Birth of the Demonic Sword

Angry roars echoed from the closing crack. They spread through the entire lower plane and claimed the attention of all the rank 6 Eternal Snakes searching for the egg.

Noah couldn't believe his ears. He could understand how many divine beings conveyed their anger from the Immortal Lands, and that number left him speechless.

'Nine,' Noah concluded in his mind as the loud cries continued to echo through the sky.

A single pack of magical beasts in the Immortal Lands had nine divine beings, and Noah wasn't even sure that they were all the divine assets in that group of creatures.

The amount of power contained in the Immortal Lands surpassed his expectations. He had always known that there were many divine entities there, but even his generous evaluation had been wrong.

Noah would be alone once he ascended, and he didn't plan on taking Shandal's offer. He didn't want a guide, and he wasn't interested in joining any organization before learning more about the environment in the Immortal Lands.

Yet, he didn't know if his power alone would be enough to make him survive up there. Noah trusted his instincts and battle prowess, but the task appeared far harsher than he had predicted.

'I need to become far stronger,' Noah thought as those angry roars filled his ears. 'Surviving isn't enough. Being strong among heroic cultivators isn't enough. I need to be a monster even among gods.'

His ambition seeped out of his figure and filled his consciousness as he stared at the crack. He didn't want to behave like a scared beast after the ascension, but he needed far more power than he had predicted for that.

The black hole in his chest began to rotate faster as his ambition pushed his fourth center of power to its limits. The Divine Deduction technique even activated on its own.

Countless ideas on how to become stronger surged in his mind. Most of them were unrealistic and impossible to actuate in his current situation, but there was something that he could complete before his ascension.

The lower plane had its limits, but Noah planned to stretch them as far as he could before ascending. It might be impossible for him to be a monster when he reached the Immortal Lands, but he wanted to be as complete as possible by that time.

The rank 6 Eternal Snakes scattered through the world raised their heads and began to roar toward their leaders. The latter replied with cries that carried a simple order, and all the creatures in the lower plane set off for the crack when they heard them.

Forty-nine rank 6 magical beasts began to slither toward Shandal on platforms made of ice. The leaders had asked them to keep the connection between the planes open, and they didn't hesitate to charge toward the god of the Empire.

Silver liquid came out of their mouths and created long trails made of ice as they converged toward the crack. It was as if a series of slim icy-pillars had started to grow from the surface.

The leaders didn't stay still after giving that order. A massive green claw passed through the crack again, but only its tip managed to reach the lower world.

The sky had already healed a big part of that fissure. The world didn't even tremble when that piece of divine body crossed its edges. It seemed able to contain that amount of divine power.

The divine creature tried to dig the claw deeper into the crack, but orange sparks soon ran through it and began to destabilize its structure. Cries of pain also resounded from the passage, and the divine power spread through the world lost part of its intensity during the process.

The Heaven Tribulation was attacking the pack of Eternal Snakes again. Its power appeared even superior to the previous ones since it managed to shatter bigger chunks of the creature's claw.

It seemed that Heaven and Earth had grown tired of that invasion on the lower plane. They wanted to punish the Eternal Snakes once and for all.

The claw started to retreat even before the rank 6 creatures reached Shandal. Yet, silver light began to shine on the crack's edges as the Snakes' innate ability covered those spots.

Shandal's red rune melted the ice that formed inside that silver halo in no time, but the divine beasts never stopped spewing silver liquid on the crack's edges.

The sky continued to fix the crack, but the ice slowed down that process and forced Shandal to remain. The weaker Snakes reached him at that point, and they immediately spewed bullets made of silver liquid toward their target.

Noah could see how the rank 6 Eternal Snakes didn't show any fear. Magical beasts would usually be frightened against opponents far stronger than them even if they had precise orders. However, those creatures appeared quite confident during their assault.

'Are they used to fight against divine beings?' Noah wondered when he saw that odd behavior.

Magical beasts could ignore some of their instincts when powerful leaders ruled over them, but they couldn't suppress what they felt during those moments.

The lack of fear in the Snake's eyes told Noah even more about the Immortal Lands. That was his first time seeing magical beasts so confident about a battle they couldn't hope to win.

Shandal didn't even bother to glance at the incoming attacks. His free hand rose in the sky, and an azure light began to shine on his palm. One word also came out of his mouth as that halo covered the entire area.

"Stop," Shandal said, and everything illuminated by his light suddenly stopped moving.

The silver bullets flying toward him stopped mid-air. The air stopped moving, and the gales didn't blow through the sky anymore. Even the Snakes remained immobilized after Shandal's word, and traces of panic appeared on their expressions.

Shandal kept the azure halo active while he continued to remove the ice. The rune melted the silver reinforcements only to see the crack's edges freezing again.

However, the crack continued to close even if the leaders were doing their best to hinder Shandal. The healing process also became quicker. It seemed that the world didn't want that passage to exist anymore.

The Eternal Snakes in the Immortal Lands didn't know what to do. Shandal didn't give them much time, and they couldn't focus on the crack with the Heaven Tribulation punishing them.

They didn't have paths that led to victory anymore. Still, that pushed them to do their best to make that lower world regret its decision.

Another series of cries resounded in the world, but nothing moved when the roars spread through the lower plane. Those orders weren't for the weaker Snakes frozen in time. They were for the beings in the Immortal Lands.

Before the crack could close, countless boulders fell through the opening and landed on the surface. Shandal's consciousness expanded to suppress the shockwaves that they created, but he didn't do anything to stop the process that followed that event.

Different cries added themselves to the noise filling the sky. The third wave of Eternal Snakes woke up, and one of them carried a quasi-divine aura.