Chapter 60
The air in the training room was suffocating, thick with the weight of my own thoughts. My breathing was steady, measured—but inside, I was anything but calm.
"Not enough," I muttered, scrolling through my inventory with clenched jaw.
For too long, I'd been careful—picking weapons with precision and restraint, convincing myself that skill and tactics would be enough. Then that eldritch horror appeared—something beyond magic, beyond strength, twisting reality and shattering minds with its mere presence. People had died. Not because I was weak or hesitated, but because I was ignorant and arrogant.
I exhaled sharply, my fingers hovering over a category I'd ignored for far too long.
[Cosmic Slayers]
"Why the hell didn't I take these before?" I asked the empty room as I scrolled through weapons designed for one purpose—killing the unkillable. Voidpiercer, Black Star Epitaph, The All-Ending Scythe—each crafted specifically to combat horrors beyond mortal comprehension.
I reached into the void and pulled. The moment my fingers wrapped around the hilt, the entire room shifted. Temperature dropped. Walls groaned under invisible pressure. The weapon—sleek, black as the abyss, its surface pulsing with something wrong—hummed unlike anything I'd ever wielded.
One swing and the reinforced training dummies didn't explode or shatter. They simply ceased to exist. Not broken. Not destroyed. Just... gone.
I tested weapon after weapon, learning their reach, speed, abilities. Hours passed before I finally let myself stop, leaning against the wall, running a hand through my hair. My body ached, muscles screamed, but my mind refused to rest. I'd been training like this for weeks—pushing harder than ever, forcing myself to adapt to weapons I'd never dared touch.
My fingers hovered over something greater—the Godkiller and Cosmic Supremacy categories. I could wield these perfectly thanks to my Celestial Inventory's absolute mastery, but mastery wasn't the same as experience. Weapons capable of rivaling gods were an entirely different level of warfare.
Artifacts. Relics. Weapons that could make me omnipotent. The kind of power that would make any battle meaningless.
"Not yet," I whispered to myself. Omnipotence wasn't what I wanted—not when there were still too many things to explore and enjoy. If I reached the peak now, becoming something untouchable, what would be left?
I summoned [Endbringer]—a sword forged in the dying heart of a collapsing universe. The moment it appeared, the training room felt wrong, like the air was recoiling from its presence. The pitch-black blade absorbed light around it, carrying no aura, just a suffocating, absolute silence.
One swing, and the new reinforced dummies were gone—not destroyed, but erased as if they'd never existed.
Every weapon I summoned felt the same way. Not just powerful. Wrong. Like they weren't meant to exist in this world.
"So this is what it takes, huh?"
For so long, I'd convinced myself that skill and tactics were enough against dragons, demons, and warlords. But eldritch horrors weren't bound by this world's rules. If I wanted to stand a chance, I couldn't be either.
I needed more than strength. I needed knowledge.
[Forbidden Archives]
I hesitated before this collection of grimoires from long-forgotten civilizations and places that should never have existed. Some could unravel minds or rewrite existence itself.
I selected [Codex of the Nameless]. The world dimmed immediately—the training room, the air, sound itself faded into unnatural silence. I flipped the cover open.
—The Beginning is the End.—
The words weren't in any language I recognized, yet I understood them. Lines and symbols twisted on the page, warping as I stared. This wasn't magic or a spell—this was something older, something deeper.
By the time I closed the tome, my hands were shaking, but my mind was racing with a disturbing revelation: they knew about the Celestial Inventory. Not as a concept, but as something they had feared and fought.
My eyes flicked to another section I'd deliberately ignored even longer.
[Artifacts of Absolute Power]
Items that could grant omnipotence. The Crown of Absolute Dominion. The Omega Paradox. The Architect's Hand. Each offering everything—power, knowledge, control.
Yet I hesitated, a single question clawing at my mind: If omnipotence was that easy to obtain, how did my predecessor die?
If the previous master had truly achieved godhood, what could possibly have killed them? Or did they even die—or just vanish?
The Celestial Inventory contained knowledge from across existence, yet not a single trace of its previous wielder remained. No records. No footprints. No legacy. Nothing. That shouldn't have been possible.
I dismissed the omnipotence-granting artifacts with a clenched jaw. I didn't want that power. Not yet. Not until I uncovered the truth of what happened to the last master.
I glanced at the time. Alma would be back soon.
For now, it didn't matter. Because if these beings thought they could take me down the same way they took my predecessor—they were dead wrong.
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