20 shadows populated a discreet corner of the Emperor Bone Sea, nearly unmoving for over a week.
This was the amount of time Damien and Zara had been in Aquazyl, and unfortunately for their pursuers, entering the ancient realm was easier said than done.
"It's impossible for them to just disappear! Don't tell me some random kid was able to sense us and escape?!" One of the men said.
"No, that's impossible. The leader responded. "Not to mention the power difference, I've heard that brat is especially arrogant. Even if he did sense us, he wouldn't run." The leader responded with squinted eyes.
Because Damien was a known special expert, they'd been trailing at a large distance, but this ended up working against them. In the midst of this strange whirlpool formation they surrounded, he'd disappeared.
The problem was that there was nothing within the formation. Even after destroying the Whirlwind Seaweed, they only found empty sea.
Damien and Zara had truly disappeared into thin air.
"Hmph!" One of the assassins harrumphed. "How long do we have to wait? The young master doesn't need to care so much about some insignificant kid, right?"
"We wait as long as necessary." The leader said, leaving no room for questions, "it is not our place to question the young master."
"Leader, we don't have to stay in this area and wait like turtles, though, right? I heard this Emperor Bone Sea is filled to the brim with treasure. Why don't we go explore a little?"
Multiple sounds of agreement rang out, but even this suggestion was rejected by the leader. By his order, they were to wait without entertaining their greed in the slightest.
While he didn't say it out loud, the leader did have some hope. He figured that the special circumstances surrounding Damien's disappearance might mean he stumbled upon some type of treasure.
And if they were able to kill him when he reappeared…
The leader smiled to himself. What one didn't know couldn't hurt them, right?
When the time came, whatever treasures that boy possessed would all be his.
***
Aquazyl was in an uproar.
The moment the sun vanished over the horizon, the Tephit Clan moved with precision.
Hundreds and thousands of elders were dispatched to the various peripheral branches and subdivisions, arriving to secure them before any sort of attack could take place.
Naturally, each and every one of the elders was a 4th class being.
Still, the plan for the operation didn't change. In fact, it only became more secure.
While the secondary teams were mainly used as a diversion before, that wasn't their only purpose. In truth, a majority of the dirty work was being done by them.
To collapse the Tephit Clan took more than just killing its Patriarch. Every elder, every 4th class figure had to be cut down first, leaving the rest defenseless in front of the other four clans.
The main perpetrators of their slaughter would be the secondary teams.
Currently, while the secondary teams continued to move and destroy Tephit Clan bases, Damien arrived at one of such bases himself.
It was a large town of a couple thousand inhabitants. Their average level didn't seem to exceed 150, and their strength was even weaker due to lack of practice.
Among these regular folk, however, was a group of three men sitting at a bar. If one looked at them, they wouldn't find anything to note. They were completely average in every way.
But to Damien, they stood out like sore thumbs.
'Just the three of you? I'm a little disappointed, I won't lie.'
His body flashed into the bar, his foot crushing the three men's table as he did so.
"Die."
Spatial mana wrapped around the group and separated them into another dimension. The Space-Time River blanketed the separated space, forcing the three men under Damien's control.
Time was the essence of change. With Damien having dominion over its flow, the three men lost control over their faculties. Space was the essence of stability. With it constricting them from every angle, the men couldn't even begin to consider escape,
"Three elders, you might not know me, but I know you. You see, I have a need for your memories, if you don't mind me taking them."
The three elders had only recently been dispatched from the main clan by the Clan Head's most recent order. While their strengths weren't high, their information was crucial.
The three were only around level 230, still in the early stages of 4th class. Against Damien's power, it was impossible for them to resist.
Their bodies soon turned into essence for his growth, their memories entering his mind.
'Mm, this is what I wanted. Even if it's not much, I can see the Tephit Clan's main headquarters. Aside from that…'
The distribution of elders was done in batches, so the three Damien had devoured didn't know about each and every other elder in the field. However, there was a simple fix to this problem.
Damien…just needed to devour more!
He took out a transmission talisman and contacted Feng Yuxiang, directing her team towards the batch he'd just discovered.
While they were being destroyed, Damien went to find a camp unrelated to the one he'd just found, on the hunt for more elders to devour.
In his wake was a ruined city. The previous atmosphere had been shattered by a rain of hellfire that brought its annihilation. As the rules of the Prominence War stated, four Sea God Clans must be entirely extincted for the last to be declared the winner.
In Damien's case…all 5 Sea God Clans needed to meet this end.
'Zara won't be happy if I kill her subordinates…I guess the Sanctuary will welcome another set of residents soon.'
By Damien's estimation, the restriction forcing the Sea God Clan members to remain in Aquazyl only applied to natural exits. If Damien used the Sanctuary to save them, not only would they be shielded by the Void, but they'd also be able to leave freely as long as they remained in the Sanctuary eternally.
Or, at least until Damien claimed control over the Emperor Bone Sea.
Nonetheless, Damien chose the Tephit bloodline to inherit for a reason. It wasn't just because the Tephit Clan was most similar to humanity.
With the grudge the other four clans had against the Tephit, they wouldn't question working together to destroy them.
And if the Tephit Clan was destroyed, as long as Damien remained alive, he would have sole control over the rewards for winning the Prominence War.
In this time, while his forces were working to bring about the Tephit Clan's downfall, his main job was to obtain information.
By devouring elders until there were no elders left to devour, he would understand the Tephit Clan down to its root.
He projected that it'd take a week at most to rouse the Tephit Clan Head's fury to the point of no return.
When that time finally came, he would already know the Tephit Clan from the inside out. There would be no fact hidden from his eyes.
In war against an enemy with a nigh-omniscient level of information, was victory even possible?
