The Elbas family could still be in the world. Noah had spent the last year of the dimensional portal in seclusion, so he didn't confirm whether they had left the plane.
Noah didn't sense anyone observing him during his hunts, but the Royals were experts in fields that he couldn't even fathom. There was a chance that they had seen his battles without alerting his innate awareness.
The cave in the seabed didn't have any defense. Noah couldn't relax there, and his mental state was crucial for the success of the procedure.
Noah rested inside the separate dimension for a few weeks and started training only after he felt sure that his centers of power had dispersed the stress accumulated in the last battle.
Once Noah returned to his peak, he began the preparation for the procedure.
Noah had already completed all the steps required for the success of the procedure. He had changed the nature of the Eternal Snake's glands without breaking them. Now he only had to do the same before proceeding with the fusion.
The head of the peak rank 6 Snake was in his possession. Noah only had to seize the glands and perform the transformation he had mastered to become ready for the fusion.
The alteration of the gland's nature went perfectly. The fact that they were organs at the peak of the sixth rank didn't matter in front of Noah's higher energy.
His wills and dark matter turned those organs into dark sturdy sacks that didn't contain anything. They could still produce an altered version of the silver liquid, but Noah needed them devoid of any foreign substance.
'It's finally time,' Noah thought as he summoned Snore.
The Blood Companion formed next to him and shrunk as it followed his orders. Snore became a small winged snake that wasn't even one meter long.
Noah couldn't escape its usual issue in those procedures. His natural defense was too high, and it was hard to create precise wounds that could allow him to perform his fusion.
The Demonic Sword could solve that if Noah decided to go all-out, but Snore could do the same without wasting his precious energy. After all, Noah wanted to remain at his peak even when his torso was open.
Noah took some blood from the dissected reptilian head and traced two lines on his naked torso. Snore charged its innate ability and released a small dark beam that moved on those marks.
Even Noah's incredible skin broke under Snore's dark beam. That violent energy could hurt its caster, so it wasn't a surprise that it could damage his body.
'It's easier when my body is my weakest center of power,' Noah thought as pain began to spread in his mind.
Noah had faced problems whenever he had to modify certain parts of his body because his cultivation level wasn't high enough to hurt him. Elder Austin had often helped him solving that issue, but Noah's attacks were now stronger than his tissues.
He could take care of that issue on his own. It even felt refreshing to handle everything without external help.
The dark beam pierced his body from side to side, but it left his lungs untouched. Noah immediately focused on stopping his black hole from improving his recovery, but his fourth center of power didn't seem interested in that damage.
'You understand me,' Noah thought as he heaved a sigh.
His fourth center of power was mostly autonomous, but it depended on his subconscious. It couldn't possibly stop Noah from becoming stronger now that his whole existence desired that fusion.
'My last problem is gone,' Noah concluded as he spread those cuts to expose his insides.
He had already planned how to approach that fusion. He wouldn't need to break his rib cage to reach his lungs since the glands would liquefy during the forging.
Noah laid his back on the floor and placed the altered glands inside his injuries. The forging only needed the organs to be close, so he didn't need to pay too much attention to their position.
Blood tainted the floor of the reinforced room in which he had chosen to perform the fusion. His hands rose to touch the glands, and his mind focused on the only emotion that could make that forging possible.
Dark matter came out of his chest and flowed through his mind. When it came out of his mental sphere, the higher energy carried an intense ambition.
That wasn't the usual ambition shown when he pushed his centers of power beyond their actual level. That feeling carried unquenchable greed, which was what Noah needed.
Only a fool would try to improve his body even after it had reached such an unfathomable level. Yet, Noah couldn't give up on possible empowerments because he was already strong.
His ambition always made him desire more power, giving birth to intense greed that wouldn't feel satisfied until it had obtained everything it wanted.
Noah's constant hunger had stopped bothering him after he had obtained the fourth center of power. However, his instincts had become more intense and deeper since they had fused with the very core of his individuality.
A vague shade in his existence would become a flashy characteristic of his individuality. Anything fueled by his ambition would reach intensity levels that could even lead Noah away from his original path.
That was the real drawback of his ambition. A bit of stress on his centers of power was nothing compared to the constant worry that his individuality could render him blind.
The dark matter covered Noah's chest as it poured his ambition into the glands. The structure of those organs trembled as a new drive fused with their fabric and forced them to liquefy.
The same fabric of the glands began to desire that fusion. Noah was affecting the laws in their structure with his will. His creation allowed him to modify the matter without much effort.
Coldness spread in his chest, but an intense pain soon suppressed all his senses. The entirety of his mind fell victim to that sensation, and Noah could only spare some attention to the actual procedure while it endured that suffering.
Noah had become used to those procedures by then. Pain couldn't make him lose focus nor control of the fusion. He was a real expert in those fields.
The glands liquefied and fused with his lungs. Noah soon found himself unable to breathe, and even the few grunts that tried to come out of his mouth ended up being nothing more than silent gestures.
Dark matter flowed inside his body together with the liquefied glands. Noah's higher energy worked as a glue capable of filling every flaw in the organs stabilizing inside his chest.
Noah's felt his lungs growing before shrinking again. They then expanded to restart that cycle of absorption and distribution of the new material in their structure.
The fusion went smoothly. Both lungs and the glands already knew what they had to do. Noah's body followed his desires, and the Snake's organs carried his ambition, so they accepted themselves.
The same went for the nature of those organs. After the modifications, the glands had become suitable for Noah's body, and they accepted their new structure and nature.
A few problems arose after the entirety of the glands had fused with his lungs. Those organs carried two different innate abilities in the end. It was only normal for their laws to fight for the ownership of that matter.
However, the black hole released more dark matter at that point. A thick layer of higher energy covered Noah's lungs and isolated them from the rest of his body.
The dark matter created two incubators that suppressed those conflicts and helped to adjust the structure of those organs. Part of the energy absorbed by the black hole also flowed inside their structure and pushed them to fuse completely.
Noah heaved a sigh of relief when he inspected the incubators. He had been ready to throw away his lungs in case they threatened to explode, but his fourth center of power had behaved according to his predictions.