
"This gallows is incomplete, missing the crucial execution rope; has it been taken by the throne?"
Arriving before the throne, it remained the same sparse ordinariness, eliciting no response.
This time, Yi Chen did not kneel, for since entering the hall, he had already been acknowledged; it was no longer a matter of reverence or not.
Since all indirect perceptions were useless, perhaps the only way to gather information was through direct contact.
Yi Chen extended his hand, slowly touching the body of the one on the throne.
He neither touched the hands nor caressed the attire, directly reaching towards the mysterious face wrapped in bandages.
No mysterious force guided Yi Chen to peer into the opponent’s visage,
instead, it was his own curiosity that wanted to see what scene lay beneath, seeking the missing rope from the gallows.
As the bandages wound around the face were unraveled one by one, Yi Chen’s countenance became grave,
and once all the damp cloths fell to the ground, an unimaginable visage met Yi Chen’s gaze and would be eternally etched into his memory,
the entire face was but a void, as if hollowed out, yet also as though it had always been this way.
Viewed alone, it was unremarkable, a specimen that some face-loving perverted killing maniac could probably produce several of in a day.
But placed alongside the throne and gallows,
the missing rope was found... it was precisely this person’s [F A C E].
The throne was the gallows,
the face was the rope,
with no need to loop the head in a noose, no need to ascend that unattainably high execution platform, without any executioner or support frame,
from the moment one became a king, they were in a state of hanging death.
Though there was still no spiritual transmission or thought medium, in Yi Chen’s mind, based on the ’beautiful scene’ before him, emerged two words.
「Hanging King」
At the same time, the king’s corpse, unwrapped from its bandages, turned to ashes and scattered, leaving nothing behind.
No carvings, no sounds,
only this desolate, empty temple and the throne upon the gallows.
But Yi Chen comprehended many things, his eyes becoming bright, resolving the issues that had hovered in his heart.
"So that’s it...it’s like this...of the countless lives in the myriad worlds, with innumerable deaths occurring every second, why at that particular moment was I, an unformed child, chosen? And to be the designated sole disciple and successor.
Perhaps I do possess certain uniqueness,
maybe I am somewhat closer to death,
yet I am definitely not the most unique, nor the most suitable deceased among these innumerable worlds.
In terms of talent, the white Reaper from Sick Focus and the First Dead Man are no weaker than me.
The true reason I was chosen lies in the instant the Hanging King died; I too happened to die...though in that instant, there may have been a thousand death events, I was the one chosen.
Luck, perhaps?"
Just then, a voice reached Yi Chen’s ear.
≮ Death Guide has become effective, Sunken Death Temple (inner hall) teleportation point activated; you may reach the current area using the hanging rope ≯
"Randomly selecting someone as the heir, leaving the Dead Sea and this temple, pursuing ’true death’ themselves.
Did they truly die, leaving not even a concept?
Or did the Hanging King entirely leave through death, departing from the Main Material Plane, leaving this Multi-Universe, venturing outside to the ’true beyond’?
Perhaps even the Hanging King himself didn’t have absolute confidence in reaching the ’outside’; otherwise, given his personality, there’d be no need to cultivate me as a disciple at the last moment.
It was because he was unsure whether he would be completely dead that he made such insurance.
If he did not reach outside, maybe I, as the inheritor of the Dead Sea, still have a chance.
All that was left was to draw me to the Dead Sea; it was to prevent this sole heir from completely retracing his path of death.
Otherwise, if he couldn’t go out, neither would my complete reenactment of his death lead outside.
What I gained was only entry permission to the Dead Sea; my understanding of death relies on myself, yet fortunately, my experiences at Sick Focus have let my death understanding transcend the Dead Sea, introducing other elements.
Though, I must say, the Hanging King’s insight into death far surpasses mine.
Just this ideological setup of relics, throne, and gallows is enough to benefit me greatly, taking at least a month to properly digest."
With that thought,
Yi Chen did not kneel again but instead bowed deeply towards the throne like a gentleman.
Since the authority here was left to him, Yi Chen graciously sat upon the throne, feeling the solitude, savoring the depth of death.