Chapter 1323 Avatar [4]
The group composition was a bit strange.
Luciel, Lucifer, and the other two whom Damien didn't recognize were around his level, while Commander Huo and Alucard were already at the Supreme level, making one wonder why they were traveling together.
It was obvious Commander Huo and Alucard were caretakers for the rest, but the question was, "Why?"
All of them were of different races, sectors, and influences, so logically speaking, there was no reason for them to be traveling together.
However, they were, and that made Damien curious.
'I'll just follow them for now.'
He didn't want to attract too much attention as Alexander right now.
He was powerful, yes, but this power belonging to someone unknown would be even more suspicious to people like Luciel or Alucard who had high positions.
He definitely wanted to know what they were doing in a secret realm like this, but he didn't approach them needlessly.
After all, this was a labyrinth.
It was a place that constantly changed its shape and structure, filled with traps and beasts with great power, and an amount of treasure that was equivalent to the risk.
Even Alexander didn't know what lay at its center. Damien's spatial abilities didn't nearly manifest to the extent that he could ignore the restrictions of this place and perceive its entirety.
'The treasures I've found from just walking around randomly are already enough to create a small sect for myself. Why didn't a place like this exist in my era?'
He shrugged. He could probably guess why, but it didn't matter.
All the treasures he gained from his expedition thus far were sent to the Sanctuary, so they were probably being put to proper use.
'Speaking of, how does that even work?'
He began to wonder about it when he took Heiron. It was a world in a completely different time and space, and it wasn't something Damien should've ever had access to by logic.
He pondered how the Sanctuary truly functioned for a bit, but even this doubt was easy to clear from his main body's current position.
The Sanctuary was built in the Void. It was its own existence separated in every way from the main universe.
In fact, the only reason its time flowed at the same rate as the main universe was because it was tethered to Damien and used his soul as a basis.
With Damien's main body in the Void, outside the bounds of time and space, where was it supposed to root itself?
Naturally, it was still Damien's soul.
However, his strange circumstance provided the Sanctuary with a unique position.
It was now tethered to both the current era and the past, while being disconnected from both.
This allowed it to be unaffected by the laws of causality that prevented Damien from interfering too much in the past.
Maybe it was because Heiron never had much significance in the universe from the start, but the act of binding a world in the past and integrating it into a completely different spacetime didn't trigger the negatives Damien was expecting, and ever since then, he'd been testing the limits of his ability to interfere.
'To put it simply, it matters more about how much value the other party holds than what I do.'
If he saved an entire world fated for destruction, but none of its people had grand fates, the impact he left on the timeline wasn't enough for it to be considered interference.
The butterfly effect definitely existed, but on a universal scale, the butterfly of such a minor event, as long as it was truly a minor event, didn't mean anything.
Nevertheless, to interfere with the fates of those like Luciel, who would become integral to the universe in the future, was much more difficult.
'At most, I have a few tens of chances. I can't use them unnecessarily.'
Damien had no way of knowing what would happen when he used up all his "interference chances," but he didn't want to find out before he didn't need them anymore.
With that in mind, he kept following Lucile's group.
As he listened to their conversations, he learned more about their purpose, and funnily enough…
'...giving me this level of dirt for free should be criminal.'
He had a wide grin on his face.
Frankly, their personalities weren't much different from what he knew. They were much, much younger than their current selves, but they were still a few thousand years old at the very least.
Though, they were much more open than their wizened selves.
Damien, as an observer, learned some, with no better word to describe it, devious information about the few of them that would be of great use in the future.
It was fun.
Alucard and Commander Huo were practically at the end of their growth potential, so they were still the exact same, but seeing Luciel and Lucifer act freer, like true brothers without the problems of leadership plaguing them, was more than just entertaining.
They were also quite talented.
Damien realized he hadn't seen any of them really fight, even Alucard since he was undergoing Cosmic Rebirth during the great battle beyond the barrier of law.
This was a time when they could freely exert their strength when necessary, and he had to say…
'...the urge to fight them is crazy.'
At the end of the day, Alexander was still him. The experiences Alexander had before his memories awoke were Damien's experiences, experienced by his soul, not by any other.
Therefore, even the unaware Alexander possessed traits he did when he was young.
He was a battle maniac, an instinct that was still somewhat present, especially since he used his physical strength rather than laws.
Whenever a strong opponent appeared, Damien felt the rush of fighting them that he'd been lacking in his main body for a very long time.
Because unlike him, the current Alexander didn't have any responsibilities on his shoulders.
Even this labyrinth he'd entered for the sake of battle. It was quite notorious in the outside world for its powerful beasts, and for good reason.
The most common of them were 4th class, and they only got stronger as one went deeper.
Alucard and Luciel's group was approaching a point of no return already.
In earthen terms, they were nearing the "boss battle."
They fought and claimed treasures, laughed and protected each other's backs, and finally, they reached a set of massive stone doors separating this area from the rest of the labyrinth.
"This is a first," Luciel said, brushing his fingers across the etchings on the doors.
"Indeed, the rest of the labyrinth didn't have anything like doors. It was quite annoying, but if this is here, doesn't that mean we are nearing the end?" Lucifer continued.
The two of them looked to Alucard for answers, and he nodded to satisfy their curiosity.
"The owner of this labyrinth, or someone associated with him, should be beyond this door. Once you defeat them, you will attain 'that thing.'"
"...once we defeat him? You're not helping?" Lucifer asked again.
"Hahaha, us? Helping? Lucifer, weren't you planning to rid your clan of their reputation of being dull?" Commander Huo replied, laughing boisterously.
"Tch, it was worth trying."
Lucifer clicked his tongue, sulking somewhat as the others joined in and teased him.
They conversed for a few more minutes, making guesses as to what they were going to see and what kind of strategies they would use, before finally pushing open the door.
In the shadows behind them, Damien's eyes sparkled.
"This…"
He wasn't expecting to see one here.
Just like his first experience in a secret realm, all the way back on Apeiron, it was chained there, sealed beyond countless layers of debilitating barriers.
'...a Nox.'
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