Birth of the Demonic Sword

The world's call didn't apply only to Noah and June. The two felt sure that every existence who opposed Heaven and Earth could hear it. The rulers had pushed the balance in their enemies' favor, forcing everything outside their control to even the situation.

Noah and June didn't question the nature of the call. They had experienced a similar power right after the life dragon's death, and they quickly confirmed that Heaven and Earth weren't faking that event to plant another trap. Noah's anger was a natural scanner that the rulers couldn't affect, and his dark matter helped in his inspection.

Truth be told, the duo would have tried to follow the call even if something ended up sounding odd. Noah and June didn't have other options, so they were willing to take risks to uncover hidden areas of the higher plane. The countdown started by Heaven and Earth forced them to prefer potential traps over safe and constant growth.

The higher plane was the same as always. The weak sky expanded everywhere inside the white layer, and the tunnels that Noah dug appeared able to stretch endlessly. The environment seemed more desolate than usual, but the two didn't pay much attention to that detail.

The call brought Noah and June on the opposite side of the higher plane. Their journey didn't follow a straight path since it was hard to listen to the world's voice at times, and their goal didn't make them forget their regular training. Noah planted even more quasi-living workshops, and June still chased after Tribulations, but they eventually reached their destination.

The call stopped resounding in Noah and June's minds while they were still in the middle of the weak sky, but they didn't need that voice anymore. June could feel that something was deeply off even if the aspects of her world didn't match those laws. As for Noah, he could see the space-time array bending in an odd pattern and converging somewhere forward.

Sparks seeped out of June's skin while Noah unfolded the dark world. The weak sky shattered as the two followed the lines of the space-time array. There seemed to be a unique event unfolding ahead, but what they found ended up overcoming their wildest expectations.

The weak sky shattered until an immense empty area unfolded in their vision. The environment had a spherical shape with smooth surfaces. The wall was polished beyond reason, and Heaven and Earth seemed unable to make their white material grow.

The area was clearly artificial, and the forces at work to preserve its spherical shape touched the solid stage. A constant pressure prevented the sky from growing, but there didn't seem to be any power source inside the immense scene.

Of course, the smooth wall and the vast space were only minor features. The scene contained something far more spectacular. Noah and June found themselves in front of an immense nine-story floating pagoda with giant banners on each of its corners.

"Cursed labyrinth?" Noah said while sensing the meaning carried by the marks on the banners.

"This doesn't look like a labyrinth," June commented while inspecting the structure.

The pagoda featured pale-green walls and grey roofs. The vertical surfaces were smooth and lacked any opening, while the horizontal ones had large tiles kept together by a black substance.

The structure didn't feature any window or door. It also hovered at the exact center of the spherical area without touching its smooth surface. The pagoda radiated the intense aura of a peak rank 9 item, but its influence didn't spread past a specific limit. It created a spherical ethereal membrane that enveloped the building and prevented it from falling on the weak sky.

Noah and June were still outside the pagoda's influence, but they could sense that the space-time array converged there. They also understood that there was a limit to how much they could study the structure without crossing the membrane.

"Why is the world summoning us here?" June wondered.

"I have a few ideas," Noah declared. "I think that the world wants us to find allies. I don't see how we missed this place during the past years otherwise."

Noah felt almost sure that he had crossed areas nearby during his past explorations. The effects that the pagoda had on the space-time array reached those spots, so he couldn't have missed it. The world had probably done something to the structure's influence now that it wanted the experts to meet.

"This expert seems as crazy as us," June stated.

"There might be more than a single existence behind this structure," Noah guessed. "This is a proper peak rank 9 item. I bet that even King Elbas can't make something so big without making it lose power."

"I'm more confused about the materials used for this building," June added. "I wouldn't know where to find something so powerful and in such high quantity."

"The sky," Noah promptly replied. "Though I don't sense anything connected to Heaven and Earth. This building even seems able to hide its presence from the whiteness."

"Maybe it's not the building," June commented.

"This aura is the result of the structure," Noah explained, "But there is something giving it this spherical shape. The creator wanted to make sure that nothing reached the sky."

"There has to be something else," June exclaimed. "You don't create something like that only to make it float."

"I can't understand anything from this position," Noah revealed as potential seeped into his mind to enhance its power. "Still nothing."

"We have to enter the aura to experience its nature," June summarized. "I bet we would have needed to do that anyway."

"Did you come up with a better idea?" Noah asked.

"Did you?" June replied before both of them heaved a deep sigh.

Noah and June fell silent as they advanced into the spherical hall. Their techniques returned inside their bodies when they arrived right in front of the membrane. Deploying defenses was obviously intelligent, but they didn't want to give the wrong impression to the eventual experts living inside the pagoda.

Noah confirmed that the structure's influence wasn't harmful before taking June's hand and moving forward with her. The space-time array immediately went crazy and tried to teleport them toward different destinations, but the ethereal blackness promptly pushed Noah's control of space and time to its limit.

The pagoda's influence continued to assault the two, but Noah kept its aura away. Still, the building didn't give up easily, which eventually made him rethink his approach.

In theory, Noah could push back the twists in the space-time array. He had already proven to the structure that he could resist its aura, so he would have passed an eventual test. However, the pagoda seemed set on teleporting the two away, so Noah decided to let that power affect them.

Noah covered June and himself with a layer of dark matter that kept the space-time stable for them before allowing the area to affect his immediate surroundings. The building ended up teleporting them together, and the scenery quickly changed.

A fiery environment replaced the spherical area and the pagoda. Noah and June found themselves on a scorching plain that featured large lakes and massive pillars made of bright lava. They could even see volcanos erupting in the distance and releasing torrents of black smoke.