Chapter 1842 - 1842. Ethereal

The astonishment felt in front of that scene was hard to put into words. Heaven and Earth's sky was the biggest structure in the world. It could contain the entire higher plane, the storms, and it even expanded as the chaotic laws generated new lands. Yet, the empty creature in the memories could cover a quarter of the white layer.

King Elbas, Noah, and Alexander couldn't help but feel stunned. They had just witnessed the creation of the higher plane and Heaven and Earth's rise in power, but that massive threat seemed to stand above everything else.​​

It felt clear why Lord Lewis called it monster now. The creature had the potential to eat the sky. It was so big that even Heaven and Earth would have to fear it at some point, but understanding the reason for its presence turned out to be easy.

Noah and the others had learnt that Heaven and Earth had severed laws and thrown them into the void for eras. They had also seen the monster that had appeared inside the sky absorbing the empty existences generated through that process. It wasn't hard to guess that a multitude of them had become part of the same being, but the sheer size of the creature still surprised them.

"Tell me about the cities in the sky!" Noah shouted before his group waited too long on that scene.

The three experts were on a clock. Heaven and Earth's defenses were already trying to stop the technique inspecting Lord Lewis' memories. They wouldn't manage to learn much if they remained stuck on a single scene. It was better to gain a vague but broad understanding of specific topics since they didn't know whether they had enough time to study any of them in detail.

The images changed as soon as Noah gave a new input to Lord Lewis. A blinding white radiance replaced the darkness of the void and transformed the scenes inside the dark world to show an immense silver city.

Countless buildings unfolded in the experts' vision. Tall structures made of opaque whiteness expanded endlessly in the distance and shone under the pure light of Heaven and Earth's sky.

Noah and the others had never seen a similar architecture on their Mortal Lands and the higher plane. Tall structures that ended in domes or long pillars expanded as far as eyes could see. They appeared filled with life, but the experts couldn't understand the nature of that feeling. They weren't sure cultivators lived inside all of them.

Noah was ready to give new inputs to Lord Lewis, but the scene suddenly moved and reached the edges of the city to show a massive white wall. The viewpoint went even forward at that point and traveled through the sky until it reached a second vast array of buildings.

Noah had asked for the cities, so Lord Lewis didn't limit his memories to only one of them. It made the scene depicted by the dark world go over multiple settlements inside the sky before the experts decided that they had seen enough.

Every city looked identical to the others, which eventually made the mutating scenery dull. The experts understood that Heaven and Earth had enough room to accommodate an endless number of cultivators, but they couldn't learn anything useful after seeing the first.

Noah felt tempted to ask about the actual insides of the cities, but he didn't want his time to run out before seizing the real reason behind that procedure.

"Show me the ninth rank and your breakthrough," Noah ordered, and the scenery changed again.

The whiteness vanished before returning. The three experts saw Lord Lewis' breakthrough through his eyes, but it only featured Heaven and Earth's pure light. They couldn't understand anything from that scene, and King Elbas soon gave voice to a loud curse.

"This bastard has reached the ninth rank with Heaven and Earth's help," King Elbas snorted before turning toward Noah. "Did we waste our chance?"

"This might hurt a bit," Noah sighed before closing his eyes to change the nature of the dark world.

The liquid dark matter playing Lord Lewis's memories stopped limiting itself to mere images and started to radiate faint sensations that intensified as Noah continued to modify his technique.

King Elbas, Alexander, and Noah gained the chance to experience those sensations once they accepted them inside their minds. The process made their concentration falter and left them in a daze. They became Lord Lewis as the feelings took over their mental spheres.

Noah felt pure bliss as his body, dantian, and mind mixed their energy and elevated it to create something that went past "Breath", mental energy, and primary energy. That power converged toward the center of his figure and created an ethereal space that expanded inside him.

The ethereal space resembled a sea of consciousness with the features of a dantian. It was sturdy, flexible, and connected to his body in ways that simple mental connections couldn't achieve. It was part of him, but it didn't exist in the same world as his other centers of power.

Pure light filled the ethereal space until the structure stabilized. The energy contained inside the area felt like a pure expression of his existence. It was a true form of himself that even laws couldn't completely describe.

The energy inside the ethereal space started flowing back into the other centers of power after the structure stabilized. It filled the flesh and mind with that new power and radically changed them in ways that Noah couldn't properly explain.

Noah felt as if he had elevated his whole existence without changing. He had developed a purer version of himself that could provide energy that carried the true core of his existence.

Pain spread inside Noah's mind as he remained immersed in those sensations. Foreign energy was devouring his thoughts and memories to erase everything contained inside his mental sphere.

Noah snapped back to reality once the process started to affect his real mental energy. The dark world returned in his vision, and he quickly reversed the changes applied earlier.

The mental connection established through the dark matter broke freed him from Lord Lewis' sensations. The same applied to his companions. Noah, King Elbas, and Alexander regained full control of their centers of power and noticed that their mental energy had halved after going through those memories.

A delirious laugh spread through the dark world and made them turn toward the floating head as the images shown by the dark matter became unclear. White energy was spreading from inside Lord Lewis and was devouring his flesh.

Noah tried to control the workshop to stop the process, but the whiteness was too intense. His dark world failed to affect the light, so he quickly prioritized salvaging pieces of the expert's flesh.

The workshop tore away some chunks of skin and skull. Still, the whiteness eventually devoured everything before exploding into a blinding radiance that destroyed a large piece of the dark world.

Noah quickly restored the dense sea that enveloped the experts who had waited outside until now. Everyone gathered around him at that point, and King Elbas didn't hesitate to explain what they had seen through the help of special inscribed items.