The reason Damien had to clear his subspace was equally as simple as everything else. The coming processes would be relatively dangerous.
Not for any of the people involved, but for his items. If he made a mistake, there was a high chance that they'd be thrust into the void and consumed by its nothingness.
Soon enough, various beast carcasses, weapons, pills, and random items that would probably have use at some point spilled out onto the cave floor.
Even Damien's sword, Devourer, which he hadn't been using much was within the pile.
Once he was done, he quietly sat down in a meditative posture and focused on the space around him.
There, tethered to him was a small pocket that would go unnoticed by the untrained eye. It wasn't big at all, perhaps the size of a quarter at most, but the space inside was expansive. This was the nature of a subspace.
'Good. That was probably the only easy part of this whole ordeal.'
Mana was the building blocks of all things, and mana was exactly what would solidify his plan. But that was only a part of it.
What Damien wanted to do was essentially create another dimension.
Damien's subspace was an ethereal concept, and it was heavily tied to the concept of space, but the thing about it was that it would always be tethered to the three-dimensional space that made up the universe.
This was one of the main things that prevented it from sustaining life. With its reliance on outside forces to maintain its structure, there was no way it had any potential for evolution.
What Damien wanted to do was create a fourth dimension. It didn't have to be big enough to actually contribute to the universe as a whole, but what he would be doing was creating his own plane.
Rather than being tethered to the space that already existed, it would be entirely its own space. The only tether it would have would be Damien himself.
This was an idea he derived from his Void Physique. After all, didn't it operate on a similar concept? It was part of him, yet it seemed to be located elsewhere.
The Damien of before would never be able to do such a thing as create a dimension, and even the current Damien didn't possess this ability, but he had one thing that would work as a sort of cheat code.
His dimensional magic.
He had gained a great deal of enlightenment on this new and upgraded form of spatial magic over the year or so that he had possessed it, but he had never actually been able to raise its skill level by much.
Why was that? Obviously, it was because he never truly delved into the essence of dimensional magic.
But now, he was doing just that. Although his current experiment was only a portion of the capabilities that dimensional magic had, it still mattered.
With his attention focused on the subspace, Damien soon coated that small piece of bloated space in his mana.
And then, he activated his dimensional magic.
The full scenery of the cave was soon lit by starlight. Flashing motes of blue and black light littered the air like stars.
The subspace that was coated in Damien's mana began to expand. It expanded continuously until it reached the point where its true size was visible.
Luckily, it existed between the spatial layers, or else the entire cave would have been collapsed. His subspace was already the size of a massive city, perhaps even larger.
Once it had been enlarged, Damien knew the first step had been completed. It was no longer tethered to the space around it. Its integrity at this time was being wholly maintained by Damien's mana alone.
The glistening starlight in the air swirled through the atmosphere like a cyclone, centering around Damien. His utmost focus was on maintaining the space of the subspace and making sure it didn't collapse and rejoin the surrounding space.
Now that it was untethered, the next step was to remove it from three-dimensional space entirely.
In simpler words, he was removing the subspace from reality.
There was only one reason this was possible. Damien hadn't realized it much before, but he felt stupid for not noticing.
The void. The void was so elusive that it even trumped space in that aspect. Even though it was technically a concept of space, it was entirely different.
Space was all-encompassing, while the void was all-consuming.
But this all-consuming entity was the exact reason Damien had confidence in separating his subspace from the existing reality, something he wasn't sure was possible otherwise.
Of course, he had the option to forgo this entire troublesome process and just set laws and restrictions, creating something similar to a secret realm that he carried around with him, but that wasn't what he wanted.
His ambitions went far beyond a mere secret realm.
There was an image in his mind. An image where one day, when his power was so vast that the current him couldn't fathom it, he would take this rudimentary design he created now and blossom it into something else entirely.
'A world…no, a universe…no, an entirely new reality.'
Crack!
Cracks began to form between the spatial layers as the weight of Damien's subspace bore down on them.
These weren't the normal spatial cracks that Damien would create, they were dare more dangerous. The integrity of the space within space was cracking.
In simpler words, this was a minuscule example of a crack in reality.
It wasn't something Damien would ever be able to do on his own. If it wasn't for the sheer weight of his subspace as well as the dimensional magic that permeated through space, he doubted whether it was possible to create such an crack.
But the thing was, the amount of mana Damien was continuously pouring out could have already charged an attack far worse than the massive black hole he created in the Celestiak Star Sect Disciple Examination.
If he wasn't actively using his Void Physique to greedily absorb every ounce of ambient mana around him, he wouldn't have been able to sustain it.
Yet, such a massive amount of mana expenditure could only form a crack the size of a fingernail at best.
Suddenly, another essence started leaking from the crack.
It was pitch black and illusory. It wasn't like the inky black mana that the Nox used, it was much darker.
This essence leaked from the cracks in the spatial layers and made its debut in the Real Plane. And when it did, it immediately started to devour.
It devoured everything. Space, time, all creation. It seemingly wanted to revert the universe to nihility.
It was lucky that there was such a small and finite amount, or else nobody would be able to predict what this essence would do.
But this essence was currently trapped between spatial layers. Slowly, Damien exerted his will. He focused his awareness on that pitch-black essence and attempted to dominate it.
A black fog began to emanate from his body, similar to when he used his devour skill. The second the fog met the pitch black essence, the essence immediately became docile.
Damien smiled at the sight. 'As expected. There's no way it'd be called the Void Physique for nothing.'
With the newly termed Void Essence under his control, Damien knew that the next step would be easy. That is, as long as he concentrated his everything on performing it.
The pitch-black Void Essence was directed to gently cover the subspace in a similar way to what Damien's mana was already doing. In fact, the two forms of essence melded together in the process, heavily increasing Damien's control.
Damien exerted his will once again, calling out to the Void Essence. The wild essence that heeded no command, the essence that devoured everything. The rate it spilled out of the spatial cracks increased drastically.
Slowly but surely, the gathering Void Essence concentrated on the subspace. From an outsider's perspective, it looked like the subspace was being devoured.
But Damien knew that wasn't true. The spatial mana he used to create the subspace in the first place was being corrupted.
It was becoming one with the void itself.
