Birth of the Demonic Sword

June sat inside a cave dug under the broken palace where she, Noah, and Faith had met the last ancestor. A large metallic hat laid on her head and the flow of energy inside her Perfect Circuit became smoother whenever it neared her inscribed item.

The roars of hundreds of magical beasts and hybrids echoed through the ceiling and walls of her cave, and countless heavy steps made the whole island tremble.

She was in the middle of the invading pack, and she didn't reach that position by chance. June had flown on the opposite side of the continent to remain alone, but she had pressed forward once she learnt about the hybrids.

Being among experts in her current state was akin to exposing her higher energy, and June had to protect that secret to avoid the consequences of her betrayal.

She had to protect her relationship with Noah too, but her priority now was to fix herself without being exposed.

The truth was that the instability of her energy was her fault. She had failed to comprehend how powerful the higher energy would become when paired with her insatiable battle drive.

June had replaced her "Breath" with her dark sparks. Her centers of power expressed her individuality and used higher energy as fuel for her abilities and their expansion.

However, June was only human. Her centers of power couldn't endure the magnitude of her energy because their level was too low compared to the strength that she was capable of unleashing.

The True Thunder Body didn't help her either. The dark sparks didn't exactly belong to the lightning element, and Eccentric Thunder didn't predict that his heir would gain access to such powerful energy so soon.

It was an issue of power output. June's Perfect Circuit couldn't handle all that violent energy since she was a cultivator in the liquid stage of the fifth rank.

The issue became even more significant when her individuality came into play. June was a battle maniac, and her centers of power would produce more energy as her fights continued. That put even more stress on her, which made the power surges inevitable.

June would have been able to suppress her instabilities completely if she stopped cultivating. No higher energy through her Perfect Circuit meant no more power surges. Yet, that solution only worked if she halted her progress forever.

As soon as she started cultivating again, the instabilities would return.

June couldn't possibly accept to see her cultivation journey end. She would rather die trying to find another way than live the rest of her days as an expert incapable of using her power.

She only regretted not spending more time with Noah. Yet, she didn't want to burden him with her mistake, which was why she hid her condition when he assaulted the battlefield.

'What did you even do to injure your mind?' June thought. Noah rarely showed anything other than his cold face in the open, so he had revealed that there was something wrong with him when he massaged his temples.

Of course, many wouldn't even bother to analyze that gesture, especially when there was the corpse of a rank 6 beast hanging from his hands. However, June had noticed it, just as Noah had seen that her stern expression hid her grave condition.

The sounds of steps intensified before calming down all of a sudden. June could sense that the pack had taken the island as its lair. Her prediction of where the beasts would stop had turned out to be true.

June planned to force a breakthrough, and she could only do that by putting her life on the line. She needed a desperate battle, something that could push her far beyond her usual limits.

She had initially thought to fight any creature that she found, but then the pack led by three rank 6 hybrids arrived, as well as her chance. June would fight it until her Perfect Circuit improved, or her higher energy overwhelmed her centers of power.

It was a desperate action, but the only solution that she had. Noah's face appeared in her mind one last time before she shot outside of the cave, and dark sparks surrounded her body.

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Noah and the Demons activated a teleportation matrix inside the city while wearing solemn expressions. Noah's guts had been on point. According to the expert in the magical beasts' field, rumors about a rebellion echoed in the other world.

It was only typical for forces distant from the main branches to feel separated from them. It had been the same in the Coral Archipelago, with the only difference that there were kilometers of void dividing the interest parties at that time.

The rebels only needed to block the dimensional tunnel's exit to separate the two Mortal Lands forever, and the defenses in the city had enough power to stop even powerhouses.

'Rebellions inspire rebellions,' Noah thought as a different scenery appeared in his eyes. The Hive had shown that the world's leading forces were vulnerable and could lose with the right tools, so anyone with some ambition dreamt of doing the same.

If his guess was right, the sudden appearance of such powerful hybrids wasn't a natural event. A threat on that level would keep most troops busy if it ever were to reach the city.

Noah and the Demons reappeared in a structure of the Hive dedicated to the capture and enslavement of hybrids. It was similar to the hunting guild in Noah's past, but with hunters in the heroic ranks.

The trio had chosen that place for its position on the other side of the continent. From there, they could reach the area invaded by the pack in a few weeks.

The hunters wanted to hold a banquet in their honor and show how valuable that structure was, but Noah didn't care, and the Demons followed his lead.

The three of them set off immediately and flew toward the island where Noah had met the last ancestor. The latest reports stated that the pack had halted its advance and that the leaders had returned inside the sea.

That was the perfect moment to attack and skim their ranks, but the city sent no assets as if the forces there knew that a revolution was brewing.

Noah activated the Divine Deduction technique as he flew. He didn't do it to study the political situation there, but to analyze his techniques.

His mind and body were in the sixth rank now, and the improvements they brought to Noah's prowess were immense. He only needed to make his techniques able to use that new power.

The most significant changes had happened in his body. He felt stronger after every rotation of the dark star in his chest, and his entire being became purer thanks to his new heart's effects.

Noah had initially thought that it would take a while to find traces of his lover, but the scene found on the island changed his mind. The trio reached their target only to see hundreds of magical beasts' corpses filling the red ground.