Birth of the Demonic Sword

Ghostly swords crossed Noah's mental sphere's borders and gathered above his mental sea to create the eccentric man once again. The latter lifted his long eyebrows to look at Noah before speaking with a disappointed tone. "The brute is here."

Noah smiled, and a pair of short swords formed in his ethereal figure's palms. He didn't even speak before performing his strongest slash toward the expert.

Four additional arms formed on his torso. They all wielded blades and joined the other limbs to slash at the owner of the divine inheritance.

A six-armed dragon shot from Noah's figure and crashed on the mental sea. The internal pressure spiked due to the shockwave released in the impact, but Noah endured the pain without moving his focus from the expert.

Night's words had cleared his doubts. He wanted the divine inheritance, so he would do everything in his power to seize it. The unwillingness of the expert wouldn't matter if Noah could overpower it.

Tall tides formed on the mental sea. The expert and the dispersing six-armed dragon disappeared under the raging brown water, but Noah quickly stabilized his mental energy.

"Why do you even need six arms for this?" Sharp words resounded inside the ethereal space. The expert walked from below the sea, shaking his head in disappointment.

He lifted his forefinger in front of his face and curved it with a quick movement. Noah could barely contain his surprise when he saw a six-bladed cloud flying in his direction.

Noah performed his strongest slash once again. A dragon and a formless cloud clashed mid-air, but the six-armed creature couldn't do anything against the expert's attack.

Terror rose inside Noah, but the cloud didn't harm him when it engulfed his figure. It dispersed before reaching the mental walls.

The expert wasn't trying to hurt him. The sharpness pressing on Noah's mind came from the man's might, which was a feature that it couldn't suppress.

Noah had realized that after the last exchange, and excitement inevitably built up inside him.

The environment of the sea of consciousness was different from the outside world. Most of Noah's power there came from the level of his mind.

Noah didn't have the Demonic Sword's structure as a limit there, and the same went for his spells. He could use slashes that he was too worried to perform in the outside world. Moreover, he had the will of a divine existence as his training partner.

"Purity overcomes brute power," The expert announced. "You have walked the path of the blade by chance. You didn't choose it, and your slashes reflect your lack of commitment."

Noah listened to the expert's words, but his ethereal arms were moving once again. The only limit was his mental walls' sturdiness, so he wanted to show everything he had before meditating on those teachings.

Noah wasn't a hybrid anymore. Many of his spells still carried dragon-like features, but his existence had distanced itself from those creatures.

He could roar and spit flames, but he had a dark star as his core. Magical beasts and hybrids couldn't claim him as part of their kind anymore, so his attacks had to do the same.

Noah's additional arms disappeared, and the two swords fused to form a longer blade. Both his arms wielded its hiltless base as they rose above his head while he focused.

'Destruction can create darkness,' Noah thought as he slashed downward. His blade traced a black line in front of him, but nothing more seemed to come out of it.

The expert opened his palm. An intense shockwave resounded as a black slash landed in his open hand, and sharpness spread everywhere inside the mental sphere.

Noah suffered. His mental walls struggled to remain still when he used his full power, but the training with the Seventh Kesier rune proved itself useful in that situation.

The mental sphere stopped trembling after a few seconds. Even Noah's most potent attack wasn't able to destabilize it for too long!

The expert remained silent as it stared at the slash in his hand. He lifted his eyebrows again to inspect it, and some inaudible words came out of his mouth.

"This is quite better," The expert said. "You might have walked this path for the wrong reasons, but you learnt something along the way. Maybe you aren't hopeless."

Noah didn't speak. That was his strongest attack, something that he could only launch in the ethereal world of his mental sphere. Yet, the expert had easily stopped it.

Also, he was forcing it to remain in his palm. The slash would typically disperse once it released its power, but the expert used some unknown method to keep it intact.

"What is a sword for you?" The expert asked.

"A weapon," Noah gave an honest answer. He knew the deeper meaning behind that question, but Noah didn't want to lie about his mindset.

Since his first time wielding a saber, Noah's mindset had never changed. His individuality might have the shape of a sword, but that didn't stop him from considering himself as a weapon either.

"That's right," The expert replied. "They are tools meant to kill. Their purpose is to give an advantage in battle, cut better, and sever everything in their path. Fingers and nails can't be so effective, and the same goes for teeth and fangs."

The expert eventually let Noah's slash disperse and started to scratch his beard as he walked in circles above the mental sea.

"It's never the blade," The eccentric man continued. "A sharp piece of metal can't have any depth. Cultivators add meanings once they wield swords. They invent martial arts, they create paths, and, sometimes, they become part of them."

The expert gestured to Noah to come closer, and he didn't hesitate to fly toward him. The inheritance's owner started to walk around him at that point, and the same inaudible words as before buzzed as he inspected him.

"You are a sword," The expert eventually concluded, "But you lack purity. You seized everything you could along your path, disrupting your harmony and the path you managed to unlock. It's time to choose."

"Choose what?" Noah asked. He could understand where the expert was going, but he wanted him to say it loudly.

Each of the eccentric man's words carried his sharpness. Noah felt enlightened every time that pressure appeared inside his mind. He would get the expert to talk as much as possible if he couldn't seize the inheritance.

"Your path," The expert replied. "I see a magical beast, a swordsman, a creator, and a destroyer inside you. While some of these paths can live together, others will inevitably suffer as you advance."

Noah sighed. That was a warning that he had already heard multiple times, and he had slowly learnt the reason behind that as he became familiar with the laws.

The laws were simple but powerful truths. They carried the true meanings of certain aspects of the world.

Cultivators would eventually become laws upon reaching the seventh rank, and expressing a simple but powerful meaning was impossible if their individualities were too complicated.

"I won't choose," Noah said, and his words startled the expert. "My ambition is boundless. I will take everything that increases my power and bring it to the Immortal Lands. Accepting limits will be the end of my path."

"What if I say that you can't take my inheritance unless you accept the sword as your only path?" The expert asked, and Noah could sense a tinge of curiosity in his tone.

Cultivators like Noah were rare, but his determination was a common sight in the Immortal Lands. Every divine being was a stubborn and resolved individual, so seeing that feature in a potential heir pleased the expert.

An ethereal sword formed, and Noah's ambition surged as he wielded it with two hands. His sharpness spiked, and the water of his mental sea began to rage as it resonated with his mindset.

"I'll take it anyway," Noah said as roars fused with his human words. "You can increase my power, so I will resort to every trick and asset in my arsenal to make you mine."