2268 2268. Look

Noah wanted to save energy until worthier opponents appeared on his path, but he couldn't refuse the request of one of his companions. Moreover, Great Builder needed help, and Noah couldn't deny it.

Attracting everyone's attention had been easy. Supreme Thief's shout had forced every available troop to look at Noah, but it was up to him to retain that focus. Luckily, he was the best when it came to causing a mess.

'Snore,' Noah called through the mental connection, and a massive snake quickly came out of his back.

Snore voiced a deafening hiss as it unfolded its giant wings and prepared its feathers to unleash their power. However, Noah didn't stop there. Snore alone wouldn't be enough to force most of Heaven and Earth's troops to chase him.

A black gas came out of Noah before condensing into a mass of crystals that expanded and gave birth to the dark world. The sphere grew until it enveloped Snore in its insides, and a dense aura soon filled its surface.

The Rulers' Resolve, Decumia, Marcella, Divine Architect, and Caesar couldn't help but focus on Noah. Some of them only diverted their attention for an instant since they had to defend against their opponents' attacks, but they still wanted to take a peek at the source of that dense aura.

Noah's aura had gone through a significant qualitative change, and the experts at the peak of the cultivation journey weren't the only ones who noticed that.

The sole fact that Noah had created a situation where Heaven and Earth could lose had been a significant boost to his power. Everything that had followed the beginning of the final battle had deepened the improvements generated by that event, and the results were clear now.

Dense destruction filled Noah's aura. The pure desire to rip apart Heaven and Earth and achieve that impossible victory flowed through the dark world and enhanced its effects.

Noah wasn't a mere monster anymore. He had touched a level of power that went beyond his previous status. He wasn't only overcoming the limits of his stage. Noah was rewriting them in ways that his opponents couldn't fully understand.

That was fine for most experts, but the leaders of Heaven and Earth's army couldn't accept the event. They represented the peak beyond the peak, but there seemed to be something past that now.

A doubt had filled every major expert in Heaven and Earth's army since Noah's organization had become a real threat. Those cultivators wondered whether Noah and the others could reach new heights of power, and the answer had finally arrived.

Noah was still a liquid stage world, but the power he radiated belonged to a different realm. It wouldn't be fair to label it as "solid stage". It was too deep to be part of the same category.

The lack of a breakthrough was the most problematic aspect of that event. Noah didn't advance to the solid stage, but Heaven and Earth's experts felt the need to view him as someone at the peak of the cultivation journey due to the lack of comparisons.

<br/>Something similar had happened with Divine Demon, but a breakthrough had preceded that event. Instead, Noah had simply turned into something that his opponents couldn't understand for no apparent reason.

A different doubt replaced the previous. A simple question popped in the minds of Heaven and Earth's major players, and tinges of fear inevitably followed. Those experts couldn't predict how strong Noah would become after experiencing his breakthrough.

'Flow out of me,' Noah ordered to his mind as he lost himself in his violent thoughts. 'Seek the deepest parts of my world and give them a shape.'

Noah had created countless creatures and items through the dark world, but he felt their limit now. He finally saw that the sole idea of condensing something as boundless as destruction into a fixed form would only hurt the technique's power.

Yet, his ethereal blackness had expanded and deepened greatly during the final battle. Noah could inspect his power through a new understanding, and the dark world didn't hesitate to implement those improvements.

The dark world seemed to become alive and gain a separate will as it sent energy into the deepest parts of Noah's existence. The technique had a specific target. It wanted to find a pure version of his destruction to complete its creations.

Noah felt a bit uncomfortable. The dark world was part of him, but he experienced a sucking force in the deepest parts of his mind, a place that he would typically struggle to reach on his own.

Of course, Noah didn't dare to interrupt the process. He even lowered his innate defenses to let the dark world drain him of the violent ideas that filled his mind. He would let the technique use everything it could to generate something worthy of the final battle.

The dark world's aura grew heavier during the process, and some of Noah's creations found themselves attracted by it. The landmass and the parasite's branches halted their offensive for a few seconds as they lost themselves in a power that expressed specific peaks of their existence.

The privileged cultivators who had chased Supreme Thief in the last period didn't even need to exchange glances. They silently took a step toward Noah since they knew they couldn't ignore that new threat.

The same went for the experts who had chased Noah until now. However, their reaction was slightly different. They had struggled to catch Noah, so they dreaded what that technique would bring.

The dark world was solid. Its crystals created a seemingly impenetrable surface that prevented anyone from inspecting its insides. Yet, that material bent and gained liquid properties as figures started to push to come out.

The crystals opened as if they were made of a flexible membrane. They resembled a chrysalis when multiple figures burst out and unleashed their auras into the higher plane.

The privileged cultivators heaved a sigh of relief when they recognized Noah's usual six-armed dragons. Those creatures were wielding swords, but they weren't too different from what Noah had created in the past. Their auras had changed a bit, but that was still fine.

Nevertheless, the dark world was far from done. Soon, more crystals bent outward and burst open to reveal different creatures. Fiendish avatars wielding swords came out in the open and jumped on the dragons' backs.

That wasn't even the end of the process. A third batch of creatures came out of the dark world. Countless swords pierced the crystals before hovering around the many six-armed dragons.

The dark world transformed into trails of smoke that converged inside Noah once the process was over. A small army made of six-armed dragons, fiendish avatars, and flying swords had appeared, but the privileged cultivators couldn't focus on them. They had something far bigger to worry about.

The destruction of the dark world allowed Snore to show its presence again. Its appearance was mostly the same, except for two additional pairs of wings that had grown on its back.

The dragons, the swords, and the avatars were solid stage creatures, and their power was incredible, but they paled in front of Snore's additional wings. Each of those new limbs was a disposable weapon at the peak of the ninth rank, and their mere weight seemed able to bend the void's fabric.

"You look better like this," Noah commented.

Snore voiced an annoyed growl before fixing its piercing eyes on the platoon near Supreme Thief and Great Builder. They were its opponents.

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Author's notes: Shoutout to Devoted_scream for the Spacecraft!