Chapter 1946 1946. World

Gratia's body split. Her light couldn't stop Noah's slash and Night. Her power was unable to deal with the monstrous existence who was rewriting the limits that each rank had to respect.

The apparent severing of her connection with her dantian didn't affect the control over her energy. Gratia had one of Heaven and Earth's existences, but she remained a rank 9 cultivator. She was a personal world, even if her edges blended with the environment around her due to the connection with the rulers.

Gratia could call upon more power, but she couldn't see the point behind that effort. Noah had shown his superiority. His techniques, a.s.sets, and existence were above her. She even suspected that the difference between their powers came from a radically different approach to the cultivation journey.

Noah didn't give up on his freedom. He was even resorting to every reckless method that came up in his mind to find a way out of Heaven and Earth's oppression. Instead, Gratia had given up on that part of her drive. She didn't even recall her existence before the rulers at that point in her life.

Noah wasn't the type to speak during battles. Gratia's existence was still in one piece after he had cut her in half, so he didn't hesitate to slash again. His two swords performed a vertical attack that opened two deep cuts into her already maimed body.

Gratia's light continued to s.h.i.+ne even after that attack, so Noah continued to cut her into pieces. Her existence didn't seem to contain any unique aspect that could interest him, so he preferred to turn her into pure energy.

Liquid stage cultivators turned out to be far tougher to kill even after reaching that stage of the battle. Noah had relied on the stealing ability to shatter the existences of the gaseous stage experts hunted in the previous years, but killing without it turned out to be somewhat annoying.

Noah couldn't even force himself to activate the ability obtained by absorbing Supreme Thief's technique. His greed was the foundation of the skill, and he felt no interest in Gratia. He only wanted her nutrients.

The light in Gratia's body tried to disperse into the world, but Noah made sure to absorb everything. His dark world even expanded to prevent any attempt of the sleeping rulers to save her. That victory had to happen now.

Waves of power flowed inside Noah and healed every injury that the cursed sword tried to activate. The amount of energy carried by a liquid stage cultivator was immense. His body cheered as the black hole purified that fuel and sent everything to his flesh. Growing stronger eased the instabilities generated by the deepening of his existence, but that didn't seem enough to fix his issue.

The stronger centers of power allowed Noah to express the expanded aspects of his existence better, but they remained bound to the innate limits of his level.

Noah could ignore those limits by piling on different techniques and relying on his ambition, but that didn't involve the actual state of his centers of power. His body probably was the most resilient material in the world, but his dantian had different requirements, and its structure didn't determine how easily it could shatter. An existence too heavy for a rank 8 organ would turn that flesh into a b.l.o.o.d.y pulp.

"You are amazing," Gratia eventually admitted as her voice resounded from the b.l.o.o.d.y pieces floating among the dark world. "The world will never forget that you have existed. However, you must die for everyone's sake. A rank 8 cultivator can't have so much power."

Noah almost ignored Gratia's words. She had turned into nothing more than gory pieces, so he didn't want to let her tempt him when victory was so close. However, his dark matter suddenly became unable to devour her light.

"I'm an avatar of the sky," Gratia explained through her gory pieces. "You might overwhelm me, but can you keep up?"

Noah didn't even snort. It didn't matter that his dark matter couldn't pierce her light anymore. Gratia would still turn into food once he transformed her existence into primary energy.

His swords continued to fall and worsen Gratia's condition, but she didn't die. Instead, her light started to intensify. She was relying on the resilience given by her rank 9 status to gather power and increase its density.

Noah's relentless offensive eventually came to an end. He slashed with his swords only to find that the light didn't let them go further. They remained stuck in the air as the whiteness started to expand and push the dark world backward.

Noah didn't give up so easily. A dark aura covered his skin and joined the empowerment on the swords to push his offensive power to the limit. His physical strength reached levels that most lower tier magical beasts would struggle to face, but the light didn't budge. His new power only allowed him to retract his weapons.

"Your existence is simply weaker," Gratia exclaimed before flares started to shoot out of her light.

The flares ran through the dark world and transformed the dark matter into blinding whiteness. Noah directly lost control of that higher energy, but his technique instinctively compensated for the lost power.

Noah launched a piercing slash, but the light became solid and released a clanging noise when the sharp tips slammed on it. The weapons couldn't pierce it at all now. They didn't even manage to leave marks on that white crystal.

The crystal suddenly released a wave of white light. Noah instinctively retreated through his movement technique and opened a long crack in the sky, but the whiteness didn't stop expanding even after it fell into the void.

The entirety of the dark world transformed into Heaven and Earth's whiteness. The rulers of the world went back to normality. The sky even appeared stabler than usual.

Every trace of darkness had disappeared from the area illuminated by the new light radiated by Gratia's existence, and Noah felt unable to pierce it. Even his mental sphere couldn't go past that domain. She had expanded her personal world, and he could see how it blended perfectly with the sky.

'That's the power of her world,' Noah commented in his mind as the gory pieces inside the light started to grow.

Gratia appeared quite simple as an existence. Her abilities were mostly discharges of energy that used light as their foundation, but her world brought that power further. She wasn't only part of the whiteness. She could spread it and absorb the matter affected by her influence.

"Your darkness has to reach the sky," Gratia stated as her voice made the sky tremble. "The rulers must learn from you before you become a problem."

Gratia slowly rebuilt herself inside the light. Her eyes opened after a white robe covered her body again. The event made the area affected by her influence expand, and more of the world stabilized under her glow.

The cracks that Noah had opened everywhere started to close as Gratia drew energy from the storms far away in the distance. She seemed in control of the world, but that power felt borrowed. Still, she didn't even try to pretend to own it.

"You made me call on the power that Heaven and Earth have bestowed on me," Gratia announced. "Be proud."

****

Author's notes: I should need less than 30 minutes for the second.