Birth of the Demonic Sword

Noah performed a few tests with the robe before calling back its power and turning it into its original form. He had to understand for how long he could use its cloaking ability, and the result satisfied him.

The robe required a lot of darkness to activate its power, but its consumption was almost non-existence once it fully transformed. That discovery eased Noah's worries since he could now treat the item as one of his spells.

The robe's style was quite simple in its normal form. It was tight and battle-oriented. It lacked any sign and pattern. It was nothing more than black cloth piled together to create elegant but plain clothes.

'I can finally move toward the Land of the Fallen,' Noah thought after he spent a few more months cultivating in his cave.

Fergie had told him that he had already left Vagona city to fly toward the Land of the Fallen with his new team. They were ahead of Noah, but the journey to reach that place was quite long, so he had the time to catch up with them.

The dark matter in Fergie's body could fuel the Shadow Swords spell for a few decades, and Noah needed to refill it if he wanted to keep the cultivator under his control. Still, there would be time to meet along the journey, and he could always sense how long his restrictions would last.

Noah wouldn't give up on his spy so easily. He had managed to place a mole inside that mysterious secret organization, and the benefits that it could bring made Fergie quite valuable in his mind.

Noah wasn't even after political recognition, so he could avoid arousing suspects easily. He only wanted to use Fergie to seize valuable resources and reach important areas before they became too famous.

The long journey started with Noah leaving his cave and flying in a straight line toward his destination. The bracelets seized from Fergie's last team would eventually stop functioning, but they could help him ignore the radiations of the white sky for now.

Noah would purchase a better version of those items at some point, but he didn't want to waste Soul Stones for now. That currency could help him overcome a few bottlenecks since it contained raw laws, so he wished to accumulate them until he found something necessary for his journey.

The knowledge obtained in the library gave Noah a complete image of the lands that he had to cross. The wilderness followed specific patterns in the human domain, and that made his hunts straightforward.

Every environment had a single leader in control of a predominant species. The regions of the Immortal Lands were immense, so their fauna didn't lack diversity. Yet, they all had certain creatures at the top of the food chain.

When Noah knew their features, hunting down suitable prey was almost a child's play for a hunter like him. He could make full use of his superiority and exploit the innate weaknesses of those creatures to kill them quickly.

His robe also kept him safe from the strongest beasts in the regions that he crossed. The item could hide his presence even from creatures in the middle tier, so he had nothing to worry about as long as he continued to be careful.

Noah's stash of materials grew as he flew through those lands and explored their environments. Majestic sceneries always filled his vision, and the pure aura of the Immortal Lands always accompanied his travel.

Still, Noah noticed how the magical beasts in those regions became more violent as he neared the end of the human domain. Their behavior didn't come from the scarce influence of the cultivators. Its cause was the intense aggression that flowed out of the lands in the distance.

That aggression managed to affect Noah too. He had distanced himself from the magical beasts' world after his existence evolved into something that surpassed the hybrids, but that aura was too intense even for him.

Noah didn't notice that feature after his ascension because the events that had followed it had been quite messy. He had also marched toward calm lands back then, so his senses never truly experienced the difference in the atmosphere.

Yet, he now experienced that aggression in its entirety. The violence that filled the air made him jumpy and paranoic, and it forced him to take breaks more often to calm himself.

Noah became sure that the magical beasts' domain hid threats that he couldn't quite conceive. He had experienced too little of the Immortal Lands to know the long-lasting effects of rank 8 creatures, but he knew that the lingering aggression had to come from something stronger.

'A horde of monsters that hide living catastrophes,' Noah concluded during his travel.

Those were the only words that he could use to describe his feelings toward the magical beasts' domain. His superior awareness worked against him in that situation since it made him sense that aggression more vividly, but Noah didn't let it scare him away.

That aura caused his instincts to go wild, but it also stirred his ambition to grow. Part of him couldn't wait to obtain enough power to explore those lands and uncover their secrets.

As the years passed, Noah eventually felt forced to contact Fergie again. He had to refill his body with dark matter, and he wanted to see if the secret organization had informed him about exciting issues.

Fergie didn't answer at the beginning. Noah waited for days that his spy listened to his mental message, but he lost his patience after more than two weeks passed without a reply.

Noah gave a quick command to the Shadow Swords at that point. He only needed to focus on his mental connection with that spell to activate a part of their power.

Of course, he didn't order anything that could expose Fergie, but he wanted to remind him who controlled his life. Noah didn't mind threatening him if that improved his results.

Fergie replied a few hours after Noah activated his spell. The cultivator was livid about the whole matter, but Noah gave voice to a series of threats that made him fear for his life.

The sole idea that the secret organization could become aware of his betrayal made Fergie shake in fear. Even exposing Noah wouldn't save him from endless tortures once his companions learnt about his status as a spy.

Fergie even agreed to meet Noah after his threats. The two had to travel for three months to reach a region that allowed Fergie to split from his group and encounter his master without arousing any suspect.

"I was in the middle of a hunt!" Fergie complained when he met Noah. "I can't show any weakness if I want to keep my privileged status among gaseous stage cultivators. You should also care about this!"

"I do care about the value of my precious spy," Noah said as he filled Fergie's body with dark matter, "But I suspect that he wants freedom."

"Not at all!" Fergie exclaimed as he lowered his head. "I swore to serve you! I will never dream about betraying my merciful master!"

Noah ignored those words to question him about important matters. He had already traveled for some years since his departure from Vagona city, but Fergie didn't give him anything valuable in that period.

"Teams don't usually receive new missions before meeting their new leader," Fergie explained. "That can happen when something rare appears out of nowhere. The Immortal Lands can be unpredictable, but you can't expect to meet new opportunities every decade."

"What about the old ones?" Noah asked. "Is there something worth exploring in these areas that you have failed to mention while you were busy hunting?"

A chill ran down Fergie's spine when he heard those words, and he fell silent for a few seconds as he thought about an answer that could satisfy his jumpy master. Then, he seemed to recall something.

"There is an old inheritance ground at a few months of travel from here," Fergie explained. "It belongs to the Balrow family, and it has already rewarded a few cultivators. Yet, it should still have many rewards too difficult to obtain."