Birth of the Demonic Sword

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The project worked. Noah now had a suitable path, a starting point, and the right environment to pursue his experiments. Nothing held him back either, so he went all-out.

Dealing with his first copy had felt strange, but things only worsened as the experiments continued. Noah had to learn from that experience, so he had to push the copies' level forward little by little to see how the ethereal center of power grew and behaved.

Still, that only made the copies express his personality with even more intensity. The first one already was an almost-perfect replica, so the new ended up showing him how his nature would evolve as he advanced.

"A fake death for a fake existence,"

"Don't you dare to fail,"

"We have always been good at hurting ourselves,"

"Maybe the darkness is where we belong,"

"How can the stars shine so brightly even as my consciousness vanishes?"

All the copies' dying words hit Noah deeply, but he could go over them after remaining in a daze for a few hours. Yet, an intense image had slowly started to take control of his vision due to how often he saw it.

The copies had slight variations in their personalities. The level at which Noah stopped them also modified their dying words. Still, they all shared the same cold stare.

Seeing it only once didn't do much to Noah's mind. Having to go through ten of them didn't bother him either. However, that image transformed into a curse that kept reappearing in his vision even when he wasn't busy with his experiments.

That defiant and careless look that the copies showed in front of their death reminded Noah of his starting point. It forced him to remember what he was before devolving the entirety of his existence to power, and the process affected him more than he liked to admit.

The emptiness that spread inside Noah whenever he recalled what he had once been seemed able to make his foundation shake. The complete aloofness that he had once filled his existence threatened to reappear inside him stronger than ever as his experiments continued.

His flaring ambition was the only thing that allowed him to remain sane. Noah was killing himself over and over again. He was even paying a great deal of attention to the whole process. His entire focus was on memorizing the various emotions, changes, and reactions that his copies experienced, so facing those challenging drawbacks felt only normal in his mind.

Those drawbacks seemed to come from his very existence. The world wasn't affecting the matter, and Heaven and Earth had no influence there either. Noah was alone against himself, and the process inevitably weakened his mental state.

Noah had already died, but his first death became a pleasant memory in front of that hellish period. Something seeped into him whenever he memorized a new aspect of the replicated breakthrough or growth. He experienced the empty acceptance that his copies felt as their bodies dispersed, and everything became almost too much to endure after spending an entire century in that state.

On the other side, Noah's understanding of his breakthrough increased at an incredible pace. He memorized the countless variations, flaws, and possibilities that his future path could generate. He saw many versions of what the ninth rank would bring, and a silent realization eventually appeared inside his mind.

'This won't be enough,' Noah concluded after losing count of how many experiments he had witnessed.

The tiny copies didn't express his real power, but they carried his true core. Noah could vaguely calculate how strong he would become if his existence advanced through normal methods, and that prospect felt too weak for his projects.

Noah didn't only want to fight and win against Heaven and Earth. His desires went far beyond that simple achievement. He had to reach the very peak and stand many realms above the others. His destination wasn't the sky. He needed enough power to continue in his journey forever.

His impossible requirements were something that a rank 8 existence couldn't completely understand, even one as unique as Noah. Still, he could guess how the normal path wouldn't grant him the power that he needed to fulfill his desires. The breakthroughs experienced by the copies actually made him worry about his chances against Heaven and Earth.

As his experiments continued, it became almost obvious that he had to tinker with his breakthrough to improve the power that he would obtain after stepping into the ninth rank. His unreasonable urge had turned out to be a warning cry from his existence. His law had told him that he had to do something to keep the sky like a mere stepping stone in his mind.

That understanding generated two very different forces inside Noah. One was the emptiness that the reoccurring deaths of his copies originated. The other came from his desire to bring his foundation to a level that suited his desires.

His ambition couldn't remain only a fuel anymore. It had to become his very foundation since no other force in the world knew the depths of his goals.

Noah couldn't use the Demonic Deduction technique to improve reasonings that involved his creation, but the many years spent experimenting allowed him to slowly build a blueprint that could provide what he looked for.

The initial idea behind the creation of an artificial ethereal center of power inevitably changed throughout the experiments. Noah had believed that replicating the effects of the breakthrough so that his mind could have space where to expand and remain would have been enough. However, it became clear that he needed more, and that forced him to increase the level of craziness of his project.

Creating the best possible version of the center of power that his breakthrough would generate wasn't enough. Noah had to go beyond the standards set by the current level of his mind, dantian, body, and black hole so that the final state of his existence could accomplish the many feats that he had planned.

The new project saw Noah handling the breakthrough in reverse. Generally speaking, the current level of his centers of power would set the size, capacity, and nature of the ethereal organ developed once stepping in the ninth rank. Yet, his artificial version needed far more of those aspects.

Of course, his idea could lead to many problems. In theory, the centers of power had to flood the ethereal organ with their energy and create the unique fuel that every rank 9 existence had. Instead, Noah wanted that structure to be able to contain far more than what his centers of power could produce in their current state.

The increased size, capacity, and improved nature would cause problems in the long run if his centers of power failed to meet those superior standards. Moreover, Noah didn't have methods to improve his organs at his current level, so he could only handle that matter once they reached the ninth rank.

Noah was basically gambling on his ability to improve his centers of power once he stepped in the ninth rank, but he didn't mind betting on himself. The experiments didn't show anything promising, but he didn't have options. His existence wouldn't settle for less. He had to give it everything he had, and that moment slowly approached.

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Author's notes: I'm sorry to disappoint you, but getting my mind ready to work has been difficult. I've eventually managed to start, but I need more time for the s. Don't worry. It's not burnout. It's just, I've written demonic sword almost every day for more than two years. The brain sometimes just tries to fight back.