‘I can’t let the academy learn about Zara’s origins. If that ever happens, she’ll likely lose most of her freedom.’

Zara’s Nox heritage was something Damien accepted because he knew her. If the higher authorities of Grand Heavens Boundary learned of this fact instead, they’d either turn Zara into an experimental subject, a slave, or an exile.

‘And none of those options look promising.’

Damien gritted his teeth. His body flowed through the air and became one with the world. He became an entity that Sebastian couldn’t hit no matter how hard he tried.

Yet, Damien couldn’t land a single strike either. Sebastian was using the Dead Zone itself to his advantage, an advantage Damien hadn’t yet found a way to rid him of.

‘To defeat him and return to the surface with enough time to bring Zara back…is that even possible?’

Damien’s eyes hardened.

‘Ten minutes. I have ten minutes at the maximum.’

Ten minutes until reinforcements arrived…

In that time, Damien either had to force Sebastian back into Calypto, which would make his choice to bring the Nox butler to the starry sky negligible, or he could defeat the butler and head back to the surface himself.

Damien calmed down the incessant thumping of his heart and cleared his mind of the strange buzzing he’d been hearing since earlier.

‘Since it’s come to this, it’s time to be extreme.’

Damien sighed. He really didn’t want to get blown to bits every single time he had an intense battle, but it seemed masochism loved him too much to let him go.

With fiery resolve in his eyes, Damien charged forward without regard for anything.

His body was like a guided missile. The Dead Zone around him tried to stop him with everything it had, suppressing his mana and laws, suppressing his body, and even directly attacking with methods similar to Zara’s.

Yet, Damien didn’t waver.

Xiu!

Damien’s body was pierced by a tentacle of darkness. He could feel the hole next to his Mana Heart, a hole that would be lethal to anyone but him.

But he didn’t waver.

Bang! Bang! Bang!

Darkness sprayed over Damien’s body like water, each droplet exploding and tearing off a chunk of his skin. He was closer to an undead than a human at this point, his appearance reminiscent of zombies from older movies.

But he didn’t waver.

His left arm was torn to pieces by what looked like a beast’s maw. His right arm became a bag of flesh after his bones were turned into powder by a blunt impact. His torso was riddled with holes and gashes, pieces of his internal organs flying into the starry sky as he moved faster and faster.

But he didn’t waver.

He would never waver.

He would never lose.

Damien arrived in front of Sebastian’s horrified face. He stood there for a moment to bask in the feeling of sheer terror that the Nox butler was feeling.

Perhaps it wasn’t fear of his power, but it was fear nonetheless.

“You are…utterly insane.”

They were the only words Sebastian could mutter before he found a fist in his face.

“You Nox love to corrupt, right? So why don’t I corrupt you instead?”

Damien pushed forward without a care for his bodily condition. He trailed Sebastian and grabbed the butler’s face once more.

Haaa!

With a spirited shout, Damien pushed his mana with everything he had.

Void Mana penetrated Sebastian’s body through his pores and spread like wildfire.

10,000 units…50,000 units…100,000 units…

Every unit of mana Damien had in his body was pushed into Sebastian. Within the butler’s body, a storm unlike any other was taking place.

‘This…!’

Sebastian felt panic for the first time since the fight began. Void Mana traveled through his systems and infiltrated everything. His Mana Circuits were covered in foggy black clouds, and with their existence, Sebastian could feel a fierce devouring force unlike anything he’d ever…

‘No, this is…!’

The mana was familiar, far more familiar than anything he’d ever expected to feel in Grand Heavens Boundary.

“Who are you?!” Sebastian roared through the pain he was feeling.

“Who am I? The bastard who’s going to kill you, that’s who.” Damien responded coldly through gritted teeth.

Void Mana went into a frenzy. It didn’t stop at Sebastian’s mana, but instead latched onto every nook and cranny of his body. Unlike its usual silent yet rebellious behavior, the current Void Mana was like a starved beast.

‘What’s going on?’ Damien wondered in confusion.

From the beginning, his only goal was to corrupt Sebastian’s mana and cripple him so his advantages would leave him, but the current situation was completely unexpected.

‘The Void Mana is expressing…desire?’

Damien roared out as he tried to control the rampaging mana. At the rate it was leaving his body, no amount of recuperating would recover it in a short amount of time.

On the other hand, Sebastian’s eyes almost popped out of his skull.

‘This mana is interacting with…no, it is actively following his orders?! How could this…this is inconceivable!’

Originally, Sebastian had been of the mind to kill Damien where he stood. While the young genius wasn’t at the Saint King’s level yet, Sebastian was already sure after fighting him.

The Saint King could never win against Damien.

When facing a genius of untold proportions, his first and main thought was to destroy the seed before it sprouted.

But this seed was special.

This seed…

Intense greed filled Sebastian’s body. It was a sticky and hideous feeling that threatened to consume him whole.

“ARGH!”

Excruciating pain hit Sebastian’s body the second this emotion surfaced, somewhat bringing him back to his senses.

‘I must report this to Master.’

The terrifying mana was already encroaching on his vital systems. At this rate, even if he didn’t die, Sebastian was sure to be seriously injured.

‘But as long as I can get this information back to Master…’

A light of anticipation filled his eyes.

Right, if it was for the Master, being crippled was nothing.

Fear was nothing.

Pain was nothing.

It was all just an illusion to keep him from the peak.

“HAAAAAAAA!”

Sebastian roared with all his might. He gripped Damien’s wrist with all the force he had remaining in his body, and pulled.

Rrrip!

The gruesome sound of Damien’s arm being torn from his body was especially prominent in the pregnant silence of the Dead Zone.

Yet, his hand remained latched onto Sebastian’s face.

Damien grinned. “You think that’s enough to stop me?”

A black mana thread connected Damien’s detached arm to his shoulder. The current of Void Mana leaving his body was sustained by this thread, and even though he’d escaped Damien’s grasp, Sebastian was still in serious danger.

But…he simply didn’t care.

“HUMAN! YOU HAVE NOT SEEN THE LAST OF ME!”

Sebastian roared as his body turned into a flash of light. He immediately shot towards the boundaries of the Dead Zone, molding it around him so that Damien couldn’t catch back up.

“Khhhh!”

Sebastian’s every breath was strained. Void Mana suffocated him and clogged his throat, almost forcing him to vomit.

Regardless of the pain, however, Sebastian didn’t stop. He moved like a dying man attempting to fulfill his last wish, filled with blazing determination that seemed to have appeared out of nowhere.

“Did you think you could run?”

Just as he appeared at the Dead Zone’s boundary, Damien’s harrowing figure appeared before him.

Those purple eyes sparked with reddish-black light and shone with overwhelming bloodthirst.

“I’ve already prepared your grave, so don’t expect to leave it.”

Seeing the furious genius, Sebastian felt an unquenchable desire budding in his heart.

“What, did the loss of your little servant girl hurt you so much? Do not worry, for my master has never mistreated his servants. She will be well—”

“Shut the ** up and die.”

Damien spread his arms out and gathered his mana. He acted completely on instinct, ignoring everything he knew about mana utilization and following his heart.

Reddish-black sparks spread through the air and interacted, igniting into a massive flame that emanated a deathly aura that even threatened Sebastian.

“Ah…”

Sebastian made a sound of disappointment.

“Unfortunately, I will not be able to die today, for I have other obligations to fulfill. Young human, we will meet again.”

His body began to fade from existence. An inviolable force called to him and dragged him away.

Damien shot his destructive flames forward with all his might in the exact same instant. The flames teleported through the Void and appeared on Sebastian’s position.

The half-faded figure of the Nox butler began to burn. He burned with reddish-black hell flames that wouldn’t extinguish no matter what.

And along with these flames, he was forced to endure the horrific pain of the Void Mana corrupting him from within.

“AHHHHH—”

The scream was cut off in the middle.

It was the last sound Damien heard from the butler.

His eyes remained cold, perhaps even colder than they were before.

But he didn’t give chase.

That was a Demigod’s aura. The Saint Emperor was the one who took Sebastian away.

Yet, he didn’t even say a single word to Damien, nonconforming with the attitude he’d shown thus far.

In the end, Damien turned his eyes away from Sebastian’s previous position.

It didn’t matter if the butler was gone.

pαndα`noνɐ1~сoМ

His mana was within Sebastian’s system, and it wouldn’t leave unless he commanded it to.

Currently, rather than the butler, there was another problem Damien needed to rapidly resolve.

He needed to make sure he kept his promise with Zara.