What did it mean to destroy a concept?
It was different for everyone, but to Damien, it meant breaking a shackle.
He was prone to destruction, but he wasn't a slave to it. He never destroyed anything meaningless, and even when he did cause mass destruction, it was always purposeful.
Intent mattered more than the action to him.
The things he wanted to see broken were inhibitions. Whether those were physical in the form of enemies or barriers, or ethereal in the form of emotions or bottlenecks.
What shackles did he have to break now?
Not obvious ones like the Saint Emperor, but ones hidden deep within the recesses of his mind, ones he thought were long exterminated.
There were a few answers, but they weren't easy to find.
Damien had broken through most of his mental bottlenecks long ago. It could be said that his psyche was perfected to a level it should have never reached in such a short span of time due to his countless experiences.
But some of those feelings lingered.
They didn't affect him outwardly or have any real presence in his thought process, but they still lingered.
He remembered those times of the past, and no matter how strong he grew, he always held the worry that he'd return to that pathetic person he used to be.
He had an amazing support system. His wives grounded him in a way he could never achieve by himself, and because of them, he always had the motivation to continue improving even if everything else abandoned him.
However, he sometimes wondered what would happen without them.
He always wondered if, in a situation where his support system disappeared, he would become a monster who couldn't differentiate between friend and foe, someone who lived for the purpose of destruction.
It was an unreasonable worry. Damien was never someone who caved on his values so easily, even if he was left alone for millennia or eons.
Still, he couldn't stop himself from questioning it, because despite his stalwart nature, he did have that nature hidden within him. He had the capabilities to become a monster if he was put in the right circumstances.
He couldn't allow that.
He was a man with impossible abilities. Even if everything was taken from him, as long as he stayed true to himself and reached the heights of his potential, he could regain it all.
So straying from that path and becoming an avatar of destruction was something he both feared and absolutely disallowed himself from doing.
The will Damien put into his mana reflected this. It reflected both the monster within him and the determination to make sure it never appeared in reality, to slay it and completely make its power his own.
It contained all the doubts he once held, and everything he used to overcome them.
In short, it contained his will to cut off weakness and become Absolute.
He swung a sword of Destruction that perfectly embodied this desire, and clashed against the Saint Emperor who did the same.
VOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The spatial tears around them grew worse. It was impossible to see any semblance of the Ancient Battlefield anymore.
The duo was thrown into the chaotic void, unable to find ground to stand on anymore, but the rampant Destruction Law emanating from their collision pushed away any crushing force the space had, creating an oasis for their battle.
It was enlightening.
When they used Creation, they destroyed, and when they used Destruction, they created.
Their wills were too strong to overpower each other, allowing both Creation and Destruction to showcase their duality without being overshadowed.
Damien pushed his sword forward with all his strength.
His determination wasn't something anyone could compare with. That flimsy and weak man he used to be no longer existed. That man grew into someone who would do anything and sacrifice even his own life for the sake of success.
But for some reason, he couldn't overpower the Saint Emperor.
"What do you want to destroy?" He asked, his voice quiet yet traveling perfectly into the opponent's ears.
"Are you curious?" The Saint Emperor asked in return.
It was a question he was fond of.
There was no way he just wanted to sever fate.
Yes, this desire was powerful. It was an almost impossible task for most, so the absolute desire to crush that ruling force and come out on top was indomitable.
However, the Saint Emperor wasn't like them.
He might not have been able to gain the Void's acknowledgment, but that was by no fault of his own. Even Damien didn't know what conditions made the Void choose him as its apostle.
The Saint Emperor was both powerful and influential enough to challenge fate with what he had. As long as he didn't covet the Void, he could have anything he wanted.
And no matter how much he tried to portray himself as a lunatic, he wasn't one at all.
He wasn't someone who would single-mindedly focus on the Void knowing it was an impossible goal.
After all, when he tried to kill Damien and failed, he didn't fall deeper into lunacy. He didn't continue trying to slaughter Damien as if he was his worst enemy.
He engaged in a battle like this, proving the depth of his thought process, something a villain like Immortal Blood Asura wholly lacked.
So what was he trying to destroy?
And why was his will to destroy it so utterly powerful?
Damien had to admit. He was definitely more skilled with wielding Destruction, and as someone chosen by the law since birth, he was able to control it to an extent the Saint Emperor could never dream of.
But in terms of will alone, he lost out.
His unshakeable will to become Absolute, the will he thought was greater than anything anyone else could produce, was just barely overshadowed by what the Saint Emperor infused into his mana.
"What do I want to destroy, you ask…?" The Saint Emperor continued, pushing his sword forward.
The waves of Destruction Law were already tearing apart the devouring force of the chaotic void. If it continued, even this layer of reality would be ripped to shreds, revealing them to the true Void.
But the Saint Emperor didn't stop.
He didn't care if the Void would kill him.
His will was too strong for him to give up in the face of something as meager as death.
"I have never wanted much. I have never wished for much. Whenever I dream, I dream of a future that I have no place in," the Saint Emperor began.
"However, I once had a goal."
In unison, he and Damien kicked away from each other and pushed back, clashing swords again.
They swung, stabbed, and parried in a beautiful dance of blades with no witnesses.
BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG!
"The truths that you learned on Al'Katra, I once learned them as well. As I told you earlier, I spent countless years wondering how to carry myself after learning how pointless my own existence was."
His voice carried through the explosions. It didn't have much power behind it, but it was impossible to ignore despite all the sound blanketing the atmosphere and drowning it out.
It was infused with the Saint Emperor's undying spirit, the result of his eons of existence.
"In those years, watching how my fellows reacted to the truth or chose to ignore it, watching how restrictions were put in place so our growing freedom could not inhibit the loyalty instilled in us at birth, a question arose in my mind."
BOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Two Laws of Destruction blazed in reddish-black splendor, tearing a gash in the chaotic void and revealing the true Void beyond.
Damien and the Saint Emperor immediately retreated.
Instead of taking their battle further, they used Creation Law in tandem to forcefully mend the damage they'd done to the environment until they were back on the outskirts of the Ancient Battlefield as if nothing happened.
Only then did they pull their swords of Destruction out once more to clash.
"I asked myself, I asked my people, I asked your people, and I asked the universe."
The Saint Emperor continued speaking, the will infused in his sword becoming stronger and stronger with every passing second.
"Why do we exist? Why is our existence wrapped in suffering? Why can't we escape fate? Why must we fight? Just…why?"
His words were oddly melancholic, making Damien feel a pang in his chest.
"The answer did not exist. No matter who I asked, I would only receive answers in the form of excuses. Nobody could tell me why we were forced into such tragic states of existence."
"So, instead of asking others, I looked for the answer within me."
BOOOOOOOOOOM!
It didn't take long for the Ancient Battlefield to return to its broken state. Hundreds of millions of kilometers meant nothing in the collision of these two great forces.
"There was no right answer. There was no rhyme or reason behind it. We were forced to live like this because this is how we were forced to live. It was even more frustrating because the answer was nonexistent."
"And that is when I decided it no longer needed to exist."
"So that these unfortunate fates do not need to be suffered by anyone else, so that another case like me can never exist again, so that my mistakes are not repeated endlessly as fate toys with the lives of us mere existences, I decided to destroy it entirely."
As their blades met again, as their eyes met, no more than a foot apart as their swords sent sparks of law flying through the atmosphere, the Saint Emperor told his truth.
"I decided to destroy 'suffering,' because there does not exist a soul who deserves to live a life like mine."
