A palm tore through space.
It was gargantuan, spanning several hundreds of thousands of kilometers, but at the same time, it was minuscule and untraceable.
Damien watched it approach and enlarge in his eyes. He felt its power bearing down on him, locking him in place.
Now at the first stage of building Divinity, he understood more than ever just how unstoppable this palm was.
No matter where he went, no matter how strong he was, this palm would still strike him and still kill him.
It was hopeless.
And that hopelessness was precisely what formed the grin on Damien's face.
'It's always this, huh.' He muttered to himself.
Wasn't it always like this? Wasn't there always someone more powerful waiting in the shadows to strike him for one reason or another?
This trouble was special because it was provoked by him personally, but it didn't change the fact that the Bloodlock Clan was nothing more than another one of Damien's stepping stones.
If he was certain of anything, it was that he absolutely couldn't be killed by a stepping stone!
'Defenses.'
He didn't have time to form too many cohesive thoughts. In the sparks of fractions of a second that he had, he split his consciousness into hundreds of pieces and instinctually set up every defense possible.
It started with a golden palace. Within the golden palace, Damien stood surrounded by formations, all activated to their maximum power. Spacetime around him was distorted and vague, almost separating Damien from reality entirely.
'Sanctua—'
He tried it, but immediately stopped himself.
Shiver!
'What a dangerous feeling.'
The second he tried to enter the Sanctuary, he felt a terrifying sensation as if all his secrets were about to be revealed.
The invisible tether that kept him tied to this world even when he was in the Sanctuary, it was entirely possible for the Immortal Blood Asura to sense it.
And if such a character was allowed knowledge on the Sanctuary…
'Anyway, I can't let that happen.'
'Void Breathing First Form: Elemental Wargod.'
The number of shields around Damien multiplied exponentially. At the same time, Damien's body underwent a massive change as he took on the Demon Dragon Form and activated his Defensive Body Runes.
By the final instant before the palm struck, Damien had already formed over ten thousand layers of defense.
And in the first instant the palm made contact…
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
Half of those layers were directly crushed into oblivion.
The golden palace was torn into countless pieces that flew out into the vacuum of space. Its formations shattered, creating smaller mana explosions within the already existing destruction.
The palm didn't waver in the slightest even after crushing the golden palace that so easily resisted Arthur beforehand. It continued with the same pace, crashing through barrier after barrier and approaching Damien.
'There's nothing I can do here.' He realized.
With Elemental Wargod stacked on the Demon Dragon Form, Damien was in his most powerful physical state.
With Void Breathing as a basis and Spacetime and Samsara supporting it, Damien was in his most powerful ethereal state.
But even when they were all put together, when every hint of Damien's power coagulated as one for the sake of this since instance…
He simply didn't stand a chance against Divinity.
BOOOOOOOOOOOOM!
The impact rocked Damien's body. His skin was immediately melted off and his muscles and bones were threatening to follow soon. Chaotic mana waves flowed into his body and though the Void Physique attempted to devour and convert them, it couldn't quite resist Divinity in its current state.
Damien kept his eyes open and felt the pain without numbing himself.
He stared directly into the eyes of the Immortal Blood Asura's projection as he felt his body weaken, refusing to give up or waver in the slightest.
"I…will not…DIE!"
BANG!
Something within Damien snapped.
A black seal appeared between his eyebrows, corrupting Damien's mana into an inky black color. His eyes followed the same pattern as "something" entered his body.
Damien's consciousness was forced into a backseat.
'Boy, if you reject me here, I really won't be able to save you.'
A voice rang through his head, causing his eyes to nearly pop out of their sockets.
This voice that he'd almost forgotten with time…
Wasn't this…
"Tiamat?!" Damien exclaimed in shock.
'It is I. Now, stop your resisting lest this sliver of spirit be crushed by the strange forces in your body.'
Damien immediately followed her will and dropped his defenses, allowing her surface-level control of his body.
Damien, or rather, Tiamat, turned her eyes to the sky, gazing at the Immortal Blood Asura indifferently.
"This is why humans are so demeaned by others. Even when your universe is in mortal danger, you still have Demigods willing to find loopholes in the universal law to attack juniors. How pathetic."
She scoffed lightly as if even speaking about it was below her station. In the next second, she raised her arm in a graceful motion that looked somewhat preposterous on Damien's body.
"Little boy, know your place."
Ding!
VOOM!
Tiamat tapped her finger gently in the air.
A bell chimed, a wave of black mana spread so thinly that it was almost indiscernible.
But with the spreading of that wave, the weight of Immortal Blood Asura's attack lessened greatly, and its impact on Damien's body completely subsided.
"Hm?"
The massive projection looked down with a hint of curiosity in its indifferent eyes.
As it faded, a small smile appeared on its face.
"How interesting…"
Immortal Blood Asura's final words rang through the void, accompanying the final image he saw before the connection was cut.
An image of Damien, alone in the void and covered in powerful inky black mana.
Mana that reeked of the Nox.
The projection was single use, only able to exert the force of a single Demigod strike before fading, lest it trigger the universal law.
But even though Damien hadn't been killed today…
Would his fate be any better when news of his corruption leaked?
Rather, his fate would be far worse than anything the Bloodlock Clan could do to him.
Back on his own star, Immortal Blood Asura's cold face that never cracked revealed a hint of a smile as he watched over the projection's memories.
"Arthur has been disappointing, but his death has left me such a surprise…very well. Since you were able to accomplish at least this before you died, I will enact your revenge, if only for the sake of the Clan's face."
And while Immortal Blood Asura's rage stemmed from the waste of resources rather than the loss of his kin, at least someone was mourning the death of Arthur Bloodlock.
Deep in the Abyss, away from all people in a secluded cave, a being's eyes fluttered open.
"My new toy…someone destroyed my new toy…?" They muttered to themself.
The seed that had only recently been planted had already perished, and the body of that seed was torn to oblivion, unable to be controlled any longer.
Crack!
A small object in the being's hands shattered. As its pieces fell to the ground, they drilled holes several meters deep with their weight alone.
That being gritted their teeth, feeling an emotion they hadn't felt in a very long time.
"That person…that person must die!"
For the first time in several tens of thousands of years, someone dared to provoke the Marionette Lord.
The heavens sang a silent prayer.
A prayer for the poor soul who would have to face this terrifying being's wrath.
