With schadenfreude, Elora watched as the anomaly was encircled and sealed in her trap, like an animal.

She had been unsure whether her plan would have worked. Even though they had planned for his current temporary state of weakness, he had still effortlessly defeated them, the thought of him at his full strength made her shudder.

They had thought they could take him on, even bring him down if they put all their combined strengths into the attempt. He had still overpowered and beaten them like children, leaving Elora grievously injured in both body and spirit.

When the fight had started, Elora had seen the way he looked down at them, like children who didn't even warrant half of his strength, he didn't take the fight seriously, only avoiding their attacks and physically beating them, not even using any technique that she could see.

At first, she had thought that he had too high of an opinion of himself, as refusing to take a fight against two-spirit lords seriously was an easy way to get killed.

Now that she had gotten a taste of his true power, she was relieved he didn't take them seriously. Losing a part of her cultivation was a terrific experience and she didn't want to ever feel that excruciating pain again.

When the empire had first gotten information about the impossible genius, being among the first to know of him, was a boon. They had immediately wanted him for themselves, even though he had broken the record held by the emperor by becoming a spirit lord in his early twenties, an impossible feat, he had still been viewed as someone who amounted to nothing more than a weapon to be wielded by the emperor.

Information about him was always hard to find, as he was always moving, never staying in the same place long enough for any kingdom recruiters to find him, always disappearing for weeks or months and then resurfacing far stronger than before.

He was mostly seen with another companion of the same age who they now believed to be keilan windrender, another anomaly that had stepped into the spirit lord realm also at an early age. But unlike his companion, his cultivation speed had slowed down since stepping into the realm of spirit lords, as it also should have been for Damien.

The empire had finally given up on the diplomatic approach and had attempted to capture him at one opportune moment granted to them. This had resulted in the death of two monarch realm cultivators amongst the three that had been sent, the third returning gravely injured to report that the young man was already way into the monarch realm and also too powerful for his rank, overpowering three monarchs of the same tier.

She had been in attendance when the matter was brought up and another group were sent out again to capture him. He had already vanished.

He then resurfaced again, this time as a spirit lord, causing an uproar amongst the rulers of the world. He had clashed with one of the empire's spirit lords and had slain the man, earning the full wrath and mobilization of spirit lords to capture and kill him. He then vanished again.

When he had next resurfaced, he had encountered and clashed with the emperor but it had ended with both seriously injured and him having to flee when he sensed the arrival of the empire's pillars.

They hadn't seen him again until he had been discovered in this small city, by a mere lord realm spy.

She had thought that she and Igor could take him, especially as he had weakened himself by expending what she knew was a massive amount of energy to move into the dimension of the unreal, something that couldn't be done at middle-stage spirit lords. Even mad geniuses at peak stage spirit lord struggled extremely hard to accomplish such feat, and a middle-stage spirit lord did it and still managed to hold a piece of reality there with only sheer will and power.

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She had thought that he would be easier to kill now that he was massively weakened. Oh, how wrong she was, now paying for it with a damaged and crumbling spirit image.

She had still managed to trap him in her pillar of death. A pillar made out of darkness that released dense quantities of poison mists, killing anybody trapped inside in minutes.

Standing there, her mind split between preventing her prisoner from escaping and holding herself from succumbing to the excruciating pain in her spirit.

She was a little bit relieved when Igor alleviated her burden by joining his will with hers.

"How long will it take for your poison to take effect?" Igor asked.

"Probably longer than average, seeing as all our predictions about his capabilities were painfully proven wrong," She replied, gritting her teeth from the pain assaulting her.

"Are we even sure he's going to be affected by the poison?" Igor said, worry plain in his voice.

"He has to be," Elora said, fear rising at the thought of Damien escaping unaffected.

"We need to call in for re-enforcement," Igor said, reluctance in his voice.

She also agreed reluctantly. Even though it wounded her pride to admit that they needed help battling an upstart, it was better than dying.

She was about to send in the request when the pillar of darkness exploded, the shockwaves fully collapsing the walls and buildings, dark mist drenching half the city in poison, melting everything into sludge.

Elora screamed as she was drowned in agonizing pain, her last sight before her vision turned black was of Damien floating high in the sky, looking down at her.

There was nary a scratch on his body.

********

Damien's POV

Floating hundreds of feet off the ground and imprisoned by a pillar of darkness that would have made an ordinary person terrified. All Damien felt was boredom.

He knew what this pillar did, as it was already known that whoever got captured in her pillar only survived by her desire, as you would keep screaming in excruciating pain until she decided to either kill you or take you back to the empire as a prisoner. So he wasn't surprised nor was he worried to see the thick black gaseous poison emitting from the liquid like-darkness encircling him.

Deciding that he'd had enough of playing around, Damien decided to end this joke of a fight.

Freeing himself. He forcefully released huge amounts of energy from his body, overwhelming the cage surrounding him until it burst, blasting energy that finally collapsed the walls and destroyed half the city, turning it into rubble.

Looking down, he saw Elora collapsing on the ground, no doubt from the backlash of having her technique overwhelmingly crushed.

Raising his left hand, he caught the wrist of the attacking Igor shadowblight, probably thinking Damien was unaware of his approach.

Deciding his spear wouldn't do, he conjured a short sword made of destruction, cutting off Igor's arm at the elbow.

The man grunted, teleporting closer to his image. Igor glared at Damien with pure hatred and a fear which he tried and failed to hide.

"You will be my scapegoat and promise on what will happen when you people refuse to listen to warnings to stay away from my interests," He said, looking at Igor whose fear was beginning to take charge as he understood what was going to happen to him.

The man decided to go all out.

From the sea of shadows on the grounds, dozens of tendrils rose to try and hold him down, the man came in next with speed that shook the air, his hammer raised high, power emitting from his body in massive waves.

Deciding not to take an attack like that head-on, Damien teleported away, appearing next to the man's image.

Before Igor could understand where he had gone, Damien raised his spear, taking aim and infusing it with huge amounts of destructive cosmos energy, he threw.

The spear crossed the distance within eye blinks. Before Igor could fully dodge, it pierced him through the back, piercing through armour and into his body. Igor wouldn't have died from an ordinary mortal wound, as he had already crossed the threshold and was on the path to the higher realms. What killed Igor was the energy infused into the weapon, giving it power enough to kill a spirit lord.

Igor exploded from the inside, his limbs and body finding different directions to scatter.