Thousands of years ago, an ancient prophecy was told.
It was a prophecy that set two clans with no conflict against each other and made them mortal enemies. It drove them to clash swords and eventually to the war that finally ended with the past encounter.
Yet…how could one be so sure that the war was over?
The Black Dragons sent an army to Beast Emperor Star, but they didn't invade with their entire race. There were still several hundred million Black Dragons in their homeworld, including their Demigod Ancestor.
Of course, this wasn't common knowledge. To most, the last of the Black Dragon Clan was locked away in the depths of the world.
Those with power could never rest as long as the Black Dragons remained unruly.
They needed to be thoroughly tamed.
This thought led to another question: how could one tame a clan that both concealed themselves well and had the backing of a Demigod?
The Black Dragons needed a thousand years to whittle away at the Golden Drsgons before they could launch a direct invasion.
Spending that much time on internal conflict wasn't something the denizens of Grand Heavens Boundary could afford at the moment.
It seemed that the universe was relatively at peace internally, but trusting this facade was only for the naive and willfully ignorant.
2 entire sectors had been destroyed.
The lives lost were innumerable, uncountable unless one used increments of quintillions.
An ancient prophecy, Damien learned about it while interacting with the Marionette Lord.
The prophecy was centered around the so-called Golden Star, a being the Black Dragons assumed to be the Golden Dragon Emperor, as he was the man who ruled the Fate Star.
However, Beast Emperor Star, the Fate Star, was an entirely different entity than the Golden Star in the prophecy.
And even more so, the Golden Dragon Emperor was not the ruler of the Fate Star.
He merely took residence on its surface and ruled from it.
The Fate Star was an aged world that naturally had its own spiritual intelligence, and thus it also had the ability to choose who could command it.
The Golden Dragon Emperor was powerful, but he never gained the Fate Star's acknowledgement.
The reason was simple.
He was lacking in "potential."
This wasn't to say he had no talent. He was already a Godbeast and it was almost guaranteed that he'd ascend to being a true spiritual god if he had the opportunity.
Yet, his potential was blocked by two factors.
The first was his decision to stay in the lower universe. He gave away his chance to grow further than the Demigod level for the sake of his clan, and while admirable, it wasn't a smart decision in the slightest.
The second factor was much vaguer.
It was the very path he followed that hindered him.
The Golden Dragon Emperor never made decisions without considering his people. His Cosmic Rebirth ended with him following the Golden Dragon Godbeast's evolution path, which also meant his achievements would only ever reach the height of his ancestor, never to improve further unless he met some extraneous fortuitous circumstance.
The Fate Star understood what it represented. Being its ruler wasn't a title, but a state of existence that put one in direct contact with the concept of Fate that remained esoteric to all.
It was extremely careful in choosing its master, but it eventually succeeded in finding a genius it felt it could put its faith in.
For once, that genius wasn't Damien.
It was a girl born and raised on its surface who finally received an opportunity to bloom into her potential just recently.
It was none other than Astoria Golden.
The Golden Star.
Not the master of the Fate Star…
…but the master of "Fate" itself.
"Bind."
Black lines of Void mana spread from his finger like a massive spider web that stabbed into the heads of every single Black Dragon present.
It wasn't possible before.
Though Damien believed the prophecy had something to do with him, he couldn't do anything to control the Black Dragons as the prophecy stated, which originally made him doubt his assumptions about Astoria.
However, if she didn't have the kind of potential that could move the Fate Star, why would the Void ever bestow her a title?
The event that made the impossible possible was obvious.
Once again, it was the Azure Dragon whose aid gave Damien the proper tools to accomplish his goals.
In this case, it was "authority."
Damien couldn't completely understand this authority, but it gave him some sort of coercion over the Dragon Race. Those weaker than him would submit without question, and those stronger than him would be suppressed by its effects.
This authority did not give Damien the ability to enslave an entire race of dragons.
It was the "key" that allowed him to truly integrate himself into the Fate of the Dragon Clan.
After that, it was just a matter of following the prophecy.
The Black Dragon Clan was fated to come under his rule, and Fate itself would go under Astoria's.
There was no resistance, to the extent that it was eerie.
Damien furrowed his brows as he traced the Void Mana spiderweb with his eyes and noted down its processes.
The fact that nothing was off was all the more disconcerting.
'If we follow the precedent, the ancient prophecy should've been the result of…'
VOOM!
Void Mana burst out of the spiderweb's every thread and rocked the cell block's foundation.
'…yeah, it could only be this.'
Damien's eyes hardened. He clapped his hands together and set up several thousand interwoven Dimensional Cages to isolate the cell block from the Real Plane and hide what was happening.
As he did so, the Void Mana that burst into the atmosphere concentrated into several pillars, one for every Black Dragon, and then…
Zip!
Each pillar impaled itself into its respective Black Dragon and disappeared into their bodies.
One by one, their bodies jerked forward and they raised into the air as if possessed. Black draconic features polluted their human forms and turned them into half-human half-dragon hybrids, almost like Damien after Dragon Transformation.
The raging mana calmed down soon enough since it was all absorbed into the Black Dragons. The scene quieted down, but Damien could vaguely feel the pulses of Void Mana metamorphosing the Black Dragons from within.
He smiled wryly.
'Well, it's not too surprising since this whole trip to Beast Emperor Star has been defined by Fate and Universal Flow. If there wasn't something like this, there's no way I would've ended up here at all.'
Damien had no idea if it had its own ego, but he was sure of one thing: the Void was always silently watching him.
Recently more than ever before, it involved itself in almost every conflict he'd been a part of, almost as if it was urging him to focus on it rather than his Law comprehension.
And he listened to that call.
The comprehension of Universal Flow, the constant usage of Void Breathing, and most recently, the discovery of elemental alchemy all contributed to the Void's agenda.
'Should I consider this a reward?' Damien thought, chuckling to himself.
He swept his hand through the air and pulled the spiderweb of Void Mana back into his body, using the same moment to send the Black Dragons to the Sanctuary.
'They were practically driven to madness trying to avoid their fate, so they definitely won't be pleased when they find out it came true. I'll send them to the Wild Continent for now and let Galantis whip them into shape. Afterwards, they can be transferred to Theavel to join the main army.'
Damien patted himself on the back for a job well done and took down his Dimensional Cages.
'I'll have to find time to deal with the rest of them after the Grand Assembly. Finding the location of their homeworld won't be a problem with all the slaves I just got, but I am a little worried about the Demigod…I'll just have to trust the Void on this one and go for it.'
Damien nodded contentedly and turned around.
Without a word, he left the prison, nodding at the guards in acknowledgement as he did so.
He made it back to the Golden Dragon Palace without a hitch, but he was left wondering…
Just what kind of expression would they make when they realized what happened?
He truly regretted not staying to see it.
