The following events took place within the span of no more than a single second.
It truly came down to the wire.
Damien let go of his transformation. In that instant, his body began to grow and change back into a human.
His arm was already outstretched. He was reaching for the key since before he even decided to act.
In terms of time, Damien took less than one ten-thousandth of a second to return to his original form, but that was already enough time.
In the first fraction of that 1/10000th, Malevalon noticed his presence.
His body didn't have time to move, but his aura was already mobilized and prepared.
From every side, it attacked Damien, and that was the cause of the first explosion.
BOOOOOOOOOM!
The study stood strong. It was made to resist Malevalon's aura. However, Damien's body wasn't quite the same.
His left arm and left leg were blown off. His right left split in half vertically, and his chest caved in.
Deadly damage was inflicted. No normal person would've been able to survive.
However, Damien was obviously different.
The Authority of Immortality went into action immediately, allowing him to continue functioning despite his injuries.
His right arm kept moving. Damien used every ounce of his mana to protect it and its connection to his body.
He was only inches away from the key at this point. Malevalon also got the time to turn around and face him, so his situation still wasn't good.
"You…"
His eyes flicked between Damien and the key. He didn't have time to speak. He could only react.
BOOOOOOOOOM!
The second explosion.
This time, it was a true attack filled with the intent to kill Damien, not a natural response.
His head was blown off.
He couldn't defend himself.
Or rather, he didn't try to.
But for Damien, whose soul and body had been tuned to the Void, losing his head didn't mean death.
His soul was still controlling his body, and his arm was still reaching forward.
Millimeters.
That was all that separated him from the key.
The fact that he kept moving made Malevalon anxious. Despite the fact that Damien should've already been dead, Malevalon continued his attack.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The third explosion.
The remainder of Damien's body was blown away.
The result of a direct confrontation between the two of them was obvious. Damien had gotten extremely powerful, but he was still not powerful enough to fight against this world's finest.
Only a single arm remained in the physical world.
But Damien's soul was untouched.
The next attack would destroy it.
But that soul, attached to the single arm it put all its efforts into controlling, continued to reach for the key.
"BASTARD!"
Malevalon's roar finally managed to come out of his mouth.
He didn't even know who he was shouting at.
After all, he couldn't see Damien's Void Soul.
He could only see that arm as it grabbed hold of the key.
The small cube on the desk made of interlocking pieces. The thing nobody else should've known the identity of but him…
Someone had broken into his study and was trying to take it.
This fact registered in his mind.
But his logical reasoning told him there was no way Damien could escape with it.
He didn't have a body left.
As long as that arm was destroyed, even the strangely unkillable entity that was trying to rob him would fail.
That was his thought.
So he aimed for the arm.
But the second Damien touched the key, it was already over.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The fourth explosion.
It came far too late.
In the same fraction of a fraction of a fraction of a second that it took for Malevalon to process everything and move his mana…
Damien firmly took hold of the key and activated his own mana.
The study was filled with destruction. The furniture had already turned to powder and the walls were shaking as the amount of power they had to endure continued to increase.
But Damien was already gone.
One second passed right then and there.
And by the time it was over, Malevalon was once again alone in his study.
Only, this time, the key he'd been keeping close for countless years…
…was gone, along with the one who stole it.
A lot of seconds passed after that one.
It took a considerable number of them for Malevalon to truly process what had just occurred.
And when he finally reached the foregone conclusion…
Well, his reaction could be imagined.
***
Damien thought he went to the Sanctuary.
That was his original intent.
No matter how strong his enemies became, they could never reach a level where they could sense the existence of an entirely different cosmos.
Because that was what the Sanctuary had grown to become.
It was the perfect place to hide away when the need arose. In an operation where Damien needed to steal something and return to the palace as fast as possible, the Sanctuary was quite literally perfect.
However, that was not where he found himself when he escaped that room.
The first thing he noticed was that he couldn't sense anything.
His soul form didn't have that ability, and since his body was practically nonexistent, he couldn't use physical senses to support his ethereal ones.
It took a while for his perception to return to normal.
His body had to regrow, and with nothing more than a few fingers left dearly clutching the Celestial Prison key after the final explosion, it took a minute.
And when Damien's eyes returned, he was finally able to realize that his surroundings were not what he thought they were.
He didn't actually know what he was seeing.
But he could feel it.
'This place…'
His eyes widened slightly.
'...this is the Celestial Prison.'
His perception of it was wrong from the start.
He'd misinterpreted the visions.
That "key" was never a key from the start.
That "key" was a physical manifestation of the Celestial Prison.
The moment Damien's mana interacted with it, he was forcefully pulled inside.
And strangely enough, he was still holding that physical manifestation in his hand.
'This is a trip.'
He felt like he was on drugs.
From what he gathered before coming here, the Celestial Prison was a four-dimensional space that didn't work according to the rules of every cosmos.
Rather, it was a place that directly twisted those rules so that they couldn't be exploited.
It was only natural for the things that happened here to make no sense.
But that didn't matter, because Damien was here.
Which meant he could finally find his father.
Damien slowly felt his environment.
He was standing, but there was no solid surface for him to stand on.
It was like the floor was made of glass, allowing him to see the rest of this strange cuboid structure.
But there was really no floor at all.
Damien was confused.
His perception couldn't be trusted anymore.
Even with all his power, even he was suppressed within this realm.
'This is the level of prison necessary to hold Dante Void.'
The situation was definitely a bit precarious, but…
…Damien, as a son, couldn't help but feel proud of his father.
