Birth of the Demonic Sword

The whiteness radiated by Gratia's figure resembled a domain, but Noah could sense the different depths that her power reached. She wasn't simply modifying the matter to turn it into her personal world. That energy was the world that her existence created.

The only difference in her case was that her existence belonged to Heaven and Earth, so her world mixed perfectly with the environment. She was part of the rulers' whiteness. The edges of her personal space opened in front of the natural light radiated by the sky.

Gratia wasn't joking when she claimed to be an avatar of the sky. Her whiteness wasn't a simple influence. It absorbed the matter that Noah had tainted and brought it back inside Heaven and Earth's system. It almost looked like a cleansing process, but it was different from Daniel's purification.

The cultivator used the same absorption that Heaven and Earth applied to every law. The tainted true meanings didn't return to their original state. They became something similar but different that suited the current condition of the world.

"Your power can touch my level," Gratia admitted, "But what can you do when its quality fails to meet the requirements that you need to achieve victory? You have taken part in the resurrection of two rank 9 experts. You should know how resilient we can be."

Noah continued to remain silent. His mind inspected the new influence that Gratia was releasing, but he felt unable to find ways to defeat it with his normal power. His destruction could slowly dig a hole inside it, but the expert could directly refill that space at a faster pace.

A few solutions to the issue had already appeared in his mind. His base power had been enough to deal with the worlds of the gaseous stage cultivators, but that wasn't enough against Gratia. He couldn't hurt her deeply enough with his attacks when she relied on her power, but he had ways around that.

Noah could wait until Gratia depleted the energy contained in her world. She didn't use it before, so there had to be restrictions to that power, and he vaguely connected those issues to the resemblances with Heaven and Earth.

Gratia seemed to borrow those abilities from the rulers, which would explain her hesitation in deploying them. Heaven and Earth had probably applied restrictions. Her faith in them might even be the reason behind such delayed activation, and Noah could work with that.

Yet, Noah didn't know how his existence could match Gratia's power in terms of quantity of energy. He had improved his ambition and turned it into a denser fuel that would make his empowerments last longer, but he was against a liquid stage cultivator connected to Heaven and Earth. She might have access to the entirety of the sky as far as he knew.

The obvious and reasonable choice in that situation was to call upon a power that matched the depths of Gratia's ability. Noah had access to the ethereal blackness, which marked his rightful step inside the ninth rank, but he hesitated to use it. The drawbacks were too heavy to endure in a battle. A single activation might lead to his defeat.

'Do I have to run away?' Noah wondered as Gratia remained in the middle of her light.

Noah could take a gamble and hope that his mind wouldn't fall into a coma after calling upon the power contained in the ethereal blackness, but his problems wouldn't end there.

Noah would still have to apply the results of his inspection. A deeper understanding of Gratia's power would give him the chance to destroy everything faster and by deploying less energy, but he didn't know whether that would be enough.

Running away seemed to be the best solution. Noah would probably meet no hindrances on his way back. Still, the event would force him to admit that liquid stage cultivators remained outside of his reach. That would put him back on the hunts for weaker assets, which he couldn't accept.

'All or nothing then,' Noah made up his mind as he prepared to activate the energy inside the ethereal blackness. Yet, a voice suddenly resounded among his mental walls and made him interrupt his actions.

'Use me!' Night shouted through the mental connection.

'How should I even use you?' Noah asked. 'I can make you slightly stronger than now, but that power will remain outside your range.'

'It's not my role to think about that complicated stuff!' Night complained. 'Do your stuff an make me able to kill that shiny thing.'

'You have reduced millennia of training to stuff,' Noah declared.

'Who cares?' Night stated. 'You call me when you have a problem with Heaven and Earth's white light. That's my role. You built me for that.'

Noah was ready to crack another joke, but an idea suddenly appeared in his mind. The mental coma after the activation of the ethereal darkness was a big problem, but he could ignore it if he didn't use himself as the main asset in the offensive.

Night was right. The Pterodactyl was perfect for destroying light. It could even benefit from Robert's existence to be more effective against the rulers' followers. The problem was with the time required to make it reach a decent level of power.

"Did you come up with something?" Gratia mocked. "I probably can't stop you if you decide to run away, but you shouldn't abuse my patience. Decide if you want to fight quickly."

The indifference that Gratia showed made Noah feel even angrier. A liquid stage cultivator was actually bragging about her success against him, who was a mere rank 8 expert. Noah had been shameless in his life, but that was simply lame.

'It will be painful,' Noah warned as the ambition left most of his assets and converged on the dark world, his creation, and Night.

'Will it make me able to defeat the light?' Night asked.

"It will turn you into its bane,' Noah explained, 'If you remain alive.'

'Do it!' Night voiced a resolute cry, and Noah didn't hesitate to expand the dark world.

The dark world appeared mostly solid and carried power in the ninth rank after Noah used most of his ambition to empower it. Gratia could still affect it with her light, but Noah made sure to keep it outside her range.

Noah didn't need the offensive power of the dark world now. He had to create to force Night to reach its new state. The Pterodactyl would have probably evolved normally in time, but the situation required something drastic. Moreover, Gratia embodied the sky, so she fit the role of a target perfectly.

Night flew at the center of the dark world and let the mechanical arms that represented the workshop surround it. It was ready to undergo the modifications. That structure only lacked one last requirement.

Noah took a deep breath before expanding his mind. His mental waves would transform into energy meant for Heaven and Earth if they touched the whiteness, so he only prepared them. His consciousness surrounded the area under Gratia's control and waited.

The black energy contained inside the ethereal darkness flowed toward his mind, and his consciousness expanded. Noah's mental waves became so strong that Gratia's whiteness couldn't stop them anymore. They inspected everything about the power released by the expert and came up with multiple conclusions that the dark world didn't hesitate to apply to Night.

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Author's notes: One hour or so for the last chapter.