Noah's scaled armor morphed when the power accumulated by the Black Hole spell converged inside it. It took a tall irregular form that vaguely resembled a six-armed dragon.
Elder Marco didn't hesitate to relaunch his large spell as soon as he sensed Noah rising from the hole. However, a massive figure appeared in his vision when the air around him started to condense.
It was a gaseous shape. It had six arms stretched forward with claws pointing in the Elder's direction, and a reptilian head with open maw between them.
Its body was a cloud of violent black smoke that left a corrosive trail from its back. Still, its form condensed as it flew toward Elder Marco, and it slowly took the shape of a six-armed dragon.
The dragon clashed with the condensed air spreading to complete the spell. To the Elder's surprise, the creature broke through the dense atmosphere without any struggle and continued to fly toward him.
Elder Marco felt threatened. He wasn't sure if the attack could reach him, but his mind warned him that direct contact with it would be fatal.
The condensed air suddenly started to retract and accumulate in the space between him and the dark shape, slowing down its advance and giving him more time to evaluate the threat. Yet, lightning bolts soon flew toward him from a different direction, followed by dark flames that radiated a destructive aura.
That was a proper siege. Elder Marco felt like retreating at the sight of those attacks, but his experience in battles at that level revealed a second option.
He had already seen how Noah's abilities tended to assume draconic shapes. The many reports about him suggested that he had fused with a magical beast of that species too.
When the Elder looked at the reptilian form breaking through his spell so quickly, he couldn't help but link its appearance to a variation of Noah's Demonic Form. After all, he couldn't believe that the Demon Prince could vanquish his attack without relying on his hybrid's strength.
An idea quickly formed in his mind. He could end the battle in one blow if he managed to kill Noah while inside the six-armed dragon. The attacks of the winged snake would vanish as a consequence of its owner's death.
He didn't need to escape or defend. Elder Marco only had to destroy the main spell of his opponent.
The condensed air changed shape under his will. Most of it had already accumulated between him and the dragon, so it was easy for him to create something powerful in a few instants.
A massive drill formed in front of the dragon and started to rotate. Its motion created storms all around its shape, which applied a pulling force to the environment's air.
Winds gathered around the drill, increasing its shape and its rotating speed. Even the black smoke that made the dragon began to waver as it flew toward the tip of the Elder's spell.
The two attacks clashed, and shockwaves flew everywhere as pieces of both spells fell apart in the impact. Cracks that led to the void filled the sky around them, and a large area became an unstable mess that very few cultivators would dare to cross.
Elder Marco focused all his consciousness in increasing the rotation speed of the drill. His attack became stronger even as the six-armed dragon marched through its dense shape.
Noah's attack eventually lost too much smoke, and its stability wavered, giving a chance to the drill to destroy it in one go. Elder Marco prepared himself to restrain the Demon Prince at that point, but his expression froze when he saw no one inside the dragon.
His consciousness quickly spread to find Noah. He couldn't believe that the Prince was capable of such might without putting his body on the frontlines!
Nevertheless, it was already too late. Elder Marco found his target only when a dark shape appeared on the corner of his eyes.
Time slowed down for him in that situation. His eyes became able to make out Noah's blurry features breaking the sky. The Elder could only condense the air around him in a desperate attempt to survive before his vision went dark.
Elder Marco's head exploded as Noah stopped behind him. His hands shot to stop his corpse from falling and stabbed his low-waist to seize his dantian.
'I did it!' Noah couldn't help but shout in his mind. The battle had been close, but he had successfully defeated a solid stage cultivator in the fifth rank on his own!
He had to resort to a little ploy though, and luck had played a part in his victory too. Noah had planned to use the destruction generated by the two attacks to take his opponent by surprise. Yet, he didn't expect the Elder to focus all his consciousness on the drill.
That made it easier for Noah, who had planned to repeat the process until his enemy's condition reached a critical point. The Elder had made a mistake during the exchange, and he had paid the price with his life.
Noah believed that he would have won anyway if the Elder didn't have other disposable items or secret abilities. Yet, managing to kill him without suffering additional injuries was the best outcome that he could hope for.
Noah threw the bloody dantian in his mouth and seized the Elder's ring. He was about to fly toward Elder Carmen's corpse to find her storage item too, when his stomach became tense and forced him to bend.
Vomit came out of his mouth. Noah spewed the Elder's organ pieces along with the "Breath" contained inside the center of power.
He continued to spit for a while. His body didn't seem able to relax until it expelled anything belonging to Elder Marco. An oily liquid rose from his throat at some point, and Noah joined his palms to let it fall there.
His condition improved as the oily liquid left his body. That substance was the cause behind his state. Noah wanted to analyze it and understand the reasons for the violent reaction of his body.
A smelly scent filled his nose as Noah spit the liquid inside is joint palms. It didn't resemble anything peculiar. He couldn't sense any "Breath" or aura coming out of it.
However, his mental energy became restless when he tried to investigate its fabric. Some foreign understanding tried to enter Noah's mind at that point, but he promptly cut his connection with those tainted mental waves.
The lines of the Divine Deduction technique began to shine as he kept on looking at that strange water. His brows furrowed as his mind tried to recall any memory that could help him understand the nature of that substance.
Noah came up with a vague hypothesis after a while. There were unanswered questions when it came to the behavior of the Elbas family.
There were only rumors when taken on their own. Still, they formed a pattern when pieced together, starting with the Royals claiming that they could force breakthroughs in heroic cultivators.