The rank 6 Flying snake had diverted its attention after Noah's roar started the chain reaction through the Mortal Lands, but it turned when it saw Noah biting himself. The creature couldn't help but reveal a smirk at that scene.
"You can't stop the transformation," The snake said, "Your whole existence is changing right now. Just accept your new state and fight the world with your brothers and sisters."
After that, it diverted its attention again to focus his consciousness on the crackling sounds echoing outside.
Meanwhile, Noah had activated the Divine Deduction technique as he bit his leg. The effort increased the pressure on his mind by a lot, but that wasn't the moment to be careful. His future would be set if he didn't act.
Noah had almost completely turned into a huge Cursed dragon in the fifth rank, but he needed time to figure out a way to stop the transformation. So, he decided to slow it down for the time being.
His sharp teeth pierced his scales and severed a large chunk of meat along with them. His idea was to hurt his body so that the compound would take more to make him reach the complete form.
Luckily for him, his body was still unstable, and some of its protective properties had weakened during the transformation.
Blood flowed from his wound and draconic mouth as he spat the pulp of meat and scales on the ground and turned to take a bite on his other leg. The pain had never managed to stop him, and he could only think about his prospects right now.
'If it's a matter of existence,' Noah thought, 'Then I just have to change it again.'
His mind was in the peculiar state where it could understand how the world worked, and the Divine Deduction technique allowed him to process those pieces of information at high speed. That was the perfect situation to obtain some kind of enlightenment.
'The fastest way to change my existence is to complete my individuality,' Noah concluded, 'But I should be able to take my time as I plan how to do it.'
Noah didn't want to waste the improvements that the transformation was applying on his dantian. Also, he didn't want to risk ruining his individuality because he tried to save it in a hurry.
He had to let his mind understand the best approach to escape from that situation while salvaging his gains and current power at the same time.
Noah kept on biting pieces of his body off, and he used his growing claws to break scales that he couldn't reach with his fangs. Blood and body-parts accumulated on the floor as he kept on mutilating himself to slow down the transformation.
Enlightenment dawned upon him quite quickly. After all, the snake wasn't addressing his form as perfect for no reason. The understanding that the transformation had given him access to wasn't something that he could obtain through usual methods.
However, peeking into that world was just a sort of enhanced survival instincts for those creatures. They needed it to counter their greatest enemy, but they didn't have other uses to it since they didn't need an individuality.
Noah managed to understand even how those so-called perfect creatures worked during that process. Their dantians would obtain the ability of the magical beasts to absorb primary energy, but they would lose the capability to express personal laws.
They were simply the perfect predators of Heaven and Earth's world, and their state would allow them to feed on laws in the higher ranks.
Nevertheless, Noah couldn't be part of that system. He was an entity that lived outside of those rules. He didn't want to be defined by his enemies.
He was a mistake that shouldn't exist. Giving up on that to find a place in the world would be akin to surrender himself to Heaven and Earth's shackles.
'I know what I have to do,' Noah thought, 'I can stall the transformation for a few more minutes.'
Noah kept on maiming himself as he kept his focus on his dantian. The primary energy converging in his center of power was pushing it toward the limits of the fourth rank. Yet, it was also eroding his sharp shard of "Breath", and his individuality with it.
'Almost there!' Noah shouted in his mind as the walls of his dantian started to compress.
The process squeezed the primary energy and "Breath", forcing them to reach a higher state as impurities left the gas and crystal and fused with the organ.
The transformation had pushed his dantian to the fifth rank to restore harmony among his centers of power!
His body began to stabilize at that point. The injuries started to heal as his existence was about to step forever in the realm of those perfect hybrids.
His mental sphere sent orders to the primary energy inside his dantian. The gas began to turn into a form of rank 5 gaseous "Breath" that differed slightly from that generated by the crystal that carried his individuality.
His new form was instinctively creating "Breath" of the darkness element from primary energy!
Noah memorized that process and decided to act when he saw that even the rank 5 gaseous "Breath" carrying his individuality was about to become primary energy to undergo that transformation.
His aura surged as he took complete control of his mental sphere. The blood and body-parts that had accumulated on the floor gathered in front of him, and Noah didn't hesitate to add more materials to that bloody pulp.
He opened his maws and spat his Liquid Dantian before focusing on the insides of his space-ring to take out a series of items. The ring had enlarged to fit his new size, but it didn't create any problem when his mental waves controlled it.
His Demonic Swords appeared in the open and landed on the bloody pulp, together with Instabilities that he had stored there as he trained his inscription methods.
Then, he focused on the insides of his mind, and all his Will-consuming runes came out and landed on the pile of materials accumulating in front of him.
In the end, he moved different energies inside his dantian and made them pass through his sea of consciousness before throwing them too in the pulp to start forging.
Black smoke and a seemingly infinite ambition mixed with the pile of materials as Noah used the Elemental Forging method to fuse all the items that carried part of his individuality.
Noah had never attempted to do such a difficult fusion, but his peculiar mental state was giving him some confidence that he would succeed.
'I'm not a destroyer, nor a creator,' Noah thought as he took a deep breath, 'But a sword able to do both!'
A wave of white flames came out of his maws, and the primary energy that fueled it helped to finalize the fusion, forcing all the materials into a straightforward form.
A black sword appeared when the flames dispersed, and a draconic cry came out of it as it took life.