The journey was longer than expected.
When Damien said the mana was complete, he meant it. Even the Void couldn't exert as much influence here as it could in the lower universe, and there were hardly any openings that could be exploited.
One was practically forced to act within the bounds of law if they wanted to live, and as someone who'd encountered the Heavenly Order before, Damien didn't doubt there'd be some kind of punishment for trying to defy them.
Still, it was difficult to see just how complete the laws were until one experienced them oneself.
For Damien, that moment was the second he started teleporting. Moving through the spatial layers felt like being surrounded by molasses. They were densely packed and had a thickness incomparable to the lower universe.
Any movement through them felt sluggish, and while distance could still be covered, it was far slower than its regular potential.
Though, the meaning of "far slower" was relative to a universally acclaimed genius like Damien.
'Damn. I was approaching a level where I could move a billion kilometers in a single step, but even a few tens of millions feel difficult now.'
If any other spatial practitioner heard him, they'd surely succumb to the desire to beat him to a pulp.
Tens of millions of kilometers was nothing? With the mana pool of a Demigod, this was still a travel efficiency most people needed to spend egregious amounts of money to replicate through artifacts and arrays!
The Heavenly World was massive. Simply traveling by oneself was practically impossible for those who couldn't afford spirit vehicles, and even then, most people would choose to use public transportation provided by large influences for the sake of convenience.
Tens of millions of miles was quite the distance, but in terms of the Heavenly World, it was a span of land that could easily be ignored.
After all, when Damien teleported for the first time and came out 50 million kilometers away, he was still within the lush forest, and the terrain didn't change enough for him to assume he was close to the exit.
It took another ten leaps of the same length to finally find something different, and that was only after he spent a few days exploring the forest itself.
The worst part was...when he left the forest, all he saw was bare land.
'Hahaha…don't tell me I'm that unlucky…?'
Was this a barren area?
'Well, whatever, I just need to–'
VOOOOOOOOOOOM!
A huge sound filled the air.
The ground didn't rumble and nothing seemed to change, which was a bit confusing, but Damien was quick to find the source of the grand fluctuation.
'Haha, as expected, my luck hasn't failed me.'
In the sky above, far beyond the clouds, there was "something" moving extremely fast. It housed so many life auras that it couldn't be a beast, which meant it had to be a human-made flight artifact.
'I don't know where it's going, but it's definitely going towards civilization.'
Damien was a logical person. He wasn't just going to follow an unreasonably fast spirit vehicle on the ground and expect to keep up with it.
No, he could never do something so stupid!
Rather, didn't he have 50 million kilometers of jump distance? No matter how expansive the ground was, there was no way the sky had the same gait.
He grinned, stepping into the ground as he activated his mana.
'Hitchhiking time!'
Whoosh!
His body vanished again, and when it reappeared, he was high in the sky, a lone man amongst the clouds.
His eyes widened at the sea of white below him and the beautiful painting above. Rather than one sun, this realm had two, and rather than the usual blue sky he knew, this shade was a little bit darker, as if the atmosphere extended far beyond his imagination.
'Wait, there's no time for this.'
He turned his attention forward and located the spirit vehicle.
It was a starship-like object, almost similar to a plane from Earth, but far more advanced and large enough to carry thousands of people without a problem.
'Perfect. Adding one more onto a number like that shouldn't be a problem.'
He flashed three more times to catch up and land on the ship's hull.
He somewhat expected it, but his presence was not welcome in the slightest.
Alarm bells rang, and within the second, there was a squadron surrounding him.
'Yeah, I did feel something strange when I was landing. I guess this ship had a barrier around it to protect it from the natural forces.'
Otherwise, there was no way these soldiers would be able to stand here so steadily without worry.
"State your identity and place your hands where I can see them!"
The one leading the group shouted out, slowly approaching as he warily took a pair of handcuffs out of his uniform.
Damien smiled wryly and followed the procedure.
'Doesn't this feel oddly familiar?'
Why did the Heavenly World seem to resemble Earth more than anywhere else in the lower universe?
It was quite strange when he thought about it, but that was a matter for another time.
"We will be taking you into custody. If you have any complaints, you can voice them to the officers inside."
Damien shrugged lightly.
"Do I look like I'm resisting? Just cuff me and take me inside already."
The leader's eyes narrowed, but he complied regardless.
He cuffed Damien's hands in front of him and, with his troops still covering every side to make sure the prisoner couldn't escape, he guided Damien into the starship.
The internal structure was lavish. The floors were carpeted and the pressure stabilization made it so it was no different from standing on land inside. It was ventilated somehow, and the overall ambiance was more like a luxury hotel than a starship.
'People really live large around these parts.'
Damien admired the wonders of innovation as the soldiers led him through the halls.
They had used some sort of concealment device to make their presence invisible to the ship's passengers, obviously a method to ensure no panic would break out, and once again Damien had to marvel at their customer service abilities.
'More than any of that, these cuffs sure are interesting.'
He'd seen handcuffs that sealed mana before, but this one was even more advanced than that. It had the function of sealing all powers, including Divinity.
'It isn't really succeeding at sealing mine since it's a Divinity built on the Void, but they don't even seem to know I'm a Demigod in the first place.'
He could also feel something trying to interfere with his senses, but because of the All-Seeing Eyes, that had become his regular pupils instead of an inherited trait, even that mechanism malfunctioned.
It was a little comedic when he thought about it.
In the first place, these guards were all Supremes. If he wanted to, he could evaporate all of them by blinking.
'Is there something different going on? Everyone in the lower universe seemed to inherently understand that I'd ascended, but here they can't sense it.'
Maybe the assumptions he made about the Void earlier were wrong?
'If so…'
He definitely needed to investigate his limits when he had some free time, but that could be done later.
Their group had already arrived at their location, an isolated room within a series of corridors long disconnected from the passenger area of the ship.
Damien was sat in a chair there in a room that looked like the poster child for interrogation rooms and forced to wait for hours.
'Is this a psychological tactic? It's not bad, but they should really do some checks before starting something like this.'
He smiled wryly.
If he was affected by the sense blocking and Divinity blocking, he probably would've been panicking by now, but wasn't he completely fine?
Not only was he fine, but his All-Seeing Eyes didn't really let him remain unaware of the presences around him.
Especially those behind the one-way mirror.
None of them had the aura of a God that Damien wanted to feel, but there were at least three powerful Demigods among them.
And behind even them, far separated from this place yet watching it through their awareness, was another Divinity.
That one…
'That one is definitely stronger than the Saint Emperor.'
