Birth of the Demonic Sword

A suffocating aura filled the large room. It was so dense that it made the entire area foggy.

Noah couldn't even begin to imagine the level of power that an existence had to reach to create such effects, especially since the source of that phenomenon was the motionless body laid on the large bed.

'Is he dead?' Noah thought as he continued to inspect the man lying on the bed.

More details returned to his mind as his inspection continued. Noah silently accepted that he would die if the expert were to wake up, so he abandoned his careful behavior. He found no point in it now that he had reached that dangerous room.

The expert wore a luxurious white robe and multiple items laid on his body and face. The resembled inscribed weapons, but Noah couldn't be sure of his judgment since the suffocating aura hindered his analysis.

The man didn't breathe. He didn't react to his mental waves either, but faint flashes of white light rhythmically ran through the room and converged on his body.

The expert didn't react to the light either. He seemed dead, and Noah eventually confirmed that he was nothing more than a corpse. The room was doing something with his body, but he couldn't understand the purpose behind that process.

A few barriers blocked his mental waves whenever he tried to bring them closer to the body and the items laid on it. The room had protections that didn't allow him to move his consciousness where he wanted.

Items filled other parts of the room and created messy piles. As his inspection continued, Noah slowly understood the Pyramid's purpose and the intentions of the experts when he built it. He felt as if the suffocating aura gave him the answers he had sought since he first stepped into that structure.

The aura carried the expert's unwillingness to let go of those items and the helplessness of his situation. Its influence filled every corner of the room and flowed inside the Pyramid, spreading through its fabric and giving it purposes even after its creator died.

The Pyramid was a tomb that acted according to its dead creator's feelings. It rewarded some lucky cultivators while punishing others according to his whims.

His feelings didn't have a pattern, so the Pyramid had acted on its own and divided its structure into two parts. One had proper defenses that tried to kill eventual thieves. The other featured trials meant to reward worthy cultivators.

Noah didn't know why he understood all of that, and he felt even more confused by the fact that the corpse was continuing to emit its aura. Death didn't seem able to stop that expert from spreading his existence, and his creation reacted to what it carried.

'Why is he telling me this?' Noah wondered, but he soon put those thoughts in the back of his mind.

Obtaining answers was nice, but he wanted actual benefits. The room was full of resources that had barriers in front of them, but there was an item that it didn't protect.

Noah's focus went on an old book placed beside the bed. The tome was thick and radiated an aura that put it below the other items in the room.

The aura conveyed more answers once he noticed that item. The book was his reward for reaching that place, and its power reflected the struggles that he had to overcome.

'I see,' Noah thought as he finally gained the full picture of the structure.

The expert had most-likely created the Pyramid when he was still alive. Then, he had chosen it as his tomb, but he couldn't suppress his aura even after his death.

The Pyramid probably had stronger versions of the oval item in its structure. That had allowed it to react to its master's aura and create paths that expressed his ambivalent intentions.

Noah could imagine it in his mind. He had seen how the fly-like puppets had created the feathered creature by using minute pieces of the black metal. He could guess that something similar had happened in every protected area of the Pyramid.

The fact that a dead existence could create such a massive inheritance left Noah speechless. He couldn't understand how strong that expert had been in the past, but he felt the utmost respect toward him.

That was real power, an influence that even death couldn't suppress. The expert had become an eternal expression of his existence, and time couldn't affect it.

Yet, even that mighty expert had died. Noah felt as if he had seen the level that he strived to reach with every fiber of his existence to understand that it didn't represent the end of the cultivation journey.

The aura gave him answers whenever doubts appeared in his mental waves. Still, it didn't reply to one of his most pressing questions. It didn't explain the purpose behind those faint flashes of light that converged toward the corpse.

'What is he trying to do?' Noah wondered before he moved his attention to the structure. 'Maybe this process depends on the Pyramid itself.'

Noah wouldn't be surprised if the Pyramid had gained some basic form of intelligence after countless years spent under the influence of its dead master's aura. After all, it had the energy to function, so it had the chance to evolve.

As for what it desired, Noah could only think about one answer. The Pyramid could only want its master back. Even if that thought sounded insane, he believed that the structure was trying to resurrect that mighty expert!

'This is none of my business,' Noah concluded as he put those hypotheses in the back of his mind. 'I don't care if this monster comes back to life. I have my journey to care about.'

The book represented the secret reward of the first layer. Each layer would bring to that room, but the Pyramid would prepare different prizes depending on which hidden path a cultivator completed.

Noah had found the secret path in the area meant for gaseous stage cultivators, so he received the weakest final reward. As for its actual power, he could only judge it after he studied it.

His mental waves flew toward the book and enveloped it in a gentle embrace. Noah controlled his consciousness to lift the book and bring it outside of the room.

He couldn't enter the room. He didn't dare to imagine what would happen if his mental sphere were to enter the range of that suffocating aura.

The book flew outside of the room and landed in his hands. Noah wanted to study it immediately, but the flashes of white light became brighter after he seized that reward.

A few slight tremors ran through the Pyramid at that point. Something was happening, but Noah ignored the nature of that event. Still, he felt the need to leave and let the structure act as it wished. Even the suffocating aura was telling him that his time in that room was over.

Noah shot one last glance at the corpse on the bed before turning to leave. The tremors became more intense as he ran through the corridor and returned to the area where he had fought the feathered puppet.

Something big was about to happen inside the Pyramid, and Noah didn't know if the guards outside of the structure could see those changes. Yet, he planned to leave before he could turn the Balrow family into an enemy.