Chapter 696: 696. Peak

"That wasn't satisfying at all."

Flying Demon exclaimed when he and Dreaming Demon reappeared on the teleportation matrix inside the separate dimension.

Noah was training right next to the array, and he didn't fail to notice that there was a third figure together with the two elders.

Dreaming Demon was carrying an unconscious woman, and her robes revealed her identity as a noble.

Also, the woman was a rank 4 cultivator in the gaseous stage!

"Noah, we plundered everything that we could, but most resources have been destroyed in the attack. Yet, we captured her. A heroic cultivator should be worth quite a lot."

Flying Demon said as he smirked when he pointed at the fainted noble.

However, Noah already had another plan for her.

He didn't limit himself to enlarge his sea of consciousness through the wills of the magical beasts because they were more effective, but because the political situation didn't allow him to hunt heroic cultivators.

Also, he wasn't able to kill heroic cultivators without maiming their bodies.

The patriarchs and matriarchs killed during the raids would lose too much blood after Noah's attacks, which made unsuitable for the Body-inscription spell.

Yet, the two Demons had managed to capture one of them alive!

"The noble families must have understood by now that we can't be stopped so easily. They should move in the next months."

Dreaming Demon explained, but Noah had already stopped caring about the matters concerning the outside world.

His mental sphere had almost reached the peak of the fourth rank, and that noble could push it through those last steps.

It was needless to say that he simply requested her.

"I'll take her. She might be useful for my training."

Noah said, and the elders showed interested expressions before handing the fainted noble to him.

"My mental waves are forcing her to sleep. She won't wake up even if you take her life."

Dreaming Demon warned Noah before destroying the array and flying toward the rest of the group together with her lover.

The last assault saw the forces of the Hive attacking a medium-size noble family surrounded by four small-size families that had moved to create a united front against the mysterious assailants.

Their force amounted to five rank 4 cultivators who weren't assets that Noah could take on stealthy and quickly.

His current prowess made him able to fight them at the same time, but that alone wasn't suitable for the strategy of the Hive.

The assaults had to be quick and effective, and there was no room for long battles.

So, only the two Demons had the power to kill the heroic assets while also meeting the requirements of the raids.

Of course, their presence prevented the other troops from joining the battlefield since they would just die in the crossfire.

Their performance had been incredible nonetheless, and they had managed to destroy those families while also seizing many resources.

Noah moved toward one of the areas of the dimension that he usually used as a training spot.

It wasn't easy to find a private place since the dimension didn't have anything in its environment that could block the view of the other cultivators.

Yet, Noah had expanded the tunnel downward in that period to create a few small but secluded caves.

The group from the Hive had been under the Utra nation for a year by then, and the tunnel had become far more intricate as the raids continued.

Human cultivators could train in the open, but Noah and the elders needed a private space to handle their situations.

Noah had his experiments, and the Demons needed some intimacy now and then, so private spaces were a necessity.

Noah carefully tore the side of the noble's neck as he began the preparation for the Body-inscription spell.

That was his first time performing the spell to a human, but he didn't intend to create a Blood companion.

'The will of a human should be far stronger than that of a magical beast!'

Noah thought as excitement mounted inside him.

He had trained his mind like a madman in the last years, but the enlargement of his mental sphere kept on slowing down as it improved.

The time required to take more steps increased as the peak of the rank drew near.

However, Noah was confident in shortening the process by using that noble.

Noah completed the preparations for the spell without imbuing any specific meanings in the blood and dantian of the woman.

The heroic cultivator died in the process, but she had already lost her value in Noah's mind.

Saber-shaped runes came out of his hand and took a humanoid shape as they floated in the air.

Noah added as many details as he could to the picture since he didn't know the requirements of the spell when it came to humans.

Then, he manipulated the runes to injure his chest when they reached a satisfying level of power.

Noah quickly spread the noble's blood in his wounds and ate her dantian before focusing on the insides of his mental sphere.

The ethereal figure of the noble rose from the sea inside his mind, but she didn't seem to have any trace of intelligence.

Instead, she radiated a peculiar aura that Noah hadn't been able to sense when she was sleeping.

However, there was a limit to how much that detail interested him.

Noah directly deployed all his offensive methods and submitted the noble's ethereal figure that fell apart.

He was able to tame rank 5 magical beasts, so the will of a rank 4 mage couldn't resist him.

Nevertheless, he had to admit that the battle wasn't easy since the will managed to struggle even more than some rank 5 creatures.

It didn't have their power, but it was far denser.

Noah's brown mental energy devoured the woman's will when it fell apart, and a tremor suddenly swept the entirety of his sphere.

The walls of the sphere enlarged until they met some sort of invisible barrier that forced the expansion to a stop.

Noah opened his material eyes at that point, and he was pleasantly surprised to discover that his mind had reached the peak of the fourth rank!

'Finally! It has taken me twenty-five years.'

Noah thought as he waited for his sea of consciousness to stabilize completely.

'Human wills are denser, which is only natural since they have a mental sphere. Yet, there was that strange aura.'

The noble's aura was peculiar, and Noah couldn't help but evaluate it when the procedure was over.

However, he quickly put it in the back of his mind since everything would be more evident once he became a rank 5 mage.