Damien left for the Western Region not long after his conversation with his mother. He only stayed as long as he needed to, going over several plans with to ensure that the Heavenly World would remain stable.
This trip was another self-satisfaction move from Damien, aside from the obvious importance of letting others know what happened.
He childishly wanted others to tell him what he wanted to hear, so he could feel better or worse about himself. He didn't quite know which one it was, but Damien was definitely looking for someone else to tell him he was wrong.
He didn't like that he was getting full of himself. He didn't enjoy wagering the lives of countless people for his own benefit.
But he did it anyway, didn't he?
It went against his moral code while following it to the tee, which caused chaos in his mind.
He had to force himself to put it away.
Damien never forgot his humanity. He couldn't just throw away his emotions like everyone else seemed to do.
He had the ability to make sure he felt nothing, but that wasn't the kind of person he wanted to be.
Even if he did something arrogantly like a God, he didn't want to forget this terrible feeling in his chest that reminded him of what was at stake.
He didn't want to lose his sense of reality.
Nevertheless, that was a problem for him to deal with on his own, not something for him to push on others.
Damien teleported away, focusing everything on work.
As his spatial fluctuations filled the room, Claire turned to take a look behind her.
"Are you sure you don't want to see him?"
A shadow came around the corner. He had been there from the start, but even Damien had been unable to sense his presence.
"It's fine. If he sees me now, it might mess with his mental state. It's better for us to meet once he's in a better place."
The man smiled. His sapphire-blue eyes gleamed in the light, and though he didn't have his Divinity, he radiated a strange aura of power unlike anything else that existed in the cosmos.
He walked up to Claire and Serena. His smile was directed at both of them, after all.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64ce79d606107d003c23ea27", id: "pf-5140-1"})"He is one of ours, isn't he?" He said, nothing but confidence in his voice.
"I want to see how far he can go when he's living as he pleases. For us, as his parents…"
Dante Void peered through the layers of Existence, laying his eyes on Damien, who was already in Arulion.
"...isn't the only thing to make sure our children can be happy?"
Claire nodded with a smile.
As of a few hours ago, her husband had woken up, and now, her son had returned and finally showed her that he was truly safe.
Life was going to be good from now on.
The only prerequisite was the destruction of that being called the Dark God.
***
Dante was awake. That much was true.
However, it wasn't that simple.
The reason Dante stayed in his coma for so long was because the Dark God was tormenting him in the depths of his Existence, forcing him to fight his shadow for eternity.
The only way to escape that imprisonment was to defeat the phantom, but Dante…
Dante didn't have that kind of power.
No, he had gained a great deal through those battles and had gotten much closer to reaching the peak of that "thing" he had started sensing not long before he was captured, but he wasn't nearly enough to face the Dark God alone.
When he opened his eyes, the first thing he saw were the two women he loved more than anything else in the world carefully taking care of him.
When they noticed that he was conscious, they erupted into emotion.
He couldn't make them worry by acting like something was wrong.
Still, in his mind, he knew.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "64cc9e79c7059f003e4ad4b0", id: "pf-5109-1"})'I didn't escape. That being…he let me go.'
A pulse of energy flowed into the illusionary world earlier and shattered it. Dante almost wanted to thank his savior, but that energy had become too familiar to him over the eternity he spent trapped.
What did it mean for the Dark God to let him go?
Was it provocation? Was he saying that Dante's presence wouldn't change the outcome of his invasion?
After fighting against the followers of that being for his entire life, Dante didn't think he would be gracious enough to just give him a pass.
'But he didn't kill me.'
This time, the Dark God didn't have his people aim to kill.
Since he was still alive in the first place…
'...does that being know about…'
It seemed like his secrets had been exposed.
If things were as he believed, then that being was far greater than he'd ever imagined in the past.
The illusionary world was a nightmare. The Celestial Prison was a nightmare as well. Dante was fine on the outside, and he didn't even care about his broken Divinity and lost power.
However, he was haunted by that experience. The Dark God had completely traumatized him.
The only way for him to quiet the screeching memories that reminded him of that place was to focus his attention on the real world.
A world that was completely different from the one he'd left.
'A lot has changed.'
The world he woke up to was a new one. The palace was not his anymore, and the younger generation had already surpassed the old.
The influences that were still growing in the past were now in their prime, and some of those he knew well were long deceased.
But…it didn't bother him as much as he thought it would.
window.pubfuturetag = window.pubfuturetag || [];window.pubfuturetag.push({unit: "663633fa8ebf7442f0652b33", id: "pf-8817-1"})'They really did it.'
Hearing the stories about his sons, daughters, wives, and people, he felt immense pride.
Especially Damien, who was born with the worst starting point of them all.
'He actually made it here, and…'
When he regained his bearings completely, the memories of the many clones and projections he'd left through the cosmos came back to him.
He almost cried in that moment.
As if he was looking at a collection of images, he watched his son change as he progressed through life.
And he realized something.
'This isn't my world anymore.'
Everything belonged to his son now. Even his own life was primarily saved because of the countless efforts his son made to save him.
Damien wasn't the only one, either. Dante had five children, yet, he hadn't seen any of the rest of them in millions of years.
Considering that they'd only been born in the past two hundred years, the disconnection he felt was even more severe.
That level of time dilation wasn't easy to overcome.
It was a bittersweet feeling to see how they'd grown. It was even worse since he wasn't able to experience anything that had happened before now.
The separation of a million years became painfully tangible when he saw the palace.
Still, he was here.
No matter how it happened, he was here.
So there was no way he'd miss out on anything else.
'No more mistakes.'
That was the promise he made to himself.
In order to live the rest of his life in a way that he wouldn't regret, in order to never feel the emptiness of being separated from his family again…
Dante Void was willing to do anything, no matter the cost.
