Birth of the Demonic Sword

Sword Saint didn't say anything. Everyone knew that the stormy regions were dangerous. Many even believed them to be the final destination of the cultivation journey, but Noah and the others had somewhere else to be afterward.

'How many rank 9 creatures do these lands even hold?' Noah wondered while absorbing the centipede inside his separate space.

Mere rank 7 cultivators could live for tens of thousands of years. The magical beasts usually had a longer lifespan since they focused the entirety of their energy on a single center of power, so they could virtually survive forever as long as someone didn't kill them.

The centipede might have been at the edges of the stormy regions for entire eras, and many others magical beasts might be able to claim the same. The areas filled with chaotic laws were even in constant expansion, so Noah couldn't get an idea of how crowded they could be.

Some regions inside the storms would become part of the Immortal Lands as the expansion continued, but that happened before Heaven and Earth destroyed the higher plane. Noah and the others didn't know how the world worked now. They had only confirmed that nothing had changed in the years that they had spent in seclusion.

"This region is basically stable," King Elbas commented while landing on the red sand and spreading his aura inside it. "I believe it would have already become part of the Immortal Lands during normal times."

King Elbas and Noah were thinking about the same topic. They couldn't find other explanations for the milder storms in that area, but they didn't know how to test their ideas.

"Does it even matter?" Sword Saint asked. "The higher plane is someone else's problem now. Our path leads us deeper into the storms."

"The world is a mirror that reflects Heaven and Earth's character," King Elbas sighed. "Learning its functioning can teach us something about the rulers, especially about their flaws."

"What does the sand say?" Alexander asked.

The experts turned toward Alexander to make sure that they heard correctly. The hybrid didn't use a mocking tone. His question had been serious.

King Elbas arched his eyebrows before bending toward the ground. His fingers stabbed the sand as his curiosity continued to spread. His aura seeped deep into the land and tried to understand its secrets.

The seven in the sky remained silent as golden lights came out of the many dunes and spread over the red surface. They could sense King Elbas' intense curiosity in those glows. His desire to learn more about that region almost made the laws around him shatter to reveal their insides.

"The region would have normally left the storms already," King Elbas announced after straightening his position. "I felt its confusion. It has a purpose that it can't express here."

"We could help it leave and see what happens," Robert suggested.

"I can smell Defying Demon in those words," Wilfred commented.

"How do you plan on taking it out?" Steven asked, and a helpless sigh escaped his mouth when he saw Sword Saint and Noah drawing their weapons.

"You can't," King Elbas quickly stopped them. "It can't express its meaning here, but it can't live outside either. The chaotic laws stop it from falling apart, but its structure clearly lacks some core components."

"We can fix that," Noah commented.

"To what end?" Sword Saint asked. "Do you want to make it fulfill Heaven and Earth's purpose?"

"Quite the opposite actually," Noah explained while pointing at the denser storms above him. "These come from Heaven and Earth, right? They must have created this land at some point, so making it exit the storms in a shape that they didn't set is a win."

"The topic of the chaotic laws is still unclear," King Elbas announced. "They are raw energy capable of taking any shape, but we can't confirm their source. Heaven and Earth are the most probable, but many think that they are a legacy of the world before the rulers."

"I have a different view," Noah commented.

"Of course you have," King Elbas sighed.

"We know that Heaven and Earth have started absorbing other laws after failing to reach the tenth rank," Noah began to explain, but King Elbas quickly interrupted him.

"We only suspect that," King Elbas said. "We know that Heaven and Earth are absorbing new laws to expand their existence, but we don't know if they have tried to act differently before."

"One of their underlings has different opinions about their path," Noah snorted.

"That's not proof at all!" King Elbas shouted.

"Anyway," Noah continued. "The "Breath" might have been their first form of energy generated after evolving the primary energy. Heaven and Earth might have conquered the world with it, but the failure in the breakthrough might have forced them to change their approach."

"That's a lot of might," Steven commented.

"Quite a lot," Alexander added.

"It still makes sense!" Noah exclaimed. "The chaotic laws might be their second form of energy, created only for their second attempt in the breakthrough to the tenth rank. They would explain why they can absorb existences so easily."

King Elbas and the others didn't know what to say. The speech made sense, but those events had happened far too long ago. It was unclear whether humans lived back then even. They couldn't find any proof that could prove Noah's theory.

"So," Sword Saint asked while pointing at the land below with his blade. "Do we cut it or not?"

King Elbas spread his arms and heaved a helpless sigh, Alexander and Wilfred shrugged their shoulders, Divine Demon took out a jug of wine and began to drink on his own, and Steven shook his head. Noah glanced at Sword Saint and nodded while expanding his consciousness as much as possible and searching the edges of the region.

The storms hindered Noah's consciousness, but they also caused constant changes in the environment. He didn't take much to find where the red sand ended, and he didn't hesitate to stab the Demonic Sword on those edges to spread his dark matter through the ground.

Sword Saint didn't deploy the same precise approach. He found where the sand stopped and began to launch slashes to divide it from the nearby regions.

The two didn't take much to cut away the entire region, and King Elbas even handled the adjustments on its structure during that process. Robert then stepped in and used his influence to mutate the fabric into something that couldn't belong to Heaven and Earth.

Wilfred, Alexander, and Noah took care of lifting the region at that point. Waterfalls of sand fell when the trio reached its rocky bottom and separated it from the rest of the area.

Heaven and Earth and the storms didn't seem to care about that event, so the group began to fly toward the higher plane. Shafu could store that landmass easily, so the group didn't have to carry anything while leaving the chaotic laws to test if they could steal from them.

It took a while to come out of the storms, and Noah didn't hesitate to make Shafu spit that region once they reached the whiteness. The land reappeared among the world and began to float on its own, but the sky suddenly released a humming sound that spread through the entire higher plane.