Chapter 2262: 2262. Storms
Sword Saint was one of the greatest maniacs in the entire higher plane, but he was by no means dumb. His intelligence was mostly sharpness-related, but that didn't make him unable to understand basic things like the fantastic feats of his existence.
King Elbas and the other major players who watched the short exchange between Sword Saint and the old man also understood that something incredible had just happened. Sword Saint's casual attack had hurt one of the strongest privileged cultivators on Heaven and Earth's side.
The injury suffered by the old man was nothing significant. It was a small cut that leaked a few drops of blood before closing. The wound didn't even stretch to his world, but it had opened nonetheless.
The event proved something amazing to both sides involved in the final battle. The leaders from Noah's organizations could match the best assets in Heaven and Earth's army. Great Builder's fight had left that matter unclear, but Sword Saint's attack had brought a definite answer.
The landmass didn't care that Sword Saint had come in its defense. It barely noticed that something so tiny was unfolding before its tip. The creature wanted bigger targets, and Divine Architect's castle was a good start.
Dense energy began to flow inside the landmass to fill every corner of its structure. The areas around the creature darkened due to the weight of its sharp aura, and danger appeared in everyone's minds.
"Are you really set on letting this creature attack?" The old man calmly wondered without moving away from that odd position. "It will hurt you. It will hurt everyone."
"That's one of the many natures of a blade," Sword Saint responded. "Those who can't stand it will simply die."
"Quite merciless, aren't we?" The old man commented while showing a faint smirk.
Sword Saint ignored that answer and waved his arm. The attack aimed to cut off the privileged cultivator's head, but the latter half-crouched and let the limb sever only a tiny chunk of his flesh.
Normal humans would have died after suffering a similar injury. However, the battle involved gods at the peak of the cultivation journey. The old man lost a small chunk of his head, but he regrew it in no time. The wound didn't even reach his world.
Sword Saint didn't stop there. His figure lit up with silver light as his arm descended in an attempt to cut his opponent in half.
The privileged cultivator couldn't perform his previous slight dodges against that attack. Sword Saint would cover a vast area with his sharp energy, so a mere side-step or slight movement wouldn't get the old man out of the technique's trajectory.
Nevertheless, what happened left speechless all the experts who were paying attention to those exchanges. Sword Saint swung his arm downward, but his energy dispersed when the old man performed a strange movement.
The privileged cultivator's hands seemed to turn into snakes as he stabbed his fingers on precise spots of Sword Saint's arm. Some went on his wrist, while others on his elbow, which forced the limb to bend in an unusual way and release the accumulated energy.
The attack failed due to the privileged cultivator's technique. Sword Saint's energy still unleashed its sharpness during its violent release, but the old man only suffered superficial injuries due to the innate defenses protecting his world.
The surprising event wasn't the end of it. The landmass had continued to accumulate energy during the exchange without caring or paying attention to the two powerful experts fighting right above its tip.
The landmass finished accumulating energy when the privileged cultivator performed his technique, and it didn't hesitate to unleash it. A massive shadow came out of the creature and shot forward, but its path was cut short by a giant green barrier that endured the entirety of its might.
The clash created a shockwave that made the entire higher plane fall into pure chaos. The landmass' attack contained so much energy that even multiple solid stage cultivators would struggle to endure it. The impact on the barrier created violent storms that spread everywhere on the battlefield.
Those storms carried only a fraction of what the landmass had planned to release into a single attack, but they remained strong enough to endanger most of both armies.
Divine Architect disregarded the danger that fell on her army, but King Elbas couldn't be as uncaring as her. His whole figure lit up with golden light as he summoned the full power of the now-golden city.
Countless buildings materialized on the battlefield and created portals, teleports, and separate dimensions that absorbed the many underlings on the landmass' side and brought them to safety.
The formations that Pellio had turned ethereal to let the landmass run free found themselves filled with platoons and injured experts. King Elbas had teleported everyone there. Still, he couldn't add protections to their figures.
Pellio promptly interrupted his technique and let the arrays of formations apply their power on the higher plane. Countless inscriptions lit up with multicolored lights and shielded the experts inside them from the violent storms flying everywhere on the battlefield.
Thousands of explosions resounded at the same time as the storms crashed on avatars, weapons, defenses, and formations. The dark energy unleashed by the landmass appeared endless, so the low rumblings continued for many seconds.
Only the sky seemed immune to those sharp storms. The dark energy fell on the white surface in countless spots, but the event didn't cause explosions. The dark power dispersed in front of walls that it couldn't pierce.
Of course, the battlefield didn't suddenly become empty. King Elbas had made sure to save most of his underlings, but the other leaders had handled their own protections.
The same went for the leaders in Heaven and Earth's army. The higher plane transformed into a raging mass of dark energy interrupted only by small multicolored lights created by the various experts' defenses.
The bigger ones were green, the same green as the barrier that had stopped the landmass' attack. Noah's black aura came second in that field since the roots unleashed the peak of their corrosive properties to defend against the incoming storms.
It became impossible to fight on the battlefield for a few seconds. Battles couldn't happen in that environment, but Noah and a few major experts used that chaos to press on with their offensive.
Noah didn't care that his mind felt about to explode. He was letting the parasite's desire to consume the whole world take control of his actions to reduce the pressure on his consciousness.
Noah became a pure embodiment of destruction as he created even more forests. The parasite had every intention to cover the entire sky with its branches, but some privileged cultivator or powerful avatar always prevented it from expanding too much.
That didn't stop Noah from releasing even more seeds. He knew that the branches were keeping many powerful experts busy, so he never stopped the parasite from going wild.
The parasite was part of Noah's world, so filling the higher plane with branches benefited his existence. He could feel raw potential building up inside him as he flew non-stop alongside the sky, but he could also sense how he would eventually run dry of power.
However, those worries never became able to take control of Noah's mind. He wasn't ignoring his condition, but he had far sadder matters to think about. He was keeping track of the major battles, so he knew that many of his friends wouldn't live to see the fall of the sky.