"Here's the plan."
Damien gathered them all after spending a few hours observing and checking their progress.
From those in high positions like his mother to those who achieved squad leader positions in the army, anyone who'd be relevant for the next move was gathered.
Damien already had the plan thought out. He was wondering if his people could properly execute it, but after seeing how they'd grown, that wasn't a concern anymore.
Damien was excited.
He was particularly excited to see how a few key individuals performed, because from what he'd sensed, they'd made progress that even their peers didn't know about.
Nevertheless, he'd gathered everyone so he could inform them about what had happened during his trip outside and get them ready for the next move.
The first half of that had already happened. Everyone was up to date on the outside world's happenings and Void Palace's state.
Now, for the second half…
"Since you all already know the reasons, I won't explain it again. The Divine Order knows pretty much everything about us, so we'll have to do a complete restructure from top to bottom and fix any holes they could possibly exploit."
Damien's intro was already a tedious task, but he wasn't an unrealistic person.
"Of course, that's a long-term plan. To buy ourselves time to do that, we first need to strike them where it hurts and make sure they can't do anything to us for a while."
He didn't say it outright, but he wasn't just referring to the Divine Order.
The Kyushu Federation was solved, but the Straea Clan was still a huge problem.
Damien needed to do something that caused both enemy clans to back off and bide their time.
'For that, just attacking the Divine Order or killing their people won't be enough.'
He needed something more.
And fortunately, he had it in droves.
It had been mentioned before, but Damien now had just as much dirt on the order as they had on him.
They were already caught up in the plot Damien set before leaving and stuck searching for a terrorist group that didn't exist, but that wouldn't hold them for long.
Before they could recover, Damien had to do something even bigger.
"Let me premise this with an important fact that everyone needs to accept."
The Divine Order wasn't an ordinary enemy.
"We all know their nature, but it's a lot bigger than we originally expected. The Divine Order…is connected to the Foreign Races somehow."
Damien looked around the room.
For the most part, the reactions were as he expected.
Relatively mild.
Not many people understood the horror of the Foreign Races yet, so the majority of those who had been in the Heavenly World for a long time just thought of them as a passing threat.
However, it wasn't the same for everyone.
Obviously, those who came from the lower universe all had grave expressions, knowing that the Foreign Races were the progenitors of the Nox Race and the true culprit behind their suffering.
But it wasn't just them.
It was slight, but Claire, Serena, Hugo, and Persia all subtly flinched, but made sure nobody could see it.
It couldn't escape Damien's sight, though.
'I'll have to ask them about it later, but now's not the time. Regardless, it looks like they know something more. It's good that not everyone is unaware.'
Damien had to somehow convince the world of the threat the Foreign Races posed.
He was doing everything else for that purpose as well.
Whether it be the Veritas Clan, the Kyushu Federation, or any of those who came in the future, Damien wasn't recruiting them to his side just to win against the Divine Order or the Straea Clan.
No, those threats needed to be exterminated not only to save Void Palace, but also to secure the Heavenly World before war started with those from another plane.
Damien never forgot about the Foreign Races, nor did their importance fade because he had other things to accomplish in the meantime.
He would confront them soon.
He had been ignoring everything until now because he didn't have time, but as soon as he finished securing the borders, he would finally go confront them himself.
But that was for a different time.
Right now, the connection the Divine Order had with the Foreign Races had to be targeted for a different reason.
The Divine Order, as a great clan, could never admit that it was working together with the Foreign Races. Even if people didn't treat them as a real threat, none of them appreciated their attempts at invasion.
The Foreign Races were universally despised, and it wasn't like everyone was clueless.
Just like Claire and the rest, several powerful people knew what the Foreign Races actually represented, and if they learned of the order's actions, the repercussions would be brutal.
Damien was planning to take advantage of the deep secret that their cooperation was and use it against them.
He barely needed to raise a blade himself, but he still needed to do so.
First came a warning.
First, under the guise of arrogance, he'd push the Divine Order in battle and warn them about the information he knew.
And depending on their reaction, he would determine his next step.
There was a lot he could learn from this move and even more he could accomplish.
Therefore, the current meeting wasn't one to inform those relevant parties about the Divine Order's secrets, but to target people directly involved with them.
These were people of all different social classes without any sort of relation to each other, but if one knew about the hidden movements of said individuals, they'd be able to connect their deaths back to a single cause.
Their deaths were his current goal.
Damien didn't quite go into the "why" of it all with his people, since they wouldn't understand with their current worldview, but he gave them a rundown on their targets and how they were meant to move.
His orders were received well. Without any questions, those who needed to move prepared themselves to head out within the next few days.
Not all the killings would take place at the same time or in the same way. For the plan to unfold as Damien intended, to really shove the message in the enemy's faces, the people involved needed to act with pinpoint accuracy.
They weren't worried, though.
They'd had a century to prepare for this moment. If any of them still held doubt or hesitation in their hearts, it only meant they'd wasted the time they'd been given.
Those who were young sprouts when they came were now experienced experts. Some of them were even older than their own parents at this point, and the wisdom they gained with that age, along with the experiences they'd had in the various illusion worlds they'd trained in, turned them into people nobody could imagine had been training in seclusion for so long.
That night, over a hundred people set foot outside the palace for the first time in a very long while.
Like snakes slithering through the shadows, they moved, their venom primed as they approached the targets of their wrath.
