"Our lives would be on hold too if you hadn't saved us. Rest, Prince. You have improved again without fully absorbing the gains given by your past breakthrough. Leave the Utra nation to us for now." Dreaming Demon said, and both elders revealed stern expressions at her words.
Noah felt another wave of tiredness filling his body and decided to perform a slight bow before leaving to reach one of his caves.
The battle against Thomas had injured him, but most of those wounds could have been avoided if he used all his abilities.
Yet, he had to remain unknown, or at least avoid leaving irrefutable clues on the scene. The hood would protect him from eventual recording devices, but he still had to avoid using his signature moves.
His body had paid the price to defeat an incomplete rank 5 cultivator while using only new abilities, but that amount of damage was something that he could endure.
Noah spent the following months in a partial hibernation.
He slept and woke up only to eat part of the nourishing resources inside his space-ring.
The energy contained in Thomas' dantian quickened the healing process, but the windstorm had even fractured his sturdy bones. That was something that would take a while to heal even with the healing properties inherited from the Yin body.
However, Noah wasn't in a hurry, and his mood was quite strange too.
The Balvan family was no more, and the Utra nation didn't have much appeal without it. It still contained a lot of resources due to all the noble families living there, but they didn't interest Noah either.
He didn't need anything other than materials for his experiments, and the Hive would provide them with just a single request.
'My destruction is complete. My saber has severed the fate chosen by Heaven and Earth.' Noah thought during his hibernation. 'But I'll only leave nothing around me if I don't start to create.'
His mind focused on his dantian from time to time, and the sharp crystal radiated the same kind of destructive force that had appeared when his "Breath" was in the liquid stage. That force had grown in intensity when his "Breath" reached the solid stage, and it had even begun to affect a deeper layer of the matter.
His individuality turned the world of Heaven and Earth into primary energy that he could use, but he still lacked the means to build with it.
'Fusing the Will-consuming runes with the Elemental forging method is the first step toward creation.' Noah thought as he ate another pill made from a peak rank 4 magical beast. 'I just need to heal before I can focus on harvesting all the gains of my breakthroughs.'
June's face appeared in his vision as he began to think about the creative aspect of his individuality.
She was an expression of life in his mind and someone that could push Noah's drive to create further.
'I want to see her.' Noah thought before falling asleep to continue his recovery.
Time passed quietly in the area of the separate dimension under the Utra nation.
The news of the destruction of the Balvan family didn't take much to spread through the entirety of the country.
It was already clear that the secret assailants had access to assets in the peak of the fourth rank, but the last raid revealed that they could unleash something in the fifth rank too.
An entire medium-size family had been wiped out, and the assailants didn't even care that its mansion was right next to two large-size noble families!
No one was safe anymore, and the nobles could only redirect their gazes toward the two crowded areas that had yet to suffer any attack.
The first one was on the northern border and used the threat of the Capital to scare away the hiding assailants. The second one saw the families loyal to the Cause grouped near the eastern side of the nation.
The nobles in the southern area knew that they had to leave, but they had to decide which side to trust before that.
The Elbas family didn't intervene even after the destruction of the Balvans, and the loyal nobles were starting to become annoyed with that behavior.
Their homes were being assaulted and raided, but their rulers didn't even address the issue!
On the other hand, the families loyal to the Cause didn't suffer at all in that period.
More and more nobles began to switch sides and choose to move toward the eastern areas of the nation. Flying Demon and Dreaming Demon exploited that situation to attack nobles that were still set on following the Elbas family and were moving toward the northern border.
Fear continued spread through the nation, which seemed to be held hostage by an invisible threat able to attack anyone.
The Hive only benefited from that situation since the Demons kept on plundering large amounts of precious resources and creations that were unpurchaseable from outside the country.
The wealth obtained from small and medium-size families didn't amount to much in the Hive's perspective. Only the completed items and inventions were valuable since Thirty-seven could reverse engineer them and expand the knowledge of the fourth force in the Mortal Lands.
There were also a large number of scrolls and tomes that described techniques and spells which the Hive carefully stored and began to study as soon as those goods reached the new continent.
The news of the destruction of the Balvan family eventually spread even outside of the Utra nation, and many eyes landed on the Hive as a consequence.
All the world knew about Noah and his enmity with his family, but the inscribed items that had survived the attack didn't reveal any incriminating evidence.
Noah and the elders had been careful during that raid, and that behavior paid off since no one could even begin to blame the Hive.
Noah woke up fully healed in that period, and he began to focus on his abilities rather than minding the political situation in the outside world. There was too much to do with his breakthrough, and too much to experiment on.
Years inevitably passed as he focused on himself and the path ahead of him.
He had achieved one of his lifelong goals, but there was still the ambition that pushed him to become stronger. Also, June was somewhere in the Mortal Lands, and he had a tunnel that could bring him wherever he wanted.
Noah had never wanted to see her so badly, but he could guess that his eagerness originated from his individuality.
His destruction was complete, but his existence strived for harmony, which could only be found in what inspired life in his case.
The Demons were with him, but they were friends at most and couldn't compare to his lover in terms of importance.
Yet, Flying Demon sent him a message during his second year of seclusion. "We plan to attack the academy, and we need your knowledge, Prince."