Chapter 481: Supreme being of Death

His legs shook as he forced himself straight, using the wall for support. Blood dripped from his chin, and each breath scorched his throat. Still, his legs moved on their own, guiding him out of the room and then onto the terrace once again.

The cold night air hit him like a wall. He welcomed it. At least this cold wasn’t trying to kill him.

But the moment he reached the edge, another wave of pain tore through him. He dropped to his knees, slamming hard onto the stone floor.

He could barely hold himself up—but he forced himself to.

Not out of pride. Not out of stubbornness.

But because the answer—the cause of all this—was standing right in front of him.

His half-lidded eyes flicked upward, meeting the shadowed figure before him.

“Wh–who… are… you…” Julian managed to utter, each word tearing through his throat like shards of glass.

A tall, lean man stood beneath the moonlight. His long black hair shimmered faintly with an eerie gleam, as though it contained a void within. Those eyes—his eyes—were endless. They weren’t just dark. They were the abyss. Cold, merciless, and so deep that Julian felt his soul slipping toward them.

Dressed in a black kimono, he seemed simple in form yet utterly unnatural. The fabric didn’t merely cling to his body—it belonged to it, part of him like flesh and blood. It moved with no wind, rather fluttered with his thoughts, alive in some unspoken way.

Kin… King of… Apollo…

The single realization made everything clear to Julian. His mind tried to reject it, but the signs were all too clear.

The death of the old Apollo king without warning. The sudden rise of a mysterious young ruler no one truly saw. Katsuna’s tale of meeting a man who made her want to worship. The slow corruption in the mana of the world.

It was him.

The man before him. No—not a man.

A presence that didn’t belong in this world.

This… this was the source. Not a king. Not a mortal.

But the will of Death itself, cloaked in flesh.

Julian’s body trembled, blood now dripping freely from his lips. The rebellion of his energies made sense now.

The Authority of Death within him had never bowed to him. Because it already had a master.

And now, that master had arrived.

The figure chuckled softly, sensing Julian’s swirl of emotion.

“Commendable, Julian,” the being whispered, voice neither loud nor soft, neither near nor far. “I did not think you would come this far.”

The words didn’t enter Julian’s ears. They entered his soul. He felt them more than he heard them. His knees nearly gave out, and for the first time since his birth, he truly felt it—felt fear.

This wasn’t the fear that came from being outmatched. It was something more powerful. Something instinctual.

The kind of fear that bows to no pride, no authority, no meaning.

The being smiled faintly, as if seeing into the deepest roots of Julian’s soul.

“Do you feel it now? The truth,” he said. “Even supreme energies kneel in the face of origin. You took Death’s power but never asked what it was.”

Julian’s vision blurred for a moment, but he gritted his teeth. Blood painted his chin, but his eyes refused to lower.

“…what are you?” He whispered desperately.

But no answers came.

Only suffocating silence.

Then,

“I pity you, Julian Easvil,” Death finally murmured, his gaze no longer fixed on Julian but drifting toward the horizon, as if even looking at him was a waste of effort. “Caught in the games of gods, destined to die like a pawn.”

Julian’s bloodshot eyes widened. “What do you mean?” he asked hoarsely. “Are you saying… this was someone else’s game all along?”

Death turned back to him slowly, his eyes glinting with a cruel serenity.

“Of course,” he said softly, his smile curling to a smirk. “Or do you truly think you were privileged enough to accomplish all this by your own will?”

The words landed like daggers. Julian, who had clawed his way up from a duke’s son to an archduke and who had bent the world around him through force, wit, and charisma—now stood accused of being nothing more than a recipient.

That wasn’t just an insult.

It was a degradation of his entire being.

Death continued, stepping forward. “Dimiour must’ve chosen you. That fool is always meddling—handing out toys to desperate men with delusions of grandeur.”

Julian’s lips parted in confusion. “Dimiour…?” he repeated, uncertain.

At that, Death’s expression twisted into something venomous, something hateful, something Julian did not expect it would.

“That fucking creation,” he hissed, his voice trembling with hatred. “Even now, after all this time, he dares to interfere. To counter my hand with his own pathetic champions. He thinks light can save the world…”

He chuckled darkly, shaking his head as if amused by some cosmic joke. “Tell me, Julian. Does it feel like you’re being saved?”

Julian was silent.

Because in this moment—gasping, bleeding, kneeling in the presence of a god’s disdain—it didn’t. It felt like every step he had taken was preordained by hands far greater, far older, and far more terrifying than he’d ever imagined.

His will was strong. His ambition unmatched. But in the shadow of divine agendas, even that began to feel… fragile.

And Death—watching—enjoyed that.

But what surprised Julian more was the emotion that followed.

It wasn’t despair that he thought it would.

It was… relief.

A strange, quiet relief, like finally understanding a cruel riddle that had haunted him all his life.

His breath steadied as he sat there bloodied and broken, eyes locked on the god of death. So this is what it was…

Perhaps his path had been manipulated. Perhaps the energies he thought he had earned had simply been handed to him, placed like bait on a string by higher powers. But even so—he had walked that path. He had made his own choices. Loved, ruled, defied, and desired in the way he wanted.

He had lived his life.

“I do not regret anything,” he murmured to himself, voice low but firm. “Not one fucking thing.”