Birth of the Demonic Sword

A spectacle of orange and white light unfolded as soon as the modified magical beasts met the avatars. Waves of innate abilities and lightning bolts filled the vast battlefield and shattered the fabric of space in ways that even Heaven and Earth struggled to fix.

Noah watched everything and waited patiently for the battle to end. He knew those assets and their power, and the magical beasts didn't interest him. They were strong and had an incredible efficiency against Heaven and Earth's avatars, but they didn't represent the old rulers' true might.

The battle went on for a while. The army of magical beasts had the upper hand, but Heaven and Earth continued to send reinforcements. The sky was right behind the battlefield, so the rulers only needed a few seconds to refill their side.

Orders came out of the orange city from time to time. The old rulers created battle formations that the magical beasts executed in no time. Those creatures were a trained force meant to destroy Heaven and Earth, and they never stopped showing their might.

Precise lightning bolts also shot out of the defensive array above the orange city. They flew among the modified magical beasts to pierce avatars or some of the clouds behind them.

There didn't seem to be an end to the battle. The constant flow of reinforcements eventually began to affect the magical beast's advantage. Those creatures' resilience was immense, and the old rulers knew how to make the best out of their innate abilities. Yet, Heaven and Earth had sheer superior numbers on their side, and they didn't hesitate to rely on them to tilt the scales of the battle in their direction.

The old rulers had predicted a similar situation, and they had also prepared countermeasures. Some orange lightning bolts ended up falling on the sky behind the battlefield to create spherical masses of energy. Initially, they didn't do anything, but the situation changed once a few hundred of them gathered on the white layer.

The spherical masses of energy started to send lightning bolts among each other. Those attacks ricocheted and quickly gave birth to a barrier that destroyed every avatar trying to come out of the sky.

The magical beasts launched an all-out offensive once the reinforcements stopped flooding the battlefield. Their assault swept away most of the avatars and cleared the clouds, seizing a quick victory while Heaven and Earth were still busy dealing with the barrier.

An order echoed from the orange city, and the army of magical beasts performed a quick retreat without minding the few avatars that had survived the previous attack. The creatures returned among the buildings, and Heaven and Earth destroyed the barrier when the battlefield became mostly empty. However, the old rulers had already activated the second part of their attack by then.

A few buildings placed at the corners of the orange city lit up and began to radiate a dark orange light in the area. Noah sensed the presence of the dark metal, but the old rulers didn't give him the time to study the event.

The light intensified until it tainted the defensive crackling array. The lightning bolts grew denser as they gained the dark metal's features. Their noise even intensified before they shot forward.

The orange city separated itself from one of its strongest defensive assets. It transformed the barrier of lightning bolts into an attack that reached the sky before Heaven and Earth could throw more avatars into the battlefield. Needless to say, the white layer directly shattered under the properties of the dark metal and the destructive features of the attack.

A massive hole appeared in the sky as the array of lightning bolts flew forward. Heaven and Earth couldn't do anything against its destructive properties, and many avatars inside the white layer also crumbled due to the destruction that unfolded.

The attack didn't stop even after disappearing from the sensor's range. The dark orange glow faded among the whiteness, but its power continued to fill the giant tunnel. That technique had been many times more effective than anything Noah and King Elbas had deployed during their past exploration. Still, that felt natural due to its different purposes.

The orange city wasn't trying to sneak inside the sky to seize resources. That mission had to be fast, direct, and flawless. Half-assed methods or slow approaches would only create unwanted variables that could lead to a complete defeat or worse.

The old rulers brought their city forward, and the structure expanded once it entered the tunnel. A new crackling array appeared above the buildings and stretched to reach the edges of the giant passage to slow down its innate healing properties. A series of runes and thunderous cores also came out of those attacks to spread throughout the area.

The orange city forced the healing process to a temporary stop. Heaven and Earth wanted to close the passage and prevent that invasion, but the old rulers' methods weren't easy to destroy. Still, the sky started to heal even if the formation expanded over its shattered surfaces. The sheer difference in power between those existences wasn't something that mere preparations could fill.

"Quick," The old rulers ordered as an orange figure shot out of the pit and arrived next to Noah. "We don't have long."

The space-time array replaced the world in Noah's vision. He was outside the void of the battlefield, so he could exploit his aspects to deploy the full power of his movement technique.

Noah shot forward, and the orange figure flew next to him. They were equally matched in terms of speed, but Noah felt that the old rulers had yet to show their true power.

The sprint didn't allow Noah to study the orange figure or its power. The old rulers were using the humanoid puppet that he had seen inside the pit to move. That seemed their real body, but he couldn't be sure without further testing.

The situation didn't give Noah the chance to test anything. He and the old rulers had to outrun Heaven and Earth's healing properties. They also had a limited amount of time since the formation that covered the shattered surfaces was constantly losing power.

The sprint seemed to last an eternity inside that dull environment. Noah could get how much he had crossed due to his understanding of space, but that didn't help him realize how far he was from his destination.

The sky didn't have fixed thickness. Noah didn't know how far the other side was from that spot, but he didn't have to remain with his doubts for too long since a trace of the void past the higher plane eventually appeared in his vision. Still, the scene was so spectacular that he almost slowed down to inspect it.

The other side of the sky in that area wasn't white. It was actually hard to notice it due to its transparent properties. The material showed the void past the higher plane and enhanced some of its details.

Noah could see faint currents of energy that even the sky's functions couldn't manage to enhance. He squeezed his eyes and expanded his consciousness as much as possible, but he couldn't improve his perspective. He had to get closer to make use of that material, but Heaven and Earth wouldn't make it so easy for him.

A series of figures broke the orange formation in random spots near the transparent piece of sky and appeared in the tunnel. Noah saw Dinia and other privileged cultivators gathering in front of the dark spectacle and blocking his view. Their auras also stopped his consciousness and prevented him from memorizing the few images that he had been able to see from his position.