Something changed in Void Palace after that day.
10,561 candidates passed the recruitment exam out of the almost 5 billion that appeared. Rumors about the harsh exam requirements that even terrified experienced mercenaries spread far and wide, and soon enough, the entirety of the Brightmoon Principality understood that something huge would happen soon.
They also began to wonder about the 10,000 people who passed the exam, but unfortunately, there was no way for them to get news of those people.
Ever since the exam ended, they'd been taken to the main palace, and the main palace had been completely closed off.
There was a strange barrier surrounding its periphery. It was solid, but not opaque. The people could see the main palace that defined the Brightmoon Principality, but more perspective viewers noticed that the palace seemed oddly picturesque and unchanging.
Because, in fact, even the palace they saw was a product of the barrier, an illusion of the main palace.
The true main palace had been entirely sealed, and unknown to everyone outside, it was now existing at a completely different frequency than the outside world.
For every day that passed for the rest of the Heavenly World…
'...a year has passed so quickly.'
It had to be extreme.
Damien wanted to raise an army that would be able to stand proudly in the Heavenly World, which meant they needed to be experts who'd forged their own Divinities by the time war actually broke loose.
They didn't have much time, because Damien was pushing as fast as possible. He had some more stuff to solve before Void Palace's internal situation was completely calmed, but the second he finished those things, it would be time.
They had at most a few months remaining. To make that time meaningful, Damien turned months into centuries, which, with the training plan he'd created for them and the talent they each possessed, would be more than enough time for this army to grow into something formidable.
It had been a year, which meant only a day had passed in the outside world. The news about the recruitment exam hadn't spread yet, but Damien was certain the news about the traitors would make its way to the Divine Order soon enough.
'I have at most ten days before I have to return to the outside world.'
It was a decade he could spend personally training them. After that, he had to trust the remaining experts in the main palace to properly raise them.
'But it's fine. Ten years is plenty of time.'
It would've been, if Damien didn't have over 10,000 people to train.
It took three years just for him to create a personalized training plan for each of them to use after he was no longer present.
For the next five years, he mainly focused on his siblings.
He helped Yiren by setting up illusionary worlds for her to train in.
He continued to give Hestia complex mental puzzles to solve and equated them to real-life situations so she could slowly adapt to her role as a strategist and backline leader.
For Dominic, training was more practical. Damien simply left a clone with him at all times, which would spar him and force him to constantly be wary of attacks, slowly bringing him to the level he needed to reach.
And finally, Darius got training more special than the rest.
"What is your Divinity?"
That was the first question Damien asked.
Before anything else, he needed to know if they had to start over or not.
Darius hesitated for a second.
"Can I tell you honestly?"
It was a secret. Even his mother didn't know the true nature of the Divinity he'd formed.
He always knew he was unsuited for the clan's techniques. He was reckless, but he wasn't dumb. He'd always tried to pursue the clan's teachings, but when he noticed that he was always twisting those techniques to resemble a flame, he began to doubt himself.
Could he continue this way?
Putting aside grand goals like reaching the peak, would he even be able to keep up with his siblings like this?
Those thoughts plagued him until the day he forged his Divinity.
Within the bounds of the law barrier, while he was undergoing his Cosmic Rebirth, he decided to take a chance.
Instead of forming a Divinity based on space and time, he created something else.
"It's called [Guardian of Heaven]."
Darius spoke with a bit of embarrassment, but Damien didn't think he needed to be embarrassed at all.
"Guardian of Heaven, huh…"
He smiled.
It was a Divinity formed not on Darius' pursuit of strength, but on his desire to protect Void Palace.
It was not only an admirable Divinity to form, it was perfectly versatile, so Darius' strength didn't need to be broken down and rebuilt.
No, the foundation he created could be used as a springboard to bring his Heavenly Flames to great heights.
"Perfect."
Damien grinned.
"I've possessed quite a few Heavenly Flames, so I can be considered somewhat knowledgeable about them, but there's no way I can know everything. We'll be working together to find out exactly how your flame functions and what you need to do to grow it."
Each Heavenly Flame needed a different method. Damien got lucky to possess a flame that ate other flames to grow, but Darius didn't have this luxury.
Until they found out the Sun and Moon Divine Flame's characteristics, Damien wouldn't leave Darius alone.
And that was how another year went by.
Damien was left with no more than two years to spend on his personalized army, but it was fine. He finished most of the work in the first three years. What was left was just training.
He oversaw them all using clones. He paid special attention to people like Hershel, using Existence Law to sprout talent inside the talentless so they could make full use of the potential they didn't know they had.
And eventually, the ten years he could spend freely in the palace came to an end.
'I've been busy, and I'll only continue to get busier from here.'
Damien sighed.
It sucked, but he barely had contact with his wives in these years.
Between their training, his training, the army's training, and the integration of the Sanctuary Army, the palace's forces, and the new recruits, there were hardly any opportunities for alone time.
Besides a few days here and there and a week before his departure, they couldn't find the chance to relax together.
But none of them minded.
They all hated it, but it had to be done. It was because they knew this that they rested so long before coming to the Heavenly World in the first place.
Now, they had priorities and responsibilities.
For Damien, it was solving Void Palace's problems, and for the girls, it was getting strong enough to have a say in the Heavenly World.
Aside from Iris, they'd only recently formed their Divinities, and before the time for the barrier to be released arrived, they had to become even stronger than Damien's siblings and his army.
As for Iris, she had a lot to learn and relearn about the Demigod realm she'd been in for so long. She had to break her own habits and adapt to the Heavenly World, possibly an even more difficult task than what the rest had to do.
Nevertheless, as everyone worked their hardest to reach for their goals, Damien left the main palace.
There were two remaining problems to solve, and he was headed to solve the first.
12 Elders of the now 48 Elders of the clan had been secluded by enemy forces in a valley bordering the Southwestern Region.
They, unlike those he'd met previously, were loyal to the clan, and without them, a large part of the Elders' authority was diminished.
Now, Damien was headed to their location to save them.
This would be his first true confrontation with the enemy that had been suppressing his people.
The Divine Order.
