A question arose after this series of events.
How much of this did Damien plan? What was his role in the happenings that took place?
The answer was everything.
He was the one who grabbed the Silver Leaves and placed them in the area, as well as the one who used Life Laws to accelerate their growth until they matured.
He was the one who attracted the Thunderbird by taking all the other Silver Leaves in nearby areas and hiding their auras away.
He was the one who drew the bugs to make their colonies in the vicinity, and he was the one who led the frogs over to eat those bugs.
He was the one who chose the area where the attack would take place, knowing it was the python's habitat.
And he was the one who found the Earth Dragon, perfectly bringing everything together.
It could've ended at the python. No, it could have ended at the frogs. There was really no reason to do as much as he did to kill Pria's group.
But he wanted them to feel fear before they died, just as he planned to do with the rest of the Straea Clan.
There was no need to talk about what happened after the ground collapsed.
The Thunderbird had no interest in humans, but the Earth Dragon was different. As a subterranean creature in a landscape without too much subterranean life, it needed to either conserve its energy and hunt underground or rise to the surface to search for food.
Damien lured the Earth Dragon into a place where it couldn't do either, and as if to compensate it for its troubles, he gave it a massive feast afterward.
It ate everything.
Whether it be the plants, the bugs, the frogs, the python, or the humans that got caught between them, nothing could survive against a true Godbeast whose hunger had been aroused.
The sequence of events took weeks to plan and execute, but it ended within just a few minutes.
Damien watched it all from the side, and as the Thunderbird gained the reward it came for and the rain left along with it, he revealed himself with a smile on his face.
'That was great.'
It was extremely entertaining to watch.
Pria wasn't the best of the best. She was a God that was hardly a God. However, she still managed to attain that level.
She was still someone Damien couldn't fight, regardless of how weak she was compared to her peers.
So seeing her helpless, forced to crawl meaninglessly before meeting her eventual end, was quite satisfying.
Because once again, he saw it.
The fact that even Gods were just practitioners.
'I should get moving.'
There wasn't much left for him to do in the secret realm, but there was plenty to do when he left.
'I should start planning to leave for Void Palace, and while I do…'
It wasn't bad to raise the geniuses of the Veritas Clan to a new level.
The Straea Clan and the Divine Order. They were the enemies he knew, but there were sure to be others in the dark as well.
Since that was the case, since Void Palace was struggling, he needed all the help he could get.
And if that help came genuinely, it was even better.
The Veritas Clan was filled with good people. He was certain Yulia and the rest at her level would help Void Palace as they promised, however, Damien couldn't guarantee all of them would help genuinely.
The younger generation was different. If he could raise them properly and make them indebted to him, wouldn't they push for a more sincere approach to their cooperation?
He didn't know how well it would work, but it was a plan worth trying.
After all, in the end, a few characters from the younger generation were the ones who rose up to save Grand Heavens Boundary.
He had seen it work before.
Damien turned his eyes away. He glanced over a few hundred million kilometers and took a peek at what the Kyushu Federation group was doing before heading back into the known region of the secret realm to regroup with the Veritas Clan.
'The Kyushu Federation…'
They were a completely different problem. He didn't need to think about it right now.
'I need to focus on what's in front of me. My plate is already too full as it is.'
He sighed to himself.
He didn't want to do this again.
Being the sole supporter of something he had no business being the only one supporting was annoying. He already knew how it felt from everything he did for Grand Heavens Boundary.
'But information about Void Palace has been restricted to the extreme. I haven't found anything about the internal situation no matter how much I searched, so…'
There was hope.
They weren't defeated yet, they were merely playing on the defensive.
'Void Palace, huh…'
He'd been researching about them for so long, but he never really stopped to think about it.
That place was his origin.
That place was his home.
And frankly, he couldn't wait to see it for himself.
***
The months passed swiftly after that.
The clans remaining in the secret realm didn't interact with each other much, focusing on their own growth.
As for Damien, he returned to the Veritas group and resumed his role as a protector as if nothing happened.
However, he was more involved than before.
Rather than just protecting from the shadows, he gave the geniuses advice on how to properly utilize their mana and laws.
He focused mainly on Celeste, since she was the one who showed the most promise, but he didn't skimp on helping the rest of them as well.
Aside from Celeste's constitution, Romulus and Reva Veritas had pretty interesting powers as well.
The two of them were truly twins. Their abilities enhanced each other, and though they were great practitioners on their own, their potential could only truly be realized when they fought together.
Damien had met people like them before. It wasn't rare for twins to be born with such complementary abilities. Since he knew how they looked when they acted at peak efficiency, he was able to advise them without experiencing that kind of synergy himself.
Nevertheless, Damien's role in the Veritas group suddenly became far greater than it was before.
Not just the Demigod Elders, but even the two Great Elders treated him with respect and put his word above their own.
He became the leader, and with that authority, he led the geniuses to gain as many opportunities as possible.
The Forbidden Secret Realm had a mechanism that only let people take a single item out with them.
However, what they did within the realm was their own business.
If they found a material they could ingest, they would ingest it right then and there with Damien watching over and helping them do it as fast as possible.
If they found something that could be made into a weapon, as long as it wasn't too complicated, Damien had the forging skills to make it for them.
And with those skills as their support, the geniuses of the Veritas Clan made more gains than they ever thought possible.
Another six months passed like this, and then another six months after that.
By the time the second year in the secret realm ended, Damien started to feel it.
'The density of space is getting weaker.'
The fluctuations were getting more intense every single day.
Which meant, soon enough, the Forbidden Secret Realm expedition would end.
