Birth of the Demonic Sword

Noah didn't move from the room until he returned to his peak. The statues on the corridor had disappeared while he recovered. They had nothing to defend, so the Pyramid had taken them back.

'Two left,' Noah thought as greed seeped out of his figure.

He had been inside the Pyramid for almost two years, but he had already gained enough to consider the exploration worthwhile. The Soul Stones were incredibly useful, but the disposable statue was on another level.

A battle against a liquid stage cultivator wasn't a dream anymore now that he had obtained the small statue. His superior power and his disposable puppet could finally give him a chance against existences stronger than him.

Moreover, the first layer wasn't over. It still had two protected areas that Noah could overcome with his physical superiority and higher energy. They could potentially give him more valuable tools, and he couldn't wait to get his hands on them.

Noah left the corridor and followed the indication of the map to reach his next target. Tiles moved, walls opened, and trapdoors appeared out of nowhere after he performed specific actions. In less than a day, he reached another corridor that led to a protected room.

'This one should be the same as the statues,' Noah thought as he studied the seemingly empty corridor.

According to the reports of the Balrow family, the tiles in that corridor would move, and weapons would shoot out of them as soon as someone stepped inside their range.

The weapons had the same features as the maces. They could completely ignore most spells and stop only in front of powerful martial arts. Yet, no group had ever come close to reach the end of the corridor, so Noah expected something dangerous to be there.

Snore and the fiendish armor made of dark matter covered his figure as he shot forward. Layers of black ice and rocks materialized around the Blood Companion as the dark world filled the corridor.

Noah didn't hold anything back. The dangerousness of the last statue had taught him how sadistic the creator of that place was, so he couldn't underestimate any defense.

Spears and swords of various shapes came out of the floor, walls, and ceiling after their surface opened. They stabbed toward Noah as they pierced the dark world. The technique could only hold them back for a fraction of an instant.

The weapons pierced Snore's defensive layers and stabbed its body. Their unique features made them cut through the dark matter easily, but they could only stop when they reached Noah's skin.

They were the same as the maces. The dark world, the copies elements, and Snore came from techniques that didn't involve his body, making them unable to stop the weapons.

Instead, they couldn't do anything against Noah's body. They didn't even leave marks on his skin. A metallic sound echoed through the corridor whenever a weapon landed on him, but that didn't slow down his charge.

The Balrow family had ranked that defense higher than the statues, but Noah felt it to be easier. However, his survival instincts began to scream when he reached the end of the corridor, and he couldn't help but stop his charge before the last protection.

The tiles and bricks around him had moved, but weapons had yet to come out of those empty spots. However, Noah felt that he would die if he took a step forward. Even his hybrid body wouldn't save him if he advanced.

'How is this possible?' Noah thought as weapons stabbed from behind him.

Metallic noises echoed through the corridor as Noah studied the path ahead of him. The protected room was less than five meters from him. He could cross that distance in less than a second, but his instincts told him that he wouldn't survive if he tried to leap.

'Maybe there is a trick again,' Noah wondered as he took a step back and came out of Snore's body.

The Blood Companion followed his orders and stuck its tongue into the range of the last protection, but it suddenly disappeared. Noah didn't see what had happened. He couldn't even see the shadows of what had cut Snore.

Noah activated the Divine Deduction technique and made Snore stick part of its mouth inside that last area. A hiss of pain followed the disappearance of a chunk of its head, but dark matter promptly flowed inside the snake to fix the damage.

'They must be arrows,' Noah concluded after witnessing the scene for the second time.

Snore's tough body had allowed him to see the true nature of the weapons in the last part of the corridor. They were thick arrows that flew at an unimaginable speed and destroyed everything on their path.

They also came from every direction, which left him without a blind spot that he could exploit. That seemed a perfect defense, and Noah felt that he didn't have the power to overcome it.

Of course, Noah didn't give up so easily. He waited for Snore to reform and pushed it back into the last part of the corridor.

The Snake hissed in pain again as an even larger chunk of its head disappeared. Noah did some math in his head, and the result was that he wasn't fast enough to dodge the arrows.

'What now?' Noah thought as weapons continued to land on his back.

Snore opened its mouth and spat a wave of violent dark matter that reached the other end of the protected room. The attack didn't manage to damage the structure, and the same applied to the arrows. They would directly cut through the dark beam and continue on their path.

Noah conducted more tests. He launched spells, used his dark world, sacrificed pieces of Snore, calculated Night speed, and performed martial arts.

Nothing was faster than the arrows, and they would fire at anything that entered the last part of the corridor. The short delays caused by his techniques and arts didn't give Noah enough time to overcome that defense. Noah couldn't see any hope in that corridor.

Noah performed more tests, but nothing worked. The arrows always pierced everything that he threw at them. Nothing in his arsenal could help him defeat that defense.

His unwillingness eventually vanished and allowed him to turn back. His armor dispersed as he sat at the beginning of the corridor to evaluate the issue.

There had to be something precious in that room, but Noah couldn't obtain it. His abilities were a bad match for those arrows. His instincts told him that he couldn't win there, and the Divine Deduction technique made him reach the same conclusion.

After a bit of hesitation, Noah left the corridor to march toward his last target. He still had another shot at increasing his gains, and he didn't want to waste it.

Another series of secret passages and strange moments on the walls followed. Noah used the map's instructions to reach his target, and greed spread from his figure when he found it.

That corridor was slightly different from the others. It was darker, and it had a series of lit torches stuck in the walls. The room at its end was the farthest place from the entrance in the first layer, and that meant something according to some of the past explorers.