2332.Late

pαndα,noνɐ1,сoМ

Noah was utterly spent. His world was empty, and his resilience worked overtime to keep him alive. He felt unable to move, and his senses also struggled to retain awareness of his surroundings.

"You are a disappointment," Heaven and Earth commented as they tightened their grasp.

Noah's neck couldn't oppose that pressure. His flesh crumbled as the crystal fingers advanced, and Heaven and Earth didn't stop even after a figure materialized at their side.

"You can't speak about my heir like this," Divine Demon announced as he pressed his hands on Heaven and Earth's exposed side.

Circular formations came out of Divine Demon's arm and landed on the crystals to create a complicated dark-red array. The inscription shone and released a pressure similar to what Noah had accomplished with his previous offensive, but that power soon condensed back into the lines.

Smoke left the circular formations as their color paled and brightened. The attack seemed on the verge of digging through the crystals, but Divine Demon knew that the fumes weren't the result of any damage.

The formations were burning the sparks lingering above the crystals, but the process was hurting Divine Demon's technique. The smoke came from the inscriptions. They were the ones falling apart.

"You wield the power of the old world," Heaven and Earth commented while their light took over the circular formations. "We are the new one."

Smoke stopped coming out of the formations once Heaven and Earth completely overtook them. The inscriptions started spinning, and a torrent of energy soon left their center to crash on Divine Demon.

Alexander descended on Heaven and Earth's bent shoulder with a kick that expressed multiple innate abilities focused on enhancing his physical prowess. The impact threatened to shatter the void, but the crystal figure and the sky under it remained still.

"We have just endured a far superior attack launched by a far superior being," Heaven and Earth stated. "What makes you think that this technique will do anything?"

The Foolery materialized behind Alexander and bit on the arm keeping Noah lifted. Its attack didn't do anything, and the arrival of its hunger didn't improve the situation either.

"There should be a limit to idiocy," Heaven and Earth uttered as corrosive light came out of their arm and engulfed the two hybrids.

Sword Saint descended on Heaven and Earth in the form of a small silver torrent. The attack carried enough power to fill the entire area, but nothing spread in its surroundings. The technique landed on the crystal figure and unleashed everything it had in that single spot.

"Your world has the chance to hurt us," Heaven and Earth admitted. "You are the problem."

June teleported behind Heaven and Earth and stabbed her crackling spear on their back. The impact unleashed a thunderous noise, but the crystals held strong.

"It will take you ages to generate the amount of energy required to hurt us," Heaven and Earth commented while white sparks seeped inside the spear and sent an altered version of its power back to June.

Supreme Thief approached Heaven and Earth from below to apply his sucking force to the crystals' insides. However, a crackling noise left the rulers and destabilized the expert. Supreme Thief's ears bled as his technique lost power.

"Truly disappointing," Heaven and Earth declared. "We hoped to accelerate our growth by using you, but you have no place on our battlefield."

Strange noises started to come out of the center of the crystal figure. A mixture of whooshing, cracking, and clanging sounds echoed past Heaven and Earth and increased the brightness of their body.

"Die," Heaven and Earth ordered as immense energy accumulated on their surface and prepared an attack that seemed able to kill anything under the tenth rank.

Divine Demon and the others felt the urge to retreat, but their instincts told them that the technique wouldn't leave any escape path open. So, the experts doubled down on their offensive to destabilize the attack.

Heaven and Earth ignored those efforts and unleashed their attack, but something massive fell on the area before their energy could expand. An angry growl even accompanied the event, spreading a corrosive effect that destroyed that white power.

Shafu roared in pride as it pushed the maimed landmass downward. The latter had replaced its missing half with a mass of corrosive power that expanded the damage to its structure. That offensive was a suicidal move, but it succeeded in bringing the creature's power toward new peaks.

Divine Demon and the others couldn't avoid that torrent of corrosive energy, but they gladly accepted that attack since it gave them the chance to retreat.

Heaven and Earth held strong for as long as possible, but they couldn't prevent their grasp from growing unstable for a second. Noah seized that chance by mustering everything left inside him and kicking the crystal figure.

The kick freed Noah from the grasp and pushed him outside the corrosive energy. His neck turned into a tiny chunk of flesh in the process, but he ignored that damage as he tried to stabilize his body.

Meanwhile, the landmass continued to unleash its corrosive power. Shafu and the creature had reached an understanding, which involved going all-out even if their bodies were to crumble in the process.

The landmass didn't care that pieces of its structure fell into the void due to the attack's drawbacks. It only wanted to make Heaven and Earth pay for their previous insult. Its behavior was extremely primordial and aggressive, but that managed to bring out its full strength.

On the other hand, Shafu had to deal with the corrosive flares shooting in its direction without forgetting to push the landmass downward. Long and deep holes opened on its giant body, but that didn't interrupt its offensive.

Noah eventually managed to stop his aimless flight through the void, but straightening up his position took the entirety of his concentration. He was exhausted beyond reason, and parts of his consciousness darkened, but he kept his eyes open to inspect the battle.

The landmass and Shafu were basically hovering above the sky, and a river of corrosive energy was coming out of them. Heaven and Earth were impossible to locate among those chaotic and violent waves, but the audience could see the flaws in that offensive.

Shafu wasn't adding much to the offensive, and the landmass was a simple being at its core. The latter wasn't capable of deep attacks. It could only unleash overwhelming power.

That offensive could stop Heaven and Earth for a second, but it couldn't hurt them. They were a superior existence. Damaging it required high levels of depth and power, something that Noah's group had failed to reach.

As expected, the crystal figure soon became visible among the black torrent due to the white light it released. Heaven and Earth flew toward the landmass quickly, and Shafu felt forced to hide it inside its separate dimension once they got too close.

Shafu flew away at that point. It couldn't face Heaven and Earth on its own, but escaping was also a pointless effort. The rulers only needed to raise their hand to enforce a fake space-time array in the area that made the dragon unable to move its body.

Noah could only watch as Heaven and Earth approached Shafu. He didn't have enough power to reach his companion and pull it inside his world. He actually had to force himself to stay awake since his body desperately wanted to hibernate to deal with the injuries.

"Wow, none of you died," A familiar voice resounded behind Noah at that point. "Surprising."

"You are late," Noah snorted.