Immortal Paladin

506 Four Horsemen

In the beginning, there were four brothers born from the twisted will of their father. First came Conquest, the living emblem of falsehood, who heralded the rise of false prophets and the corruption of truth. After Conquest followed War, the unrelenting force that shattered peace and drenched the earth in endless conflict and bloodshed. In War’s savage wake came Famine, who stirred starvation, economic ruin, and desperate hoarding until fields lay barren and bellies ached with nothing but hollow echoes. And as the three advanced, calamity bloomed ever greater until the last brother, Death, wrapped them all in his cold embrace, spawning plague upon plague and multiplying sorrow until the world itself cried out for release.

These four horsemen were no accident of fate. Their dastardly creator was none other than the Supreme Death himself. Once a mortal man of the Source—the world known as Earth—he had devoured the Bible as his only sustenance in a foreign and hostile realm. In his isolation, the sacred words warped inside him, transforming the seeker of salvation into a grotesque perversion of his own faith. Every sin he committed in that strange land weighed upon his soul until, in his final agony and dying breath, he prayed for deliverance. No one answered. In that moment of utter despair, he embraced the sweetest salvation he could imagine: becoming Supreme Death, the father of apocalypse.

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[POV: Conquest]

Conquest stepped into the strange pocket dimension with measured confidence, his newly crafted form radiating a dastardly handsomeness that felt both powerful and unnatural.

The air carried a faint scent of incense and something sweeter, more carnal.

Before him sprawled an oddly mundane living room hidden away from the cosmos itself. A large sofa dominated the center of the space, facing a glowing television screen. Erotic pin-up posters adorned the walls, their subjects frozen in provocative poses that spoke of pleasures long forgotten in the memories of his father creator.

On that sofa lounged the Supreme Heart. He appeared completely relaxed, one arm draped lazily over the backrest. Above him, suspended from the ceiling by an intricate web of ropes, hung a beautiful woman. Her supple skin gleamed under soft lighting, and her shapely breasts were displayed without shame in the elaborate bondage. She remained perfectly still, reduced to little more than living decoration for the hedonistic deity.

“Okay, this is really awkward,” Supreme Heart remarked with a lazy grin, his eyes scanning Conquest from head to toe. “Supreme Death sent you, didn’t he? You look different. Not the sickly, balding, pock-marked version I remember. Definitely not the beautiful babe you turned into last time either.”

“Unfortunately, this lowly one came on his own will.”

Conquest offered a slow, calculated smile. Gone was the previous visage he had worn. In its place stood a strikingly handsome man, every feature deliberately sculpted as part of a grand scheme to seize his father’s throne. War knew only violence, Famine understood nothing but consumption, and their eldest brother Death was too slothful to pose any real threat. Only Conquest believed he alone deserved to rule.

“O Supreme Heart, Immortal God of Humanity, One of the Six Supremes,” he began formally, “I have come—”

“Stop right there with the preamble,” Supreme Heart interrupted, waving a dismissive hand. “I’m only entertaining you because I’m genuinely flabbergasted that you actually found me here. Let me make this clear. I’m a very busy dude. My short breaks for real relaxation are getting rarer as the metaphorical end of humanity draws closer, and that’s seriously killing all the fun. Lately I find myself more occupied upstairs—” he tapped his temple, “—than downstairs.” He gestured pointedly toward his groin. “Sometimes I can’t even get it up because of the stress! So when I finally manage to, I want to enjoy it properly.”

Conquest nodded once, maintaining his composed demeanor. “My apologies.”

Supreme Heart leaned forward slightly, studying him with sharp interest. “Just to be sure… this is the first time you’re meeting me, correct? You don’t have any weird missing memories or anything?”

Conquest knew the Six Supremes were notoriously eccentric, and the Supreme Heart was perhaps the strangest among them. He decided to speak plainly.

“I devised a scheme both dexterous and wise,” he explained. “A plan to claim my father’s throne safely, without perishing in the process. I set Da Wei against my brothers, earning his favor while ensuring my father’s death. Yet my father’s fall would also mean my own. I ask for your grace, O Supreme Heart. Allow my life to persist alongside yours. Let Conquest serve you. Command me to kill, to lie, to seduce… whatever you desire. I am yours.”

A sly grin spread across Supreme Heart’s face, his eyes gleaming with amusement and something darker.

“Oh, you treacherous snake,” he chuckled. “I can see right through you. That power of yours is incredible! The ability to split and isolate your personalities, creating versions of yourself so convincing that even you start to believe them. You say these beautiful, loyal things, but I know you intend to be just as venomous to me as you were to your brothers and your father. And you know what? I like it. It’s very human. This is interesting. This is fun! It excites me almost as much as imagining the grimace on Da Wei’s face when he realizes he’s been played.”

Supreme Heart laughed heartily, clearly delighted by the betrayal unfolding before him.

“This is perfect, really. Do it for me, my little piece of cancer. I might accept you, but only if you run a little errand first. What do you think of a bit of trolling?”

Conquest’s lips curved into a matching grin, sharp and eager.

“Tell me to craft a dark comedy that will make you laugh,” he replied smoothly, “and I shall make it unforgettable.”

Supreme Heart threw his head back and roared with laughter.

“THAT’S THE SPIRIT!”

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[POV: War]

In the desolate reaches of the Second Layer of the Underworld stretched a barren world stripped of all life and light. Flags crafted from human skin hung everywhere, suspended from invisible ropes like corpses left to swing after a mass hanging. The air itself felt heavy and wrong, carrying only the faint metallic scent of dried blood and the distant echo of swallowed stars.

No celestial body hung in the sky above them. There was no sun, no moon, no distant stars. Famine had devoured them all long ago, leaving behind nothing but this hollow shell of a planet. As the second eldest of the brothers, Famine stood only below Death in raw strength, and even Supreme Death himself had once acknowledged that terrifying power. War had arrived with every intention of forging an alliance, yet he could already sense how much his brother had changed. The fact that Famine was now recruiting warriors from other realms spoke volumes. The old Famine would have taken everything for himself, leaving nothing behind and fighting alone. The mere act of gathering subordinates suggested a new, dangerous maturity.

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“FAMINE, I WANT TO TALK!” War bellowed, his powerful voice cutting through the emptiness. He stood tall and imposing, a handsome blond man whose deep red eyes burned with restless ambition. “I’ve traveled through many layers to reach your abode! I spared the soldiers you hired from the other realms! I showed my face openly to save yours! I must say I admire how quickly you can raise an army, but this isn’t just your style, brother. Let’s talk over mead and discuss our future together. Us brothers don’t need to fight!”

As the second youngest among the four, War was far from naive. He knew better than to challenge a Supreme Being directly. Even if his cultivation surpassed theirs and he managed to defeat them in battle, the stories spoke clearly of the special destiny that shielded each Supreme from true destruction. Escape or survival was almost guaranteed for them. If he truly wished to bring down the existence known as Supreme Bearer, he would need far more power than he currently possessed.

He had come to this forsaken layer specifically to convince his brother to join forces. War shouted again, his voice echoing across the empty expanse. “SHOW YOURSELF!”

One of the skin flags suddenly snapped free from its invisible rope and fluttered through the air before being caught by another unseen line. Slowly, the grotesque banner transformed, taking the shape of a sickly, emaciated man whose body flapped violently against invisible winds. An invisible rope solidified into a spear that jammed itself straight through Famine’s throat. He looked like a tattered flag whipping in a storm, pinned to an unseen pole.

With a wet, tearing sound, Famine ripped the spear free from his throat. The rest of his body gradually took solid form. A swirling black hole bloomed from his dantian, causing his torso to vanish entirely. The sight was grotesque as his body appeared split in half, yet somehow remained intact, with the floating upper half hovering above the devouring void connected to his lower body. In the center of that black hole, a set of ancient judgment scales slowly materialized and began to balance themselves.

“No. Need. For. Mead,” Famine uttered in a slow, hollow voice that seemed to echo from the abyss itself. “WE. MUST. SAVE. FATHER.”

War’s lips curled into a wide, satisfied grin. He had not expected the conversation to progress so smoothly.

“Oh, brother, I am glad you still have a filial bone left in your body,” he replied, his tone warm yet laced with calculation. “I guessed the middle children have to stick together, huh?”

Famine shook his head slowly, the movement jerky and unnatural as he explained.

“WISHED. TO. DEVOUR. FATHER. MYSELF.”

That answer aligned far more closely with the Famine that War remembered from old times. Still, it brought him a strange sense of relief and opportunity.

“Indeed… indeed…” War murmured, his red eyes gleaming with dark ambition as new possibilities unfolded in his mind.

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[POV: Famine]

Famine remained motionless long after his brother had departed, his half-formed body hovering above the endless black hole that served as his core. The barren world around him felt even emptier now, the skin flags hanging limp and silent on their invisible ropes. He turned his gaze toward the empty space beside him, his voice emerging in slow, fractured syllables that echoed like grinding bones.

“Is. That. To. Your. Sa. Tis. Fac. Tion?”

“Of course it is, my disciple!” replied a cheerful voice that seemed to come from nowhere and everywhere at once.

A single grotesque floating eye materialized in the void, small and bulbous, its pupil a swirling vortex of darkness. A long time ago, when Famine had dared challenge his eldest brother, the battle had left him with a devastating injury that crippled his power. Recovery would have taken millions of years with no guarantee of full restoration. In his desperation, he had reached into the deepest void, and this eye had answered his call.

The Four Horsemen and most spawns of the Supreme Beings knew almost nothing about the true horrors of the Age of Divinity, when the Supreme Void had reigned supreme on the battlefield and clashed directly with the Origin itself. That ignorance might one day lead to Famine’s destruction, yet he cared little for such warnings. His only concern remained the endless, gnawing hunger that churned inside him, a bottomless pit that even the void itself could never truly fill.

Unlike War, he lacked burning ambition, and unlike Conquest, he possessed none of the clever wit for survival. What he did possess was an appetite so vast and unrelenting that it more than compensated for every shortcoming. Once, long ago, he had been the weakest of the four brothers. Had it not been for that monstrous hunger, he would have wasted away into nothing. He still blamed Death for cutting his consumption short, just when he had been so close to devouring the entire Underworld layer by layer.

“Mas. Ter,” Famine uttered slowly, his words dragging like stones across gravel. “Can. I. Eat. Da. Wei?”

The floating eye giggled through Qi speech, the sound high-pitched and disturbingly playful.

“Oh please! Suckle on him. Gnash him between your teeth. Destroy him completely,” it encouraged with gleeful malice. “He thought he could seal me? Ha ha ha~! I look forward to waking from my slumber and punishing him for his affront! But if he perishes now, I’m perfectly fine with that too, my disciple! That son of a bitch! I’M THE SUPREME VOID, YOU PIECE OF SHIT, DA WEI! I WILL FUCK YOUR SHIT UP!”

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[POV: Death]

In the dim, timeless depths of a cave within the First Layer of the Underworld, two figures sat across from each other at a simple stone table, engaged in a long-running board game. One was an older gentleman with pale, almost translucent skin and ghostly white eyes. This was Duan Fen, the former Yama King of the First Layer, long since retired from his duties. Opposite him sat a dark-skinned boy with curly hair, dressed in regal black robes that seemed to absorb what little light existed in the cavern. He was known to the world as Death, the eldest of the Four Horsemen and the mightiest among them. Some had begun calling him Unsupreme Death behind his back, a mocking reminder of his father’s overwhelming supremacy.

“Hm. We’ve played this mortal game for over tens of thousand years now,” Death remarked quietly, his voice carrying the weight of ages. “I still don’t understand its appeal.” 𝘧𝑟𝑒𝑒𝘸𝘦𝘣𝑛𝑜𝘷𝑒𝓁.𝘤𝘰𝓂

“Yet you keep coming back to play with me,” Duan Fen replied with a faint, knowing smile.

“Because you insist,” Death answered dryly. “And because you’re bored.”

Duan Fen chuckled softly as he studied the board. “That’s what happens when you hide yourself away from the rest of the universe, tucked away in fear for your own dear life. Or perhaps the shame of being powerless against the tyranny of your father and your siblings is what keeps me here. You are not free of blame either, for the countless souls that have perished beneath your gaze.”

“You’ve grown more and more brazen over the years,” Death observed calmly. With a subtle movement of his finger, he completed his strategy. “Checkmate.”

Duan Fen pulled out a small notebook and made a careful tally. “That brings my record to eighty thousand two hundred thirty-two losses and two wins.”

Death leaned back slightly, his dark eyes studying the old man. “Why do you continue this futile task?”

A small, satisfied smile crossed Duan Fen’s lips. “Because it is proof that you can be beaten. The first time, you might claim you let your guard down or that you allowed me to win. They were words befitting either a sore loser or the arrogance of the strong. I could never tell which. But by the second victory, I knew that success could be replicated. Who knows what I might learn by the third?”

Death let out a long, weary sigh. “Persistent old ghost.”

With a single elegant gesture, he rearranged the board and turned it around, along with all the pieces, giving Duan Fen the first move. “Even if you are given different pieces, the result will ultimately be the same. That is what it means to be Supreme, and I am closer to Supremacy than you will ever be.”

Duan Fen made his opening move with deliberate care. “Yet here you are, coming to this old man and seeking advice on how to save your kin. You don’t show it openly, but you do love your brothers. You once told me how the four of you inherited the fragmented memories of your father, the Supreme Death. The youngest, Conquest, carries the most fragile memories of weakness, which made him meek and cowardly, reliant on his cunning. Yet those same memories fuel an arrogance that pierces the heavens, born from a stolen sense of triumph. The second youngest holds memories of pure rage and fury, and like his namesake, War knows only how to fight, hurt, and take. Then there is Famine, who understands nothing but devouring and trying to fill what is eternally empty, unaware that the more he consumes, the larger the void grows until nothing remains but famine itself. It makes me wonder what kind of man your creator was in his mortal life, to possess memories that birthed such troublesome sons. How about you, Death? What kind of memories do you carry?”

Death remained silent for a moment. He carried memories of countless deaths of loved ones, hated enemies, innocent neighbors, and strangers alike. Because of those memories, he had learned to cherish life in his own quiet way, though he found it difficult to express such feelings. In the end, he was Death. He was unloved, uncared for, and instinctively avoided by all.

“Let’s just play,” Death said at last, his voice soft but firm. “I didn’t come for advice this time. Things are already set in motion. I can no longer stop what is coming. I can only wait and see whether my efforts will bear fruit, or if it will all prove futile in the end, like a quail’s egg thumping against a rock, only to shatter upon impact.”

Duan Fen smiled wryly, his ghostly eyes twinkling with quiet amusement. “So poetic. You make this old man want to cry. All those nonsensical proverbs I spat at you over the years seem to have had a good effect after all. Congratulations, young master. You’ve become a bit more cultured.”