Noah's instincts exploded at that sight, but he held himself back because he knew that his body couldn't eat that stuffed creature. Also, the winged beast wasn't intact. He could sense that someone had replaced its insides with a material meant to keep the skin in place.
Someone had removed the nails and the horns too. Only the skin of the original creature remained, and that was the cause of the quasi-rank 7 aura that lingered around it.
The fact that Noah could control his instincts didn't mean that the other hybrids in the corridor could do the same.
Raphaelle began to salivate right in the middle of the corridor as an instinctive reaction to her hunger. Still, Dreaming Demon's control on her mind was thorough and prevented the snake from pouncing at the stuffed creature to appease her cravings.
The situation was different with Joel since Noah had only sealed its centers of power. The snake's mind was still active, and most of his body was free to act unless Noah's intervened.
It all happened in an instant. Joel shot forward and spread its mouth to eat the stuffed creature in a single bite. Yet, Noah jumped and kicked the snake away to protect the ornament.
Joel slammed into the wall of the corridor, and the other cultivators sieged the hybrid. The snake though didn't care about that obstruction and was ready to throw away his life to take a bite of that powerful material.
Of course, the five cultivators kept it at bay, but Joel didn't want to stop. His instincts had taken control of his mind by then. He could only think about satisfying his hunger.
"Can you store it?" Noah asked the spirit automaton of his space-ring as he lifted his item toward the stuffed beast.
The automaton scanned the ornament and made a few calculations before answering. "I need to make some space, but there shouldn't be any structural problem. I suggest you store it somewhere else soon though. Its aura can corrode the formations of the rings if it stays too much inside it."
Noah nodded internally and ordered to the automaton to proceed.
Dozens of magical beasts' corpses came out in the open and lain on the ground as the automaton proceeded to make room for the powerful material. A wave of crystals also began to surround Noah and filled the corridor as millions of Credits exited his storage item.
The ornament then disappeared from the corridor and landed in one of the now free spaces outside of the four formations inside Noah's ring. According to the automaton, something on that level would take centuries only to start decaying, so it didn't need to be preserved.
Also, the aura radiated by that skin could damage the formations and spoil the ring, which was something that Noah wanted to avoid at all costs. He wouldn't get another chance to find a storage item so powerful.
Joel continued to struggle under the suppression of the five cultivators, but the disappearance of the winged beast made it feel lost. Yet, his hunger remained even if he had lost his primary target.
Noah knew how to handle that situation and began to throw the crystals around him at the hungry hybrid.
Joel spread his vast mouth and accepted those Credits, and he started to calm down as his body absorbed the "Breath" inside them.
It took a couple of millions for Joel to recover some control over his mind and suppress his instincts. When he did, he looked around him in an apologetic look, fearing that his actions had caused the anger of his jailers.
However, Noah barely cared about the Obsidian Credits, and the other cultivators weren't hurt in the slightest. Also, it wasn't his fault since his instincts weren't something that he could control.
Noah could have even just activated the Shadow Swords planted in his vital tissues to kill him, but it would have been a waste to lose an asset in the fifth rank. It was better to give up on his money since they had lost any importance by then.
Noah looked around the corridor and saw that nothing had reacted to the mess that they had just caused. It appeared that the castle really was uninhabited and that they could take whatever they wanted.
His greed increased at that realization. After all, they had barely begun to explore that structure, but they had already seized a quasi-divine material!
There was bound to be more wealth there, and they could just take it and bring it back to the Hive!
'Luckily, we decided to explore this place before the war reached the old continent,' Noah thought as he nodded toward Dreaming Demon.
She understood the meaning behind his gesture and controlled Raphaelle to move forward into the corridor. The rest of the group followed at some distance and put Joel between them as a second line of defense.
Noah and the others were almost sure that the castle was safe, but they couldn't abandon their caution in a place that had quasi-divine beings as stuffed creatures.
The corridor led to another large hall with a series of paintings. Their images depicted different cultivators standing in a white world with various expressions, and radiated an aura similar to that carried by the sky of the dimension.
Each painting depicted a single cultivator, and the image of those existences exuded peculiar auras that seemed to represent the individualities of those beings.
"This isn't possible!" Flying Demon exclaimed when he looked at one of the paintings, and Dreaming Demon and Noah froze when they neared him to take a look at those images.
The painting depicted the same white world, but the three of them recognized the cultivator represented there.
It was a middle-aged man with long black hair combed in a simple ponytail and a pair of red eyes. He didn't have any beard, and he was quite slender even if his black robe hid a thick series of muscles. There was an ambitious smirk on his face as he stared at the white world, and he had his arms spread to his sides as if he was trying to bathe in that light.
"Why is Master there?" Dreaming Demon exclaimed after she recovered from her stupor. "I watched his ascension, and he went alone!"
"Maybe the god of the Empire represents what he thinks happens upon their arrival in the Immortal Lands," Noah said as he pointed at the other paintings. "Some of them are more detailed than others. I bet they belong to the cultivators that he had accompanied in the higher plane."
The Demons quickly agreed with his hypotheses, but they didn't like that their Master was exposed there. Dreaming Demon reached for the painting, but an invisible barrier prevented her from nearing the wall.
"Dammit!" Dreaming Demon cursed.
"Even you can't break it?" Noah asked. After all, Dreaming Demon was the most powerful cultivator in their group.
However, she shook her head and sighed as she explained the situation. "I didn't feel anything when I touched the barrier. These are protections that make full use of the laws."