Damien spent an untold period falling through the Demon Abyss.
He stopped counting the hours before the first day even ended, and after that, he willingly closed off his perception so he wouldn't feel its absence.
This was the best way to fall.
Damien was confident in the strength of his body and regeneration, so even if he hit flat ground from an illogical height, he knew he would survive.
The only thing he regretted was the fact that he wouldn't be able to sense what was going on around him, feeling as if he would miss out on several secrets because of this choice.
However, he was wrong about that.
When he closed off his senses and embraced the numbing effect of the abyss, he found himself more connected to it than ever.
Perhaps that was the key from the start.
The light keeping his body from being consumed by its darkness was still present, but it wasn't visible to anyone but himself. The Demon Abyss consumed him wholly, invading his pores and orifices and coating his entire figure.
When that happened, Damien finally sensed presences aside from himself.
'They are…weak.'
They were in their natal forms, so naturally, their life fluctuations were so weak he could barely feel them.
But in this connected state, he could now recognize their existence, and he could almost feel them directly.
'So…this is the early stage of Nox creation.'
They didn't look like Nox. They weren't humanoid in the slightest, more like tadpoles drifting through murky waters.
The energy of the Demon Abyss continually pumped into them and energized them, feeding their creation.
'Judging by the intake speed, it should take around 5 minutes to create a Classless Lesser Nox.'
Before they even left the Demon Abyss they would reach first class power, and Damien had no idea how many Nox could be produced in every batch, but just the speed of early creation was enough to shock him.
'To think life can appear so easily.'
Was life so simple to control?
He had exceptional achievements in the Law of Samsara, but even he didn't think it was possible to boost the growth speed of a life form this much.
'And this isn't just boosting, they're actually creating Nox from nothing.'
Rather, they were creating Nox from pure energy. This was a realm Damien hadn't even begun to touch yet.
'How interesting…I don't sense Creation Laws at all, but maybe that's because I haven't been in contact with them…? I don't know, but everything about this feels unnatural.'
It felt like the existence of the Demon Abyss was going against everything that was right.
It was the truest materialization of disorder he'd seen to date.
'There isn't much I can infer with my limited knowledge, but I can be certain that whatever they're using isn't present in the universe. Whatever the law that governs this interaction is, we have never come in contact with it. Ever.'
Not just Damien and his generation, not just the people he knew, but the entirety of known existence had never met this concept before.
'Perhaps that's why the Nox have been able to achieve so much. If their origin is a completely unknown force, their growth potential can guide them in directions we could never imagine.'
When Damien was making his way here through the Abyss, a decent chunk of his journey consisted of him investigating the societies of ancient universes that were long forgotten.
Some survived and fought until their last breath, some disappeared before anyone even realized what was happening, while some others were hit by the Nox unprepared and were wiped out far faster than they should've been.
Damien was always curious about it. This curiosity was how that strange old man attracted his attention in the first place.
Slowly, he came to realize that the Nox Race every generation faced was different from their predecessors.
Every time a universe was destroyed, the Nox would go through a qualitative change. They became smarter and more tactical, their power became more refined, and their numbers ballooned to unreal proportions.
The universes he found that were destroyed easily despite resistance from the denizens were the most ancient of the group.
These universes existed when even the universe itself was still vague in its power structure. The Nox of the time were still weak and didn't have the capabilities to develop intelligence, but their numbers and lack of fear or pain made them an impossible enemy.
Back then, the universal forces were too weak.
And the main reason for this…
'...they didn't have the system backing them.'
The system, the Apeiron Records as he'd learned to call it, was a supreme entity that guided all people, including the Nox.
However, it didn't always exist.
There was a time in the distant past when people could only live and die as mortals and "mana" never graced their worlds.
Back then, the Nox couldn't find their way to the universe, because the Nox didn't exist at all.
Damien only found fragments of these civilizations in quantities that could be counted on his fingers, but from what he could tell, the universe was relatively peaceful back then.
However, mana was a natural force. Once the universe solidified its laws, mana became prevalent in nature as it was always meant to be.
The first civilizations who encountered it had to learn how to use it on their own.
Their growth paths were rudimentary at best, and every thousand steps they took could only amount to half a step for the current population.
Because of this, their mana was impure and their power was restricted to the limits of their understanding. Their strongest practitioners were at most 2nd class beings, nothing more.
The Nox came into being around the same time.
They were regarded in many ways. As a disease eating away at existence, as Heaven's punishment for mankind, or even as saviors showing them the path they were meant to take.
These ancient Nox, born with the strength of 1st class beings, were able to grow through slaughter, and with their natural traits and their inherent advantages that the denizens couldn't overcome, they directly destroyed those civilizations without experiencing much loss.
The second phase started after these several universes were obliterated.
The Nox grew again, and the system appeared in the universe.
With a guide to streamline their growth, the universal denizens found themselves able to exert more power than ever before, and they learned the true heights of the heavens they once worshipped.
However, they still couldn't do much.
The Nox gained their first signs of intelligence during this era, but unlike the current Nox Race, they were essentially puppets.
Damien could only make this conclusion now that he'd understood the true nature of the Nox Race.
Their second generation was completely devoted to the cause of their creators, and because of this devotion, they didn't need intelligence to accomplish their goals.
This was the era when universes would disappear mysteriously.
Even Damien couldn't explain it.
Because the concept of time, when perceived from his standpoint, was practically irrelevant. He couldn't tell the difference between 10 years and 1,000,000 years when he observed those fragmented pieces of history.
But the era started and ended eventually, and the next era began.
By this point, a majority of the greater universe was gone.
There were at most a few hundred universes remaining, and these were the ones who were able to develop their laws and reach 4th class.
They were the ones who found the existence of the nine revolutions, and they were the first ones to sprout their own Demigods.
The Nox developed alongside them, reaching similar milestones and gaining the concept known as "free will."
The rest of the story didn't need to be told. Their beginnings and ends were similar to what Grand Heavens Boundary was currently experiencing.
But at every step, the Nox experienced a change that mirrored the denizens of the universe.
'It's a long history, and it seems to have no point when you just say it out loud but…'
The Nox plundered World Cores and even Universal Cores.
'With their behaviors deviating from their original purpose and becoming closer to true existences…it becomes clear that those plundered cores had a profound impact on their evolution.'
It was quite ironic. The Nox were the ones bringing chaos into the universe, but they were also the ones who benefited most from its harmonious state.
'But if those plundered cores are actually being used by their creators…'
Then the growth of the Nox Race was a direct representation of the increasing strength of their superiors.
Damien frowned.
'The enemies I'll face in the future…'
He needed to get much, much stronger if he wanted to face them properly.
