Damien immediately acted on his desire.
Before him, these dragon souls were mere worms. They couldn't resist the pull of the Breath of All Things and the crushing force of the Breath of Nothingness. Their souls were dissected and their strengths were divided and repurposed to aid Damien to the best of their abilities.
As a result of their attempt to isolate and suppress him, they faced his wrath.
And they faced it in spades.
Damien didn't move from the 8000 to 9000-kilometer depth, taking his time to tear through each and every dragon soul he could find.
The number of devoured souls increased from double digits to triple digits, and as time went by, it even approached the quadruple digits!
'I've devoured…776. The sheer volume of memories and Legends isn't something I can manage in a short period of time, but the Mind Prison's support is somewhat mitigating that problem.'
Damien was once again forced to thank the mysterious technique he'd discovered in the Cloud Plane.
Originally, it was supposed to be a sword technique, but Damien avoided the "sword" part like the plague.
It wasn't his intent, it was just a result of the circumstances. In the beginning, Tian Yang warned him to practice carefully so he didn't get turned into a heartless monster by the technique, so Damien was cautious in his usage.
After he overcame himself, he'd thought about using the Void Heart Sword Law as inspiration to create more sword techniques of his own, but before he got around to it, he gained so many new abilities that he forgot about it entirely.
Ever since then, Damien had never paid attention to the "Sword Law" half of the technique, however, he'd done plenty of work to improve the "Void Heart" section,
The Mind Prison was always one of his greatest spiritual defenses, and as he grew, he made sure it grew with him.
With its current abilities, not only could it hold his own memories and emotions, it could be used as a storage space for the things swallowed by the Breath of Nothingness…
…including intact souls
The previously figurative mind prison truly became its name.
This ability was crucial in the current situation especially, since Damien would undoubtedly be corrupted and controlled by the memories he was devouring otherwise.
After all, no matter how fortified his spiritual world was, he was absorbing millions of years' worth of memories from several different scattered eras and locations, some not in Grand Heavens Boundary at all!
Yet, there would always be a limit.
As Damien realized himself, the Mind Prison could only "mitigate" the problem, not "solve" it.
'On the bright side, it's not much of a loss. I'll devour one more so I can hit the lucky number 777 and then I'll make my way down to the bottom of the pool. That should be where the previous dragon shadow's aura is pulling me to.'
Damien made good on his word instantly. The next dragon soul unlucky enough to find itself in his trajectory was devoured without much of a struggle and integrated with the rest.
'It's a shame that it wasn't too powerful, but oh well.'
Damien shrugged and pushed his spatial abilities, enhanced by Void Mana, to propel him to the deepest depths of the Ancestral Dragon Pool as soon as possible,
It was an incredibly effective method. Damien was able to directly bypass almost every threat awaiting him, and Void Breathing easily dealt with anything unavoidable.
From 8500 kilometers to 10,000 was a simple journey, but when Damien arrived, he realized…
10,000 kilometers wasn't the deepest depth at all!
'Fucking hell.' He cursed inwardly, mildly annoyed.
He didn't bother to loiter around at the false bottom of the pool. Now, his greatest priority was finding that dragon shadow.
He teleported ceaselessly and used a complex combination of Dimensional Cages and other Dimensional Magic to efficiently traverse several hundred kilometers per minute,
15,000…20,000…25,000…
When he reached the 30,000-kilometer mark, he finally saw a difference in the black water.
'Is this it?'
He excitedly shot down another few thousand kilometers, and finally, after a needlessly long journey…
His foot touched solid ground.
Whoosh!
A breeze brushed past.
Damien silently enjoyed the—
'Wait, a breeze?'
Damien's eyes widened as he realized that the "water" around him was no longer water in any sense.
Rather, it was air colored and textured to look like water.
'Is this a secret realm?' Damien wondered, but the All-Seeing Eyes didn't reveal any signs of spatial disturbance, so he was forced to throw away this assumption.
'These ancestral dragons are so flashy, it's impossible for a humble person like me to rationalize their ways. If I want answers, I need to find him.'
Damien's eyes turned west.
'It feels close. I shouldn't be obstructed from this point forth.'
He rushed west, reaching his destination in a matter of seconds.
He scanned the area, trying to locate traces of the blue dragon shadow, however…
"An egg?"
The only thing he found was a deep blue egg with several swirling patterns decorating its surface. It was about as 4 feet tall, and when Damien went to pick it up, he realized it weighed at least as much as a mountain!
"What the hell kind of egg is this?!" He exclaimed.
Even the biggest Behemoths weren't this heavy in their prenatal states!
Damien dragged the egg out of the hidden crater he found it in and placed it on flat ground before observing it with every perception ability he had.
His awareness pierced it from every angle, but no matter how he enhanced his abilities, he could only vaguely make out the figure within.
'This time, my abilities aren't failing. I'm sure that both my awareness and All-Seeing Eyes are working properly. Then…isn't the thing in this egg quite phenomenal?'
If his perception didn't fail him, then the creature in this egg was still incubating, and it was clear that the process hadn't started that long ago!
Yet, the egg was already as heavy as a mountain and carried such a profound and strange aura?
'I should take it with me for now. Maybe I can get some answers by placing it in a time dilation in the Sanctuary and supporting its growth for a while.'
Regardless of what it was, it was interesting, and that was enough reason for Damien to take it.
[Do you really think so?]
A voice boomed through the atmosphere, trembling the air.
"Eh?" Damien raised his brow in curiosity and turned it around.
"A dragon soul with sentience, that's a first," he commented as he faced the being that materialized behind him,
It was only a head.
Yet, it was a head large enough to eclipse the entire secret realm as far as Damien could perceive it.
A single eye of this dragon was larger than any star or planet.
Damien's body shivered in unwitting excitement.
It was an instinctual response.
He gradually opened his mouth and moved his lips to speak, suppressing his emotions in the face of this absolute power.
"Not only did you just read my thoughts, you've maintained your sentience. Since I haven't met another dragon soul even close to that level, I have to assume it was you who called me here," he said, taking a deep breath,
He grinned and firmly brought his fist to his palm in greeting.
"My name is Damien Void, future ruler of everything. It's a pleasure to make your acquaintance."
