It was hard to see Divinities as people who could easily die.
The expedition party was made up of both Demigods and lower existences the same, and they died all the same as well.
The method? Traps and missteps.
One might believe Demigods infallible, but that simply wasn't true.
In the lower universe, there didn't exist anything that could fell a Demigod except other Demigods.
But here? In the Heavenly World, where Demigods had been a part of their infrastructure for millions upon millions of years, ingrained in the society without any restrictions separating them from the masses, the truth was different.
Demigod rank artifacts, Demigod rank materials, Demigod rank resources, and many more things were prevalent enough to be considered relatively common.
If one used an alloy made of metals with Demigod rank density and power of their own to create an artifact, how could a Demigod be expected to stay unharmed when attacked by it?
If a spike pit appeared in the labyrinth, those spikes were made specifically with the intention of skewering Divinities. If arrows flew out of the walls, they would be tipped with poisons and venoms specifically curated to murder Demigods.
The traps themselves seemed simple. No matter how powerful one became, the actual mechanisms didn't have to change. They were the most basic mechanisms because of how effective they were.
When those basic mechanisms were taken to a level where each of those spikes had a mind of its own, where each arrow traveled faster than the speed of light, they became something entirely new, something absolutely capable of slaughtering those who shouldn't have been slaughtered.
The ban on perception was the most deadly part. Even the weakest of Demigods could avoid these traps if they just had the ability to see them. After all, the uniqueness of Divinity was the ability to freely control one's law in whatever way one can imagine.
But they didn't have these capabilities. It was almost like the labyrinth was made for the sole purpose of slaughtering these great characters.
Wasn't it supposed to be a natural formation?
Damien originally believed it was. The sand trap that led them here was definitely a product of nature.
And perhaps these tunnels were made by nature as well.
However, this labyrinth's current form was no longer natural.
"Somebody" created this shit for an unknown purpose.
'I can't help but be curious about it.'
Damien was already by himself.
When he and Isra Norn ran into the two men who accompanied her from the clan, they began traveling as a group, and Damien was naturally excluded.
The two older men both looked down on him for being a mercenary and held great suspicions about his motives for approaching Isra.
Naturally, Damien never approached her to begin with. He was looking for a chance to ditch her from the start.
They would never believe it, though.
They might have been from a clan with a good reputation, but they were still "nobles."
They weren't going to listen to Damien's words, and Isra, no matter how curious her personality was, didn't have enough speaking power to change their minds.
It worked out for him, though.
As they pushed Damien further from them and tried to put him in a lower position, he was able to gain distance without alerting anyone to his intentions.
By the time they realized he was gone, they'd passed through so many trap formations that they could only assume he'd died.
'Haha, I'm finally alone.'
Damien celebrated his freedom silently.
'I know I'm the one who planned to make connections, but wow, interacting with people of status is annoying.'
It was different when Damien could be Damien, because his power was enough to match their status. But when he was just a regular mercenary?
'I'm starting to realize where the class divide comes from.'
Actions like those taken by the two men from the Norn Family felt insignificant for them, but for those under them, these were the actions that turned a good reputation into a bad one and made a noble clan lose public support.
'Still, it's not my business. If they have high standing, they'll probably be able to maintain it. Since I've parted from them already…'
He was going to go straight to the Vanishing Dunes, but he was curious about the labyrinth after experiencing it for so long.
'My spidey sense is tingling.'
His intuition told him there was some kind of plot here, and if he was looking for entertainment, wouldn't something like this be the best?
Instead of directly leaving, Damien followed the labyrinth covertly and teleported into the central area.
One With Dimension was active, sinking his presence into the spatial layers, and with the Authority of Spacetime guiding it, the skill was far more powerful, enough to conceal his presence from everyone in the labyrinth.
'Hmm, it almost looks like…'
He remembered the last time he was in a structure like this, in Alexander's body with Luciel and the rest.
The room he found himself in when he reached the center was almost the same. The only thing missing was the Nox being sealed in the middle.
'But something was there.'
Damien spread his awareness and made sure there was nothing waiting for him, and when he confirmed that he was alone, he made his way to the center of the room and investigated the traces he found there.
He closed his eyes and inserted his mana into the ground.
The abilities of Existence were hard to define.
Saying he could control "everything" in existence made him seem omnipotent, but he hadn't quite reached that level.
Still, there were things he could do that were impossible for most, specifically because his law was Existence.
Things without life had life in Damien's presence. All things had "memory" including inanimate objects.
When Damien put his mana in the ground, he pulled out the "memories" of the room itself, the vestiges of past events.
And those memories filled his head.
'As expected, there was something like this.'
The traces in the middle of the room made him doubt whether the scheme here was connected to the lower universe or not because of how similar it was to back then.
There were several beings kidnapped and kept here over thousands of years and used as experiment subjects for a man attempting to create an abomination, something forbidden by the heavens.
Damien didn't know what he was trying to make. He couldn't hear what was being said, he could only see what was being done.
That man tortured the beings he brought here like a lunatic without any sense of humanity. He did so many unspeakable things that Damien almost wanted to stop watching, but he didn't.
Because he realized something.
'It's not that the schemes are connected. It's more apt to say that it's the same scheme.'
The labyrinth from back then and this labyrinth, their owners were the same man.
Damien thought he'd died, but it turned out he ascended instead, and while they destroyed the research he left in the lower universe…
'...I guess he's still pulling bullshit up here.'
Damien's eyes hardened.
That man was trying to make artificial Nox in the past.
What was the continuation of that experiment that made it worth continuing in the Heavenly World?
'If I want to find out, I have to go to the Vanishing Dunes.'
Suddenly, the expedition party's fall didn't feel like a coincidence anymore, nor did the 2nd young master's disappearance.
The expedition party was meant to die here.
And their target…
'...if I don't hurry, he's probably going to become the first success.'
