'Now that I think about it...'
Damian's thoughts shifted, pulling at a thread he'd been avoiding.
'If Grandpa was still alive, I wouldn't be needed in this world at all, would I?'
The realization settled in his chest with emotions too complicated to name.
'The events from the novel. All the nightmares about to descend on humanity in the coming years...'
He watched smoke curl upward into falling snow.
'All of them would have been stopped easily by him.'
His throat worked.
'He fought off a Demon Ruler when he was just a Demigod. Just a fucking Demigod, and he managed to push back a being that required armies of Gods to oppose.'
The cigar burned down further, ash falling onto the snow beside him.
'If he could have become a God himself...'
His mind tried to imagine what Desiderius Bloodworth would have been capable of at that level and failed completely.
'Humanity's situation would have been completely different. We wouldn't be constantly on the edge of extinction.'
