Void Evolution System

Damien somewhat expected it after seeing the man's attitude, but Karlen himself was the one who gave the tour.

The Temple's Right Hand was an extremely notorious figure. There wasn't a person on this island who didn't know his face.

So, seeing him act as a tour guide for a mysterious man was definitely a strange experience for the people of the Earth Temple. They went from top to bottom. Most floors were used only for housing, so the tour didn't take very long. There were many facilities on the higher floors that would be helpful to any practitioner who wanted to train, but they were nothing different from the norm.

Nevertheless, the tour did a good job raising Damien's fame. In the coming days before the tournament began, he'd likely have to do a lot more to secure himself the spot he was promised.

After all, no matter what happened, it was too suspicious for the single real tournament spot to be given to a new member.

Sure, Rosalyn was out of commission, but there were several people who could take her place.

Was the Right Hand saying that this man was better than them by parading him around and then succinctly announcing that he was going to represent the temple?

By the time that happened, Damien was already in his room so he didn't need to worry about it.

But, he was able to secure some useful information beforehand.

"Ah, it's you!"

An annoying guy approached Damien without reservation. It seemed his age reveal was enough to remove any kind of fear Darius had. When he saw Damien again, he instantly ran up and started talking about the rumors going around the temple.

"Did you hear? Some crazy guy just received some crazy honors from the higher-ups. He has the same name as you too! What was it again…? Damien Void? His name sounds cool, but why haven't I ever seen him before?"

'I change my mind. Maybe I like this guy.'

That sentence made Damien cry invisible tears in his mind.

For the first time in his life…

This was something that had never happened before.

For years and years and years he'd held onto the trauma it caused him, but for the first time ever, he felt like he received a little bit of healing.

'Finally, someone who thinks it's cool.'

Damien was now in a world where everyone was weird!

He didn't have to cringe about his last name anymore!

Seriously, in the Heavenly World, people didn't laugh because they feared Void Palace, but he could see it in their hearts!

Even in that fantasy world so far removed from Earth, Void was still a cringe last name!

Hell, even Earth wasn't the original Earth, so how cringe would it have been on that planet?!

'We're getting off-topic.'

Whatever the case, Damien's opinion of Darius rose just slightly in that moment. He spent most of the rest of the time in his own thoughts, but he did process Darius' yapping at a later time to see if he said anything useful.

That guy seemed to have developed some kind of interest in Damien.

It wasn't for nothing. Damien was the only outsider who came to the island at a young age, and though Darius was a bit on the dumber side to not notice that Damien was the very person he gossipped about, he had a subconscious understanding that the man was powerful.

His instincts told him to get closer to that man, so he followed them. That was the kind of person he was.

It made Damien smile. He was also like that in his younger years.

His mind was a bit different considering what he'd been through. The eons of memories he held didn't help him maintain a young mentality either.

For an average practitioner, especially one from the Land of Nothingness, Darius' age was the same as a newly eighteen-year-old individual from Earth who was just taking their first steps into society.

It was hard for Damien to relate to the highly energetic young man, but he remained courteous and friendly. In the end, Darius wasn't a bad person.

No, he was actually a lot like Damien's own Darius when he was around the same age.

Nevertheless, their conversation at that time ended rapidly. Damien was the center of attention, after all. He was receiving all kinds of gazes from every side that Darius seemed blissfully unaware of.

Still, Damien was able to learn the names of his actual competition through the man.

'So from the Fire Temple, it's a guy called Quill. From the Water Temple, a woman named Yanui.'

Damien wasn't necessarily worried about them, but it would do him no harm to understand his opponents before entering the competition.

Most importantly, the Area Lord who would stand as the final contender of the tournament was already chosen.

That was where Damien directed his attention.

'He's called the Dragon Lord, which makes me feel like I'll have an advantage, but that would be pretty stupid.'

He couldn't be lucky enough to face a dragon, right? It would just be sad if everything ended with an unfair fight.

'Though, that might be the reason why Karlen was so insistent.'

If he expected Damien to defeat the Dragon Lord as well, then it made sense. Say an Area Lord who got tired of his seat wanted to start an era of chaos so he could finally be defeated and freed.

It was entirely a possibility, but if the person who controlled everything was the Dragon Lord, then the tournament wouldn't have been able to exist in the first place.

'But if that's the case, then the Dragon Lord also has to be related to that organization somehow.'

That was even more plausible in a certain sense. For such a society to gain relevance, it needed to have a strong backer.

Say an Area Lord who got tired of his seat wanted to start an era of chaos so he could finally be defeated and freed.

It was entirely a possibility, but if the person who controlled everything was the Dragon Lord, then the tournament wouldn't have been able to exist in the first place.

How could he possibly miss the signs when the entire tournament was filled only with his people?

If he thought it was because of their efforts rather than the temples' schemes, then he was an idiot who didn't deserve to say he had lived for millions of years.

'Schemes, schemes and more schemes.'

It always turned out like that, didn't it?

The most peaceful-looking societies were the ones with rotten roots that always had something going on behind the scenes.

'I like that this is a place where civilians can exist in peace.'

A world where everyone was constantly fighting at all times was tiring. Damien was happy to see that a place like this existed in the Land of Nothingness.

If for nobody else, then for the people he met on his trip to Terra, and the people who led him around the city when he arrived.

"Haa…"

He sighed to himself.

'I'm doing troublesome things.'

He wanted to preserve the sanctity he had felt from this place.

That meant, in the end, he would end up contributing heavily to this war, right?

'No.'

That wasn't Damien's style.

'If I'm going to invest effort into this…'

Just like he always did… "...then I might as well just do everything myself."

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