Chapter 1774: Answers [3]

Most of it had already been said.

Dante was born in the Heavenly World and fought it in order to gain talent and become great. He eventually did, establishing Void Palace and becoming one of the strongest people in the world.

When he was at his best, his enemies targeted him and his family and forced him to run.

Well, that was what others thought. Otherwise, there wasn't a way for him to find a way to the lower universe to bring Damien into existence.

"I died back then."

Damien raised an eyebrow. It was something that would floor anyone else, but Damien had also died so it didn't hit him as hard.

"Damien, have you heard of the Firmament Board?"

Damien shook his head. This was obviously not going to be a story about Dante's life, but he was going to let his father speak anyway.

"One day, you will sense it. For the rest of us, it was the moment when we truly became Unrecorded, but as you have attained that level before Godhood, you must not have felt its call yet."

Another mechanic of the universe?

Damien didn't think there was anything else he didn't know about the world. As he had even scanned it with his Existence when he returned, he thought that everything was within his expectations.

Even the matter of the Heavenly God Plane was something he already knew about. Dante's explanation merely gave him more information on it.

However, clearly, the Firmament Board was something different.

It was something that was beyond "Existence" alone.

"The Firmament Board is the reason why I have lived until today. In essence, it is nothing more than another form of the universe's acknowledgement. If you can gain its attention and carve your name onto its surface, then you will officially surpass the bounds of the known power scale. It is what gave me the ability to sense Existence, and more importantly, it granted me a gift."

Dante summoned another energy. Only two other people in this world knew that it existed, and that number had now become three.

"This is the energy of Boundless Samsara."

Damien's eyes widened in true surprise when he sensed the contents of that energy.

It was perfect. It was an exact representation of life and death. Damien felt clearly from that energy the same thing he felt when he was facing the Wheel of Samsara itself.

"This physique is not something that should be possible," Dante said, his eyes hardening.

"It is a physique that makes me immortal."

True immortality was not possible for anyone. Damien did not have a lifespan anymore, as he controlled Existence. Hypothetically, as long as the True Void Universe existed, he could constantly return his existence into being.

However, nobody else was truly immortal. Gods could be killed, and if they weren't killed, then they'd eventually die even if it took trillions of years.

Damien was a unique case. He never worried about immortality as a curse, but it was indeed his curse if it was something he had to possess alone.

It had always been his goal to make everyone he loved immortal as well. As he always said, he didn't want to stand at the peak alone.

To find out that Dante was also immortal...

He was a little happy, but mainly just confused.

"If you're immortal, how did you die?"

It was an easy question to answer when the previously shown energy was taken into account, but Damien asked regardless.

"You're funny," Dante responded with a smile.

"It's as you think. If I ever die, then I will be reincarnated. I live with only an instinct to train until 4th class and then regain my memories of the past. I died thirty-nine times in the Heavenly World before I was reborn in Grand Heavens Boundary. There, I spent almost the same amount of time as the Saint Emperor you know."

A mention of the Saint Emperor at this time was not something Damien expected.

"That means...you were in Grand Heavens Boundary near the inception of the Nox?"

Dante nodded.

"They were created to hunt me, in the first place. Their goal only changed after I was located and the Gods of the Straea Clan found me."

"Wow..."

None of the memories Damien consumed said anything about that.

'That means it was like that only at the very beginning of the universe's timeline.'

At a time when even the universe itself did not have memories, Dante was there, struggling.

"It was around that time when Earth existed."

"Sorry?"

"Oh, I guess there's no way for you to know. The Earth you were born on was just a copy. I made that to mimic the world I was reborn on."

"Wha..."

"I mean, come on. Earth was a pretty normal place where people didn't even know that mana existed. It had a good run for a few billion years, but it was swallowed by its own sun a long time before you were born."

"I recreated the world later when I realized that your mother's soul had followed me to the lower universe. There, she was reborn and I was able to meet her again, and there, you were born."

Damien certainly didn't think he'd hear answers to questions he'd forgotten by now. The mysteries surrounding Earth, which was a far more mystical planet than it was ever meant to be, were all the doings of Dante Void.

As he continued to speak, Damien learned that the original Earth was pretty much the exact same as the new one. The only difference was, the legendary heroes of the Earth that Damien knew were all different faces of Dante.

The myths in their history were Dante's creations, made to resemble figures and places that existed in the Heavenly World and the greater Grand Heavens Boundary.

It was a place that was almost specifically made so that Damien could be born.

Obviously, the timeline didn't line up. It was caused by the same time difference that allowed Damien to have a younger sibling despite his father being captured eons ago.

The Heavenly World was a place where the time flow was never stable between regions until Serena aligned the time flows for the sake of her array. The lower universe, as a much smaller body that had an even more chaotic time flow, could never align with it.

As time passed, their flows separated further and further until a million years could be equated to only a few thousand.

How long was Dante's struggle? He moved from one to the other and back, experiencing millions upon millions of years in both places.

He was only focusing on the important parts, but beneath it all, Damien found a struggle even greater than his own, one that provoked immense respect.

The Heavenly God Battlefield, the Firmament Board, the secrets of the lower universe; Dante had spilled many secrets since he started talking.

But...

The latter two topics were left unfinished.

There was still more left to be said. Dante hadn't even told him why he brought up the Firmament Board yet.

The two matters had to be connected somehow.

And once Damien learned of that, his quest to reach the absolute peak would resume.

The key to everything was Dante Void.

So, for many reasons among which this one was just a small piece, Damien was very happy that his father was back.