Birth of the Demonic Sword
chapter-1424

No one could use Noah's hunting method. Even the strongest hybrids at his level couldn't match his physical strength. The sole thought of opposing multiple magical beasts that tried to pull them into the void would make them escape from the region.

King Elbas had developed a refined approach. His body could turn into golden flames at will, so he didn't have to worry about the tentacles. Still, he had to make sure that his fire didn't fall into the void.

The Royal would let the creatures attack and disperse into thin flames before the impact. Part of his fire would then fly along the tentacles and explode once it reached the other side.

His flames didn't threaten the stability of the area. King Elbas had studied the tentacles enough to copy their movements. His fire did on the sky of the Immortal Lands what the creature's limbs did from the void.

Once the flames exploded, King Elbas would reform and collect any beast that had died. That approach was slow and clunky, but it allowed him to remain safe even if he had a human body.

Don and Jordan had it a bit worse. They had lived with the Legion long enough to disregard any form of limitation when it came to their physical strength.

They often created large fissures that threatened to pull them inside the void. Their initial hunts were messy and clumsy, but they eventually leant to use their abilities to their advantage.

The solution that they reached resembled Noah's. They defended against the attacks until they managed to grab a tentacle and drag it outside of the Void Zone. Their approach was also slow, but they didn't completely fail in the task at least.

Noah exploited the magical beasts' stupidity as long as possible, but those creatures eventually learnt that nothing would work against him. Their tentacles didn't hurt him as much as they wished, and restraining his figure would lead to certain death.

The beasts stopped coming out of the void when they sensed Noah's presence. They labeled him as someone too hard to hunt and began to focus on his companions since their approach was far messier.

That left Noah no choice but to use baits to lure them out. He had to attach threads of dark matter to pieces of magical beasts' corpses to have a chance to capture those creatures.

Noah began to fish for the octopus-like creatures that lived in the void. His hunts also became slow, but he couldn't do any better in that environment.

'One line needed almost thirty specimens,' Noah thought when he inspected the strange diagram. 'The pack might end before I finish refilling it with energy.'

The diagram had more than thirty lines, but the pack only featured a few hundred magical beasts. When Noah excluded the creatures in the upper tier, he felt that he wouldn't have enough materials by the time all the specimens in the lower and middle tier died.

The creatures' level affected the amount of energy in the mineral, but the difference wasn't enough to make him create a plan to capture one of the specimens in the upper tier. He wasn't even sure that he could hunt one of them, especially in that peculiar environment.

Specimens in the eighth rank would probably have the amount of energy that Noah needed, but he couldn't even come close to creatures at that level. He had to find an alternative solution that didn't involve relying on that species.

'I need to create this type of darkness myself,' Noah concluded as he sat at the edges of the Void Zone while holding a black thread attached to a piece of flesh.

Noah had initially disregarded that idea because the black mineral was too frail. Studying it would be troublesome, and creating something usually took longer than destroying.

It was easier to exterminate a pack instead of replicating the process that led to that type of darkness. Still, the requirements to activate the diagram were unreasonable, so Noah had to make an unreasonable choice to complete his task.

The thread of dark matter tensed while Noah was deep in his thoughts. A tentacle had wrapped itself around the piece of meat hanging from the black string, and Noah didn't hesitate to activate its properties.

Fissures opened as the string expanded and enveloped the tentacles. It became a firm trap that Noah could pull back until the limb ended in his grasp. Nothing could make the creature escape at that point.

Noah pulled until the creature's head entered in his range. Night came out of his chest to kill it, but Noah didn't dissect it right away to seize the mineral.

The head was an important piece of his newfound approach. He didn't know if the creatures' brains affected the creation of the unique darkness, but he couldn't waste it before confirming that guess. Also, he had grown bored of fishing already, so he preferred to avoid going through it another time.

An icy-blue light came out of his eyes as the Divine Deduction technique activated. Noah studied the creature's head thoroughly while ensuring that he didn't break the mineral inside it.

It took him a while to understand how the beast's organs worked. Noah had to immerse the head in his dark matter and create an environment full of primary energy to see how that species made the minerals.

To his surprise, the mineral turned grayer as that process continued. Noah had let the organs do everything. His influence was less than minimal. Yet, the head created a crystal different from the others.

'The only variable is the environment,' Noah concluded before changing his approach.

He didn't bathe the head in primary energy anymore. Noah placed it inside an empty area of the dark world and attached some of the tentacles seized during the hunts to that severed body part. Then, he filled the tentacles with primary energy and let the creature's organs do the rest.

Noah had literally recreated the beasts' natural environment with that approach. He was replicating their life in the void through the dark world. If even that failed, he would have to return to the hunts.

Luckily for him, that process worked. The crystal inside the head turned pitch black again, and Noah tested the energy inside it by seizing half of it and fusing it with the diagram.

Once he confirmed that the diagram accepted that energy, he began to work on a new blueprint for the workshop. Noah didn't want to rely on those frail minerals. He preferred to use his dark matter for the whole procedure.

Don and Jordan also stopped hunting when they saw that Noah didn't care for those creatures anymore. They had no interest in those beasts. They were simply killing time since they had to be with Noah.

King Elbas continued even after everyone else stopped. He wanted to study those beasts and obtain their materials for his studies, and nothing could stop him once his curiosity took the better of him.

Still, after the number of middle tier and lower tier specimens became scarce, King Elbas stopped hunting and took out a portable habitation from his space-ring. He then entered those quarters to resume his experiments.