It was difficult to understand what had occurred without experiencing it personally.
The Saintess left a lot of information in Damien's hands, to the point where he could barely focus on the changed atmosphere around him.
The information about the names of their two cosmos came out of nowhere and didn't seem to have any place in the rest of the things contained in the token, but it was a clue to what the Saintess' power could achieve.
As for what came after, it was a slew of knowledge about the Sacred Abyss Universe.
More so, a slew of information about the world the Saintess saw.
Damien never realized how powerful the Saintess was. Her power came from a force he couldn't see, so it was only natural for him to underestimate her.
Damien had been in the Gehenna Tribe for over a year now, but the time had passed so fast it hardly felt like it had been that long.
The village people were great and welcoming, and in that atmosphere where he felt like he could do whatever he wanted securely, his perception became hazy.
He was already disconnected from the laws. When he was fed a proverbial lotus that made his awareness of reality drop, the effect was only multiplied.
Everything had gone according to the Saintess' plans from the moment Damien's group arrived in the tribe.
Everything had taken place in such a way that Damien would be rushed into Gehenna without a chance to reconsider things.
Because if he just sat down and thought about it for a second, he obviously would've found something odd about it all.
The Saintess knew something bad was coming for the tribe, and she knew exactly what it was.
The problem was that she didn't see a way for them to win against the threat they were facing.
So, by any means possible, the Saintess drove destiny forward and pushed those who needed to see Gehenna into the realm before an all-out war broke out.
But she knew her plan wasn't absolute, and those who entered Gehenna needed to come out at some point.
That was the only reason she informed Damien.
The Count. Specifically, Count Verex.
He ruled this territory of the Sacred Abyss Universe and was one of 32 Counts under the command of the Dark God.
None of them were particularly good people, but Count Verex's reputation was bad even by Foreign Race standards.
He was known for abusing the people who lived in his territory, and his greed for power allowed him to sacrifice anything and everything.
The Gehenna Tribe had an encounter with him in the past.
Or rather, the Saintess did.
Ever since then, she knew he would appear before her one day as the person fated to bring her death.
She knew how much he lusted after the Crown that was contained within Gehenna.
She couldn't allow him to have it.
And she couldn't allow him to interfere with the destiny of her tribespeople.
As such, she only let Damien know.
There was no way to stop what was already happening anyway.
Damien obviously made a huge scene at the entrance when he broke it all down.
With the information presented and the way the Saintess decided to present it, with the way Gehenna cleared away the confusion in his mind, Damien was able to put it all together.
The Saintess had prophesized her own death.
She had seen the end of her clan.
And she'd tasked Damien with protecting the most prized geniuses they had birthed in the past generation, so that the legacy of the tribe wouldn't fall easily.
Damien gritted his teeth furiously.
'I should have realized it earlier.'
Damien had extremely positive emotions towards the Gehenna Tribe. They treated him like family without a hint of prejudice, accepting him as one of their own.
However, he didn't actually get close to anyone, including Thalia.
Was the Saintess trying to prevent him from getting emotionally invested in their fate?
Was she trying to protect him?
If she was, then she failed.
Because the things she did for his sake without asking for anything in return were enough to earn his utmost respect.
'Focus.'
Damien closed his eyes.
He took long, deep breaths and arranged all the new information he'd just learned.
He spread his senses into the surroundings and completely calmed down.
Only in this state would he be able to do something meaningful.
'Okay.'
He boiled down the compiled facts into only the things he needed to focus on.
A God was approaching the tribe with their deaths and this realm was his goal.
He couldn't leave Gehenna on his own, not without accomplishing whatever the Saintess sent him here to accomplish.
But he had to leave soon, so that he could save the tribe from their doom.
"Huu…"
The Saintess may have been planning for this moment for a very long time, but to Damien, everything changed too fast.
Life was calm until the instant Gehenna opened. If there was anything that stood out about it all, it was that the Saintess really knew how to hide her fangs.
'Focus.'
Damien kept his senses focused on the surroundings.
He immediately felt the differences as compared to both cosmos he'd been in.
'The laws are chaotic.'
This place also had its own unique law form, which meant–
'–time is also different here.'
There was nobody else in Damien's surroundings. The geniuses were all separated during spatial transmission, which allowed Damien to act without worry.
He sat down where he was, judging this area safe, and immediately went to work comprehending the time dilation.
Time passed, and he felt its flow. He compared it to what he knew from the True Void Universe, and he compared it to what he learned in the Sacred Abyss Universe.
In the end, he was able to roughly determine some things.
'It's good. Very good, in fact.'
From what he could tell, he had at least a few months for every hour that passed outside. It was hard for him to get a completely accurate picture without being connected to the Sacred Abyss Universe's Time Laws, but his rough estimate was enough.
'I have around a year.'
He didn't know when the Count would arrive at the tribe, but he knew that once a God took action, they wouldn't last for more than a few seconds at most.
Count Verex's personality, from the information the Saintess provided, was extremely arrogant.
Damien was going to rush and get out of this place as soon as possible, but in the worst-case scenario where he couldn't arrive in time, he had to place his hopes on the Count's arrogance and pray that he would send weaker troops to attack first, giving Damien some time.
Everything was properly digested in his mind.
Damien finally got the chance to look around and actually see where he was.
No matter how urgent the situation outside was, he had to put it out of his mind.
Before he could worry about that, he had to get out of here.
And to get out of here…
…he had to personally find out what all this fuss about destiny really meant.
