The being was similar to Chaos. It was built on a foundation of many of the same ideas, since Chaos and Evil were usually associated with each other.
There was likely a good incarnation of chaos somewhere in the Void, but evil would always be evil.
And, as a true Spiritual God who was not allowed to develop the same human emotions as Chaos, Evil was not going to make any mistakes.
He charged at Claire the moment he caught her in his sights. His aura was vile, causing her mental state to tremble.
She was able to fight against it, but Evil's mind-intruding aura was passive and would continuously attack her as she fought the entity, which Claire was forced to keep in mind.
When Damien arrived in the Heavenly World, Claire was already at the peak of the Supreme God level. That was where she stood before the whole fiasco that led to her entering the lower universe, and that was where she returned to when her soul was fully healed.
As such, Claire's power hadn't changed much from the last time the Dark God saw her. If anything, she'd only become more varied after seeing how her husband, son, and daughters-in-law trained.
Void Palace was always a gathering place for spatial practitioners. The four clans were able to maintain their own disciplines, but nothing outside of that ever existed.
It wasn't as if they banned other kinds of practitioners, but those people used to seek out other clans as opposed to the palace that seemed to have built a clear specialization.
Really, the crumbling of their reputation and then the way they were rebuilt by Damien was what changed them.
The palace was now filled with all kinds of people from all kinds of disciplines. Their methods never aligned, but all of them were able to learn from each other.
The natural law was varied, but every piece of it came from the same origins. The laws were always meant to exist in harmony.
Even Claire, who thought there was nothing more to learn, found herself changing.
That change was the source of her confidence when facing this being. This was a being who quite literally cleared the battlefield. Any and all people, regardless of which side they came from, parted ways for him until he reached Claire.
This was not an act of betrayal by the people of the Heavenly World, but their bodies' pure instinct of survival that they could not disobey.
Even as he approached closer, Claire felt her body locking up.
She was only able to respond because she did not need to move her mana to move her body.
Her instincts told her she would die, but her mana had developed a resilience after its time suppressed within the shell of a mortal. Even under this kind of pressure, it moved fiercely.
Plus, there was the "dream" affinity she developed as a mortal.
That affinity gave her some control over the immaterial world, while her natural Creation talent gave her dominion over the material.
She accepted that she wouldn't be able to reach Existence a long time ago when Dante was first exploring the subject. Instead of pursuing it, she vowed to become as strong as possible without it.
Before Evil came close enough to attack, she erected an array of walls around her.
Most of them were physical, made from the countless materials that could be found throughout the True Void Universe, but they were all crushed the instant they came in contact with the Spiritual God.
However, the point wasn't to slow him down. Within those physical walls were walls made with the dream affinity. They could not affect the mentality of a being without mentality, but they were able to contain some of his aura in a dream dimension, which gave Claire a renewed ability to move.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
Multiple small black holes appeared and charged at the enemy. They warped his movement path and confused the space around him, making it more difficult for him to reach her.
Stars immediately appeared all across the starry sky. Their energy depleted rapidly as beams of pure heat were released from their cores and targeted at Evil.
Unexpectedly, it was indeed Claire who kept the initiative.
Evil didn't take any damage. Like the black holes she summoned, his body was able to take energy in and contain it in an eternal prison.
However, as he was not able to approach her, his danger level decreased significantly as well.
Without the initial advantage, Evil wouldn't be able to kill Claire as easily.
And that was all she needed.
The "chance" she created was more than enough to inspire her to continue fighting.
After all, if she was able to make a change this time, she could do the same in the next instance. Eventually, any enemy would fall under such circumstances.
Naturally, this thought process had its flaws, but who was Claire to care about them?
Flaws were only important to people who would be affected by them.
To her, none of that mattered. As it had been stated so many times before, Claire was tired of all of this.
She and Rose were able to bond over this feeling. They wanted to live peacefully and happily with their families. Why did they have to be plagued by enemies and distractions at every step?
What differentiated them was that while Rose was prepared to take that path now, Claire wanted to create a way to do it properly. She fought not because she was provoked, but because she was tired.
The only way to ensure that a similar situation would never occur again was to win this war and display the Dark God's head for everyone to see. Who would test them after that?
Evil was an incarnation of its name. However, it, like the current Malevalon, was holding a portion of the Dark God's power.
The amount may have been minuscule in his eyes, but every inch mattered at a time . If Claire was able to defeat Evil and disallow its energy from returning to the source, what kind of impact would it have on Damien's fight against that entity?
Even the small possibility of helping her son was one she had to entertain.
The minutes passed and Claire continued to keep Evil at bay. She expended as much mana as possible in as short of a time period as possible to keep it from getting a chance to attack, but this kind of strategy was forced to be countered soon. Especially against a being who was not taking damage from any of those attacks.
As if it was acting on set patterns instead of thoughts, it took a stance and bellowed. Its aura spread wildly and disrupted all other energy in the surrounding area, creating just a single second of silence.
In that single moment, the initiative changed hands. Evil charged through the folds and closed the distance between them.
Now, it was Claire's turn to face endless hostility.
As for whether she'd survive or not, nobody could tell at this moment.
But, to get past survival and actually defeat the enemy was what Claire wanted.
And just like her survival in the immediate situation, that still remained to be seen, didn't it?