Chapter 175: Comfy Rubble.

Damien didn’t immediately return to the city after leaving Andrea in a foul mood and nearly killing Claire. He had no desire to see either of them again so soon, and after everything that had happened in the cave, he needed some time away from everyone else before he did something they would regret.

So he walked behind the city, where the walls on this side had already completely fallen and only rubble remained. There was nothing particularly interesting about the place, but that was exactly what Damien wanted. No people, no arguments, no questions, and most importantly, nobody trying to convince him that he was wrong.

After looking around for somewhere comfortable enough to sit, Damien found a particularly large piece of rubble and laid down on it. It was surprisingly comfortable, enough that he decided there was no reason to look for anything better. He rested his head against the stone and stared up at the sky.

"Well, nothing has changed, has it?" Damien thought silently to himself. "In the end, I always end up alone."

The thought wasn’t new. He had felt it before, especially after things became complicated with the people around him. Damien had always hated the fact that he couldn’t spend much time with people before they became enemies or he had a falling-out with them. Even when things started peacefully, sooner or later something always happened.

Being a Round Table member almost guaranteed his position as their ally, but now he was seriously reconsidering that. What was the point of being part of a group if the moment their interests stopped aligning, everyone became a potential enemy?

He closed his eyes again, trying to enjoy the silence.

"Shit."

A muffled voice echoed from behind.

Damien’s eyes opened immediately. He sat up and glared at the person who had made that annoying sound. It was Camila, and judging from the way she had stopped moving, she appeared to have been trying to sneak away from him. Damien had already sensed her presence a while back, so there was never much chance of her getting away unnoticed.

"Camila. Am I right?".

Camila awkwardly coughed before walking toward Damien’s rubble. She glanced at the stone beneath him and seemed almost surprised by how comfortable it felt. After everything that had happened in the city, apparently even a pile of broken stone could be considered a decent place to rest.

"Hi, undead Damien, it’s a pleasure to finally meet you in person. What brought you all the way out here? Don’t you Round Table members have to worry about the next great battle?"

Damien stared blankly at her for a moment. He had expected her to leave, not start a conversation, and he wasn’t particularly interested in explaining himself. Eventually, he simply lost interest and laid back down.

The clouds still hadn’t covered the sun, thanks to the spell from the other day. Warm sunlight continued to reach the ruined city, making the rubble beneath him considerably more pleasant than it had any right to be. Damien wasn’t going to complain about it.

Camila silently sat down with him. She didn’t seem bothered by his lack of response, and for a while, neither of them said anything.

Camila had her own reasons for leaving the company of other people and choosing seclusion, so perhaps Damien’s reason was similar. She didn’t know him well enough to ask directly, and he clearly wasn’t interested in talking about it.

The silence continued until she couldn’t maintain it anymore.

"You know, I had a friend. A really close friend. He was perhaps the most powerful Awakened of us all."

Damien’s eyes were still closed.

"Oh, even more powerful than us Round Table members?". His tone carried a hint of amusement. "He must be a real warrior then. Tell me, where is your friend now?"

Camila’s expression fell.

"I’m afraid he’s gone. He died during the Eidolon war, at least I think so."

Damien opened one eye and glanced at Camila. There was something strange about the way she had said it. She didn’t sound like someone remembering a dead friend. She sounded like someone who had never received a proper answer.

"You sound like you don’t know whether he’s actually dead or not."

Camila didn’t immediately respond.

Damien looked back toward the sky. "But I wouldn’t get your hopes up. Powerful or not, not many of us survived that day."

Camila nodded lightly. She didn’t argue with him or try to convince herself otherwise. She simply lowered her gaze, leaving the two of them sitting among the rubble with the same uncomfortable subject hanging between them.

For once, Damien didn’t feel the need to break the silence.

He understood that feeling more than he wanted to admit, but what people like her needed was a comforting companion, so Damien went out of his way to ask.

"This friend of yours, he’s not just any friend. Is he?"

Camila noticed how Damien didn’t refer to Malik in the past tense, and she really appreciated him for that simple gesture. It was such a small thing that most people probably wouldn’t have noticed it at all, but to Camila, it mattered. Everyone else spoke about the dead as if their stories had already reached their final page, as if there was nothing left to say about them. Damien hadn’t done that. He had simply left the possibility open, even if he didn’t realize it.

"Well, we were never truly anything other than friends, but we..." Camila couldn’t help a soft chuckle before continuing. "We planned our futures under the moonlight, counted the years until we achieved our dreams. We each wanted something different at first, but we eventually noticed that the only thing connecting those dreams was the fact that we each saw one another in them, so we decided to stick together. Not really lovers, but definitely more than friends."

There was a strange warmth in her voice as she spoke about it, the kind that came from remembering something that had once been simple.

For a while, neither of them said anything. Camila’s gaze drifted toward the ruined city, her expression becoming softer as she seemed to picture those nights again. The walls around them were broken, the ground covered in rubble, and yet she spoke about moonlight and dreams as though this ruined world had once been an entirely different place.

Camila wiped the stray tear drop from her eyes before it could travel any further down her cheek.

"What about you, undead Damien? Don’t you have that special someone you find yourself thinking about every waking second of the day?"

Damien raised a brow as Yuri’s naked body flashed through his head. He immediately looked away, though there was no one in front of him that could possibly have noticed the reaction. He’d definitely been thinking about her since then, and he would probably continue to do so for a very long time. The memory was annoyingly persistent.

He shook his head.

"No, why would I ruin my peace and quiet with something as mundane as feelings? The only thing I feel is the drive to become greater than everyone else. I’m not dead because I’m strong, I’m strong because I will it to be so. I am Damien the undead, and nothing stands in my way, you got that?"

He delivered the words with complete confidence, as though he had just given the most profound answer imaginable. His expression remained serious.

Camila’s face froze.

The confidence in his expression began to look slightly less convincing under the weight of her silence.

"But ain’t you already dead though?"

Damien’s words remained stuck in his mouth. He had clearly not prepared for that particular response, and the silence that followed became awkward enough that even he couldn’t ignore it. Camila calmly waited to see how he would recover from his own declaration.

Damien looked away.

For a man who had just proclaimed himself the undead who stood above death itself, he suddenly seemed very interested in the rubble beside him.

After the awkward silence finally went away, Damien cleared his throat and said briskly.

"Yeah, well, even death is my bitch. That just proves how strong I truly am."

Camila stared at him for another second, seemingly deciding whether that answer deserved a response. In the end, she simply shrugged.

"Perhaps."

Damien almost cursed out loud but he managed to hold himself back.

"Bitch, couldn’t you be any more condescending, you know what, perhaps that boyfriend of yours might be truly dead after all, why don’t you go ask Andrea, she might have his corpse in stock".

"Hey, you good?". Camila asked, noticing that Damien was staring blankly at her, his intense gaze even making her blush.

Damien shook his head and stood up. "It’s getting late, let’s go back and join the others, there’s no telling what nefarious monsters lurk in the shadows".

Camila agreed, they’ve already spent the day admiring the sky, if she stayed any longer, Daisy might come looking for her.