Dante Void was truly an amazing character.
He was a genius beyond geniuses, a man born from nothing who managed to gain everything for himself.
During his formative years, Dante was nothing more than a village boy.
He grew up poor, and more than that, he grew up talentless.
While everyone else around him quickly became practitioners, he struggled.
His starting line was behind everyone else's.
And while the system was said to be completely unbiased, it gave him less than half of the experience that everyone else got to level up.
But Dante was always a charismatic person.
It was like nothing in the world could faze him or make him give up, and that spirit attracted people towards him.
It attracted destiny too.
Dante's life was regular for a long time, but the moment he reached level ten and gained his first class, everything turned around for him.
His experience still didn't rise like it did for others, but he was granted his own opportunity.
That same opportunity granted him his special affinity.
He was finally on the same starting line as everyone else. The moment he gained an advantage like that…he thrived.
He suddenly rose to prominence in his area, and from there, he only got better and better. He met people like Alex, Claire, and the rest of his friends, and he continued to have adventure after adventure to leave his mark on the Heavenly World.
It was a long journey. Dante never stopped rushing throughout it.
He knew what it was like to be without talent, and because of that, he did everything he could to make sure he'd never be powerless again.
Perhaps it was that drive that allowed him to do what he did.
There was a reason Malevalon Straea and his Foreign Race allies needed to create something like the Celestial Prison to hold him.
This place not only eradicated space and time, it also made sure no other laws could exist in the vicinity. If they did, they'd be distorted out of proportion so they could never be accessed or used properly.
This wasn't a prison made for someone who controlled space.
Something like that was far, far easier to create, while the Celestial Prison's existence was bordering on the realm of impossibility.
Quite literally the only person whose power seemed capable of bringing the Celestial Prison to life was none other than the Dark God of the Foreign Races.
Why did they need to go to such lengths…?
It was because Dante was an anomaly.
His only affinity was space. That never changed. No matter how strong he got, Dante was always singularly focused on his element, ignoring all else.
However, exactly because of that, he was able to achieve a feat greater than anyone else.
He was able to reach an understanding of Existence itself through space.
That was precisely what made Dante the most powerful person in the Heavenly World.
His spatial law was so convoluted that others described it as miraculous. It looked to them more like he was controlling the fabric of reality than space, but they couldn't doubt the mana fluctuations they sensed.
In that sense, Dante could be considered even more of a genius than his son.
Because he was able to reach a similar height with far less of an advantage.
Of course, that didn't discount Damien's genius. He knew very well how talented he was.
But seeing the Celestial Prison, sensing how intentionally it tried to suppress and eradicate his aura of Existence, he felt so impressed by his father that he couldn't put it into words.
Really, Damien was the only one who could possibly understand just how monumental his father's achievements were.
And, at the same time, he realized it really was a shame that he couldn't spend his childhood with such an amazing father.
'It's not like it was his fault, though.'
Any ill will Damien had towards Dante was gone at this point.
When he learned that his father didn't leave him, but was forced away, when he learned that his father didn't choose to stay gone, but was trapped in a place he could never leave, how was Damien supposed to feel wronged?
He wasn't the one wronged. Their entire family was wronged.
The target of Damien's negative feelings changed to another person a long time ago, but the Celestial Prison truly cemented his thoughts.
'There's usually a whole story behind things like these…'
Just like the Saint Emperor, others probably had their own reasons for being the villain.
But Damien and the Saint Emperor were only enemies because they disagreed on how things should be done.
If they were born on the same side, perhaps things would've been different.
The Dark God was different.
That person had tried to ruin Damien's family on multiple occasions. He was the reason Void Palace was targeted in the first place, and his pursuit was the reason for Dante leaving Damien alone and everything that came after.
That was a real enemy.
That was a person Damien had no interest in getting to know.
Regardless of that man's story, regardless of his reasons, Damien would make sure he died a painful death.
Because those reasons had nothing to do with him.
He closed his eyes.
The strange illusive nature of the Celestial Prison made his thoughts spin, but he had to remember that he was here for a purpose.
'The question is…how do I find him?'
There was no up or down here. There wasn't really anywhere to go, but at the same time, the prison expanded infinitely.
'Perhaps…'
Damien allowed his mana to flow outwardly.
He tried to connect to the fabric of this place, but it was difficult without a foundation of spacetime.
'Is it mirrored?'
Damien tried walking in every direction, testing the waters.
'It seems that as long as my will can overcome the will of this place…'
At the end of the day, the Celestial Prison was also within the realm of Existence.
The one who made it clearly tried to go beyond that limitation, but didn't succeed.
Which meant that Damien could gain control of this entire construct as long as his power could defeat the original creator's.
'Sounds easy, right?'
He said it sarcastically, but he wasn't necessarily wrong.
It may have been the will of a supreme existence that Damien was fighting, but this will had been holding the prison together and suppressing Dante with all of its might for an untold amount of time.
It had naturally experienced a lot of wear, and as Damien began trying to infiltrate it, he realized that there were a lot more cracks in its surface than he expected.
It made him smile.
His father…
'...never once stopped fighting.'
Even when his power was stripped from him, he used every means at his disposal to try and escape this place.
And because of his unrelenting effort, Damien was able to easily seize control over what remained.
'Now, show me…'
He spoke to the prison itself.
'...my father.'
The space around Damien, a collection of infinitely mirrored glass-like cubes that both reflected off each other and gave one the ability to see through them, began to change.
As if they were being rearranged, the individual cubes started moving, something that should have been impossible.
And as they moved, a scene became clear in their reflection.
A man Damien had never seen before.
Yet, a man he'd met so many times already.
Dante Void.
