“Haa…haa…”

Damien’s breathing was heavy as he tried to organize all the information that had entered his head. Even after witnessing it, he could only comprehend a general overview of the situation that he saw.

Unfortunately, he didn’t have time to think it over. Once his mind returned to his mindspace, he immediately felt the rush of energy that had built up within his spiritual avatar.

He had naturally neglected the task he was supposed to be focusing on when he was submerged in the visions, and without his guidance, the spiritual energy within the flower had no direction.

It was only due to the Void Essence’s suppression that the energy didn’t leak and run wild, becoming wasted in the process.

‘Forget it…’

Damien cleared his mind of all stray thoughts and wholeheartedly focused on refining the twenty-three petaled flower again. The spiritual energy that had been stored in his avatar slowly began to permeate his mindspace, filling it with a light greenish white hue.

Slowly but surely, the large flower shrunk until it became the size of a palm. As this happened, the fused spiritual land under its control slowly moved towards Damien’s and began the process of merging.

Everything seemed to be going smoothly. So smoothly, in fact, that Damien felt there must be some hidden danger lurking within the current process. He refused to believe there was such a thing as a free meal in this world.

‘Even if I can refine this flower without drawbacks, there are surely strings attached by whatever or whoever gave it to me to help me recover. Once I return to the outside world, I need to make sure to stay on my guard.’

Damien was able to free his mind of his total focus state now that the refinement had reached its final moments. There wasn’t much energy left within the flower, so he didn’t need to put as much effort into making sure everything was stable.

‘The scenes I saw earlier…are they related to the flower? Or rather, the one who gave me the flower? Why did they show them to me? If they wanted to guide my thoughts in a certain way or even imply something, then they should’ve shown me more complete images. Maybe it was unintentional?’

Damien felt that it must’ve been the latter. It was the most logical conclusion. If some expert wanted to show him something important, they would have chosen better images for him.

For instance, the last thing he saw was the shattered starship, as well as a glimpse of the Cloud Plane. It was too vague to have a specific purpose to it.

If there was a purpose, they should’ve shown him the reason the starship ended up shattered, or something that’d actually give context to the story.

‘Hell, they didn’t even show me the faces of those inhabitants in that world. What is it with visions and blurred faces?’

Damien lamented. It wasn’t the first time he’d been shown mysterious images. When he entered the space-time river back then, he had also seen something extremely vague and domineering. But thinking back, those images seemed far more related to him than the ones he had seen just now.

The common point was that the faces of everyone in those scenes were always blurred, making it so Damien couldn’t even gleam the slightest detail that’d be beneficial in helping him decipher the scenes.

‘But at least there’s one thing I understand. Once again, I’ve become further entangled with those bastards.’

Another world that had been destroyed by the Nox. In his travels alone, Damien had come to learn about a total of three worlds that had been heavily impacted or destroyed by the Nox.

Although three wasn’t a large number, it was different when put into perspective. The object of destruction was worlds. Every time a world was destroyed, billions of lives would be lost in the aftermath. Plus, even the total number of worlds Damien had visited so far was three, if earth was included.

‘Did those survivors end up reaching the Cloud Plane in the end? Or did they die in the starry sky?’

Of the questions he had, this one was the most pressing. If those survivors were on the Cloud Plane, he needed to make contact with them.

‘Actually, the flower should have some connection with them, since it showed me scenes of them. And for it to appear here, they should be relatively close. If it’s like that, then it should be them, right?’

The elves.

Elves in a cultivation world. When Damien saw them, he wondered why such a thing existed. Although the knowledge he gained from novels on earth wasn’t 100% accurate, it at least held some truth to it.

Earth was a strange place. Damien had long since understood that earth itself was part of some larger conspiracy. Earthen mythology and fantasy being based off of what he later learned was actually reality was the best proof of this.

From what Damien had seen, the most accurate part of that fantasy was the racial distribution between world types. In Apeiron, there were elves, demihumans, and dwarves, while in the Cloud Plane, there were mainly humans and mythical beasts.

If the elves were truly the survivors he had seen in the visions, he had even more reason to build a connection with them.

‘At this point, I can no longer pretend like I only want to join the war for the sake of battle and fun. I’ve become too entangled with the Nox for it to be so simple.’

He didn’t bear any major personal grudge against the Nox, nor was he a person who would say that he wanted to go to war with them for the sake of justice or righteousness. He had been slaughtering them without second thought just like they had been doing to others, so he had no right.

But he wasn’t an immature kid anymore. He wasn’t someone who just acted on desire like he did back when he was first coming to the Cloud Plane.

It was time for him to get serious about the coming war. It was time for him to start thinking realistically.

‘I need allies beside me. People I can entrust my life to.’

The connections he made in Apeiron, the Celestial Star Palace, White Dragon Grotto, Fire Phoenix Clan, and many more. He had already found people who fit these qualifications.

But his relationships hadn’t been strengthened to the point of unbreakable trust because of his flippant attitude in the past. That was something he now needed to change.

‘Ah, I need to deal with the Xue clan for Ruyue’s sake, so maybe I can make them submit. Also there’s that brat Long Chen. I wonder what he’s been up to with his protagonist ass.’

Damien smiled. There was no longer any point in deluding himself and avoiding the issue with the Nox. He was now extremely clear about his attitude.

‘Your existence threatens the safety of the people I care about. Your plans threaten the future peace and happiness I hope to achieve after everything is over. Therefore, you must be exterminated.’

That was all there was to it.