Tumultuous pitch-black thunderclouds blanketed the sky, bathing the realm in shadow. Submerged in this blackness, the thick pillar of Black Demon Lightning hurling towards Damien was nigh-invisible.
But it made its presence known.
Its massive aura spread even faster than it, taking only a fraction of a second to reach Atticus who was many thousands of kilometers away. Every inch of space it passed through was thoroughly shattered, breaking the barrier between the Real Plane and the Mystic Realm.
Even below, confined by space itself, a roaring sea of Black Demon Lightning fought with fervor to reconnect to its realm. If this happened, even Damien wouldn't survive.
But whether it was lucky or unlucky, the Black Demon Lightning pillar traveled too fast. In a mere instant, it was already looming above Damien's head.
In this realm of blackness, the pure snow-white hair flowing down Damien's back made his figure especially prominent. Facing the Black Demon Lightning's pressure, he was unfazed.
His eyes stared into the sky, those mystical purple irises swirling with profundity. As the All-Seeing Eyes activated for the first time since Damien's Baptism, he found the world unraveled before him.
That thickly interwoven pillar of Black Demon Lightning separated into the individual threads that formed it. Even the surrounding space developed a sort of physical presence that made it more pronounced.
Under these conditions, Damien readied himself. His defenses were at their maximum power, his healing abilities the same. With only sparks of time separating him from total annihilation, he closed his eyes.
Time slowed to a crawl. Damien's awareness coated Mirage, allowing him to precisely guide his mana along its surface.
Mirage was a space elemental sword to begin with. While Devourer's ability was to grow and amplify his mana, Mirage's was to control space with its own power and consciousness. When combined with Damien, it didn't just amplify his power, it added its own power to every attack as well.
Damien's spatial mana covered Mirage first, forming a link with the sword. Next, temporal mana followed suit. With the way these two laws interlinked, the fusion between it and the sword was perfect.
Lightning and flames came next. While these were secondary elements in Damien's arsenal that he didn't utilize often, they were still incredibly strong. However, unlike space and time, these two elements were incredibly explosive and unstable, especially when mixed together as one.
The balance between these four forces was disturbed by their chaos. This was an inevitable circumstance. But while for most, their mana would backfire and explode, Damien was different.
Void Mana coated the four other essences and forcefully tamed them. After it fused into Mirage, the sword began to glow with a deathly light.
In that instant, he swung Mirage upward with all his strength! The Black Demon Lightning pillar crashed down at the same time, meeting the blade head-on!
BOOOOOOM!
The two forces collided with such grandeur that the foundation of the Black Demon Lightning space shook. Space and time quaked, flames and lightning raged, if there was a true depiction of hell on earth, this was it!
With the All-Seeing Eyes' guidance, Damien's mana split into threads and attacked every individual strand of Black Demon Lightning. Spatial mana separated them, temporal mana locked them in place, and flames and lightning followed for the killing strike!
This superb show of precision left Atticus shocked, but it wasn't quite over yet. A thread of Void Mana entered every thread of Black Demon Lightning, and after said lightning was destroyed, it devoured the leftover essence whole. In this way, Damien was not only resisting, but he was also growing at the same time!
ROAR!
The Black Demon Lightning roared like a beast as it crashed down on Damien's body. With every fiber of his being, he resisted its invasion. However, Black Demon Lightning wasn't the strongest natural lightning source without reason.
Damien's mana was able to stop over half of the pillar's strands from reaching him, but Black Demon Lightning was semi-intelligent. After multiple strands were destroyed at once, the remaining strands actively dodged his attack to strike him!
And strike they did. Damien's scales lit up with blood-red light as his demonic runes did their best to numb the penetrative force. The screech of metal clashing against metal resounded piercingly.
Within a second, the demonic runes were no longer able to resist. Bloody black dragon scales flew wantonly through the sky as Damien's defenses shattered. Raging Black Demon Lightning spread through his veins like a plague, burning his body from the inside out.
'Fuck!' Damien roared inwardly as he felt a striking pain worse than anything he'd felt in a very long time. He revolved Void Mana through his body as quickly as possible, but soon found that the lightning was equally matched with his mana!
'This…' his eyes widened in shock. To date, the Void Physique had never failed to resist internal invasion. Any energy-based attack would be dissolved and devoured easily.
However, his Void Physique had changed. It was no longer babying him as it did before his Baptism. For him to use its power so domineeringly, he had to earn it!
Damien gritted his teeth in frustration. It wasn't a good feeling realizing that the ability he most relied on was changing. Nevertheless, he pushed on!
While currently, the Void Physique's silence was a detriment, he realized how beneficial it'd be in the long run. Rather than his body being controlled by outside forces, everything that took place would be under his control.
This meant that if he was able to raise his comprehension of the Void enough, he could achieve results far surpassing what the Void Physique showed him in the past!
Bang!
Damien's arm exploded, unable to bear the pressure. The pain cleared his mind instantly. Completely taking his attention away from the outside world, he put everything into controlling the Void Mana within him.
'Work with me!' He shouted to himself. Every time he pulled, Void Mana pushed. Every time he tried to guide it, it resisted his will! This was a consequence of Damien's low comprehension.
Without another choice, he could only allow the mana to flow and follow its path. He was like a father providing support for his son from the back.
But strangely enough, he found that when he allowed the mana to flow as it desired, it also became more receptive to his commands.
Rather than mana, it felt like a small and rebellious life that he was raising. Watching its movements almost made Damien forget his current situation.
Luckily, though, the mana's desired path was one of devouring. With Black Demon Lightning being the closest source of sustenance, its direction was only obvious.
Black Demon Lightning and Void Mana collided silently in Damien's body. The two equal forces caused reckless damage to him with every move, but Damien silently endured it.
He could only follow the Void Mana and nudge it to do his bidding. This didn't take much mental power to do, so he divided the rest of his attention to simply watch the Void Mana and understand its properties as it collided against the Black Demon Lightning.
Around Damien, space isolated on its own, as if influenced by an invisible will. At the same time, the destructive power he used to resist the lightning pillar dispersed as well, leaving the Black Demon Lightning space silent.
The only remaining battle was the one taking place within Damien's body.
