Chapter 1538: Confrontation [2]
The Foreign Nobility worked fast. The moment they found a tangible clue about their target, they grabbed it and refused to let go.
A party was created to make its way to the Frostbound Mountain Range within minutes.
None of the Grand Dukes moved. They couldn't.
After all, they currently had the Heavenly World severely underestimating their forces. If a Grand Duke went out and showed his power, wasn't it practically like screaming, "Hey, look at us! We're dangerous!" to the entire world?
The time hadn't come for them to completely reveal their strength. That time would only arrive when they finally struck the planet.
Until then, they had to make sure that the general populace would never have a reason to be concerned with them.
One Duke, four Counts, and ten Viscounts set out, their skin and features disguised to look like humans.
Since they were already in the Northern Region, it didn't take long for them to arrive at the Frostbound Mountain Range, and since they had no interest in peace, it took them even less time to get to the periphery of Ice Luan Mountain, where the signal was the strongest.
Duke Horacio, who led the group, held in his hand a device that had a simple function.
It would take the information given to it, which, in this case, was the location of the signal, and pinpoint the exact position from which the signal was coming from.
The Foreign Nobility were experienced in the art of tracking anomalies. There would never be a time during the hunt when they arrived unprepared.
Even now, Duke Horacio was leading an advance party. Their job was to observe Damien, dial in on whether he was the target or just a related individual, and then relay the gained information back to the main base.
Yet, this advance party was led by a God with 4 other Gods under his command. Even the weaklings who were only there as a precaution were above the level of Divinity.
After all, if they came to blows with the target regardless...
Wasn't it better for them to be fully prepared?
Damien may have been powerful, but he wasn't at the level of a Grand Duke. The party sent to find him was more than enough for that purpose.
And find him they did.
Damien was relaxed. He wasn't trying to hide his position that much, but he also wasn't outwardly displaying it.
The problem was that the last known location of his signal was within the cave, when he gifted the Ahaiyute Tree Alaric's memories.
The cave itself was never hidden, and while Duke Horacio's party didn't have any reason to confront those living within...
They observed from the outside, and they caught the exact moment when Damien left.
And almost comically so, that single moment was all they needed to confirm their suspicions.
After all, the first thing Damien did, as always, was cover himself in a barrier of Existence and teleport.
Unfortunately for him, this was one of the unique cases where his use of Existence could be sensed by the other party.
And it was the worst possible situation for him.
"Go. Create a barrier."
By Duke Horacio's command, the ten Demigods formed a perimeter around a large area with Ice Luan Mountain in the center.
From ice wall to ice wall and spanning several thousand kilometers in all directions, a massive barrier was formed.
It was invisible, and rather than being powered by the mana of Demigods, it borrowed the mana of Gods, using those Viscounts as nothing more than poles through which it focused its power.
It was an incredibly subtle maneuver.
However, Damien immediately felt the difference.
'Someone's...here.'
His eyes narrowed.
He didn't sense any hostile presences or anything concerning for that matter. If he had, then he wouldn't have been moving so casually.
The creation of this barrier obviously meant that someone else was here, and even more obviously meant that they were after him.
After all, there was nothing else in this section of the Frostbound Mountain Range that required this level of preparation to face.
WHOOOOOOOOOOSH!
Damien rapidly dodged to the right. Out of nowhere, a massive rush of wind tried to strike him from behind and throw him off balance.
There was originally a doubt of it being a natural phenomenon, but when Damien's eyes focused in on the torrent itself...
'That's a person.'
He immediately recognized a humanoid form within the formless winds.
WHOOOOOOOSH!
WHOOOOOOOSH!
WHOOOOOOOSH!
Three more from three different sides.
Damien's eyes widened as he focused his senses. He dodged minutely to the right, dodging the first, flicked his body in the other direction, dodging the second, and finally, jumped to dodge the third.
His body had turned semi-corporeal in that moment, as if he was disconnected from reality. The arms that reached out of the wind to grab him were not able to find their target, but once Damien was above them...
Nothing would stop him from finding his.
BANG!
He flipped his body and slammed his entire weight down on the third gust of wind, nailing the one inside straight in the center of their back.
They crashed to the ground, and without giving them a moment to rest, Damien grabbed their hair and pulled their head out of the ground.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
His hand exploded ten times in a row, filling the being's orifices and pores with rampant mana and burns. It wasn't enough to actually injure someone of this level, but it was more than enough to buy half a second while they were in a daze.
By the time that half of a second was over, Damien was already gone. He'd made distance and placed himself in a position where all four of his enemies were in front of him.
'They're not human.'
They looked human, but with the look he'd just gotten at that person, he could confirm that they were not.
Their souls were black. Not like his, more like they'd been tinted in something horrific.
This kind of soul...
'Only one type of being could possess it.'
He knew that for a fact, because he'd devoured one before.
"So you are that man's son."
A voice came from behind him.
Damien's head whipped to the side and his eyes made up the rest of the difference. He couldn't turn his back on the four in front of him because of this hidden fifth.
In his peripheral, he caught the form of a white-skinned man with bright emerald eyes and sharp brows. He looked somewhat heroic, but at the same time, he looked like a demon.
"Foreign Race."
"It is quite the offensive title you humans have given us, but I will admit. I am impressed by your deductive reasoning."
Duke Horacio didn't make any attempts to hide it.
Damien's moves just now were fast, but they weren't enough to actually cause harm to any of those four Counts that attacked him.
With the four of them and him, a Duke, combining their power, there was no way for Damien to escape.
He was assured of it.
So he happily stepped out of the air, revealing his presence to the enemy.
"Damien Void," he said, a mysterious smile on his face.
"I am afraid you will have to come with us. Whether you do that the easy way or the hard way..."
VOOOOOOOM!
Duke Horacio unfurled his aura, causing cracks to form in the mountain below.
"...well, that is completely up to you, isn't it?"