Underworld Emperor — World’s End: My Keyword is One More Than Others

The Underworld Emperor is the quasi-saint ruler responsible for the dead, reincarnation, and the administration of the underworld. He initially approaches Du Ge because the imposed Twilight of the Gods is consuming his strength, but exchanges techniques with him and becomes part of the coalition against the Celestial Emperor. Seeking a way beyond his cultivation ceiling, he later enters another battlefield as an Alien Star warrior, develops the keyword Greed, and works with Eastern Emperor Donghua before rejoining Du Ge.

Biography

Leaving the underworld under the Twilight of the Gods

The Underworld Emperor stands outside the Celestial Court's ordinary administration as the sovereign who governs dead souls, assesses their lives, and directs them toward service or reincarnation. That separation initially lets him observe Du Ge's Human Emperor movement without committing himself. Du Ge deliberately removes that option by declaring the Twilight of the Gods: the resulting tribulation weakens the oldest powers and forces the Emperor to leave his domain rather than wait for the celestial and mortal factions to settle the crisis for him. He arrives at Mount Sumeru intending to demand an account, but Du Ge's human fortune and merit make a direct attack dangerous. (Chapters 543, 547, and 582–584)

Du Ge turns the Emperor's grievance into ambition, arguing that the tribulation is an opportunity to seek sainthood and that defeating the Celestial Emperor can remove its immediate cause. The Underworld Emperor remains skeptical, tests Du Ge with a deathly aura, and questions whether body possession would merely exchange one form of control for another. He nevertheless agrees to exchange cultivation methods after Du Ge asks for instruction in soul arts. The bargain brings Du Ge into the underworld and gives the Emperor access to Du Ge's composite technique, while the speed and unusual behavior of Du Ge's soul cultivation convince him that cooperation may offer a path beyond merely preserving his old throne. (Chapters 584–586)

Fighting the Celestial Court and pursuing transcendence

Once allied, the Underworld Emperor serves as one of the coalition's principal quasi-saint combatants. His forces join the human and demon armies, while he uses his cultivation and the Wheel of Reincarnation to threaten souls directly. He helps arrest the celestial offensive by carrying a keyword user into battle and preventing three senior celestial leaders from escaping, then accompanies Du Ge beneath the Tongtian Jianmu despite warning that the tree halves their access to spiritual power. He holds off the Celestial Emperor while Du Ge protects the rule-based fighters, helping convert an uncertain rescue into the decisive collapse of celestial resistance. (Chapters 589–594)

Victory does not provide the breakthrough he sought. Even after Gao Ming's skills complete his Dao resonance, he remains trapped at quasi-saint rather than reaching sainthood. He therefore chooses a more radical route: possessing an Alien Star warrior, leaving the world he ruled, and experiencing keywords directly. After the battlefield ends, his possessed identity returns among the survivors and gathers around Du Ge on Qi Yuan Star. He then enters the multiversal battlefield as a natural ally, accepting the danger because ordinary cultivation has already failed to carry him beyond his established limit. (Chapters 595–597)

Developing Greed and joining the final coalition

The Underworld Emperor's new host lands on an unaligned third-class planet and receives Greed, a keyword suited to extracting value from political control. He encounters Eastern Emperor Donghua, and the pair choose to strengthen themselves locally before approaching the interstellar war. Their cooperation lets them eliminate rival Alien Star warriors and take control of Latak. Although Donghua grows uneasy about Du Ge's motives, the Underworld Emperor argues that delay risks ending the battlefield before either of them learns anything, so they continue toward their former ally and are among the first familiar powers to answer Du Ge's public summons. (Chapters 617, 631, and 641)

Greed raises the Underworld Emperor to power comparable to a God King by taking strength and life from those under his rule, but that success also creates a dangerous dependency on formal jurisdiction. Before the final battle he asks Du Ge for an office that would place more beings beneath his authority and allow him to grow further. Du Ge refuses because an instinctive warning accompanies the proposed appointment, leaving the Emperor disappointed and outside the assault team. Soon afterward, the final battlefield's Alien Star warriors are simultaneously extracted from their hosts; his later personal condition is not established, while Du Ge retains the emptied Greed-bearing body and declines to exploit its universe-wide potential. (Chapters 642–647 and 653)

Appearance and personality

The Underworld Emperor appears as an elusive ancient sovereign whose presence locks the surrounding space and whose cold, deathly aura can envelop an entire hall. He is treated as the Demon Emperor's equal and is sufficiently formidable that Great Golden Immortals and demon kings become tense when he arrives. His manner is restrained rather than submissive: he returns Du Ge's greeting as an equal, challenges arguments that threaten his interests, and agrees to cooperation only when the exchange offers a concrete route toward knowledge and power. (Chapter 584)

He is cautious, ambitious, and pragmatic. He recognizes the danger of the Jianmu before entering its domain, investigates the limits of body possession before accepting it, and prefers consolidating a planet to rushing into a God War underpowered. At the same time, prolonged stagnation makes transcendence more important to him than preserving the underworld's old division of authority. His willingness to drain an entire jurisdiction through Greed shows how far that ambition can go, although his loyalty to Du Ge remains a negotiated alliance rather than unconditional devotion. (Chapters 586, 592, 617, 631, and 642–643)

Keywords, skills, and cultivation

Quasi-saint authority and soul cultivation

The Underworld Emperor is a quasi-saint whose native power is centered on death, yin energy, and souls. His Heavenly Dao Underworld Domain Technique draws on the underworld's yin energy or directly absorbs ghost souls, strengthens the practitioner through the soul rather than the dantian, and naturally restrains incorporeal dead. It also includes methods for devouring, imprisoning, and controlling souls. The technique is domineering and conflicts with many ordinary worldly methods, making mixed cultivation hazardous; it is most efficient in the underworld, where yin energy is abundant. (Chapters 584–585)

His cultivation supports a deathly pressure capable of contesting Du Ge's Dark God power, large-scale ghost manifestations, and direct participation in quasi-saint combat. He can resist the Celestial Emperor under unfavorable conditions and conceal action from weaker observers, but he is not invulnerable. The Jianmu suppresses his access to spiritual power, the Celestial Emperor's sword can disperse his ghost army, and Du Ge eventually exceeds him in direct combat. Completing his Dao resonance does not remove the final barrier to sainthood, which is why he abandons reliance on cultivation alone. (Chapters 584, 591–595)

Greed keyword

Greed grows through acquisition and exploitation. Its first derived skill, Heaven Is Three Feet High, makes every creature within the Underworld Emperor's jurisdiction subject to his plundering. The skill does not restrict what may be taken: after establishing rules for his territory, he can seize not only property but cultivation, power, and life itself. Its reach therefore scales with lawful authority rather than ordinary attack range, but the benefit accrues only to him and depends on targets being under his jurisdiction. (Chapters 617 and 642)

The second skill, Exorbitant Levy, allows him to invent a pretext and use forceful means to plunder a chosen target. Together, the two skills let him drain enough strength and life from a planet to approach God King-level power. Their chief limits are political and strategic: the method enriches one person at everyone else's expense, exposure invites unified suppression, and expanding its passive reach requires a larger office or territory. Du Ge's refusal to appoint him as a God King prevents the skills from drawing on the whole conquered universe. (Chapters 642–643 and 647)

After the mass extraction, the Greed skills remain embedded in the host body rather than departing with its possessor. Du Ge verifies that a split soul inserted into that body can activate both skills, but removes the split soul afterward because the body may contain a hidden avenue for outside control. He stores it instead of permanently using it, leaving Heaven Is Three Feet High and Exorbitant Levy available in principle but inactive in the Underworld Emperor's own hands at the end of the period. (Chapters 646–647)

Relationships

Du Ge: Du Ge causes the Twilight of the Gods that forces the Underworld Emperor into the conflict, then converts him through a mixture of threat, technique exchange, and promised transcendence. They fight as allies and enter another battlefield on the same side, but both understand the relationship as mutual use. The Emperor still seeks Du Ge when isolated, while Du Ge later refuses to expand his jurisdiction after sensing danger. (Chapters 584–586, 596–597, 631, and 641–643)
Eastern Emperor Donghua: The two meet after receiving their final keywords and form a practical partnership on the same third-class planet. Donghua's rumor-based skill helps the Underworld Emperor seize Latak, while the Underworld Emperor's Greed supplies their principal combat power. He also steadies Donghua's doubts and persuades him to continue toward Du Ge before the battlefield closes. (Chapters 617, 631, and 642)
Celestial Emperor: The Underworld Emperor joins the coalition because the Celestial Emperor's fall offers a possible way to end the Twilight of the Gods. He later confronts the celestial ruler directly, restraining him under the Jianmu long enough for Du Ge and the keyword users to dismantle the celestial army. (Chapters 584, 589, and 592–595)
Gao Ming: Gao Ming's rule-based abilities help complete the Underworld Emperor's Dao resonance and change the conditions of the war, but cannot lift him from quasi-saint to saint. That incomplete success becomes part of the reason the Emperor chooses body possession and keyword cultivation. (Chapters 591–595)

Items

Wheel of Reincarnation: The Underworld Emperor's companion treasure reflects the fates of billions, entangles cause and effect, determines life and death, and can pull a soul from its body. It is strongest against a few nearby targets; affecting more people or acting at greater distance weakens its pull, and extracting souls at Great Golden Immortal level or above has a much lower success rate. Its principal purpose is judgment and observation rather than direct offense. (Chapter 589)
Technique jade plate: He records the Heavenly Dao Underworld Domain Technique on a jade plate and gives Du Ge access as part of their exchange. The plate transmits a soul-specialized method that can absorb yin energy or ghosts but carries serious compatibility risks for ordinary cultivators. (Chapter 584)