Noah felt stronger than ever. Cuts and holes made him bleed, but he barely felt them. His mind was cold even if destructive thoughts and anger filled its insides.
Mere bones couldn't oppose his attacks. The cultivator couldn't do anything after Noah pierced the armor of swords. The expert's attacks also failed to deal enough damage since Noah's destruction acted as a defensive shield that was highly effective against abilities that he continued to study.
It was as if Robert's laws had reached perfection after making its aspects flow in Noah's ambition. Each of its properties had found its true path when paired with unstoppable physical strength, a mind meant to find flaws, and a true meaning that could empower everything he had. Noah had literally transformed in minutes, and the cultivator could only remain in awe in front of his relentless offensive.
The cultivator skull didn't move, but his hoarse voice still resounded in the area. "What are you? Why can you pierce me?"
Noah could explain in detail how his mind continued to study the expert's existence and increase the efficiency of his corrosiveness. He could tell him how those features didn't only apply to the parasite and the destructive aura that lingered around his figure. He could reveal how that was only part of his power, but words were useless now.
A slash shot out of the sword-shaped root in Noah's hand after a simple wave of his hand. The attack was massive and carried so many properties that even a stable mind would struggle to recognize.
The greed and hunger carried by the slash made the ground shatter and forced its energy to flow inside the curved attack to increase its size and power. Those aspects even relied on specific parts of Noah's destruction and creation to increase the dangerousness of their influence and improve the blow without destabilizing its structure.
The slash released intense sharpness capable of seeping into the very fabric of space and time. The cultivator saw it flying toward him, but he felt unable to move or dodge it. The world had already recorded his impact with the attack and had turned it into an unavoidable event.
Trails of dark smoke came out of the slash. The dark matter was the strongest and most flexible material in the world, so it replicated the effects of Noah's flames and the parasite's corrosiveness. His destruction also did its part there, and it added the knowledge gathered by his mind to make everything more effective against the cultivator.
Anger filled the slash too. Noah knew that his opponent was part of Heaven and Earth's system, so his new feeling activated and improved the effectiveness of his attack.
There was simply too much in that single attack, and Noah could add even more. He still had the companions, the dark world, his army of disposable puppets, the stronger effects that the Demonic Sword could generate, the superior power of the cursed sword, the Shadow Domain, and his ethereal center of power.
The laws of most existences that reached the ninth rank would only carry one or two aspects, but Noah had so many that he could pick which ones he considered to be more effective in each situation. Even the liquid stage cultivator with his confused mind could acknowledge him as the strongest monster that had ever stepped on the Immortal Lands.
The slash slammed on the cultivator and created a hole in his innate defenses. The armor of swords shattered as flames, sharpness, black lines, and a corrosive substance spread throughout his chest. He had to make one of his giant swords fall next to him and make it release its shockwaves to get rid of those abilities.
The exchange left the cultivator severely weakened. His cultivation level resumed falling as his existence started to crumble again. Noah's attacks had managed to shatter the stability that the expert's clarity had brought. It didn't take much before he reached the peak of the gaseous stage and lost even more body parts.
The cultivator didn't give up. He raised his arm toward the sky and spread his aura forward. His broken existence seemed to create a connection with the white layer far away in the distance to call for help.
Noah didn't want to test himself against Heaven and Earth's counter at that time. He had too much in his mind. He had even thought of a way to quicken the improvement of his battle prowess. He couldn't let the rulers slow him down now.
The array of lines replaced the world in his vision. Noah sprinted in front of the skeleton while leaving a large crack connected to the void behind him, but he noticed that something was off when he was about to pierce the expert with his sword-shaped root.
The skeleton didn't have facial muscles anymore. Its eyes were even completely white, so it was hard to read his expressions. However, the desperation that had seeped into his aura was impossible to miss. He was looking at the sky, but the sky wasn't looking back.
Noah stopped to look in the same direction. He felt almost able to see the connection that the cultivator had built with Heaven and Earth, but nothing was flowing toward the storms. The rulers were silent as if they didn't recognize their followers.
"Their system can't recognize you because they have lost the original laws," Noah explained quickly.
"What?" The skeleton asked while lowering his head, but the sword-shaped root pierced his heart.
Noah had used his previous line to keep the expert surprised long enough to pierce the armor of swords with the roots. The corrosive substance and the black lines spread through the cultivator's organs, and pieces of his maimed body started to fall or turn into dust.
The cultivator tried to summon his power to free himself of those substances, but Noah stabbed his other hand through the innate defenses and grabbed the skull before his opponent could release any attack. The armor of swords was too weak now, to his empowered body was more than enough to pierce it.
An azure light started to shine from behind Noah's reptilian eyes. He dived deep into the expert's confused mind and searched among messy thoughts and shards of his mental sphere for his core. That existence would have many missing spots and feature multiple instabilities, but Noah didn't care. He only wanted those ideas.
The confused thoughts were a messy cloud that made his exploration troublesome. Noah even found giant ethereal swords floating around and reacting to that foreign presence, but his black mental waves were too powerful there. He could even release his bloodlust to clear the area quickly, but he feared that he would damage the cultivator's existence due to its frail state.
A white core eventually appeared in his vision, and Noah didn't hesitate to seize it. When he opened his eyes, he found that ethereal mass of energy in his palm.
Noah couldn't absorb something created by Heaven and Earth right away. It would only self-destruct inside his mind. Still, it wasn't hard for him to start a process that could purify that energy.
A dark-purple liquid came out of his skin and forced the connection and influence of Heaven and Earth to leave the white core. Sizzling noises came out of that existence until it darkened and found a new unstable form.
Noah put that energy inside his mind and let his mental waves contain its unstable structure. He had already developed an ability due to Supreme Thief's technique, but he didn't want to limit himself there. He had other plans for that existence.
****
Author's notes: One hour or so for the third chapter.