1070: 1070. Gorge

1070. Gorge

"Is everything ok?" Noah asked to check on June's condition. He didn't understand how the Perfect Circuit worked, so only his lover could confirm that the procedure had gone well.2

June stretched while on his lap before snuggling closer to his chest and replying with her mouth pressing on his exposed waist. "I only need to rest. Give me a bit, and I'll let you go."

Noah caressed his lover's hair while she fell asleep. It was rare for cultivators on that level to sleep, but June's body had suffered too much to heal naturally. She needed complete rest to become used to her improved organs.

June didn't speak casually. She knew that Noah had other plans in mind. There were many resourceful regions inside the Elbas family's domain, and he could gain access to all of them due to his power.

Yet, she wanted the two of them to remain in that position for a moment, and Noah could only agree to her request. They had been anxious until then, and they wanted to savor that instant of peace before the world forced problems on them.

Noah stared at his lover and listened to her breathing. Seeing June asleep was a rare occasion, and he wanted to memorize her before returning to the battlefields.

His consciousness expanded at some point, and Thirty-seven reappeared in the room without making any sound. Noah only needed to glance at the automaton to make him nod and summon a pillow out of nowhere.

Noah carefully replaced his lap with the pillow and moved toward the exit of the room. June needed to rest, but he had returned to his peak, and he couldn't let go of that chance.

There was a place that he needed to visit before seeing if the Hive needed help or there were resources that might interest him. His training would have to wait for a little longer.

"Check her condition all the time," Noah ordered the automaton before facing the two Demons sitting next to the exit. "You two have fun."

The Demons revealed a cold smile at his words and shot toward the nearest teleportation matrix to join the invasion. Noah flew toward a teleportation matrix too, but his destination was the forest of spiked roots once again.

The Hive had always known that the other organizations had taken control of traces left by divine beings during the colonization of the piece of Immortal Lands.

The Council had obtained the Divine Cut, the Empire the Stele, the Hive the lava lake, and the Elbas family the Dark Gorge.

Noah had eventually interacted with all of them during his rise to power. Now, he had the chance and the cultivation level to explore the Dark Gorge.

The memories of the roars of the Gorge reappeared in his mind as he flew toward his target. The creatures trapped inside it had taught him a drive for freedom that time and chains couldn't stop.

Noah had been too weak to explore the Gorge back then, but his battle prowess was on par with powerhouses now, and he believed that he could even surpass some of them. There was no better time to dive into the darkness and uncover the secrets of that place.

The armies of the Hive reappeared again in his sight. Bruce led the troops across the region and made them pillage anything valuable as they advanced toward the coast.

Their strategy saw them avoiding the Royal Academy. That place was something that only a group of powerhouses could hope to breach completely.

A series of polite bows followed Noah's passage. He didn't look in their direction, but all of them performed formal salutations when they noticed him crossing the sky and disappearing in the distance.

The Elbas family had eradicated most of the Spiked Roots in the region, so the Dark Gorge appeared as a plain fissure placed in the middle of a barren area. Only a few inscriptions shone around it, but there wasn't any lifeform on the surface.

Noah landed at the edges of the Gorge, stomping directly over a formation and destroying its lines in the impact. Metallic sounds resounded from inside the darkness, but nothing happened on the surface.

Formations weren't Noah's field of expertise, but he could understand that the shining lines around the edges were new. They weren't part of the Gorge, which meant that the Elbas family had put them there for a reason.

Noah hesitated for a second before deciding to destroy all of them. The Gorge had resisted the fall from the Immortal Lands on its own, so it was unlikely that the formations served to improve its structure. There was a higher chance that they were defenses.

The formations quickly fell apart as Noah circled the edges of the Gorge, launching punches whenever he saw a shining line. A long metallic sound followed their destruction, and something began to move among the darkness.

Noah didn't know what he had done, but he didn't fear the darkness. He jumped right inside the Gorge and floated as his mind inspected the environment.

A series of old and inactive lines covered the rocky walls, but nothing special happened even when the sunlight became unable to reach those depths.

Noah continued to descend, and cage-like structures appeared in his view. They resembled prison cells dug inside the rocky walls, with black metal bars made of a material that he didn't recognize.

They had large doors, but they were open. There were signs of forced entry on the black metal, which hinted that the Royals couldn't open them through usual methods.

The bars had missing chunks on their upper-parts, and the cuts were clean as if a blade had made them.

Noah's senses didn't alert him, but the air became tense as he descended into the darkness. He had yet to find what had caused the movements before, and all he saw were open cells that had missing chunks of bars.

The darkness behind him moved at some point. It was impossible to see that event due to sunlight's absence, but Noah sensed something shifting in the laws familiar to him.

He was a cultivator with a darkness aptitude that had learnt how to replicate the "Breath" of his element. He was sensitive to anything happening inside the darkness, and he didn't fail to notice a creature rising among the complete blackness.

Noah had to use his sea of consciousness to make out the creature's appearance, but he struggled to have a complete image even at that point. It seemed that his mind couldn't comprehend where the beast ended and the darkness began.

'What are these?' Noah questioned himself as he stared at the creature. It had the shape of an ancient bird-like beast, but it didn't have any solid form. It was nothing more than a silhouette too, and the insides of its body were empty.

An aura with power in the sixth rank spread among the depths, but Noah spewed flames before the creature could even try to attack him.

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