Birth of the Demonic Sword

Noah knew that his body would be the next center of power to face the breakthrough. His dantian had surpassed it before, but he had a large amount of quasi-rank 7 ice now.

His body soon surpassed his dantian, even if its requirements were insane. The advantage of the resources obtained after the battle against the quasi-rank 7 Eternal Snake made its growth smooth.

Noah ate without holding back. His mental waves even helped his companions in the gathering of ice.

The frozen structure slowly shrunk as Noah ate it. By the time his body reached the peak of the sixth rank, all the quasi-rank 7 ice and the Snake's maimed corpse had ended up in his stomach.

'As expected,' Noah thought as he inspected the island. 'I need divine materials to fill the requirements for the breakthrough.'

The Pain Tribulation would come before his body advanced to the seventh rank. Noah still remembered his last one. The breakthrough to the fourth rank had been quite gory, but he guessed that he wouldn't have to face the same process.

Noah was a human during his past Pain Tribulation. His body had absorbed "Breath" filled with Heaven and Earth's will to reconstruct its tissues.

However, he was a completely different existence now, especially when it came to his body. Noah went beyond magical beasts, humans, and hybrids. He couldn't possibly guess what would arrive for him once he approached the breakthrough.

Noah couldn't do anything to understand how the world and his body would react to the breakthrough, so he could only make sure that his tissues had enough energy to reach the divine ranks.

Quasi-rank 7 materials didn't contain enough energy for that. Noah's body had insane requirements, so only divine materials could ensure that he wouldn't die during the breakthrough.

'I need to destroy the ice,' Noah concluded as he stood up and spread his mental waves through the island.

The silver liquid of one of the divine Eternal Snakes had given birth to that frozen island. That ice had remained intact even after Noah and the quasi-rank 7 creature had gone all-out, so he did not doubt its power.

Noah had the resource needed for his breakthrough under his feet. His only problem was that he had to find a way to break it.

His mental waves seeped inside the divine ice and tried to alter the laws in its fabric. Noah's mind could pierce its natural defenses, but his aura didn't have enough power to break it.

His ambition spread through the divine ice, but the destruction that it radiated couldn't split that matter. It would have been different if his dantian had already reached the seventh rank. Still, Noah couldn't succeed in the task with only his mental waves.

Noah couldn't wait for his dantian to advance. His body could barely contain his new mind. Obtaining a second center of power in the divine rank would surely make it collapse.

Moreover, he had a bad feeling about the Heaven Tribulation. It was a vague sensation that had appeared in the back of his mind after the breakthrough.

It was as if he could sense what the world was planning for him, and he didn't like what he understood. Still, it made sense that Heaven and Earth would make it hard for him during the breakthrough of his dantian. That was their last real chance to defeat him before he reached the higher plane.

'I guess I need to use it,' Noah thought as he heaved a sigh.

He had a strategy to split the divine ice into pieces that he could eat, but he would lose part of that material in the process. Yet, he couldn't see any other solution to that situation.

Noah moved to one corner of the island and pressed his finger on the ice. Snore and Night were already at the bottom of that landmass, ready to grab anything that fell.

Becoming a rank 7 mage didn't only bring his consciousness and mental energy to a superior level. The breakthrough had given Noah advantages that he had yet to study properly.

However, there was one advantage that he couldn't fail to notice. One of his spells depended on his Kesier runes, and he couldn't miss the fact that black roots had spread on the Seventh.

'Just a tiny bit,' Noah thought as he activated the partial Demonic Form.

Noah's dantian was nearing the peak of the sixth rank. It contained enough darkness to make him fight for weeks. Yet, the simple activation of the Demonic Form depleted more than half of its energy.

Noah expected a similar consumption. The level of his mental sphere set the power of the spells that he cast, so his Demonic Form was a divine spell now.

The amount of darkness contained inside his dantian wasn't enough to cast the complete version of the spell, but Noah only needed a bit of the corrosive smoke to split the divine ice.

A few strands of black smoke came out of Noah's finger as he pressed it on the ice. Cracks opened in the air as soon as the corrosive gas spread, and part of it entered the void as it consumed the fabric of the world.

Noah focused on his spell to redirect the smoke toward the ice. Those strands of corrosive gas quickly touched the ground and dug in its surface. The process went smoothly. The Demonic Form didn't meet any problem in that task.

The cracks expanded as Noah continued to pour those small trails of smoke on the ice. The world didn't seem able to endure the power of his spell, but he didn't care enough to stop it.

Noah had already saved the world once. He didn't care if he ended up creating a catastrophe while he seized that material.

The corrosive smoke consumed part of the divine ice as it seeped into the island. Small shards separated from the structure and fell into the sea, where Snore and Night gathered them.

Noah did his best to control the behavior of that wild gas. He didn't mind that it attacked the fabric of the world, but he didn't want to lose too much of the ice while he split it.

The island shrunk as that process continued. Noah couldn't keep the spell active for more than a minute, and he even had to limit himself to those few trails of smoke to make it last so long.

His darkness wasn't enough to fuel that spell. The power that it exuded didn't belong to the lower realm. It was something that only gods could wield.

Noah had to proceed slowly, splitting one part of the island at the time. He needed to divide all the ice into pieces that he could eat before he could resume his training.

The drowsiness would arrive once his body surpassed the limits of the heroic ranks. Noah wouldn't have enough time to split the ice at that point, so he had to prepare the material beforehand.

Noah didn't even know how much his body needed to advance, so he didn't resume his training until he turned the whole island into a series of chunks that he could eat.

After Noah completed that process, he sat on the sea and began to eat the divine ice. It was time to trigger his breakthrough and stuff his body with energy.