June and Faith felt amazed when they entered the large hall and saw the enormous magical beasts speaking with a human voice. The three of them had known for years that the ancestors were trying to turn themselves into beasts. Yet, gathering clues and facing a talking creature were two very different things!
Furthermore, the creature was in the sixth rank!
'It's a Flying snake, but I sense mental waves.' Noah thought as he inspected the colossal beast. 'They have really succeeded.'
It was hard to suppress his amazement, and Noah felt eager to study that peculiar being just to understand how it worked. Its aura was too strong and blocked most of Noah's inspections. He couldn't even know if it had a dantian since its scent didn't belong to anything that he had smelled before.
Noah understood in those short instants that the snake was a unique existence that didn't follow any of the fundamental rules that he had learnt through the years.
The snake lifted its reptilian head and straightened its body, revealing a series of sturdy chains that kept it locked on the walls and floor of the hall. The chains radiated the same smell that fended off the magical beasts, but it was far more intense compared to that found in the other castles.
They seemed able to bind the mighty creature in the room, but they also carried its same aura. It was as if they were part of the snake's body.
"It's surprising to find something so similar to us and yet so different at the same time." The snake said as it fixed its reptilian eyes on Noah's figure.
Its head slowly neared him, but the chains didn't allow it to cross even half of the hall. However, that seemed to be enough for the powerful beast which took a deep breath and waved its forked tongue.
"You absorbed the body of a beast into your own and replaced the laws to escape Heaven and Earth's control. Smart!" The snake said after it completed its inspection. "I believe it was a dragon. Ambitious."
Noah's reptilian pupils constricted when he heard the snake's words. It had understood the theory behind his fusion in a matter of seconds!
"Don't be so surprised." The snake said while releasing what seemed a small laugh. "My people have researched how to mix various species since the birth of our kind. You should feel proud that you've obtained a satisfying result in a world without our diversity."
The amazement of the three cultivators skyrocketed at those words. The creature had revealed that it was aware of the fact that they came from a different world!
"How?" Noah asked, but his question wasn't limited to its last revelation.
Countless questions filled his mind. He wanted to know everything about the creature, its past, and the reason behind his current form. There was something that had bugged him since the dreams: He didn't understand why a natural hybrid would transform itself into a complete beast.
He had been quite forced to keep his human form in his case. Recreating the procedure for the fusion while using the corpse of the beast as the core material was challenging.
He would need to find a way to transfer his dantian and his sea of consciousness into a species that didn't have space for those centers of power. Instead, the opposite procedure didn't have those hindrances.
"I think it's time we have a private conversation. Your two friends can browse my collection while we speak." The snake said, and a wave of thick mental waves pushed both June and Faith outside of the hall while also closing the large door.
Noah's eyes became cold when he saw that surge of power, but he forced himself to suppress his survival instincts. He was in the lair of a rank 6 existence. He was similar to a puppet in a god's grasp right now.
"The castles are all connected." The snake said. "I can speak to my descendants on the continent and see what they had been up to. You must understand my excitement to learn that other Mortal Lands had managed to create a dimensional portal and produce a hybrid so similar to our previous form."
Noah neared the closest wall and tried to inspect it, but he didn't notice anything out of the ordinary. Even the experts in the volcano had failed to see that property of the castles, so he wasn't surprised that he couldn't find anything.
"You keep speaking of us. What are you? Are there others like you in the world?" Noah asked without holding back his doubts.
The Flying snake seemed inclined to answer all his questions, and Noah felt curious beyond any limit. Also, the beast was restricted by chains that probably targeted its very existence, which seemed something really similar to the collars of the Empire.
Noah was even starting to doubt that it could hurt him in that state, but he wasn't willing to test it just yet.
"I'm one of the ancestors, the last of my kind. For now, at least." The snake answered, but its explanation became vague when it reached the last part.
"So, you were a perfect human before," Noah concluded before continuing to ask questions. "Why did you do it? According to the records, you were already a perfect species in your previous form."
That was Noah's most pressing doubt. He didn't care how they transformed, but he wanted to understand the reason behind their decision to abandon the human form.
The snake sighed, and Noah was able to avoid showing his surprise at that gesture only because it began to speak. "Our kind was almost perfect, but it didn't lack its flaws. We could absorb the abilities of the magical beasts, but we would inherit some of their behavior in the process. That was the limit placed by Heaven and Earth over us."
Noah nodded at those words. It made sense for such a perfect species to have limitations. After all, Heaven and Earth couldn't allow for beings with limitless potential to exist. They would just break their fairness.
The snake continued. "In time, we understood that those limits were harsher on humans. The magical beasts had some sort of natural protection against the rules of the world. We concluded that they were necessary for balancing Heaven and Earth's power."
Noah remained silent as he listened to the explanation that was entirely in line with the ideas that had filled him since he became a hybrid.
"We thrived for a period. The transformation would trigger a Tribulation, but the lightning bolts targeted only the specimen undergoing the process. It wasn't hard to protect it and increase our population of superior beings." The snake said, and its gaze lost some focus as its mind wandered through its memories.
Then, it moved back to Noah as it concluded its story. "Yet, when we tried to apply the procedure to our weaker descendants, the world decided that we had gone too far and unleashed a Worldwide Heaven Tribulation."