Birth of the Demonic Sword

Lady Lena's might was immense. Her casual attacks could suppress and injure Noah easily. The gap between the gaseous and the liquid stage was something that would take more than a few tricks to fill.

Noah sensed his power increasing as his ambition seeped out of his figure. His cultivation level rose as all his techniques and assets spread in the world.

'Three gaseous stage cultivators, one in the liquid stage,' Noah thought as the range of his consciousness increased. 'No gaseous stage expert can win this battle.'

That conclusion was obvious. Lady Lena's power alone could suppress him. The battle would only become harsher once her three underlings joined the fight.

'I can't escape, I can't hide, and I can't win,' Noah concluded as his power rose.

Facing certain death made his survival instincts scream, and Noah didn't dare to suppress them. He needed to feel everything and understand how hopeless his situation was to create a chance. He needed to sense the most intense desperation to force his existence to improve.

Truth be told, Noah didn't predict that the Crystal City would send a liquid stage cultivator so quickly. Still, he couldn't avoid ending up in that situation unless he decided to slow down his growth.

His ambition had forced him to be in that situation, and Noah could only rely on his individuality to overcome that challenge. If he couldn't do it, he wouldn't be able to survive what would come after that battle.

'I have done this countless times,' Noah spoke to himself as pure coldness came out of his figure. 'I will use every trick, every shameful act, every desperate move to overcome this challenge. Honor is pointless. Sanity is pointless. Power is everything, and I need to be alive to seize it.'

Lady Lena didn't let the unfolding of Noah's techniques startle her. The dark world and the corrosive cloud were expanding toward her, but another wave of torrents forced them to shrink.

Noah could sense everything happening around him. Azure torrents pierced his strongest techniques and converged in his position to crash on his body again. Blood accumulated under his skin as countless internal injuries opened.

The dark world and corrosive cloud expanded once again. Noah had just suffered heavy injuries, but the power unleashed by his abilities didn't decrease. Lady Lena could see how they had moved closer to the peak of the gaseous stage.

"A reckless animal indeed!" Lady Lena shouted while raising both hands to the sky.

Her aura expanded and seeped into the environment to alter its laws. The sea of fire that filled every inch of the sky morphed and obtained liquid features. The flames transformed into scarlet waves that began to move toward the expanding cloud.

Noah sensed the arrival of the scarlet tide. It was as if the whole sky was falling on him. Lady Lena's individuality carried endlessness that he couldn't describe, and part of him felt unable to conceive methods to stop that attack.

'I see,' Noah thought as Snore appeared in front of him and spewed its dark beam. 'She carries the true power of a catastrophe. The endlessness of countless waves, and the might of something that can't stop moving forward.'

Snore's dark beam crashed on the waves, but it only managed to pierce a part of those scarlet waters. The sky continued to fall on Noah and destroyed all the techniques that he had deployed in his defense.

That attack could kill him. Suicidal thoughts surged in his mind as Lady Lena's individuality converged on his figure. The immensity of her waves made him desire to give up and put an end to that struggle.

Noah opened his mouth, and the world went dark for an instant as a defiant roar spread in the environment. Dark flames surrounded by a silver halo shot everywhere on the Rumbling Region right before the tide crashed on him.

The whole landmass trembled, but it didn't suffer any damage. The shockwave generated in the crash eradicated some of the trees in the area and destroyed part of the black flames.

No gaseous stage cultivator could survive that attack. Even the strongest material in the lower tier couldn't remain intact against the full might of an expert in the liquid stage.

The waves slowly transformed back into flames as Lady Lena retracted her individuality. A destroyed environment became visible after her spell vanished.

The cultivators from the Crystal City saw a maimed body among that destruction. The waves had almost reduced it to a pulp. Its limbs had vanished, and its torso was nothing more than a series of torn tissues immersed in a pool of blood.

A faint trace of life came out of the body. Noah appeared on the verge of dying. It seemed that even his centers of power didn't want to keep him alive anymore.

"Wonderfully done," Zach said as he performed a bow toward Lady Lena.

The other underlings imitated him, but Lady Lena didn't move her eyes from Noah's body. She sensed that something was off, but she couldn't pinpoint the cause behind that feeling.

Moreover, she couldn't understand how Noah was still alive after her attack. Hybrids were only slightly stronger than magical beasts when it came to their physical strength, and her attack could even threaten some creatures in the middle tier.

Nothing should have survived the waves, but Noah was there, alive. That scene left Lady Lena dumbfounded. She saw something impossible.

Her worry slowly began to vanish when she sensed that Noah kept weakening. He would die soon. That flaw in her understanding would disappear as soon as that issue ended.

"Hmph!" The third underling snorted when she saw that Noah was still hanging on his life. "He dares to remain alive after Lady Lena's attack! Can I put an end to his struggles?"

A slight tremor ran through the sky after her words, but only Lady Lena managed to sense it. Cultivators in the gaseous stage couldn't feel that subtle change in the environment.

"Kathleen, Zach, Gil," Lady Lena said as coldness appeared in her eyes. "Retreat."

Three underlings couldn't understand the meaning behind her words, but a suffocating aura soon filled the sky and forced them to remain still. An intense feeling crashed on their minds and forced them to condense their consciousnesses in a desperate attempt to stabilize their center of power.

Their thoughts tried to shoot out of their minds when that feeling swept them. Desires that they couldn't suppress took over their mental spheres and made them gasp for air.

The trio in the gaseous stage didn't understand what they were feeling. Their eyes moved on their own to stare at the red sky above. Small white dots even appeared in their vision. For some reason, they began to see stars in that separate dimension.

Lady Lena easily fended off the effects of that individuality, but she couldn't stop the black flames. The black fire had expanded after that aura filled the environment, and countless specks of energy flew toward Noah to fuse with his body.

A silver halo soon enveloped Noah. His destroyed tissues grew right in front of Lady Lena's eyes. His body reformed in a few seconds, and a violent aura came out of his figure.

When a twitch ran through Noah's fingers, Lady Lena began to sense an aura with power in the liquid stage coming out of her opponent.