Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
Despite being in the midst of a ferocious melee with Bianca, Damien still had the freedom to think idle thoughts about his abilities.
Bianca made a critical mistake after Damien used Worldbreaker to evaporate the ground. Due to her surprise at being put in a completely unfamiliar situation, she wasn't thinking straight at all.
While she was limited in her mana usage, she could still barrage Damien and use her superior mana capacity to pressure him. At the moment, this was her best bet at survival and success.
However, she instead decided to compete with physical strength, Damien's first and continued strong point.
It couldn't be helped. When Bianca was briefed about Damien's abilities, his physical strength was never mentioned. The only time he'd showcased it was when he destroyed those two early 4th class fighters upon entering the King Bracket.
Naturally, that level of physical strength wouldn't be considered a threat to someone in the mid-stage of 4th class like her.
She was mainly told to focus on his spatial abilities and his artifacts, the two powers Damien used most often.
There was a critical difference between Damien and the geniuses of the Bloodlock Clan. He never once chose peaceful growth over deathly struggle.
Every time he found another weakness, he did his absolute best to correct it and find ways to improve.
Perhaps the main geniuses of the Bloodlock Clan were doing the same, but a member of the enforcer unit…?
The Bloodlock Clan's suppression of them wasn't just something that could be exploited by the clan.
Damien was doing exactly that: exploiting the weakness that was intentionally left in Bianca's strength to control her.
BOOM!
A heavy punch flew out. Damien twisted his body and allowed it to impact his chest, using the opening he created to land a ferocious strike on Bianca as well.
But unlike him, she didn't have Transcendent Regeneration.
The two flew back from the force of the collision. Bianca coughed another mouthful of blood and massaged her chest, where a large black mark had formulated.
The punch didn't manage to pierce her skin, but her internals were a mess. She could feel chunks of her organs within the blood she was coughing up.
If they continued like this, she'd meet a rather lackluster end.
This wasn't how it was supposed to go.
She was supposed to win this battle and prove herself, gaining more freedom within the Bloodlock Clan.
Who would've thought she'd run into such a monster?
"Haa…ngaah…" Bianca took a few labored breaths as she tried to stabilize herself.
But it was hard.
Her body felt heavy.
Humans were strange creatures. Motivation, despite being intangible, actually had an incredible effect on their performance.
The loss of hope was extremely detrimental to their ability to move forward.
Even if they had the same level of energy, a human with motivation and hope would move far faster than someone who didn't.
And despite a human completing the exact same task on two different days, they could feel like heaven and hell depending on their emotional state.
Bianca…was feeling hopeless.
She felt the despair of her life's situation every single day, but she used destruction to mitigate her mental burden. Dominating the battlefield was her coping mechanism.
Now that she was placed in a position of weakness, a position where she was being dominated on the battlefield, she couldn't draw out her full strength.
Or any at all for that matter.
Slowly but surely, she began to descend. Holding herself up in the air felt hard.
Looking at the abyss below, she had a thought.
Wouldn't her life be infinitely better if it ended?
Damien left every single Bloodlock Clan servant in a vegetative state. Even if they awoke later, they would be crippled for life.
The difference was that they were all men. At worst, they'd be killed.
As she was a woman, and a rather beautiful one at that, her fate would be much worse.
Just imagining the various marks she'd seen on the Bloodlock concubines and the various rooms she'd accidentally stumbled into during her time in the clan's mansions…
'Maybe I should just die.'
Was there any other respite? As long as she existed in this universe she'd never escape the Bloodlock Clan's grasp.
Her eyes turned dull.
And Damien was only a few hundred kilometers away to witness this change.
He had to stop the smile from forming on his face.
'Is this an opportunity?' He thought to himself.
He knew that look. That was the look of someone who gave up on life.
And people like that…were the easiest to manipulate.
'If I'm going against the Bloodlock Clan, I might as well obtain some proper information about them, right?'
The enforcer unit…Damien didn't know their exact status within the clan, but the fact that Bianca was sent here as the last obstacle standing in his way before he fought the Overlord was proof enough that she was valued at least somewhat.
She was sent to the battle arena as a show of power by the Bloodlock Clan. Just remembering the looks of terror on the crowd's faces when she was introduced gave Damien the confidence he needed to enact his plan.
A bullet flew from Hel's barrel.
Bianca stared at it as it approached her.
But she didn't move.
The bullet entered through her glabella and exploded inside her head.
Her body immediately dematerialized and reappeared outside the arena barrier.
She was still conscious unlike Damien's previous opponents.
But at that moment…
"Hahaha, the Bloodbitch Clan must value you a lot for them to send you here to stop me, right? Then I ought to provide them an even better present than anything before."
Damien's voice resounded through the arena before the announcer could even speak the results of the battle.
His body flashed away. His teleportation became usable again the second Bianca was defeated, as her spatial locking artifact was deactivated and transported out of the arena with her.
He appeared directly behind her collapsed body, a twisted smirk on his face.
"Let this be an example. Whether it's the Bloodbitch Clan or a random genius on the side of the street; nobody who offends me will walk away unscathed."
Mirage appeared in his hand.
It swung down in a crisp arc.
'Void Sword Art Fifth Form: Dimensional Severance'
A thin black line cut the dimension in two.
And when it struck Bianca's body, she was vanquished from existence.
Not even a hint of her corpse remained in the world for others to see.
***
After the sequence of events that took place in the battle arena, Damien was naturally summoned back in front of the Board of Directors. Unlike last time, his sin this time was far worse.
He'd killed someone on Hidden Death Valley's grounds.
Of the sins the geniuses could commit, this was by far one of the worst.
The crowd, the announcer, the observing elders, there wasn't a single person who reacted in time to stop him. They were already in a stunned state from the battle itself, how were they supposed to stop an event that had only ever happened a minuscule number of times in Hidden Death Valley's long existence?
Damien didn't even meet the enforcement officers of the sect.
The second Bianca's life signature vanished, his body immediately appeared in the isolated realm…
And a terrifying pressure locked onto him.
Looking at the cold faces of the Demigods around him, Damien smiled wryly.
'Welp…I can't say I didn't expect this…'
