Chapter 2112: Infection

Fiery Mountain instinctively took a step back. She was strong for her level, but she couldn't go past it with her power. Actually, the sole idea that someone could overcome the gaps among the stages of the ninth rank seemed unreal except in specific events.

Instead, Noah and June felt entirely at ease. The two had already proven to themselves that their power alone was more than enough to overwhelm those three opponents, so they could focus on other details.

The three experts were clearly cultivators, or, at least, they had been that before transforming into that mess of branches and leaves. Noah could sense that their bodies and worlds still existed behind the corruption applied by the plants growing from them, but everything felt muddled and hidden.

The oddest detail was with the experts' power. Usually, stronger worlds would have a higher resistance against external influences or infections, but the roots were applying the opposite effect. The two cultivators in the gaseous stage still retained traces of their past selves in their auras, but the same didn't apply to their stronger companion.

"I'm taking the stronger one," June announced while Noah was still thinking about the situation.

Sparks began to crackle in June's eyes, and she even summoned her power to prepare for the imminent battle, but Noah pulled her from her robe before she could shoot forward. June shot a confused glance toward him, and he promptly shook his head.

"They might know something about this area," Noah explained. "Also, we need allies."

"I promise I won't kill it until you find a solution," June swore while wearing an untrustworthy smile.

Noah heaved a sigh as the Demonic Sword materialized in his left hand. June's eyes lit up at that gesture. She knew that he had given up on the matter, so she quickly shot toward the three experts.

"Try to stop her from killing the strong one," Noah ordered without bothering to turn toward Fiery Mountain. "Don't let her kill you in the process."

"There is a liquid stage cultivator among them," Fiery Mountain tried to complain.

"I know," Noah sighed again. "There's only one liquid stage cultivator among them."

Fiery Mountain frowned, but Noah didn't give her the time to question him any further since he shot ahead to chase June. The expert found herself alone in the sky, but she quickly decided to join the battle.

A ma.s.s of lightning bolts exploded among the sky when June crashed on the liquid stage expert. The latter didn't cast any technique and faced her with its bare body, which managed to endure the impact. Some of its leaves shattered, but new ones quickly grew from the branches.

June obviously took that as a challenge. Her figure became devoid of energy for an instant before releasing an even stronger power. Her level shot directly to the liquid stage, and the flora under her inevitably suffered.

Noah arrived right after June exploded with her second wave of power. He quickly unfolded the dark world to contain her destruction and gain better control over the battlefield before dividing the three experts. They didn't even realize that an external force had teleported them to different areas.

Fiery Mountain had started to follow Noah when the dark world enveloped her in its dark waves. She initially raised her guard but slowly relaxed when she realized that the technique didn't hinder her movements or senses. Actually, she felt stronger than ever inside those black crystals.

Fiery Mountain could inspect everything clearly. She knew that Noah had told her to handle June, but she had no intention to affect that battle. She tried to step toward one of the isolated gaseous stage experts, but she suddenly discovered that the dark world had brought her closer to June's fight.

A random lightning bolt flew past Fiery Mountain and alerted her survival instincts. That attack would have left her severely injured if it had hit her directly, and her desire to avoid that fight only intensified after that realization. However, when she tried to take a step back, the dark world brought her even closer to the center of that battlefield.

Noah decided to ignore most of what was happening on the battlefield with June, Fiery Mountain, and the liquid stage expert to focus on the two gaseous stage cultivators. The dark world was strong enough to keep them imprisoned in its black crystals, so he didn't need to act to reinforce the suppression. Yet, he still approached one of them to study it.

Noah casually waved the Demonic Sword to launch a slash. The attack didn't carry much of his power, but the dark world enhanced it before locking the gaseous stage expert in its position.

The slash slammed on the expert, but Noah immediately understood that he didn't inflict any damage. Some leaves had shattered, but the branches had kept the overall figure intact.

Noah's eyes sharpened as he waved the Demonic Sword again. A roar echoed through the dark world as the blade unleashed its true power. The dark world locked the expert in its position again, but for a very different reason at that time. The technique had to make sure that it survived the attack.

The slash crashed on the expert's left shoulder and severed it cleanly. The branches couldn't block anything when Noah attacked seriously, and the injury gave him the chance to inspect the cultivator's insides.

It turned out that some of the expert's internal organs had survived the transformation. The cultivator wasn't really human anymore, but it retained part of its original form.

Of course, Noah didn't care about the internal structure. He wanted to see if he could find more traces of the expert's world, but his inspection failed. Still, he managed to understand the details behind the transformation during that study.

The branches weren't parasites. They weren't even independent magical plants either. The cultivator seemed to have transformed into something that resembled the vegetation below.

'How can these plants affect a cultivator so deeply?' Noah wondered before creating a six-armed dragon through the workshop and sending it at the area's base.

Noah, June, and Fiery Mountain had reached the same conclusion after studying the environment for a bit. The magical plants wanted to grow, but the separate reality didn't give them enough energy to reach the sky, so the three had thought to provide the fuel needed to complete that process.

It was safe to a.s.sume that anyone would reach similar conclusions after inspecting the environment. Proper experts in the magical plants' field might have different ideas if they recognized the species inside the separate reality. Still, Noah believed that the three tainted experts had tried to give their energy to the flora, and he didn't hesitate to test his theory.

The six-armed dragon reached one of the weaker magical plants and started to send its power to the roots that made the ground. It wasn't hard for a being made of dark matter to create something suitable for that flora, and the latter wasn't demanding in terms of quality either. Almost everything could work as fuel.

Nevertheless, a foreign force began to affect the six-armed dragon as soon as it started feeding the weak magical plant. The infection spread quickly, even if it came from a specimen in the eighth rank. It seemed that the disposable beast's innate defenses didn't have any effect against that force, and Noah soon sensed something coming toward him.

****

Author's notes: I basically didn't celebrate the holidays for the past two years due to this job. I'm a mess this year, and the twenty-six hours spent sleeping in the last two days have proven that my body is at its limits, so I've decided to slow down during this period.

I'll go down to one chapter for Chaos and two for Demonic Sword for a few days (I'll keep you updated), and I'll skip the 25th entirely. I'll let you know how I'll handle new year's eve in later chapters.

In short, the next two chapters will arrive tomorrow.