2340.Crystals

The rulers and the sky laughed, and their tone soon gained monstrous properties. Everything grew heavier inside the higher plane, but Noah and his companions easily handled that pressure.

Noah, Snore, and the rest of his companions were ready to launch an attack, but he never gave the order. The white core inside Heaven and Earth spun faster, sending different waves of energy to the crystals, but the nature of that power eventually changed.

Noah's senses had reached an insane level of power. He could feel the very universe with his consciousness now. Nothing could escape his gaze, but Heaven and Earth were up to something that even he failed to understand.

The white core stopped releasing various types of power to fuse on two different fuels. One of them was similar to the higher energy, even if it felt slightly stronger, but the other was something that Noah didn't recognize. It resembled matter, but it hid far more behind its dense fabric.

Danger assaulted Noah's senses, but he didn't retreat. His swords descended, and his companions unleashed their attacks. The entire area darkened and became impossible to inspect from the outside, but nothing actually touched Heaven and Earth.

"We shall accept your request," Heaven and Earth announced while the dark energy around them failed to reach their body. "This struggle it's pointless, but we owe you that much."

Noah's eyes darted left and right. His attack was right there, but all the power accumulated in the area couldn't advance. Heaven and Earth had done something that stopped that offensive and created a safe half-spherical space around them.

The safe area expanded and pushed Noah away. Noah retracted his companions and swords to make that invisible force hit him. His body endured the attack, and his senses got to work to study its nature.

The dark energy dispersed and allowed the rest of the higher plane to witness the scene. Noah flew backward as Heaven and Earth left the sky and started to advance through the void.

The laugh continued to echo through the white layer, and its monstrous aspects only intensified as time passed. The thunderous heartbeat radiated by the spinning white core also gained the same tones, which put the crystal figure and the sky in complete harmony.

Noah could disperse his momentum almost immediately, but he let it push him away until he understood what was happening. His figure stopped in the middle of the higher plane at that point, and Heaven and Earth soon saw his cold reptilian eyes pointing back at them.

"We have accumulated countless worlds during our long life," Heaven and Earth announced. "We have also been this very higher plane and more during that time. We express the best of the two paths, but that's not our limit anymore."

A denser and stronger pressure suddenly came out of the crystal figure and the sky. Something had changed, and its effects were evident. Heaven and Earth didn't go through any power-up, but their might had multiplied.

"Hybrids and even superior beings like you can only pale in front of us," Heaven and Earth announced. "We own the last possible evolution, and this is our energy."

Heaven and Earth pointed their arm forward, and a violent mass of white power gathered in their palm. The white energy was so unstable that flares shot in every direction and flew until they landed on the sky. Some even reached the mass of ice and easily dug through it.

Energy that the higher plane had never seen gathered in Heaven and Earth's palm. Its instability intensified, but the rulers and the sky appeared unaffected by its pressure. An instinctive fear filled Noah's mind, but he reacted to it by unleashing his potential.

The higher plane darkened as Noah's influence thickened. His aura expanded and met the new light radiated by Heaven and Earth, creating an ethereal conflict that gave birth to countless explosions.

The darkness and light couldn't coexist. Destruction and detonations happened whenever they touched, but the areas around Heaven and Earth remained clear. Their mere presence there seemed able to stabilize the whole battlefield.

Noah pulled back his arms to place his wrists on his waist. The grip on his blades tightened as potential flowed toward multiple aspects of his world. Roars, high-pitched noises, and screeches came out of the blades as power accumulated among them, but Noah waited for his opponent to act first.

Heaven and Earth's laugh ended when the unstable energy in their palm shot forward. A partially solid river shot forward and transformed into a crystal-like form of energy during its flight.

Noah pushed his arms forward once the spiky energy entered his range. The very void seemed to move away as he moved the immense power accumulated in his weapons and launched it toward his opponent.

The seamless mass of black fuel that shot out of Noah took the shape of a giant sword right before clashing with the crystal energy. The two attacks met in the middle of the void, and the entire world shook due to the impact.

Winds, shockwaves, flares, and much more flew in every direction. The blade appeared able to sever away chunks of the white energy, but the latter carried more power. Also, it was denser in many aspects, which eventually made it overwhelm Noah's attack.

The crystal energy advanced through the massive blade and overcame its power. The process depleted part of Heaven and Earth's attack, but most of it still crashed on Noah.

The exchange flung Noah in the distance, but the energy around his figure soon vanished, leaving only some white dust behind. Noah stopped in the middle of the void and promptly grabbed the remains of Heaven and Earth's attacks, which turned out to be tiny crystals.

The crystals were powerless, and they soon shattered under Noah's innate pressure. Yet, they added enough clues to the hypothesis in his mind. He had understood what Heaven and Earth had done.

"You developed your own energy," Noah commented. "Well, energy might not be the right word for that."

"Our version of the higher energy expresses the cultivation path," Heaven and Earth explained. "These crystals express the world path. We only had to fuse them."

The process was obviously more complicated than that. Heaven and Earth had to go through major tribulations due to their fusion with the world. It was safe to assume they had met similar problems when developing that energy, and their product remained far from stable.

Noah understood all of that, but his curiosity ended there. He had no words to describe Heaven and Earth's true form, but those labels probably didn't exist. They simply were Heaven and Earth.

"Do you still think you can beat us?" Heaven and Earth asked when Noah raised his swords to prepare for another attack. "We will use the sky from now on."

Noah didn't answer. He was still exploring the full extent of his new power, and Heaven and Earth were a perfect training dummy. His potential flowed toward even more aspects of his world, but the rulers also made their move.

Heaven and Earth's hand lit up again, but similar scenes happened in every corner of the higher plane. Multiple arrays of unstable spheres materialized across the void and released dangerous flares while gathering energy.

The entire world was against Noah, but he didn't back off. Instead, his sharpness skyrocketed as he placed his blades on his forehead. Snore and his companions also came out, but everything in his vision turned white at that point.