Chapter 1384 Trace [1]

Chapter 1384 Trace [1]

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'I have to go.'

All other thoughts were gone from Damien's mind.

There was no place for them to exist.

He didn't even wait until he'd fully processed what just happened.

Without paying any mind to the remaining enemy God or anything else that could be lurking below his feet, he furiously teleported deeper into uncharted territory to get away from whatever "that thing" was.

'That boundary stele...there's no doubting it now. It was there for a reason.'

He expected it to get more dangerous. That was granted since he was opening an area that was forbidden until now.

But to see a True God, one of the strongest people present in the Forbidden Secret Realm, die in a single instant was a completely different matter.

It was terrifying.

Even with all the power Gerald had, despite being someone who could even kill Damien, he died in a single instant without a hint of a chance to fight back.

If even he suffered a fate like that, then nobody stood a chance.

But people were still going to come. The clans would still explore these uncharted lands, and they would eventually send people strong enough to stand against the ecosystem and explore.

However, that was a story for another time. As long as Damien would be involved with this realm, it would remain a cemetery for Gods.

Damien didn't let himself think too much. He single-mindedly followed the force that called him past the border in the first place.

He didn't look back, he didn't look down, he barely even looked ahead. He was entirely focused on that force, putting everything else he had into fleeing.

The destroyed boundary stele, Pria Straea, and everything else he brought with him through the barrier was left behind, and when the surrounding environment changed from a lush rainforest with verdant greenery in every direction to a more rocky and arid terrain, he finally slowed his pace.

"Huu..."

He took a deep breath and steadied himself.

'That was insane.'

It wasn't his first time experiencing an event like this. There had actually been several instances in the past where a strong character was caught by surprise and killed by something far stronger.

However, what separated this incident from the rest was power.

Godhood was the ceiling.

There was nothing higher than it, not that Damien knew of.

He focused on the connection with his clones.

'Nothing seems to be going on, but that could also be a facade. The force calling me is somewhere near the bottom of this ravine, so I have to keep traveling downward regardless.'

It was damp and musty, despite the space being open to the air outside, the further down he went, the less prominent its effects were.

The atmosphere was suffocating, as was the darkness itself. It gripped Damien's skin, crawling over him like a colony of ants.

It was quiet too. He knew there were beasts living here. He could hear them scampering across the rocks and leaving traces everywhere. He could hear them in the distance, growling and crooning for their individual purposes.

But nothing approached him.

Some came within a few feet, but any who did just stared at him with their big beady eyes as he continued his descent.

Honestly, it was scary. It was far creepier than it would've been if they just attacked them as they usually did, because something was making these beasts ignore their instincts and watch him.

'And the worst part...'

Spiders. Tons of them.

They were the main species inhabiting this ravine.

Damien was a grown adult now. To say he still irrationally feared spiders was...just a bit much.

However...

'For this to be one of the things that stayed with me through all that growth is a little crazy.'

His fists itched. Every time he saw a spider, he wanted to crush it into oblivion.

Spiders were surprisingly uncommon in his journey. He saw them in the Severed World, but back then, there was too much going on for his irrationality to play any role in his actions.

This situation was different.

It was a situation that pushed irrationality to the forefront and made one doubt everything. As the darkness became darker, the light that guided one's thoughts was dimmed, and those fears and negative emotions hidden in the shadows were given a chance to act.

For Damien, those emotions weren't as prominent as they were for most people, but there was still something there.

Something he had never been able to get rid of.

Indifference and destructive tendencies.

Those things he suppressed as much as possible, tied to physical motivators like spiders, made his thoughts go awry in the strangest ways.

Damien didn't know what was happening, but there was something wrong with this ravine.

Something twisted that he couldn't begin to explain.