Their discussion continued for the next few hours before Damien returned to his residence. There was nothing else they could possibly plan for, and as they had agreed earlier, Ruyue was in charge of the disguises.
At this point, there was nothing Damien could do besides sit patiently and wait for the next day to come.
He found himself lying on his bed alone for the first time in many months and honestly, he didn't know how to feel about it.
Ever since arriving at the Cloud Plane, he had been moving constantly either by training or going on missions, completely absorbed in the activities he was partaking in.
Perhaps it was a subconscious thing, but he never allowed himself to have time alone like this. He knew what would happen when it came. He would inevitably find himself drowning in his own thoughts.
Well, recently it was mainly self-loathing.
It was this self-loathing that kept him running away from his thoughts, trying his best to ignore his feelings and continue on with his happy everyday life.
And he knew the reason for this. It wasn't that hard to figure out.
'I wronged her.'
Every time he was alone in bed like this, his thoughts would drift towards the woman who had silently supported him ever since they first met.
Even when he made such an outrageous request to separate, even when he was clearly running away from his feelings, she didn't say anything. She continued to support him and wish the best for him from the side.
And every time he thought of her, he would hate his guts for leaving her like that. He knew they were still together and that this was just a small period of separation, but that didn't diminish his guilt in the slightest.
Why should Rose have to deal with his emotional insecurity? Why does he have to affect her with his mood swings? He hated the idea of it.
He didn't want to run away from happiness anymore, but he couldn't find it in himself to embrace it.
'I'm…pathetic.'
Pathetic. It was the only word he could use to describe the current him. He could charge into a valley of death or a sea of corpses with no hesitation, he could face the aura of a 4th class existence and resist with all his might, so why was it that when it came to his love life he was so trash?
Were his trust issues, his abandonment issues, this deeply engrained within his psyche? Was he that broken?
The odd thing was that Damien had never had a romantic relationship before he met Rose. He hadn't even had a fling with another woman. His situation on earth and his one-track mind wouldn't allow it.
Not to mention, with how he would walk around like a homeless person most of the time after the world awakening, there was no girl who would look his way.
He was new to the relationship thing, and even more than that he was new to such dense affection like the one Rose would always show him.
'Think. Think about why it is that I'm so scared to express my love for her.'
That was the thought that kept running through his head. Damien wasn't the type to leave his problems unsolved, especially if he could find the solution with a bit of thinking like so.
He wanted to get to the crux of the problem as soon as possible so he might have hope of fixing himself or at least acknowledging what he needed to fix.
And as his level increased and brought his league up together with it, his memory had become much sharper. He could vividly remember the happy childhood he used to have and the shitty days that came after that.
'That's right, it all began when Dad left.'
His mother was forced to work three times as hard, never having time to show him the motherly love he used to experience daily, he became a laughingstock at school to those children who weren't aware of the concept of boundaries, and he slowly became more introverted.
That was the day his downward spiral began. It was after that day that he subconsciously conditioned himself to run away from affection, knowing that it could disappear in the blink of an eye.
It was after that day that he couldn't trust anyone, the ones he used to spend his days with turning their backs on him.
In the end, the core of his trauma was his family.
'How stupid of me.'
Why was he letting such an old scar take such prevalence in his life now? This life of his was so much different from what it had been previously that it was such a negligible memory.
But that was normal. Trauma wasn't something that would disappear just because you wanted it to, or just because your life turned around.
Damien had never healed his trauma. He hadn't even taken steps towards such a goal. Instead, he did as he was doing now.
'I ran away from my problems.'
For how much he loved to talk big about not leaving problems unsolved, it seemed he had a rich history of running away from such things.
Maybe that was the thing he needed to fix most. Maybe before he could go and meet Rose with utmost confidence, he had to learn to face himself seriously.
When his thoughts came full circle back to Rose, his face slightly contorted into a grimace.
Although what he had previously been thinking about was the main cause of his guilt towards her, it wasn't the only one.
It had been almost 5 months since they separated, and only 4 of those months were spent at the sect. During that time, how much had he thought about her?
How much had he missed her?
He felt like he was belittling her position in his heart by avoiding even the subject of her like this.
And there was another thing as well. He was beginning to…
'No. Let's not think about that.'
He immediately suppressed those feelings the second they appeared in his mind, trying to deny them with all his might.
Even if he couldn't deny them, he at least had to suppress them so they wouldn't interfere with both his daily and romantic life.
"Agh, why does this shit have to be so complicated?"
He covered his face with his hands, shaking his head furiously. Was love like this for everyone?
'I'm tired.'
It wasn't physical exhaustion at all. He had just been forcing himself to think about too many things over the past few months. Not even including his personal problems, he had been forced to think about the Nox more than he would like.
"A damn alien invasion. It sounds awesome on paper but why does it have to bring me so much work?"
If he could choose, he would just go to the secret realm and then explore another world. Maybe he would also check out a few danger zones before he did so.
But no, it seemed the universe had other plans for him, seeing how the Nox would pop up in one way or another everywhere he went.
'It's not like I can do anything about it, they're literally aiming for universal conquest.'
Shaking his head once more, Damien started succumbing to his exhaustion. He needed to clear his mental fatigue before tomorrow since he couldn't screw up on this mission.
'Ugh. Life is so damn complicated.'
It was the last thought that streaked through his mind before he finally drifted into a deep slumber.
