Within Damien’s mindspace, there was a mental map of what he assumed was his subspace. This was the only way he could understand the changes going on within it.
After all, it currently resided in the void, and regardless of whether he had discovered his mysterious connection with it or not, he still had no way of controlling or even entering it.
By this point, he had already been watching the activities in the void for many weeks. Even from the beginning, when it began to inject his subspace with its essence, he had lost control over the process.
So there was no longer anything he could do besides watch. And in this time, he had learned a few things.
For one, the level of Void Essence that was taking part in the reconstruction of his subspace was far above the level of essence that had leaked from the crack of reality.
If it wasn’t for the mental map that had formed in his mind when the void took control over the creation process, he wouldn’t have even realized anything was changing.
If he were to be attacked by that level of void essence, he wouldn’t even be able to tell how he died. No, perhaps his existence itself would be erased from the records of the universe.
Even the low-level Void Essence he had seen earlier already far outstripped the essence of his own devour skill, making him realize just how far he was from the goal he had just recently set.
If he had to quantify it, he most likely hadn’t even grasped a single percent of the void’s power.
The second thing he noticed was that, contrary to his earlier conjectures, the subspace was nowhere close to becoming a true world.
It didn’t have a World Core, which he had long since known was the main essence of a world, and it also didn’t have the other functioning structures of one either.
Even though the essence of the 5 elements as well as the other creation forces had already entered and infused into his subspace, he could instinctually feel that they were in a sort of dormant state.
For now, it would be an unchanging area, similar to the library and study that Kurt had created, but much more complex.
There would be no changes in weather, he didn’t even know if there would be day and night. But in the end, this didn’t matter.
His goal had been achieved a long time ago, and as of now, he was just reaping the extra benefit that came with it.
The process of forming the new structure of the subspace didn’t seem like it would be a short one at all. Even after a month passed, it didn’t look complete. But Damien could tell. It was almost there.
During this month, since he had nothing better to do while he waited, he spent plenty of quality time with little Xue’er in a bid to appease her after scaring her by collapsing.
The little girl had even spent a few days giving him the silent treatment before he was able to crack her shell again, making him endlessly wear a wry smile.
While he wasn’t playing around with Xue’er, he would leave the cave they had made into their home and hunt the various beasts that lived in the jungle they were currently in.
These beasts were never too strong, with the strongest being at the early stages of 3rd class, but they still somewhat helped in nourishing his star. The dullness of the silver was slowly becoming brighter with every passing day.
But there was no way Damien would spend too much time on these weak beasts. His main priority during the month was to learn more about the abominations he had met and how they were connected to the Nox.
As for the results of his search, he could only say that it wasn’t a disappointment, though it wasn’t anything special either.
For the first week and a half, he had stayed within a 500-kilometer radius of the cave, since he didn’t want to leave little Xue’er alone for too long. 500 Kilometers, while being a massive distance, wasn’t actually that far for him anymore.
Even with his teleportation limited as it was, he could traverse in a straight line for 500 kilometers in a few hours, half a day at most.
But within that 500-kilometer radius, he still hadn’t run into more humans. It wasn’t that there was no civilization, it was just that all signs of villages or towns he found were nothing more than dilapidated ruins.
The only sign that there were people living in them at some point was the corpses that littered the ground. But even these seemed too few in numbers.
It was at that point when Damien realized why little Xue’er’s parents had told her to kill herself before being bit by those abominations.
They were something similar to zombies. Even if it wasn’t a high chance, there was still a chance that the corpse of someone they consumed would become just like them.
It was hard to stay unperturbed in the face of such genocide, but Damien did his best to keep his thoughts clear.
‘With this much wide-scale activity in the area, it’s likely that there’s a base of them somewhere near.’
With that thought, he spent the rest of the month searching for said base. But even until this point, his search had come up empty.
Thinking about the results, Damien sighed to himself. ‘Such a harsh limiter on teleportation is really troublesome.’
His teleportation was directly linked to the spatial layers, and the spatial layers made up space itself. Naturally, his connection to these layers had been suppressed as well.
‘If only it was like it was back then, things would be so much easier.’
The second he separated his subspace from reality, the spatial suppression had reinstated itself. It was as if the world was telling him that it would only help him that much.
Without his connection to the spatial layers, the amount of detail he could make out when he spread his awareness to the limit had decreased significantly. And since he had to shorten his range to get a clearer picture, his search was taking much longer than it should have.
Suddenly, Damien felt like a bomb exploded in his mind. It wasn’t a revelation of any sort of enlightenment. In fact, it had abruptly paused his thought process in such a way that he almost failed to regain his bearings.
But when he did, his eyes flashed with incomparable excitement.
“Hahaha! Finally! After a whole month, it’s finally done!”
Wanting to express his joy, he picked up little Xue’er, who was watching him curiously from the side, and lifted her into the air, spinning in circles before hugging her tightly.
The little girl’s bell-like laughter rang out in the cave, almost causing the surroundings to genuinely illuminate. The youthful vigor in little Xue’er’s eyes had slowly begun to show itself once more
.
“Big brother, what happened? Did you find good food!” She asked innocently. The only time she had seen this new big brother of hers smile so widely was when he was eating amazing meat.
But Damien only shook his head with a smile. “Little Xue, didn’t your big brother tell you he was working on something great? What do you think, isn’t it about time we left this dull little cave for a while?”
Little Xue’er’s eyes brightened at the prospect. She was truly becoming too bored with the monotony of the surrounding rock walls. Nodding excitedly, she looked at Damien with anticipation.
“Mm!”
Damien laughed once more. “Very well! Then, little Xue, this big brother will show you why he is the most powerful man in the universe!”
The second his words ended, the two people were covered in a flash of formless light before vanishing from the spot where they once stood.