Kura had been frequently dispersing Damien's attacks.
Her unique talent to read another individual's energy and recreate its internal structure made her an obvious contender for the best in her class.
If attacks couldn't reach her, then wasn't it obvious that she won every battle she partook in?
Especially when people were conservative with information and unfriendly, it was easy for her to catch others by surprise and defeat them before they could get an idea of what she was actually doing.
Damien had a better connection to Nonexistence than most of those on the third island because of the events at Death's Hold. His innate perception ability was also marvelous. It was the talent that shined from when he was a teenager to now.
He saw exactly how she maneuvered her energy to mimic his. In his eyes, the interaction between the two invisible forces was clear as day.
It was like two sets of molecules meeting and binding. Each element found something perfect to bond to, and when they combined, they turned into the same atmosphere that populated the entirety of this realm.
It was extremely difficult to pull off a stunt like that unless one had practiced for an incredible amount of time.
Still, there was a flaw.
Damien attacked and attacked and attacked. Kura was forced to continuously disperse his attacks while also forming her own, which allowed certain pieces of the webs to make it past her defenses.
She was slowly being whittled away, but that wasn't the important part.
Kura was forced to focus on her side of the battlefield. She couldn't spend too much time looking beyond at where Damien stood.
That was exactly when she exposed her weakness.
Being forced to use the extent of her defensive power, Kura left an opening for Damien to manipulate the battlefield to his liking.
There was a pattern within his attacks. A constellation-like line in the webs that led straight to his opponent.
It was a surefire killshot, and Kura had no idea that it was present at all.
Damien was huffing and puffing already.
'I can feel my life force fading. It's troublesome.'
He didn't have any fear of his missing immortality. Knowing that he would live no matter what gave him the same kind of confidence as his usual immortality even if it was different.
Still, Damien didn't know what happened to the people who died here. He was aware that they'd come back, but was there any negative impact? What if his journey was inhibited by a single death?
He didn't want to risk it. Feeling the mortality clutching at his life, he frowned and decided to enact his hidden card as soon as possible.
Damien was definitely a lot more serious than he was when the fight first started, but he wasn't the only one.
Kura's gritted teeth were enough of a sign on their own even if one couldn't see the beads of sweat dripping down her face.
What particularly set Damien apart from others and allowed him to set up so much was his ability to attack with the same ferocity even while being inflicted with every possible human sickness or injury possible at the same time.
Nobody else could withstand it enough to maintain their efficacy in battle. That single fact was the main reason why Kura was able to acquire victory after victory despite being more of a defensive individual than an attacker.
How much pain did Damien have to endure for him to treat his dying body as nothing but a slight hindrance?
Even dying wasn't enough to create a fortitude like that.
This was the one place where it was possible to say that. Every single person here had died at least a few times.
Was it because Damien's soul was almost torn to shreds by the Wheel of Samsara?
Or was it because the Void prepared him for this?
Pain was too important to Damien's journey. Sure, it had been a long time since he'd really felt it, but did that matter?
The body he forged through pain that no other had experienced was aiding him even at this step.
It was an unexpected variable to his opponent.
The fight only lasted for ten minutes until now, but it was more than enough time for the two to inflict serious damage on each other.
Damien was heaving. His body was giving up on him too fast.
However, Kura wasn't in a better state.
'Did I make a mistake this time?'
It had been decades since her last loss. Was this the day when her record was ruined?
These thoughts would have never existed in her head if it weren't for Damien, but that didn't make them any less impactful.
That was the problem with pessimistic thinking.
If it got bad enough, it could turn anyone into a self-fulfilling prophecy. On a subconscious level, they would start to think of their pessimism as realism and fact. When that happened, everything else was a bygone conclusion.
Kura's thoughts went on a downward spiral, placing her in that exact situation.
Who was Damien to ignore this blessing of an opportunity?
The instant he saw her eyes fall, he pushed his hand out.
It was a weak motion. Damien looked like a poorly aged old man at this point, so when he pushed his frail arm into the air, it looked like a pathetic effort.
Of course, that was not the case.
From the tip of his finger, a drop of Nonexistence entered the mass of webs in front of him.
It went from point to point, illuminating the stars in the constellation Damien created.
The second she saw the light, everything changed.
She tried to read the attack. Her eyes moved to the nearest light. The moment she saw it clearly, she realized that it was already too late to disperse it.
Her only option was to defend with concepts the same way others did.
She had to create a web just as complex as the one Damien made.
However, she didn't have nearly enough time.
If she had seen this trap long ago, the situation would have been very different. It was unquestionable that Damien would have been the one to lose.
He was the one who created a situation where that was not the case.
And he was not going to leave it to rot.
The light reached Kura before she could do anything.
Sixteen stars created a beautifully patterned constellation that ended in her head.
The light shot through her skull, and Kura's eyes rolled back into her head.
With a single attack, Damien destroyed her mind. When her mind could no longer bear the burden, the energy switched to her body.
Kura's body began to fade. As if she was turning into ash and floating away in the wind, her skin and bones blackened and flaked off.
Her eyes widened. She wasn't able to look at Damien in her current state, but she grinned.
She spoke her final words.
Kura disappeared from the world, fated to return at a later time.
Damien felt a change in his body as his shield medallion changed.
He looked at it and then back at where Kura once stood as he withdrew his domain.
Damien felt a change in his body as his shield medallion changed.
He looked at it and then back at where Kura once stood as he withdrew his domain.
'For some reason…' he thought to himself.
'...I feel isn't the last time we'll see each other.'
Damien had attained victory in his very first real battle in the Land of Nothingness.
But he knew that this was only one of many.
With a little more confidence in his techniques and many thoughts on how to improve, Damien left the shore for the first time.
Now, he could finally see what the third island had in store for him.