Damien suddenly remembered what the Demon King had told him a few moments prior.
“Right, what happened to the dark material of the Apostles the two of you fought?” He asked.
Although the girls were irked by his obvious move to change the subject, they still answered after seeing the serious look in his eyes.
“Mine’s gone! I killed it!” Qing Tan angered excitedly.
“You managed to kill yours? Mine managed to escape by a hair because I was too focused on burning that bitch. I managed to tag it with my flames though.”
“Tag it?” Damien asked curiously.
“That’s right!” Feng Qing’er responded with a proud look on her face. “My flames now have an even more profound connection with me, so I can locate them no matter how far away they are! Even after they stop burning, they’ll leave a flame scar that’ll respond to my flames if I activate it.”
“That’s a nice ability, but it doesn’t help with our current situation.”
Damien sighed. Although it wasn’t as bad as he expected, a dark material had still managed to get away.
Damien proceeded to explain what the Demon King had told him about the record crystals. Hearing it, Feng Qing’er’s face went red with shame.
“Dammit! If I had just been more focused…!”
“Well, I can’t really blame you. That bitch was seriously annoying.”
“Right? She kept going on and on about who was more beautiful. Like, who gives a shit?! We’re supposed to be battling to the death, why the hell are you still caring about your looks?”
“Ehh~ but you still manage to keep your haughty and arrogant demeanor while you fight. Didn’t you see how many of those geniuses became infatuated at Astoria?” Qing Tan teased.
“Who gives a shit about them?! They can’t even match up to a single feather on my body, let alone have the qualifications to conquer me. Hmph! Let’s see if I ever find a man who can actually do so.”
“But isn’t there one right in front of you~?”
“Him? Ha! Don’t make me laugh. This son of a bitch could never conquer me!”
“But I don’t think that’s true though~?”
“Ehem, girls. Can we talk about the serious things instead?”
Damien massaged his forehead. Before saying I couldn’t conquer you, can’t you consider whether I actually want to conquer you at all first? But he didn’t voice his thoughts since it’d inevitably lead to Feng Qing’er’ incessant rambling.
“In any case, the enemy will know your abilities now, so it’s even less of a good idea to bring you along with me.”
“So what am I supposed to do? Although I don’t like agreeing with Qing Tan, it’s true that there’s nothing else to do around here for the next half a year besides fight with demons.”
“I mean, I never said you can’t fight with demons. I just said you won’t be doing it with me. I have my own plans, and you have yours. So let’s just leave it at that. Me telling you about the record crystals was just a friendly reminder, so keep it in mind before you act from now on.”
After exchanging a few more words with them, Damien decisively turned around and left. He was planning to rest up a bit before starting his infiltration and assassinations.
It was one of the drawbacks of his soul injury. Unlike the past when he could go many weeks on end without sleep, he now needed to take proper rest to alleviate his fatigue. It was annoying, but necessary.
Damien found a secluded location before entering the Sanctuary, entering his private area and lying down on the grass.
With his eyes closed, he began thinking about the previous conversation.
Although he was well aware of Feng Qing’er and Qing Tan’s strengths after fighting so many battles with them, Damien didn’t want to drag these two along with him.
It wasn’t a matter of incompatibility or even the fact that Feng Qing’er’s strength had become known to the enemy. He just felt that he would work better alone.
Especially with his current goals, every single one of them required discretion and secrecy. It was the type of thing that’d function much better if one didn’t work in a team.
The only way he could make this a team effort was if he had people he wholeheartedly trusted with him. For instance, Rose, Ruyue, and Elena.
‘Speaking of them, I wonder how they’re doing.’
He could feel Ruyue’s soul strand in his mindspace was still filled with vitality, so he wasn’t worried about her, but the other two girls were out of his reach in unknown places.
He didn’t know what kind of dangers they’d braved or what kind of strength they had at this point. He didn’t know if they were being pestered by young masters due to their world class beauty or bullied by the seniors in their sect.
He once again began to regret parting with them. How much more fun would the 3000 Beast Mountain Range have been with the two of them present?
‘Then again, there’s plenty of stuff that wouldn’t have happened if we were all together.’
The most important of those things being his budding relationship with Ruyue. Judging from Rose’s upbringing and the negative effects her father’s harem had on her, he didn’t know how she would take to him having other women.
But he couldn’t change his feelings for Ruyue, and after so long, he had no intention of leaving Ruyue’s feelings unanswered.
‘Speaking of unanswered feelings…’
He had truly done Elena dirty. He knew it, but he didn’t know how to deal with it. His relationship with Elena was different than what he had with Rose and Ruyue. They had known each other for far longer, so he felt much more awkward breaching the barrier of friendship and trying to become something more.
‘Well, let’s not think about it. Rose still doesn’t even know about Ruyue, so how could I even consider adding a third? Let’s see how she reacts before deciding.’
If he knew that Rose had already made plans for how to manage his harem, how would he have reacted?
Unfortunately, she hadn’t taken the initiative to tell him. After all, Rose had been expecting Elena to be his second harem member, she didn’t expect a competitor like Ruyue to appear.
And because Rose had been waiting for Damien to develop with Elena before talking to him about it, they had never truly ended up discussing a future where Damien had multiple women, leading to his current indecisiveness.
Damien sighed. His thoughts had gone on a tangent thinking about women again. His relationship problems honestly scared him more than the Demon God he was currently facing.
But he was still somewhat proud of himself. He knew that he’d grown a great deal since he first decided to split up with Rose and Elena when they entered the Cloud Plane.
He was now able to properly confront his feelings for his women without hesitating due to his insecurity or misgivings. The only thing holding him back was the fact that he hadn’t communicated with Rose yet, and he felt that this was an entirely justified reason to hold back.
After all, having thoughts about other women and actively pursuing them was already unfaithful of him. The fact that he wanted to build a harem was even more.
He had decided already that if he was going to do this, he’d do it with sincerity. There was no way he’d slight Rose any more than he already was.
He soon threw away all of the muddled thoughts in his head. Along with resting, there was another task that he had to take care of.
And it was something that he was much more excited about than anything else at the moment.
It was finally time to tabulate the gains he made in the previous days.