5 months.
That's how long it had been since Ruyue and the girls traveled to the Sanctuary for the first time in several years and learned what had happened in the month prior.
From Damien's movements within the Sanctuary where he organized his forces and prepared for reasons unknown to him pulling Tephit and the rest into No Return Pass to take his place, they learned everything.
Including his descent into the Abyss.
It was a hard pill to swallow.
Damien's actions practically screamed his distrust for the universe's forces.
If he felt the need to take such a harrowing journey alone, what did that mean for them?
Naturally, none of them believed he was abandoning them or thought they were useless. He'd left several treasures with Elvira for them to use to boost the Judgement Order to a higher level.
The evident problem was the speed of their growth.
According to Elvira and the rest, they could no longer see through Damien's strength, which meant he was already close to the highest level.
So, his departure served as the best motivator for them.
They had been chasing his shadow for years now, hoping to stand by his side instead of protecting his back, but they'd been unsuccessful to date.
They reached a point where he could entrust the universe's safety to them until his return, but that wasn't where they wanted to be.
It would take time.
They also understood it would be impossible to rapidly match up to him.
But as long as they could reach the level they wished for by the end of this war, it would be enough.
The Judgement Order became more active from that point on.
Instead of getting involved every so often to stabilize battlefields, they directly interfered in every battle possible to raise their strength and standing.
In the current war situation, their presence was integral.
The battlefield of the younger generation had moved back to the previous mechanic of the Dimensional Leaderboard.
While direct confrontation still took place frequently, the most important factor for guiding the momentum of this war was to raise their positions in a way the entire universe could see.
And luckily, they had the opportunity to do so now.
In the past 5 months, as battle within the universe became prominent and invasion from the outside was less of an issue, the war became more territorial, like the wars most people were used to.
The Infernal Realm was continuously changing its topography based on who had the lead, but thus far, neither side had been able to completely penetrate their enemy.
At a time like this, it became important to understand the structure of Grand Heavens Boundary itself.
Considering ordinary logic, it was utterly incomprehensible, but there was a reason for that.
Like the Abyss, but to a far lesser extent, the universe's shape was ever-changing.
The exterior domains that bordered the Divine and Infernal Realms were never constantly a single shape, and whenever they were destroyed, their sister sectors would morph to fill the gaps as they could.
In this way, even the Divine and Infernal Realms had no constant shape.
The universe's structure instead worked on a system of rules.
At all times, the Divine and Infernal Realms would remain on the interior, bordered by the rest however they needed to be to make this work.
This system only failed when the number of periphery domains was taken down to two. The Human Domain and Hephaestus could no longer support the logic that kept the Angel and Demon domains protected.
That's how the Nox gained an opportunity to flood into the universe, and that was the reason they had to destroy so many sectors before gaining the ability to do so.
However, if they lost Hephaestus, their plans would be severely inhibited.
Because Hephaestus was a periphery domain, its changing shape gave them a plethora of openings to attack from. The tactical advantages of the domain, combined with its fortification, made it a prime location for a stronghold, which was why it was used by Heaven's Army in the first place.
Therefore, the current goal of the universe's older generation was to push the Nox out of Hephaestus, or in a worst-case scenario, separate Hephaestus from the rest of the universe.
There was a considerable amount of strategizing and scheming taking place behind the scenes for this purpose.
Luciel regained his control over the denizen forces when this chapter of the war began, and under his command, the loyal supporters who followed him were able to create a force that far surpassed the Heaven's Army of the past.
And the main reason for this was unity.
The ability to fight without having to worry about being stabbed in the back was life-changing to the point of being miraculous.
Regardless of the Nox's current advantages, which included a large number of denizen forces who betrayed the universe, those who remained stalwart were able to fight back equally instead of being overwhelmed.
And when it came to Demigods…
The usual situation was the same as ever, but for two specific Demigods, everything changed in the past few months.
Tian Yang and the Golden Dragon Emperor.
Tian Yang's Divinity had been shattered for a very long time. It took place several thousand years ago during a defining battle of his life, with an enemy he swore revenge on.
In fact, Tian Yang wasn't always a lonely man. He once had a wife and child of his own who were his whole world.
But back then, they were both cruelly slaughtered by his enemies.
In order to get revenge, he stormed their stronghold and slaughtered them all with his people, but in the process of killing the one who ordered the deaths of his family, his own Divinity was shattered beyond repair.
The Golden Dragon Emperor's situation was different, but the end result was the same.
They were fated to live as wastes for the rest of their lives, unable to have any place in the current apocalypse.
However, everything changed that day.
When Beast Emperor Star was moved to the Divine Realm.
That day, they heard a vague voice in their ears. They couldn't make out what it said, nor could they perceive the speaker, but that voice was laced with sadness and sorrow beyond compare, a bleak loneliness that was utterly incomprehensible to anyone other than the one who felt it.
When that voice entered their ears, and the energy of its speaker blessed their bodies…
They received a "chance."
A chance to return to their former glory.
A chance to restore their shattered Divinities.
They understood this as soon as they woke up, but they were not able to thank or even find the one who gave them such a magisterial gift.
So, they decided to use it to its fullest.
They regained a majority of their power in the time since then, but instead of directly ascending back to their previous posts, they maintained themselves on the edge of Divinity so they could directly control the war situation!
Now, the two of them stood at the forefront.
With their armies behind them, facing enemies who had no chance against their might as former Divinities, they entered yet another battle.
The fate of the universe that once looked so bleak it was meaningless to fight at all…
…was now in their hands.
And they had no plans of letting it stay that way.
