Noah didn't care that the giant brown avatar was in the middle tier. He had been able to damage an item with similar power before his long period of training. His existence was on a completely different level now.
However, the cauldron didn't do anything. It had only stood still in front of the relentless offensive. The avatar was the dog's counter, but it wouldn't let Noah attack it freely, and its offensive remained two tiers above the level of his body.
Noah could feel the sheer power contained in the avatar's brown alloy seeping through his feet and trying to ravage his insides. Even standing near that creature seemed too much at his current level, but he didn't care about the injuries that he could suffer.
The giant was nothing more than a massive amount of energy in his eyes. Noah's body and dantian didn't suit that battle, but his mind felt perfect for the challenge. His superior center of power was already working to find flaws in the avatar's structure. His companions even revealed astonished expressions when they saw black lines spreading from the alloy under his feet.
Noah had been on the avatar for mere seconds, but his mind was already spreading his destruction. It had taken his center of power no time to start affecting materials in the middle tier.
'That's how it should be,' Noah thought as a cold smile appeared on his face.
His ethereal blackness had yet to reach its full potential, but his mind was almost there. The latter had already benefitted from the empowerment forced by his new center of power. The next improvements would arrive when Noah added his rank 9 darkness, dark matter, and primary energy to the fuel contained inside it.
Still, his mind had already reached levels that Heaven and Earth couldn't categorize. Noah had forced his already monstrous might to go far beyond its limits, and the feat had given him something that only he could improve further.
The Demonic Sword materialized in Noah's hand as a black handle came out of his chest. The color of the sky changed when the cursed sword came out in the open and forced his mind to unleash the bloodlust contained inside his mind. Storms directly shattered as that heavy pressure spread through the area and filled the world with Noah's intense desire to destroy everything.
The dogs found themselves retreating until they managed to endure the bloodlust. Even in their improved state, they remained magical beasts, so Noah's mental waves ended up far more effective on them. His pride forced his violent thoughts to affect their simpler minds. Some of them directly lost control of their actions and fell prey to their innate aggression.
Some of the dogs separated from the rest of the group and shot forward while controlling the remaining winds around them to transform them into various attacks that converged toward the giant. The latter had started to turn toward Noah after his recent display of power, but the incoming threat forced it to focus on the magical beasts again.
Noah's mind took note of what the giant was doing, but he ignored that. His hunger almost burst out of his figure in front of that massive amount of energy. His blade descended while the black lines continued to spread through the brown alloy, and an explosion of black and dark-red shades filled the area.
The storms were almost about to reach the giant, but the wave of energy released during the attack made them crumble. The shockwaves even reached the mindless dogs and flung them back, but the impact didn't manage to bring some reason in their clouded minds. Instead, their aggression continued to intensify even if superficial wounds appeared among their orange fur.
Noah's attacks had gained the chance to add his new understanding of time to their effects, but their power should have theoretically remained the same. His mental energy had never affected his slashes too much in the end.
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Yet, Noah was his ethereal darkness now, and his sea of consciousness was part of it. His mind could express his aspects through mental waves and by fusing them with his attacks. He wasn't using more energy than usual, but his destruction forced them to ignore the limitations connected to the lack of fuel.
That was the true power of the ninth rank. Noah generated power from nothing. The sole fact that his existence had reached such a breathtaking power made his aspects so influential that mere rank 8 energy could give birth to rank 9 attacks at ease.
Of course, their power came from the intensity of Noah's destruction. He could make his creation empower his energy in a similar way, but that aspect wouldn't be able to do much in a battle unless he got creative.
The waves of destruction eventually vanished and revealing how Noah was still standing on the avatar's shoulder. Multiple cracks had appeared on the brown alloy on that spot, but they didn't seem deep enough to hinder its movements.
The avatar turned its featureless face toward Noah while a series of holes appeared on its surface. A dangerous sensation immediately filled his mind, but the winds previously accumulated by the giant shot out before he could perform an evasive maneuver.
Everything in Noah's vision slowed down. The winds released by the holes resembled dense torrents that had gained part of the giant's brown shades. Nine different gales were aiming at Noah, and even one of them carried enough power to create a chest-sized hole in his body.
The gales moved slowly inside his vision. Noah felt to have all the time in the world to think about the incoming technique. He could study the scene and compare his various options to decide what would benefit him the most in that situation.
His mind was applying his understanding of time to the thinking speed. That feature fused with the power carried by his new mental waves and allowed him to see even middle tier attacks in slow-motion.
The best course of action was dodging. It became evident in no time that Noah could avoid facing the attack completely if he deployed his improved movement techniques. However, he wasn't in the right mental state to perform an evasive maneuver. He only wanted to destroy the avatar and take its energy, even if that meant suffering some injuries.
Black lines appeared on the gales as they flew toward Noah. His destruction spread in the fraction of a second it took them to cross the distance between the holes and their target.
Noah had enough time to spread his destruction and slash with his blades. His swords clashed directly with the gales before triggering the destruction accumulated on their structure, and the dark waves of energy filled the environment again.
The experts in the distance remained speechless in front of the sheer power released in the environment. They wanted to join the battle, but the sole fact that Noah was going all-out turned the entire area into a massive, deadly trap that they couldn't approach without suffering injuries.
A figure shot out of the cloud of darkness. The experts saw Noah flying through the storms and stopping after vanquishing his momentum. Multiple cuts had appeared on his skin. Entire patches of missing flesh filled his torso, but his smile was wider than ever.
The experts only had to take a look at the giant to understand the reason behind his excitement. Two long marks had appeared on the avatar's featureless face. They created a cross-shaped scar in the spot where a human would normally have a mouth.
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Author's notes: The next chapter will arrive in an hour or so.