Birth of the Demonic Sword

The puppet had lost its left arm and its beak during the previous exchanges, but that didn't stop it from injuring Noah. Its maimed hand had pierced his abdomen, its damaged shoulder had stabbed his chest, and the sharp feathers on its body had sliced his whole torso.

Noah had his clawed hands stabbed on the puppet's head. He spread his arms to enlarge that crack, uncaring of the fact that the feathers stabbed in his torso would hurt him in the process.

Snore launched its dark beam, and a wave of violent dark matter engulfed the puppet's torso. Part of the attach reached Noah and damaged his waist, but he did nothing to stop his companion.

The Blood Companion could feel Noah's determination. After millennia spent together, Snore had learnt how Noah fought and had attuned its mind to his battle style.

His pain didn't matter. His injuries didn't matter. Destroying his enemies was everything, and Snore understood that.

Night was inside the puppet's fabric and severed the laws that kept its materials together. The Demonic Sword attacked on its own with slashes fueled by dark matter.

Noah's ambition empowered him and his three companions. The Demonic Sword obtained the greatest benefits due to its tight connection with his existence, but Snore and Night also saw their power rise under the influence of his individuality.

Four beings with power nearing the peak of the gaseous stage were attacking the feathered puppet with all they had. Their joint force managed to pierce its tough body and fill it with injuries.

Pieces of black metal fell on the floor as that offensive continued. The puppet's head eventually gave in to Noah's physical strength and shattered, taking chunks of his flesh with it.

A vertical crack opened on the puppet's torso, and Noah didn't hesitate to stab his clawed hands inside it. He pulled to enlarge the wound, and the feathers tore apart his flesh in the process.

Noah felt the pressure on his legs vanishing at some point. Snore's dark beam had finally managed to destroy the puppet's waist, and the creature lost control of its lower body once that happened.

The Blood Companion then bit the shredded piece of the torso and gnashed its fangs to destroy it. Noah's arms were on its path, so it couldn't launch the dark beam since it would weaken his offensive.

A web of cracks suddenly spread from the vertical fissure and detached the puppet's maimed body from its feathers. Night had exploited that moment of weakness to destabilize the creature's structure.

The Demonic Sword destroyed the destabilized parts with its slashes, and Snore bit off a large chunk of the maimed torso. The puppet continued to move even if it was nothing more than a small metal piece that featured one damaged arm. Yet, its power had fallen to the point when Noah could completely overwhelm it.

Noah tore the remaining torso open and slammed its pieces on the floor. Punches and slashes flew toward the moving chunk of metal, and black shards shot everywhere in the room during the impact.

The offensive slowly revealed the source of the white light. It was an oval shape that acted as the core of the puppet and radiated intense energy.

Noah stopped punching to grab the oval and rip it away from the messy pieces of metal under him. Invisible energy kept it attached to what remained of the puppet's body, but it didn't manage to resist Noah's physical strength.

A snapping sound resounded in the room when Noah severed the oval away from the black metal. The puppet finally stopped moving at that point, and a faint white light spread in the area.

Noah stored the item and grabbed the Demonic Sword to inspect his surroundings. He didn't know what that light meant, but he prepared for the worse.

Luckily for him, nothing came in his direction. Still, two openings appeared on different walls to create passages. The arrival of the light had only signaled the end of that trial.

One of the passages led to the staircase. Noah could use it to retreat and exit the Pyramid. Instead, the other was dark, and he couldn't quite understand where it would bring him.

'Are there more trials?' Noah wondered as a sense of weakness filled his centers of power.

A waterfall of blood fell from his torso once his ambition stopped empowering him. His dark matter quickly sealed the injuries, but it couldn't stop the arrival of intense dizziness.

Noah felt confused, but his instincts kept him on his feet. The resilience of the magical beasts' world didn't allow him to faint. He would die before falling prey to his weakness.

'I might win against a liquid stage cultivator if I use the disposable puppet,' Noah thought as he sat on the floor.

The pieces of metal that had flown through the room converged toward his chest and entered the separate space as he crossed his legs to focus on recovering.

He had yet to analyze his gains, but healing came first. He couldn't lower his guard in that strange place. He didn't trust the sadistic creator of the Pyramid.

Noah focused on recovering. He dispersed the stress accumulated by his centers of power and ate to fill his body with energy. He then cultivated to enlarge his dantian. Only his mind continued to improve through the whole process.

Once his centers of power returned to a decent state, Noah activated the Dark Womb spell to heal his body more quickly. He had suffered severe injuries during the battle, so the simple accumulation of energy wasn't enough in his situation.

Even with the Dark Womb spell, Noah had to remain in the secret room for an entire year before he could heal completely. Still, he didn't mind spending so long in that situation since he felt stronger than ever afterward.

Noah felt that his existence had improved after the battle and that long period of recovery. It seemed that using his ambition made his potential grow quickly. The benefits gained after training his individuality to affect the environment couldn't compare to those obtained in that process.

'I need to find a way to exploit my ambition without suffering such heavy drawbacks,' Noah thought as he evaluated how quickly his dantian improved during his training.

The power of his individuality was insane. It acted like a secret art that could empower all his assets at the same time. It also depended on his potential, which didn't put fixed limits to its effects.

Any cultivator would pay immense sums of money to obtain items capable of the same effects. Even if the empowerment was temporary, it allowed Noah to surpass his limits and defeat opponents that experts at his level couldn't even approach.

The uniqueness of his individuality was what made it so hard for him to remove the drawbacks. Such a strong ability required after-effects to exist. Everyone would rely on secret arts otherwise.

Noah put the matter on the back of his mind after he recovered and improved. That wasn't the time to think about his power. He was in a strange structure that could give him valuable items, and that was his priority for now.

The new passage made him curious, but Noah wanted to inspect his gains first. The black metal seemed valuable, but the white oval had captured his attention since the end of the battle.