Birth of the Demonic Sword

The ropes didn't make any sound when they fell into the pond. They fused with the water and reached the lake's bottom, where the various red crystals rested.

King Elbas' items released an almost untraceable aura when they touched the azure bottom of the pond. That energy affected the Bloodline Inheritances near the ropes and created a pulling force that attracted them.

Noah and the others could sense what was happening on the other end of their items. They could fill the ropes with their mental energy and gain a vague understanding of the events unfolding at the bottom of the pond.

The crystals moved toward the ropes and fused with their golden fabric. The four could already pull them out to seize some resources, but they left them there to attract more Bloodline Inheritances. They would continue as long as no one noticed what was happening.

Something eventually happened inside the pond. Vague figures swam to inspect the strange event that was unfolding in that area of their lair.

That was the signal that the group was waiting for. Noah and the others didn't even need to talk to decide to retract their ropes before the inhabitants of the pond discovered them.

The ropes left the waters silently and without creating any ripple. Their wet ends returned in the group's grasp in an instant.

Noah could barely contain his excitement. Four different crystals had fused with his rope. They were nothing more than thumb-sized red minerals, but he knew how valuable they were.

'They seem different from normal Bloodline Inheritances,' Noah thought when he inspected the crystals.

It wasn't a surprise that the aura radiated by those Bloodline Inheritances differed from what he had obtained in the Bare Dungeon. Different emotions would give birth to diverse shapes and structures when it came to those resources.

The Worm in the Bare Dungeon felt an immense hatred while crystals on the rope carried an intense ecstasy. That feeling was so dense that it enveloped the group in an eerie aura.

Don almost ate one of those crystals under the effect of that aura. The Bloodline Inheritances were tempting him. They resembled the most appealing drug of the entire world.

"Let's store them for now," King Elbas promptly advised. "The leader or one of its underlings will eventually notice what we did. It's better to gather as many crystals as possible for now."

The three hybrids agreed with his proposal and suppressed their desire as they stored the Bloodline Inheritances inside their storage items. The time to enjoy their gains would arrive, but they had to continue fishing now.

Their ropes flew toward the pond again, but the group decided to change their spot at that time. They didn't move from behind their defenses, but they threw their items toward another area near the shore.

The same thing happened again. The ropes released their auras and attracted Bloodline Inheritances. When shadows began to appear in the group's senses, Noah and the others pulled back the items and inspected their gains.

That process went on for a while. The group had no reason to stop until something bad happened, so they continued to fish Bloodlines Inheritances for an entire hour. Then, ripples filled the surface of the pond, and four ropes hurriedly flew out of it.

"Run," Noah said calmly before turning to escape.

His attention remained behind him, but his body quickly transformed into a black blade that released dark matter as it flew through the region.

His companions reacted quickly. Jordan leaped backward as a pair of scaled wings came out of her back and made her cut through the entire region in less than an instant. Don dived toward the underground structure to escape, and King Elbas transformed into a sea of flames that covered most of the area.

The group didn't need to see the threat to know that it was coming. Even King Elbas' survival instincts had begun to scream when a massive figure rose from the pond and revealed its might to the region.

Noah could see how a giant azure crab came out of the pond unfolded its aura in the environment. An intense ecstasy filled the whole region, and the waters around it reacted to its influence.

The leader had eventually appeared. A rank 8 magical beasts had come out of its environment to hunt Noah and the rest of his group.

The crab was almost three hundred meters long. It had four claws that were nearly as big as its body, and eight massive legs came out of the pond as it moved toward the escaping experts.

A series of rotating torrents rose from the pond and crashed on the shore. Golden light immediately filled the environment and tried to blind the creature for an instant. When the brilliance disappeared, the group could see that the first trap had failed.

The torrents had destroyed the entire shore and most of the inscriptions placed there. King Elbas had created more defenses in that area, but the mere attack of a rank 8 creature had blasted them off before they could even activate.

The crab saw the golden flames and didn't hesitate to follow them. Its legs pierced the destroyed shore as they dragged its body out of the pond. Waterfalls fell from its claws as the rank 8 creature left the waters to chase the offenders on land.

When its legs touched spots more inland, other golden inscriptions activated. The area turned golden for a second, and multiple presences that resembled Noah's group filled the environment and tried to deceive the giant leader.

The Crab didn't care about that either. King ELbas was good, but he couldn't deceive a rank 8 creature with his inscriptions. The leader simply walked through them and continued to charge toward the presence of its enemies.

The creature could reach the next region with a simple jump, but something exploded when it bent its legs. A storm of black blades engulfed the Crab and made it stop for almost a second.

The blades moved on their own and carried wills. Noah had developed another type of living weapon in the past years. Those swords had minds on their own, but Noah could control them with his mind.

When he set the trap, Noah had commanded those disposable weapons to slow down his opponents as long as possible. The blades carried wills of lower tier creatures, so they couldn't ignore his orders.

The blade assaulted the Crab recklessly and even focused its joints. Still, they couldn't even leave marks on that tough exoskeleton. Noah's creations didn't have the power to affect a rank 8 creature, but that applied to all his skills. He was too far away from that level.

Even if the blades couldn't hurt the creature, the deep holes created by the explosions made the leader lose its balance for an instant. Also, those detonations triggered a chain reaction that made all the other traps activate.

The area between the pond and the next region fell into chaos. Golden light, explosions, black clouds, swords, spikes, shining lines, and much more filled that piece of land and hindered the leader's advance.

The four soon couldn't see the giant Crab anymore, but they never slowed down. The intense ecstasy that had filled the region was still there, and they had to maintain their complete focus on their mental state to keep escaping at full speed.