Soon after she finished telling her story to Damien, Xue'er soon fell asleep in his lap once again. Damien could only sigh lightly while gently adjusting her into a more comfortable posture.
'It seems the stress of the past few days is simply too much for her.'
No matter how much she wanted to stay awake, now that she was out of danger and felt safety, her mind could no longer handle the fatigue. Especially now that she had eaten and drank to her heart's content.
While he patted her head, Damien once again fell into thought.
'I already know I'm going to target the Nox, but that can barely even be considered as progress. In the first place, I have no idea where they're located. Besides that…'
Where was he going to leave little Xue'er? No matter what, he refused to bring a small child into the battlefield with him. Especially when it was a completely unknown terrain.
The problem was, he also knew he couldn't leave her behind. Little Xue'er was obviously suffering from intense trauma due to the loss of her village and her parents, as well as the subsequent days of fleeing and survival.
It wasn't something a little girl like her should have to handle, but fate was cruel. With no regard for anything, it thrust her into such a situation.
He could still feel her lightly shivering in his arms as she slept. He had no choice but to constantly feed gentle streams of mana into her small body to somewhat soothe her pain. But it wasn't physical pain, it was emotional stress, making it incredibly hard to deal with.
Even his current measures were temporary at best. He was only doing it so that she could get a decent sleep for the first time in days.
'I can't take her with me.'
Damien was firm about this. There was no way he'd change his decision. He had never considered himself good with kids, and he was pretty sure that he'd be a shitty father if he had his own right now, but he at least had the basic amount of decency as a human being.
"Daddy…Mommy…don't leave…"
Damien shuddered lightly. Every shiver of her body, every mutter that came out of her mouth, it all made it more clear to him that he couldn't just leave her somewhere to take care of his business.
If he did so, he didn't know whether or not she would break. She was barely holding on to a sense of stability as it was now.
'So, what am I supposed to do in this situation?'
Can't take her, but can't leave her. He was too conflicted to make a proper decision. In the worst-case scenario, he would just have to leave her in his shadow.
It was an ability that he and Zara shared due to their mental connection, but that didn't mean he couldn't put anyone else in the shadow. Zara's presence had already affirmed that it could carry life.
But the problem with that was the same as before. Even if he put her in his shadow, she'd be able to clearly see what was happening inside. He also didn't think it was a good idea to have her in the same place as a sleeping Zara.
While Zara's bubbly personality would be enough to put her at ease in usual times, right now, her coma disallowed such a thing. Like this, her presence would most likely terrify Xue'er, bringing the opposite of the intended effect.
'In that case, should I just do that?'
Truthfully, Damien had always been studying the nature of his shadow. Ever since he first gained the ability, he had been curious about how an ethereal thing like a shadow could be used as a container. And even further, how it could support life.
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The reason for this was obvious. He had a subspace Inventory that was constantly expanding as his mana capacity increased. How much better would it be if he could structure it like Kurt's?
At that time, his subspace would become closer to an inner world, a sanctuary. It would be a perfect place to escape in dire situations, and he would also be able to bring his people with him when he needed to travel discreetly.
Up until now, he had gotten a decent understanding of what he had to do to convert his subspace into an area capable of sustaining life, but he had never gotten around to putting his theory into practice. Things had simply been too hectic.
But now, for the sake of giving little Xue'er a safe haven while he traveled, actually putting his ideas into motion was perfect.
'I have a year's worth of time. And I'm not like the rest of them. They have to conserve stamina while they hunt, and they most likely won't be hunting intelligent species. Besides that, there's going to be a lot of them hunting each other.'
Damien's Void Physique was perfect for long drawn-out large-scale battles. He could kill and then devour his enemies, replenishing his stamina so he could kill some more. It was a great way to imitate Elena's infinite stamina style with his own methods.
If he spent many months straight doing battle with this kind of warfare style, he felt he could easily catch up with or surpass his competitors.
And so, he didn't feel bad about spending time to experiment with his spatial abilities.
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Grabbing a small blanket from his subspace, he gently laid it on the cave ground and wrapped Xue'er within. Although she grumbled in her sleep after losing his warmth, she didn't end up waking up, leaving Damien sighing in relief.
Without any obstruction, he went straight into construction.
The structure of his shadow was quite odd now. He had realized that the way Zara used her shadow affinity actually held properties of space within it, and his shadow mirrored this.
Through the analysis of this use of space, as well as the properties of the shadow affinity itself, Damien had come to a basic conclusion. At most, it could be considered a hypothesis.
Actually, the way it sustained life was pretty simple in theory, but complicated in practice.
It all had to do with mana.
Mana was the fabric of all things, it was an energy that was even more fundamental than something like atoms. To be frank, mana alone was enough to sustain life in any environment.
That was the reason why cultivators lost their necessity for food and hygiene. Mana alone was enough to maintain them. But for mortals, it didn't work the same.
That's because ambient mana had no properties and had no direction. Only when a cultivator had their own mana circulating within them would these effects slowly become prevalent.
But for Damien's idea, he couldn't simply bank on the basic properties of ambient mana to sustain life within his subspace. No, he wanted it to function as its own small world. A world that could sustain even a mortal like Xue'er without burden.
For this, he'd have to dive far further into the depths of magic theory than he had ever gone before.
'But first things first, I need to clean everything out of my subspace before I can start.'