Chapter 1769: Return [1]

Right, while they gained a little bit of time while the Dark God laughed at them, it wasn't anywhere near what they wanted.

Before even Rose returned, the world was once again plagued by Dimensional Cracks, through which great enemies constantly flowed.

They were mostly Vanguard forces, however, many newly created Foreign Nobles also appeared one after another. Even those who were killed always found a way to return.

The Heavenly World was not enveloped in war, but that was only because they were prepared for the invasion already. It came far earlier than expected, but the basic provisions were enough to keep chaos at bay.

There were several zones throughout the world, each of them tens of thousands of kilometers wide. They were clearly delineated by the cool blue barriers that separated them from the general populace.

Several was the wrong way to number them. In reality, there were millions of them. They were all locations where cracks opened in the fabric of reality. Through the array that now covered the world, the palace was able to find them before they appeared and secure the area.

These zones were heavily infested by Foreign Races. Practitioners would enter them and go to war in those specific areas. Their efforts kept the enemies at bay so that the entire world wouldn't be immediately doomed.

It was only for this reason that Rose could return and not sense anything too different about the world.

However, when Damien arrived, he immediately noticed.

He left Arulion a little after he said goodbye to August.

At the end of the day, that was his son. Even if he made it seem like he wasn't feeling too heartbroken by their separation, it did hurt to see him grow further away.

Nevertheless, August had a life path he wanted to follow and Damien knew that he would never forget about his family.

As long as August was doing fine, he had nothing to worry him over. He could cope with his own sadness alone.

He watched over the development of Arulion for around a week before returning to the Heavenly World. It was a good thing because he got some time to sort out his mood before he returned and it was instantly darkened.

His eyes turned cold.

His sense of perception was already far separated from the norm. As long as he willed it, any and all information in the True Void Universe would be made available to him.

As such, he instantly sensed the existence of every single foreign being in the world, the barriers that entrapped them, and...

"You."

Damien stood in the sky of the empty western region, staring into the horizon.

Others couldn't see it. Even for him, it was still vague.

When Damien attained Existence, it felt like something he'd always had was completed. He stood at a peak that nobody in his cosmos had ever reached, but even then, he saw someone standing at a peak above him.

That person who was peering beyond the veil naturally heard his comment. The fact that Damien could sense him was a surprise, but it was nothing too unexpected considering that Damien was already close to this level when they last met.

"I knew you liked to scheme, but this is a little much, isn't it?" He said, not expecting a response.

However, he did receive one. Just, in a form he wasn't expecting.

Words manifested in front of him in a deep black light.

[I merely evened the playing field. Did you believe that you would be allowed to exploit loopholes while I did not? Our promise was five years. That time has long passed. Do not get cocky, Damien Void.]

Damien sneered.

"I'm not the cocky one between us."

He took his attention off of that person. He would always be watching since he had nothing better to do with his miserable life, so there wasn't a point in entertaining him for too long.

'It's good news, though.'

The Dark God chose to send a message instead of communicating directly. It was a clear indication that while his power allowed him to easily observe the Heavenly World, he couldn't influence it at will.

He wasn't strong enough to directly crush the True Void Universe before Damien could put up a fight, and that was certainly comforting.

'They got ten years, huh.'

It wasn't a bad amount of time, but it still wasn't enough.

If he wanted to help the people of this world survive the coming cataclysm, then he needed to earn them more time to train.

'I'll have to eliminate all of the pesky bastards on my own for now.'

He wasn't around August anymore, nor was he in a place where he didn't necessarily have a say in the lives of the people.

He was the Young Lord of the palace who was pretty much just its Lord at this point. This world, unlike Arulion, belonged solely to him.

As such, he would not allow its people to die in vain during a war they had no say in.

'I just got to this level. It would be fun to test my power on strong enemies, but those don't exist anymore.'

Damien shook his head.

'Either way, slaughtering a mob is fun too.'

Damien had always been a fan of intricacies disguised as commonalities. Most of his attacks were like that, manifesting in common forms but containing huge webs of interconnected concepts that produced results that others couldn't replicate.

He was always someone who theorized and tested his techniques before using them in actual combat. Most of his training as a young practitioner was geared towards this particular aspect.

However, all of that was robbed from him. It was a sort of bittersweet realization, but that was just the truth of the matter. Now that he controlled Existence, complexity could not exist in front of him unless he allowed it to.

Even in this moment, he did not have to gather his mana or control its circulation. He did not have to infuse it with laws and weave them together.

He didn't even have to make a gesture, but he did it for effect since he knew that his audience of one would be more irked if he did so.

Damien raised his hand and snapped, making direct eye contact with the Dark God.

That was it.

His mana didn't explode outward or even acknowledge that it was used. The source of energy was practically infinite in Damien's circuits now.

From his point of view, nothing happened. That was only because the swathe of land around him was isolated and empty.

The Heavenly World felt the weight of that snap far more than him.

Everywhere, no matter how remote or close to civilization, at the same time, hundreds of millions of living beings turned to ash.

Every hostile foreign being in this world was eradicated with a single snap that nobody knew about but the two people who watched it happen.

The playing field that Damien and the Dark God saw was far beyond the comprehension of even the greatest minds in the world.

The battle they were fighting was of a completely different weight class.

"Foreign Beings." It was a blanket term that described every single individual or object in this world that did not originate from the True Void Universe.

And when "hostile" was used as an adjective to describe them, the victims all became followers of the Dark God.

Gods, Demigods, nine revolutions masters, and fourth-class practitioners.

Artifacts with the power to alter reality, Dimensional Cracks; it didn't matter what the actual level of those affected was or what kind of qualities they had.

As long as they fit the criteria Damien set, they died in a single instant.

Once again, Damien sneered at the Dark God.

His actions were something of a warning.

"Do not think this war will end so easily," he said with his eyes.

And as he turned his attention away from that being, set on returning to his home, his eyes turned another shade colder.

The adventures in Arulion were a good break. Those few months gave him a lot of mental clarity.

Now that he was back, it was go time.

The final war, the war to determine the fates of both the True Void Universe and the Sacred Abyss Universe...

'...it begins now.'