Chapter 1319: 1319. Pain and hunger

Noah ran faster than he had ever done before. Trees appeared and vanished in his vision as he tried to leave that dangerous forest.

The area still trembled. Every inch of that environment radiated the Twelve-legged Queen's aura and increased the range of its senses. Yet, they never managed to notice Noah since the dark matter was covering him.

Also, he was less than a speck of dust lost inside an ocean. Noah had never been too good at hiding himself, but the Spider couldn't tell the difference between him and one of the magical plants in the environment while he was inside the armor of dark matter.

'Why am I even forced to go through this as soon as I reach the Immortal Lands?' Noah cursed in his mind as he kept his emission of energy to the minimum.

Cries and tremors ran through the forest during his escape. The Twelve-legged Queen continued interrogating Zac and Gil, but Noah had no intention to see how long that decoy would last.

He had to leave. He would die if the rank 8 magical beast found him and deployed its abilities to hunt him down. Noah's vast knowledge and unique techniques would be useless once the creature decided to use its power against him.

Noah ran for entire months, and his black hole made him go faster when he sensed that the forest didn't shake anymore. The Twelve-legged Queen had stopped dealing with the duo, so he had to give everything on his last sprint.

The end of the forest eventually appeared in his eyes. Noah saw a giant lake unfolding past the last array of trees, and he didn't hesitate to fly above it.

The white sky began to apply the entirety of its pressure on his mind once Noah left the safe area created by the trees' azure crowns, but he didn't dare to slow down.

Noah didn't care if he depleted all his mental energy during his escape. His only priority was to put as many kilometers as he could between him and the forest. Everything else could wait for when he stopped.

The lake radiated a dangerous area, but Noah didn't study it. He flew for more months and eventually reached one of the bordering regions. A gray mountain chain appeared in his vision, and Noah landed in one of its valleys to find a decent hiding spot.

Noah let his instincts pick the place where he would dig a cave. Dangerous auras came out from all the mountains, but he settled in the safest areas that he could find.

The location for his cave ended up being a valley between two short mountains. Noah dug in its terrain and built a temporary home that he reinforced with his dark matter.

Once the dark matter began to radiate the same aura as the environment, Noah called back his fiendish armor and began to assess his condition.

He had suffered multiple injuries during the battle against the three cultivators, but his dark flames had always managed to fix them. At the moment, Noah only suffered from a lack of energy, especially when it came to his sea of consciousness.

His body was still full of energy, and Noah didn't use his darkness during his escape. His dantian was far from full, but refilling it wasn't a priority.

The same went for the black hole. Noah had mostly used dark matter in that situation because it could keep him hidden from the rank 8 creature's aura, but his fourth center of power seemed to have an endless stash of energy.

'I can rest for a while,' Noah thought as his spherical rune appeared in his palm. 'I will move as soon as I learn how to leave the area of influence of the Crystal City.'

Noah had stopped training his mind during his escape due to the white sky, but he would reactivate it as soon as his mental sea reformed. He wouldn't neglect his training, even with pursuers after him.

The Demonic Sword came out of his separate space once his mind recovered and began to expand again. Noah cultivated and refilled his dantian before focusing on what he had gained in the forest.

Most of his thoughts analyzed Noah's sensations when he saw the rank 8 magical beast. The insights about the path past the seventh rank filled his mind and allowed him to understand what his law had to become to advance.

Plans about his current situation also formed in his mind. He didn't have a method to fend off Gil's tracking abilities, but he could counter them by reaching a place where the Crystal City couldn't follow him.

When Noah sensed that the pieces of information in his possessions weren't enough to create a solid plan, he took out something from his separate space.

Bertha fell on the ground of his cave. She had a series of threads made of dark matter wrapped around her large body, but she wasn't awake, so those restraints were only a precaution.

The cultivator was unconscious, and one of Noah's spells was the reason behind her condition. Tiny dark blades ran under Bertha's skin from time to time and reinforced the blockades placed around her centers of power.

It had been a long time since Noah used the Shadow Swords spell. Most of the original technique had disappeared after the many modifications that happened when Noah was in the sixth and seventh rank. Yet, it now was a diagram that suited the entirety of his existence, and that could express divine power.

Noah could restrain a cultivator's centers of power by creating a series of mental blades that carried specks of dark matter inside their shape. The spell was tricky to activate in an actual battle, but the appearance of the Twelve-legged Queen had given him the chance to act.

The expansion of the dark world and the appearance of Snore's figure had the sole purpose of deceiving the rank 8 creature. Noah had managed to seize one of his opponents and run during those valuable instants.

'My problems would be over if I managed to capture the howling guy,' Noah thought as he pressed his hand on Bertha's forehead to check the state of his spell. 'A pity that he was too far away. Well, she was the strongest in the group, so she might have more to say about the Crystal City.'

Once Noah checked that the Shadow Swords spell was still in place, he decided to relieve Bertha's mind of some pressure and called back part of the restraints that kept her unconscious.

She would be able to wake up after Noah reabsorbed some of those blades, but it would be impossible to cast spells in that condition.

Bertha slowly woke up and tried to release a warning cry when she realized where she was. However, no sound came out of her open mouth, so she soon felt forced to turn toward her warden.

Noah inspected her with cold eyes. He had already decided to kill her in his mind. He would olny learn as much as he could from her before that.

A rank 7 cultivator with tight connections with the Crystal City was a valuable loot. Noah couldn't wait to learn more about the Immortal Lands from Bertha.