Birth of the Demonic Sword

'Where are we?' Noah wondered as surprise filled his mind.

Noah clearly recalled where the exit had to lead, but that place was completely different. He couldn't sense ground anywhere, even when he expanded his consciousness.

The whiteness also hurt like never before. Even the experts who had defenses against the sky suffered from that blinding light. Their mental sphere inevitably shook as heavy pressure fell on them.

The experts had to deplete massive amounts of mental energy to keep their consciousness stable and expand them to find their companions. Noah, the Foolery, and Fergie suffered more than the others, but the former had the dark matter on his side.

'Can everyone hear me?' Noah conveyed through his consciousness as layers of dark matter covered the outside of his mental walls and shielded him from the external force.

The other experts came up with similar techniques to suppress the blinding power. They couldn't sustain that consumption of mental energy. They preferred to dull their senses rather than emptying their minds.

A series of answers reached Noah's mind. All the experts seemed able to reply to his question and confirm their presence among that whiteness.

Utter confusion filled the whole army, but a strange idea appeared in the minds of two cultivators. Robert and Luke couldn't confirm their guess, but they seemed to be the only ones capable of giving hypotheses.

'The surface can't have this intensity of whiteness,' Luke explained through his consciousness. 'Even higher areas of the sky lack it. I have an idea, but it sounds quite unreasonable.'

'I guess we have the same idea,' Robert continued. 'No place on the higher plane should be like this. I bet that the dimensional tunnel led us directly into a trap.'

'Did Heaven and Earth create this area for us?' Noah asked.

'I believe so,' Robert replied. 'The other option is too unrealistic.'

'Let us judge that,' King Elbas shouted through his mind. 'What's this other possibility?'

A moment of silence followed that question, but Robert eventually revealed what he was trying to hide in his mind. 'I've never been there, but the cities in the sky should have a similar environment.'

The consciousnesses of all the cultivators in Noah's army had expanded in the same area. Everyone could hear and sense the thoughts and feelings that ran through their companions.

Confusion was the main emotion after that revelation. Most experts weren't aware that the sky held cities. Noah's group had to learn about them from Great Builder in the end.

Then, terror spread through the various minds. The lack of knowledge about the cities in the sky wasn't enough to render those experts ignorant. They could immediately guess how dangerous those areas could be.

'Panicking is useless,' Noah roared through his consciousness. 'Remain calm and study the situation. Can any of you sense a path through this light?'

Countless disappointing answers reached Noah's mind. There seemed to be nothing but whiteness in that area. The whole world had transformed into a mass of light for the army.

'I've had enough of this,' Noah kept that thought for himself as his aura expanded and spread his influence in the area.

His law had always carried a dark halo, and the addition of the Devils' power had made it far more efficient in an environment filled with Heaven and Earth's true meanings.

His dark aura didn't manage to overcome the whiteness, but it succeeded in toning down its blinding power. The environment slowly became more bearable, and the expert could eventually start to see each other.

The army's ranks inevitably tightened around Noah. His existence could deal with the whiteness, so everyone wanted to be next to him.

'What is this place?' Noah wondered while ignoring the troops around him.

Noah couldn't see anything even after the light dimmed. The purest white color filled his vision, but he couldn't find much inside it. The place was basically empty.

"Your law meets our expectations," An androgynous voice suddenly spread through the area. "We welcome you here, Noah Balvan."

Noah initially thought that the voice was powerful enough to make the whiteness tremble, but he soon understood that those words came from the light itself.

"I must admit that I didn't expect this, Earth," Noah replied as growls fused with his human words.

His companions immediately turned toward Noah. The word "Earth" had left them speechless. It seemed that his companion had already met the existence capable of speaking in that environment.

"Catching you has been quite troublesome," Earth continued. "You have always been so careful, and you have grown far past our expectations during these years."

Noah's eyes sharpened. He had sensed something familiar inside the voice radiated through the light. Earth's words hid greed.

"So, is this your plan?" Noah asked. "Do you lead existences that continue to oppose you here to absorb them? I don't understand your plan. I thought you wanted the tenth rank."

"You know nothing," Earth replied. "We have watched ants growing and dying on our body for countless years. We have let them take our energy and destroy the fruits of our journey for eons. The journey culminates here."

The radiance intensified. The experts had to close their eyes and reinforce their minds with a second layer of defenses. Noah's aura became unable to suppress that phenomenon, and whiteness soon engulfed the army again.

"Your existence will be of great help," Earth continued. "Everything you have touched carries some of our flaws, but absorbing you will fix them. Thank you, my child from another world. You'll help us achieving perfection."

Screams began to resound among the whiteness. Noah kept his consciousness unfolded, so he could sense what was happening around him.

The experts on the external areas of the group began to disappear. The process wasn't immediate either. Pieces of their bodies would destabilize and shatter before fusing with the light.

The instability would spread through their entire body and eventually affect their law. Their existences vanished as the light devoured them.

Noah inspected that process closely. He didn't let panic assault his mind. He had to understand how Heaven and Earth worked to find a way out of that situation.

'They are clearly devouring those laws,' Noah thought. 'Yet, the process isn't a simple absorption of energy. It seems to go way deeper into the existence.'

It seemed that Heaven and Earth had invented a superior form of absorption. That technique allowed them to take entire laws and fuse them with their existence. Still, Noah felt sure that there had to be drawbacks to the ability.

Parts of the laws shattered forever during that forceful absorption. Everything depended on the prey's struggle. Heaven and Earth could overpower the cultivators, but they couldn't compel them to accept their death.

'That's why they prefer cultivators to go on their side willingly,' Noah concluded in his mind. 'The laws gained through this process are far from perfect. They always have to mend them afterward.'

Noah felt that he had seen enough at that point. He had uncovered a great secret concerning Heaven and Earth's nature, but he had to focus on his escape now.

His ambition surged and went to empower a specific feature of his existence. Bloodl.u.s.t and anger spread out of his mind as Noah decided to use his potential to intensify the ability inherited by the Devils.

A dark halo shone on the whiteness and forced it to retreat. Angry screeches filled the area as Heaven and Earth's light lost power against Noah's influence.

Noah was succeeding in clearing a large area from Heaven and Earth's influence, but a loud chuckle suddenly resounded through the light. His instincts screamed in fear as more than twenty crackling humanoid figures with power in the upper tier came out of the whiteness and pointed their hands toward the army.

****

Author's notes: I'll have the first dose of the vaccine in a few hours. There might be delays in tomorrow's release if I end up feeling unwell.