Chapter 136 | Actually Still Alive

Chapter 136: 136 | Actually Still Alive

Andrew stepped forward.

He looked at the heavy sword, waiting for the system to pull up its stats.

Nothing happened.

Just three question marks, floating in the air before him.

[ ??? ]

[ ??? ]

[ ??? ]

Andrew stared at the floating text, his brow furrowing deeper with each passing second. Question marks only appeared when an object was above the system’s recognition.

From everything Andrew had known, nothing was above the system’s recognition.

But it had nothing to say about this sword.

But then again, this cave had been extremely strange from the moment he entered it. The system didn’t know about the cave. Heaven’s domain system had no information about it whatsoever.

So the fact that the system couldn’t read this sword wasn’t too far-fetched.

Andrew set the thought aside. He could figure out the system’s limitations later. Right now, he had a domain to claim.

He reached out and grabbed the sword.

Nothing happened.

The sword just sat there, planted in the diamond floor, silent and still.

Andrew sighed. He had half-expected something dramatic. Instead, he got nothing.

He buzzed his energy through his arms, channeling it into his muscles, and pulled.

The sword didn’t budge in the least.

"Why so hard?

He pulled harder as his muscles strained beneath his skin and his veins bulged along his forearms like thick cables. His energy drained from his body like water pouring from a cracked cup.

Seventy percent.

It took seventy percent of his total strength just to pull the sword free from the diamond floor. The blade slid upward with a grinding, shrieking sound that echoed through the empty palace.

Andrew nearly toppled backward from the force of his own pull.

And once it was out, it took even more strength to hold it steady.

"What a heavy sword," Andrew muttered, frowning at the extremely black blade in his grip. His arms trembled at the extremely heavy sword.

He lowered himself to the ground and placed the blade across his lap, resting it there as he caught his breath. The sword was heavy even when he wasn’t lifting it—its weight pressed down on his thighs.

But he had it.

Now came the real task.

It was time to merge his divine will into the black sword. If he could pour his divine essence into the blade—infuse it with his God phantom, his divine consciousness, everything that made him a god—he could make the sword his. And once the sword accepted him as its master, the entire god domain would follow. The palace. The throne. The walls of diamond and gold. The sculptures. The treasures. Every inch of this kilometer-wide domain would bend to his will.

No more conjuring weak, temporary god domains every time he entered his god form.

He would have a permanent domain. A real one.

Andrew sat cross-legged in front of the golden throne. Before doing anything, he swept his omniscience perception across the entire palace one more time. The invisible radar washed over every surface—every corner, every corridor, every pillar, every shadow. It scanned the floor beneath him, the ceiling above him, the spaces behind the sculptures and beneath the throne.

There was no one nearby. No creatures. No presence. No hidden enemies lurking in the darkness.

No danger.

But Andrew didn’t want to take chances. Not here. Not in a place the system couldn’t even see. So he kept his perception running, maintained as a constant, passive radar, scanning continuously in every direction. If anything—person, creature, or force—entered his detection range, he would know instantly.

Satisfied that he was as safe as he could be, Andrew closed his eyes.

He activated his God Descent ability.

Instantly, a massive golden halo appeared behind him. It materialized from nothing, hanging in the air like a second sun, radiating warmth and divine light that spilled across the diamond floor in rippling waves. The light caught the gems embedded in the walls and scattered into a thousand fragmented rainbows, turning the palace into a cathedral of color.

Then, from the edges of the halo, a massive hand emerged. It was enormous—ten times Andrew’s size—composed of pure golden divine energy. The hand gripped the rim of the halo, fingers curling around the edge like a man pulling himself out of a pool. Then a second hand appeared, gripping the opposite side. And then, with a surge of golden light, a enormous figure stepped out of the halo.

It was Andrew.

A golden phantom image of Andrew, towering behind him like a giant. His God phantom. It stood behind him, glowing with divine light, a perfect replica of his divine form—same face, same build, same expression, but magnified to a scale that made ordinary men look like insects. The phantom’s eyes burned gold. Its body radiated power. It was the embodiment of Andrew’s divine authority, given shape and form.

Andrew frowned.

Something felt wrong.

He couldn’t pinpoint what it was. There was no specific threat, no identifiable danger. Just a feeling—a nagging, persistent unease that sat in the pit of his stomach like a stone. The palace was empty. His perception showed nothing. And yet...

He used his danger sense again, pushing it outward with everything he had. He stretched it to its maximum range, searching for whatever was setting off his unease. He scanned the passage behind him. The throne in front of him. The walls. The ceiling. The floor. Every inch of space within his reach.

The danger sense didn’t respond.

It didn’t warn him. It didn’t reassure him. It said nothing at all. Complete silence. Complete neutrality. As though whatever was out there existed in a space his danger sense couldn’t reach—or was so powerful that the sense simply couldn’t process it.

Andrew gritted his teeth.

The uncertainty was maddening. He had already made one gamble today—walking into this passage when his future was uncertain. Now he was sitting in an empty palace, unable to tell whether he was safe or in mortal danger, and his own abilities were giving him nothing to work with.

"I might as well go all out," he muttered.

The moment he said those words, the massive golden phantom behind him responded. It didn’t wait for a more elaborate command. It didn’t hesitate. It simply transformed—dissolving from a solid figure into a surge of pure golden energy, a river of divine light that rushed forward like a flood breaking through a dam.

The energy poured directly into the black sword resting on Andrew’s lap.

The moment the divine energy touched the blade, Andrew’s face changed drastically.

His eyes snapped open. His body went rigid. Every muscle locked in place. Every nerve fired at once. His stomach dropped through the floor and kept falling, because something was wrong. Something was deeply, fundamentally, catastrophically wrong.

The sword was drinking his energy.

Not absorbing it. Not merging with it. *Drinking* it. Greedily, hungrily, like a starving man presented with a feast. His divine essence—the power of his God phantom, the core of his divine authority—was being pulled into the blade and consumed, swallowed whole, devoured without mercy.

And then—

A voice echoed inside his head.

"Ha ha ha ha ha."

The laugh was deep. Rich. Amused. It bounced around the inside of his skull like thunder trapped in a cave, reverberating through his consciousness with a force that made his thoughts scatter like frightened birds.

"Finally," the voice said. "Finally managed to lure a god in here. Eh? Actually a new god? That’s even better!!!"

The voice paused as it took on a different quality petulant, irritated, as though recalling a long and frustrating string of disappointments.

"All the ones I’ve been getting are just plain people with ability. No talent. Nothing. Worthless. Every single one of them—worthless. Walking in here, touching the sword, and dying before I could even use them." Another laugh, shorter this time. Bitter. "Thousand of years of nothing but worthless."

Then the voice warmed. Brightened. Took on an almost giddy quality, like a child who had finally found the toy he’d been searching for.

"But finally managed to get you."

Inside Andrew’s mind, the landscape of his inner universe shifted.

His inner universe—the vast, infinite space that existed within his consciousness, the place where his divine core resided—was normally empty. Quiet. A space of pure potential, waiting to be shaped. It was his. His alone. The one place in all of existence that belonged entirely to him.

Now, someone was standing in it.

A figure stood at the center of Andrew’s inner universe. He was extremely handsome—breathtakingly so. White hair, perfectly styled, falling around a face that looked like it had been carved by a master sculptor working with the finest marble. High cheekbones. Sharp jaw. Eyes that burned with an ancient, knowing light. He wore a crisp white suit, immaculate and sharp, with one hand casually tucked into his pocket.

He stood there with the ease of someone who owned the world.

Every inch of him radiated authority that wasn’t forced, cultivated authority of someone trying to appear powerful, but the natural, effortless authority of someone who simply was. He looked down at Andrew with a slight smirk on his face, the expression of a man who had already won and was simply enjoying the moment before announcing it.

And Andrew’s divine phantom—his golden, towering God form, the embodiment of his divine power—was tiny in front of this man.