Birth of the Demonic Sword

Sword Saint was the first to release his attack. The expert swung his silver blade and gave birth to a horizontal slash that clashed with the incoming waves of dark energy and pierced right through them.

The attack didn't exhaust its energy after the clash. It continued to fly forward and explode into a wave of sharpness once it reached the first line of ghosts. The detonation destroyed many creatures, but their dark influence spread through the area anyway.

Noah followed with two diagonal slashes that flew toward the army. The fabric of space shattered and give energy to the attacks to increase their size. Large cracks that connected the area to the void appeared in the sky before a wave of dark matter engulfed everything above them.

Alexander bent forward before giving voice to a monstrous roar and spreading his mouth to launch a white beam. The attack pierced Noah's blackness and Sword Saint's sharpness to end on the surviving ghosts behind them. His ability was able to reach the army's backlines, and the expert made sure to move his head to disintegrate multiple enemies.

Divine Demon glanced at Alexander and decided to imitate him. His mouth opened and spread until it went beyond human limits. The expert gained facial features similar to Duanlong as azure energy gathered in his throat before shooting forward in the shape of a wide beam.

The four attacks destroyed most of the army's frontlines and even affected its insides, but the ghosts showed no fear. They crossed the sharpness that cut their figures, the blackness that devoured their darkness, and the beams that disintegrated their bodies without showing the slightest hesitation.

Moreover, the energy released by the dead ghosts spread through the environment as it continued to converge toward the ground. That power seemed able to expand toward the orange glow on the surface even if its raw form. It was clear that Heaven and Earth had been thorough when creating those creatures.

Noah and the others couldn't do much to stop that energy. Deploying their abilities to create a shield that could slow it down would leave them open against the incoming ghosts. Also, they didn't know if that power had already affected them, so their eventual protection would put them at risk for nothing.

King Elbas snorted a stomped his foot on the mountain peak to activate a formation at the arrival of the dark energy. A dark-purple halo spread from under him while radiating a specific aspect of Robert's law.

Everyone in the area became able to sense the expert's hatred toward Heaven and Earth at that point. Robert's feelings didn't feature any d_e_s_i_r_e for childish revenge or a simple deep grudge connected to important losses. He had served under Heaven and Earth's rule for too long to consider intense emotions enough to express his mental state.

Robert's hatred came from his initial failure. He had tried to avoid falling prey to Heaven and Earth's system with his previous law, but the rulers had eventually suppressed him and forced him to serve as a mere pawn who wielded a fake existence.

Noah had saved Robert from his predicament and had given him a new law that had gone beyond his previous peaks. Noah had even given him a power that naturally opposed Heaven and Earth's fixed system, and his gratitude for that act had fused with his real feelings.

His hatred didn't come from pure negative feelings toward the rulers. His d_e_s_i_r_e to pay his debt with Noah back gave him a profound resolve that even Steven, with his law, couldn't reach. Robert would help take down Heaven and Earth but not only because of his hatred. He had to do it to serve his leader.

The fusion of those emotions gave birth to a m_a_t_u_r_e form of hatred that enhanced his toxic abilities and made them quite effective against Heaven and Earth even if they had started to develop counters.

The purple halo burnt the dark energy stretching toward the orange glow of the old rulers' aura in no time. That strange fuel couldn't do anything against Robert's law and vanished before it could affect anyone.

Wilfred and Steven took care of sending as much energy as possible toward the dark-purple halo. Wilfred punched the air and delivered palm strikes that exploded far in the distance and pushed the dark fuel toward King Elbas' formation. Steven did something similar, and the two invisible energies worked toward reducing the ghosts' influence.

Robert limited himself to study the entire situation and use the information given by the formations and his understanding to improve the properties of his toxic laws. He was basically honing his true meaning to turn it into the perfect weapon against the ghosts, and the defenses that used his power benefitted from that.

The dark energy didn't manage to reach the mountains and the metal surface due to the joint efforts of the group, but Noah and the others couldn't stop it from engulfing them. Their defensive techniques fended it off, but nothing was clear against that power. As far as they knew, the illusion could have started before their first wave of attacks.

That uncertainty didn't make the four hesitate. Their minds were ready to receive allied attacks in that situation, so they launched another wave of attacks that landed on the army and killed countless ghosts at that same time.

The dark energy tried to spread again toward the surface, but King Elbas had a formation ready for the task. Wilfred and Steven helped, and nothing managed to reach the surface again.

Noah and the others continued to launch attacks without bothering about the potential consequences of their offensive. The army shrunk quickly, and victory even appeared in sight after multiple exchanges.

The ghosts never managed to reach their position. Their attacks were too strong, and their companions always succeeded in fending off the dark aura. That battle had been completely one-sided.

Noah truly believed in what he was seeing, but cries and roars suddenly filled his mind and made the whole world around him shake. The fabric of space started to shatter, but that didn't create cracks that led to the void. Instead, the event opened passages that showed a different version of the battlefield, and Noah felt s_u_c_k_e_d inside it when he flew to peek inside it.

Everything suddenly changed, and pain even spread from multiple spots of his body. Noah quickly noticed that his fiendish armor and roots had disappeared, and the same went for his right arm. The Demonic Sword was still inside him, but he didn't have enough free hands to wield it.

Claw marks covered his n_a_k_e_d waist, and a long burn had appeared on his left shoulder. None of those injuries was too severe for his incredible body, but his expression still darkened when he inspected the rest of the battlefield.

Alexander was floating through the air. His body didn't feature injuries, but he was unconscious. Sword Saint was farther away, and the sharpness that made his law flowed out of the deep wound on his c_h_e_s_t to fight against the corrosive power that filled its edges.

The ground featured King Elbas sitting on top of a golden cage that contained the monstrous Divine Demon. The expert slammed his head on the shining bars, and cracks opened on their surface, but King Elbas threw a fireball inside it that made his prisoner burn in pain and healed his cage.

Wilfred was sitting on the ground, with his hand on the deep hole at the center of his torso. The injury seemed severe, but Steven was attending him. The expert had multiple claw marks on his n_a_k_e_d torso, but his wounds appeared relatively stable.

Robert was on the metal surface, at the center of the battlefield. His dark-purple aura shone from his missing leg, but he didn't show any pain. His regret came from the small hole next to him. The formations that contained the old rulers' small brim of energy had vanished.