Countless eels started to jump out of the swamp by releasing torrents of poisonous water, but nothing managed to reach Noah. Such weak specimens couldn't get past his rain of slashes, and even those in the middle tier died when they faced precise attacks.
The eels weren't strong individually. They were magical beasts with low requirements in terms of energy, which allowed them to grow immense packs. Their power came from the poisonous waters that they released, and Noah eventually began to suffer because of them.
A single attack couldn't go past Noah's fiendish armor. Even hundreds of them couldn't break through his defenses, especially since nothing ever got too close to his position. However, the fumes intensified as the battle continued, and the modifications made to the dark world slowly became ineffective.
Noah could feel his mind growing heavy. He knew what the enemy leaders were doing. The sacrifice of so many underlings aimed to weaken him so that the upper tier specimens could inflict the final blow.
Truth be told, the approach was working. The Cursed Labyrinth was a perfect environment for certain types of magical beasts, especially those that focused on building immense packs. The eels could reproduce quickly and easily, so the swamp was filled with creatures capable of producing more poison.
The eels could also continue to release poison even after dying. Their internal organs and thin layers of flesh became the fuel that their skin used to expand. A single lower tier specimen could create an entire lake after its death, and Noah killed hundreds of them every time he waved his swords.
The eels' assault was relentless. It soon became hard to see the sky due to the dense fumes that had risen from the surface. Noah couldn't unfold his mental waves since they crumbled as soon as they touched that poisonous gas, so the torrents converging toward him slowly grew closer.
The pack was gaining ground, but Noah waited to unleash his full power. His destruction was seeping into the very fabric of the dimension. Black lines spread on the space-time array of the area. He felt almost able to create a hole in the environment, but he didn't act yet.
Everything around Noah was dark. His black crystal released dark matter non-stop to replace the infected higher energy in his fiendish armor, but dark-green patches began to appear on his skin anyway.
Entire parts of his body wanted to shut down, but the black crystal kept the infection away from the most important organs. The unstable substance allowed Noah to retain his peak physical strength, so the eels couldn't experience the results of their offensive.
Still, injuries continued to accumulate, but Noah waited. His slashes destroyed everything on their path, including entire chunks of the swamp. The parasite even devoured part of the environment, but the rest of his companions remained inside his figure. Duanlong had also gone back to prepare.
The wait felt endless. Noah slaughtered everything coming in his way. The eels were getting closer, and some torrents landed on his figure, but the leaders remained hidden.
Then, Noah's survival instincts began to scream louder than before. Something big was about to arrive, and a cold smile inevitably appeared on his face. His opportunity had come.
The Cursed Sword went silent while the Demonic Sword launched a roar that accompanied the release of dark matter. Night cut through the fumes and triggered the destruction that had accumulated in the environment until now.
A giant hole opened in the fabric of space. The swamp found itself split into two halves as the massive gorge spread in its very middle. The dimension under the area was empty, so the toxic waters and muddy ground began to fall inside it.
The fumes experienced the same fate. The gorge expanded, which enlarged the overall area that the poisonous gas could fill. Noah became able to expand his consciousness now that everything flowed into the new space, and he could immediately see four massive torrents converging toward his position.
The torrents contained upper tier specimens, the very leaders of the pack. The poisonous water they released was dense, and Noah believed it could tear through his body. However, he had no intention to face it head-on.
Duanlong came out and spread its mouth. The bottom of its throat became the center of a powerful pulling force that made the four torrents change their direction.
The eels found themselves in the open after a mere second. The poison around them had disappeared, and they didn't know where it had gone.
Noah's trap didn't end there. A giant figure began to leave his body and take its place in the sky. Shafu appeared and revealed its immense size. The dragon was so big that the area seemed to shrink even after Noah had enlarged it by making the layer between dimensions crumble.
Shafu opened its mouth and sucked the entire swamp inside its separate dimension. The dragon's ability allowed it to divide the poisonous waters and muddy ground from the eels, which ended in two different areas of its belly.
Noah also entered Shafu's separate dimension. Countless eels expanded in his view when he reached their location. They were already trying to recreate the swamp by releasing their poison, but the process couldn't be fast since Shafu had placed them into an environment that countered them.
Snore came out of Noah's figure and unfolded its wings. The eels screamed, but that didn't stop the snake from unleashing the entirety of its feathers.
A storm took control of the area. Destructive dark matter raged and forced Noah to divert more potential to Shafu. Snore's attack was too powerful, and even Shafu's separate dimension risked crumbling under the weight of those black currents.
Noah studied the storms with his cold reptilian eyes. The destructive dark matter prevented him from using his consciousness to inspect the area, but he knew what was happening. Snore's power was incredible. He expected most of the pack to die.
The storms raged for a long time, but they eventually started to disperse. The dark matter didn't leave anything behind. Even the corpses had disappeared among that destructive force, but something had managed to survive.
A solid dark-green sphere appeared after the storms dispersed. The poisonous properties of that figure were so threatening that ripples appeared in the fabric of space of Shafu's separate dimension.
The sphere was at the very peak of the upper tier, but it had completed its role. Cracks began to open on its surface, and shards started to fall. That solid poison transformed into gas that dispersed inside the separate dimension, leaving behind only four upper tier eels and a few specimens in the middle tier.
"Mercy!" One of the upper tier eels screamed.
"You won!" Another upper tier eel continued. "We'll hear you out now."
"I don't care about words anymore," Noah growled as he raised his swords.
The eels begged and cursed, but nothing reached Noah. His swords descended, and a giant slash fell on the last specimens in the pack.
Those creatures could be useful, but Noah didn't care. The turtles were disrespectful, but they weren't dumb. They had acknowledged Noah's power in no time. Instead, the eels had decided to surrender only after losing almost all their pack.. They weren't the type of allies that he wanted.