Chapter 1911 1911. Cracks
Noah saw the injuries that he had just healed opening again. His body was too weak to remain unaffected after a frontal clash with a middle tier creature. His destruction weakened the storms that fell on him, but the impact still flung him downward and covered his body with wounds.
Storms crumbled as Noah"s consciousness continued to destroy the winds and force their energy to flow toward his descending figure. The impact and the fall didn"t affect his awareness and concentration, so he healed as he struggled to disperse his momentum.
A vast tunnel that the storms didn"t hesitate to fill formed between Noah and the brown avatar. The empty areas could only last for a few instants after his consciousness left them, but Noah could fail to see how his opponent stretched its ma.s.sive arm toward him.
Holes appeared on the giant"s limb as the storms closed to block his vision. Noah immediately understood that the avatar had started to prioritize him in that new environment. The world in his vision transformed into an array of lines as he prepared to deploy a movement technique.
Gales shot out of the giant before Noah managed to stop himself. The dense attacks pierced the gales and reached him instantly, but his figure disappeared before they could land on him.
Three long fissures opened from Noah"s previous spot and created large cracks in the sky. They went downward, on the right, and upward, with the last one reaching the giant"s back. The avatar tried to turn, but the dark world suddenly expanded and applied its weakening effects.
The brown avatar saw a long fissure opening on its back, and a wave of storms immediately shot out of it. The dark world fell apart as the creature finished turning to focus on its opponent, but it couldn"t find anything behind it. Instead, a new crack opened and pa.s.sed right above its shoulder to lead to its back again.
Noah reappeared behind the giant and expanded the dark world again before launching another powerful slash. A second fissure appeared next to the second, and more gales escaped from its depths. Those winds seemed slightly calmer than the previous ones, but they didn"t make him relax.
Noah used his movement technique again as soon as holes opened on the giant"s body. A crack that led to the void spread behind him as he sprinted to appear above the creature"s head and unfold the dark world again. His slash followed, and another fissure opened on the brown alloy.
The new movement technique made Noah almost untouchable. The only issue was in its flexibility since he only had a few seconds to set his direction.
Noah had to change direction two times after the clash with the gales because he couldn"t disperse his momentum before the arrival of the second attack. He had to create three different dimensional tunnels that allowed him to perform an inversion and shot toward the giant again.
Everything was easier when the giant didn"t affect his movements. Noah could use a hit-and-run tactic to remain untouched and cover the avatar with injuries. His energy consumption during that approach wasn"t even high since he mostly relied on the aspects of his law. The only issue was on the void.
Noah"s consciousness used him as its center. His mental waves had allowed him to devour the winds around the giant during his offensive, but that prevented the world from fixing the cracks opened with his movement technique.
It didn"t take much before the cracks became so predominant around the avatar that Noah didn"t find new available paths where to build his dimensional tunnels. The only option at that point was to retreat and change the battlefield, and his opponent didn"t waste that chance to attack him.
The avatar stretched its arm toward the retreating Noah as soon as it managed to focus on its figure. It had to endure his unstoppable offensive until now, but the large patches leading to the void that surrounded it had finally started to work as a natural s.h.i.+eld.
The brown arm stretched in the patches of sky that floated among the void to launch dense storms toward Noah. The latter had enough time to dodge, but he didn"t want to mess with the area"s stability even more than that. His blades rose to fight the incoming attacks, and injuries appeared on his body after the impact.
Noah flew away and saw a second wave of storms shooting toward him, and he used his blades to fight them again. The winds and the two swords met for a brief instant before an explosion unfolded and flung Noah even further away.
His body reached a pitiful state after facing two waves of attacks in a row. The bones of his arms became visible after they lost entire patches of flesh. His torso wasn"t better off since his rib cage was completely in the open. A few organs even tried to fall from the openings among his muscles, but the dark matter promptly created a black layer that kept everything in its place.
The second wave of gales made Noah leave the avatar"s range. The creature"s winds could still last until his new position, but he would have enough time to dodge them without relying on his powerful movement technique.
The new position gave Noah the chance to heal. The storms around him vanished as their energy flowed inside his body, but his injuries were too deep to heal consistently in a short time. The gales that had reappeared around the avatar after his consciousness left the area closed the cracks quickly and created a path where it could charge after its opponent.
The giant"s state became clear after it left the patches of void transformed into parts of the world again. The avatar had multiple relatively deep fissures on its torso, head, and back. Winds continued to leak out of them, but that damage didn"t seem to affect its overall power.
Noah needed to inflict more severe damages on that internal structure of tunnels to weaken the avatar"s offensive power. He even believed it to have a core that ruled over that ability somewhere inside that tough body, but it would take him a bit to dig deeply enough.
The main issue in that situation was with his other abilities. The fight would be far easier if he could transmit his aspect of destruction to his Instabilities before teleporting them inside the avatar. However, the effects would inevitably be weaker at that distance, and the giant would probably leave as soon as it lost track of him.
Noah couldn"t rely on his companions either. They could radiate his destruction due to their connection with his existence, but they lacked bodies as resilient as him. They might die after enduring one or two attacks, and Noah would never put their lives at risk when he could deploy other strategies.
His. .h.i.t-and-run tactic was working. Noah only had to keep going until the creature crumbled due to the numerous injuries that he could inflict. The avatar"s internal structure or core would eventually stop working if he could fill its insides with damage, but Heaven and Earth seemed to understand that point.
A sudden ray of white light pierced the storms while the giant moved forward, and Noah was too far away to stop it. The many cracks on the avatar"s body disappeared as new brown alloy filled the empty spot. The creature healed in an instant.
****
Author"s notes: The second chapter should come out in less than thirty minutes.