Birth of the Demonic Sword

The golden beam crossed the storm of violent dark matter and landed on the mansion. Its light took fire as it spread through the structure and enveloped it with raging flames that radiated King Elbas' curiosity.

The various inscriptions around the structure crumbled far faster than before with the golden flames raging over their lines. King Elbas' attack didn't carry more power than the dark matter, but the curiosity that they radiated seemed able to analyze and destroy those defenses.

"You are getting good at it," Noah mocked King Elbas while his team waited for the arrival of the experts from the Sailbrird family.

"Please," King Elbas snorted. "We both know that I'm the best."

Noah laughed, but he didn't add anything. King Elbas' confidence had a solid foundation. His achievements and current abilities already put him among the best inscription masters in the entirety of the Immortal Lands.

The group waited for the arrival of the experts. Still, no one came out of the mansion even after its walls started to crumble. The situation immediately became suspicious, but Noah waited until the storm dispersed before deciding to take a look.

The fiendish armor and the black roots covered Noah's figure as he descended toward the mansion. He didn't dare to underestimate his opponents even in that situation, but his instincts didn't sense anything dangerous. Actually, they didn't feel anything at all.

The flames had disabled every defense around and inside the mansion, turning it into nothing more than a pile of charred walls. Noah could explore that structure without facing any hindrance, but he didn't find anyone inside it.

'How is this possible?' Noah wondered before glancing toward Steven.

The cultivator saw the confusion in Noah's eyes and decided to join the exploration. He descended toward the mansion, and the same surprise filled his face when he noticed its empty insides.

"How?" Noah asked, but Steven seemed even more confused than him.

"I don't understand," Steven exclaimed. "My reports were quite recent, and nothing can explain such a mass exodus. Where are they?"

Noah decided to resume the exploration after that announcement. Answers to his doubts could be inside those charred walls, and his guess turned out to be correct.

'They didn't waste time,' Noah thought when his senses picked up a peculiar feeling.

His senses couldn't miss that detail. Noah clearly felt the presence of Heaven and Earth's laws on some walls. They were faint, but his instincts couldn't be wrong about that.

'Did Heaven and Earth already notify their underlings?' Noah wondered. 'Still, how did they leave so quickly?'

The mansion didn't show any trace of sudden preparations for a departure. Its defenses had been up before the attack, and the inventory of the structure was still fairly full. The experts didn't take anything before vanishing out of thin air.

"I recognize this scene," Steven snorted when he inspected those details. "This reeks of Crystal City."

"How did they even take them away?" Noah asked. "I don't see formations or teleports anywhere. It should be impossible to do something like this without leaving any trace, right?"

"A teleport usually needs both an entrance and an exit," King Elbas explained when he reached the duo. "You can limit their visibility during one-way travels, but it's clear that someone has stepped in before opening a new teleport."

"I can only explain everything with Heaven and Earth's influence," Noah sighed. "I didn't expect them to warn the other organizations so soon."

"That's not the only issue," Steven continued. "Heaven and Earth might have warned the organizations, but the Crystal City had already methods to extract them ready."

"They probably have a special connection with Heaven and Earth," King Elbas explained. "I just don't understand the type of inscription deployed here."

"Which means that they involve the inscribed items from the cities in the sky," Noah concluded before calling his companions and starting sorting through the inventory.

The mansion contained Soul Stones, inscribed items, weapons of various kinds, and a few scrolls. The techniques described there featured strange abilities that involved inscriptions and divination. They seemed quite valuable, even for rank 8 experts who rarely relied on tomes and similar methods to study new skills.

"These aren't bad," King Elbas announced after studying the scrolls. "I can definitely learn them for something useful."

"They are all yours," Noah exclaimed. "Let's grab everything and destroy this place."

Noah and the others seized every valuable resource and item inside the inventory before flattening the entire structure. Noah's attacks inevitably created a large spot that didn't belong to Heaven and Earth, but he didn't care about those effects now.

"Do you have other destinations?" Noah asked, and Steven promptly nodded before shooting in the distance to lead his team.

The group flew for a few years before reaching their target. A plain hid a branch of the Putgan family, but Noah's attacks forced the mansion to reveal itself. Still, disappointment eventually filled his mind when he inspected the structure and found no one inside again.

"This is getting strange," Steven announced when he noticed the absence of cultivators inside the crumbling mansion. "I can understand that Heaven and Earth are warning the other organizations about our arrival, but the Crystal City still has limited resources and manpower. Yet, they shouldn't know which force to focus on first."

Steven was completely worried, and his eyes often went toward the sky after that realization. It wouldn't be a problem if the Crystal City only managed to save a few forces, but taking care of all of them sounded like an impossible feat.

Noah's group wasn't even following a precise path. They switched target and direction after every trip, which would normally prevent any kind of planned reaction.

"The sky is watching us," King Elbas eventually announced before increasing the number of inscriptions above his head.

King Elbas' presence became fainter. He was trying to shield himself from Heaven and Earth's inspection, but he was unclear about the results of his actions. After all, he couldn't test if the rulers still managed to inspect his position.

"Let's sweep everything and get moving again," Noah ordered. "We can't waste time since Heaven and Earth are already on the move."

The group left in a hurry as if they were trying to outrun the Crystal City. That force didn't have the time to handle all the organizations in the Outer Lands in mere years. Noah and the others had to find a few opponents sooner or later.

The new target was at the bottom of a solitary mountain placed at the center of a plain. The structure didn't have any cloaking device, so Noah could inspect it without filling the area with his violent dark matter.

The mansion carried the emblems of the Newhall family, but it didn't seem to have many defenses in place. Actually, most of them were off.

King Elbas approached the structures and removed the last defenses before entering inside the mansion with Noah. The scene was a bit different from the other empty structures.

Noah could find a few experts of the Newhall family, but they were already corpses. They had clearly fought with someone, but Noah couldn't even begin to understand the laws deployed in the area.