<h4>Chapter 1828 - 1828. Pride</h4>


    The entire hole went silent. Noah’s words left leaders and underlings speechless. He didn’t ask anything too surprising, but the sole fact that he had decided to speak made them unable to say anything for a while. They simply weren’t ready for that event.


    "He smells funny," The ck dragon whispered as a dark halo spread from its figure and tried to stretch forward before dispersing inside the world.


    "Maybe they have fallen too far away from our species," The green dragon sighed, and Noah sensed the dangerous sensation approaching again.


    "Do you want to shut me up for my questions?" Noah quickly said before the dangerous sensation could reach its peak. "Isn’t that Heaven and Earth’s way? How can you fight them if you force your underlings to be dumb soldiers who can’t even be curious?"


    The intensity of the danger suddenly stopped increasing before starting to vanish. The three leaders couldn’t help but stare at Noah in silence, and he felt hard to endure the massive pressure thatnded on his figure.


    His instincts were fighting against his mind. Noah was basically going against every hidden rule of the magical beasts’ world by standing his ground in front of three solid stage creatures. However, hisw was stronger than those raw senses. He had to speak in that situation to be true to himself.


    "How dare you?!" The lower tier dragon that had exined part of the situation to the group before shouted.


    The dragon was arge creature with pale-blue scales. It had a fat body and short legs. It would almost resemble a giant lizard if it weren’t for therge wings spreading from its back and the draconic horned head that began to spit azure mes.


    A rank 9 attack was about to arrive. The other experts in the group immediately prepared their abilities to face the dragon’s offensive, but they retracted their energy when they sensed Noah’s pride spreading in the area.


    Noah activated everything he had. The unstable substance flowed into his ck vessels. A dark aura that featured multiple faces covered his skin and expanded as dark matter gave birth to a fiendish figure. His ambition empowered everything connected to his body, and his pride inevitably flowed out of his body.


    King Elbas and the others understood the meaning carried by his pride. Noah wasn’t trying to show off. His actions were a necessary deration meant to remove their status as pawns, so they had to let him handle the dragon on his own.


    The experts retreated as Noah advanced. Azure light filled his vision, but he didn’t fear it. He knew that his skin would burn if the fire touched him, so he made the dark world expand around him to create a secondyer of armor.


    Noah transformed into a massive dragon right before the mes could hit him. The dark matter shielded him from the initial burst of power. The fire destroyed the armor and spread in its insides, but a piercing sh created a hole in the attack before it could converge on its target.


    Noah didn’t use his swords. He limited himself to stretch his fingers as his arm shot forward. His existence did everything else, and the piercing sh generated with his move mmed into the azure mes and forced everything to explode outward.


    The lower tier dragons sitting in the nearby caves and stands had to retreat to avoid the chaos generated during the sh. Lumps of azure mes and dark shes flew everywhere in the area, and the creatures felt surprised to realize that Noah’s attacks had enough power to hurt them.


    Two figures shot out of the darkness and azure glows that had surrounded the area where the two abilities had shed.


    The pale-blue dragon flew toward the other side of the hole and showed the deep cracks that had appeared on its scales. No blood flowed out of them, but the event remained surprising.


    Noah shot toward the storms, and he didn’t manage to stop from ending among the chaoticws. His figure had left a trail of grey smoke along his path, but the sudden appearance of a massive ck cloud among the gales attracted everyone’s attention.


    The ck mass fought against the storms to expand and devour their power. Large gales disappeared as a sea of dark matter imitated the features of Noah’s mes and gathered energy for him.


    The ck mass eventually converged toward a single spot on the ground, and Noah soon walked out of the storms. Everyone could see how his body was in perfect condition. He didn’t even seem to suffer from the drawbacks of his recent power-up.


    King Elbas and the others knew most of Noah’s abilities, so they could understand what had happened inside the storms. However, the dragons weren’t aware that he could instantly heal his injuries, so the scene dered him the winner of the exchange.


    His value as a dragon suddenly skyrocketed, and the same went for hispanions. They didn’t appear as mere rank 8 existences who had happened to be there by chance anymore. Noah imed a rightful position among that group of rank 9 creatures.


    "Can I get my exnation now?" Noah asked when he returned near the hole and jumped tond on the stands right under the edges.


    The ck dragon gave voice to a roughugh when it saw that overbearing scene. It raised its head toward the sky and breathed deeply until a dark gas gathered in front of its mouth and created a long trail.


    Noah couldn’t help but notice that the trail ended where the previous battle had happened. The ck dragon was absorbing something out of it, but he felt unable to understand the nature of that substance.


    "You should stop seizing these chances," The long-necked dragonmented once itspanion finished absorbing the substance.


    "You are always so serious," The ck dragonughed. "Old dragon of time here has already told us that the final battle is near. We should prioritize surpassing our predecessors. Our defeat is inevitable otherwise."


    "One side has to win," The long-necked dragon replied, "Another will lose, but life will always reign."


    "Will it?" The ck dragon roared while continuing tough. "Do you even call that life?"


    "Each world is a special structure capable of giving birth to lifeforms," The green dragon suddenly said while pointing its eyes at Noah. "Heaven and Earth had to rece thews in this world during their ascent to power. The true meanings that previously upied ne transformed into magical beasts that innately hated the new rulers.


    "Those true meanings won’t die until Heaven and Earth takeplete control of the whole world. They will always reappear in new magical beasts."


    It became immediately evident that the dragon’s definition of world was different from what Noah had learnt throughout his life. He saw that meaning from a cultivator’s perspective while the creature intended the material ne and its fabric.


    "How can I know that this is true?" Noah asked. "How can I trust you?"


    "You can’t," The green dragon replied, "But you can trust your eyes."


    Noah frowned, but everything in his vision stopped moving again. Yet, he could move at that time, but his curiosity transformed into surprise when he saw that time started to flow backward.


    ****


    Author’s notes: Same as yesterday, but I might need a bit more toplete thest chapter today. I ended up wasting a lot of time. I’ve simply been really slow. It might take a full hour before the third chapter.