Birth of the Demonic Sword

'This is annoying,' Noah thought as the black hole poured even more dark matter inside his mind.

The higher energy didn't stop there. It flowed inside Noah's eyes and ears to enhance his perception as much as possible. It was clear that his other fuels couldn't keep up with the ghosts' abilities. Only his black hole could give him a chance to avoid hurting his friends.

"Do you mind stop pointing them at me?" Wilfred asked while raising an eyebrow and punching the air.

An explosion quickly resounded behind Noah and flung one of the ghosts that had come out of the cracked surface back. It seemed that only half of the scene had been an illusion. Noah had really destroyed the ground and turned part of the environment into products of his ambition. The effects of those creatures had started to affect him only during his last move.

The ghosts didn't have any unique features. They resembled dark shadows that could launch dark energy and give it different shapes. The tentacle-like flares from before were only one of the countless forms that their strange fuel could gain.

Noah's chest featured another injury now due to the previous attack with the cursed sword. A cut had opened on its right side, but the blood loss had already stopped. Even the drawbacks caused by a weapon that could achieve power in the ninth rank weren't enough to affect his body anymore.

His base level had become so high that the simple empowerment with the unstable substance was enough to bring his body close to the ninth rank. Noah was a true monster, and he was livid now.

His bloodlust filled the shattered valley and made his destruction seep inside the ghosts that were coming out of the broken surface. Multiple black lines appeared on those ethereal dark creatures and marked the flaws in their structure. They seemed pretty unstable as living beings, and Noah could only rejoice to learn that.

"You are with me because you can match my power, right?" Noah asked, and a chill suddenly ran down his companions' spines.

King Elbas and the others didn't even try to complain. They activated defensive techniques as soon as those words reached their ears and prepared themselves to endure the incoming blow.

Everyone in the group had grown used to Noah's reckless character by then. They could understand what was going through his crazy mind after a single glance at his angry expression. They only had to think about the most reckless but most effective approach in a situation to learn what he would do.

Noah felt relatively sure that the scene in his view wasn't an illusion, but he had experienced the same confidence before. He didn't know if the higher number of ghosts had managed to affect him past the shield of dark matter, and he had no way to confirm it. Yet, he trusted his companions enough to know that they would be able to block one of his best attacks after a warning.

Noah was still holding back two of his best attacks because he didn't want Heaven and Earth to develop counters so soon. He would gladly waste them to inflict massive losses on the rulers, but that didn't feel like the right situation.

Still, his normal attacks were enough, especially after the breakthrough of the cursed sword. He could hurt the ghosts, and that was enough for him.

The Demonic Sword and the cursed sword reached Noah's forehead before a pillar of dark matter covered his figure. Faces of his previous stronger opponents filled that wave of higher energy and spread a threatening aura in the shattered land, and a dark halo further enhanced that structure.

Noah's ambition didn't need to enhance much in that situation. He didn't know the actual power of the ghosts, so improving his senses remained a gamble. Yet, those creatures didn't seem to have attacks powerful enough to threaten him, so improving his body felt useless. The same went for his other centers of power since he didn't need a massive discharge of energy. Focusing everything on one attack was everything the battle required from him.

King Elbas voiced countless curses as his hands moved non-stop to protect all the formations in the area. The group had chosen to exclude Divine Demon from the main offensive due to his unreliability, but Noah had ended up taking his place after the ghosts made Night attack him.

It was up to King Elbas to preserve the initial plan from those emotional brutes, but he didn't hold back from expressing his annoyance. He even started to insult his other companions from time to time since he was the only one who could do something about the sudden situation.

His annoyance only increased when he saw that azure energy covered the mountains and fused perfectly with his formations to apply many defensive layers. That azure power also seemed to counter the destructive aura seeping out of Noah's pillars. It was a perfect shield, but that didn't improve King Elbas' mood.

"Don't be so shy about asking for help!" Divine Demon appeared behind King Elbas and started patting his shoulder as the azure energy continued to empower the formations. "Pride is useless when we have a common enemy."

"I swear," King Elbas whispered, "I'm starting to think that feeding you to Heaven and Earth might solve everything in no time. The higher plane won't last a single day with you as part of their existence."

"I've always known that you had great respect for me!" Divine Demon laughed. "No wonder you ended up following my disciple!"

"It wasn't a compliment," King Elbas cursed.

"Of course it was!" Divine Demon continued to laugh, but a sudden detonation of the power accumulated under them forced that conversation to an end.

Noah launched his attack without bothering to focus on the ghosts. His consciousness couldn't sense much in that situation, so he limited himself to attack everything. He didn't care if mountains or friends stood in his way. Everything inside the region had to fall prey to his destruction.

The attack manifested itself as a dense black sea that expanded as the pillar shortened. All the empowered dark matter in that structure fell and spread throughout the area, destroying everything on its path.

A black spot was filling the region and destroying every hindrance it found. It also pierced the bases of the two mountains and came out of their other side. The dark matter even tried to expand over their surface, but the azure and golden glow coming out of Divine Demon and King Elbas' protection made that energy change direction on its own.

Blocking Noah's attacks was impossible. However, the two experts could convince them to change direction. The dark matter basically chased after fabric to destroy, so they only had to make it believe that everything on the mountains was already in pieces.

The black sea of destructive power devoured everything before transforming into dark gales that flowed back toward Noah and sent the absorbed energy toward the black hole. The gains were disappointing, but he didn't care about that aspect of the battle right now.

A strange spectacle unfolded in his senses when he inspected the area. The uneven and shining plain had transformed into a large hole that featured a smooth landmass made of black metal at its bottom.

Only the two mountains covered in the azure and golden halo were standing on that black landmass. The ghosts were nowhere to be seen.