'Why did they go back to the clouds?' Noah wondered as he placed his hand on the black array that had taken control of the area.

Heaven and Earth had slowly moved away from punishments that resembled their old selves. The human and heroic ranks featured the usual three Tribulations, and similar attempts to suppress existences happened in the seventh rank. However, they transformed into avatars or proper unique counters against rank 8 and 9 beings.

The pack of lizards featured two leaders in the ninth rank and a few rank 8 specimens. In theory, the lightning bolts released by punishments meant for weaker beings wouldn't be able to hurt them, but Noah didn't believe that Heaven and Earth had misjudged the level of the threat.

The clouds felt different from the raw mass of destructive power that Noah had fought in the past. They were an improved version of that weak punishment, and the meanings that they carried had also deepened.

The clouds still radiated pure destructive power. They resembled Snore's innate ability if Noah compared his companion to the energy system in Heaven and Earth's world. Yet, they seemed to have become relatively intelligent.

Noah only needed to desire to inspect the insides of the black array to radiate part of his destruction. The clouds opened and created a passage that revealed a surprising scene. He saw the pack of lizards immersed in a dark battlefield illuminated by a series of giant avatars and currents of lightning bolts.

The avatars and the lightning bolts had changed. The puppets were huge, and they didn't have their unstable structures anymore. They resembled the version of Heaven and Earth that had fought the monster. They had proper skin instead of a series of sparks constantly flowing to create a humanoid shape.

Instead, the lightning bolts had grouped in the form of dense currents that enhanced their individual power. Those gales actually resembled the attacks released by the orange city, even if they were white and rotated to increase their destructiveness.

The environment created by the clouds was also strange. It made Noah think about the Heaven Tribulations that used to fall on the Mortal Lands, but that only increased the oddity of the situation.

Heaven and Earth had filled the entire world with their weak sky, but they prevented their light from surrounding their targets with their clouds. The avatars and lightning bolts glowed with the same radiance and applied the same effects. Still, that felt like a waste of energy with so much whiteness in the environment.

Noah could guess that the whiteness deployed on that battlefield had different meanings, but it still felt strange when Heaven and Earth could use the weak sky. The only explanation he could come up with involved a change in the approach to the cultivation journey. It was as if the rulers wanted to express their power through individual entities instead of using the world for their needs.

'Are they trying to remember what they were before fusing with the world?' Noah wondered before correcting himself. 'No, that would go against the current situation of the world. Probably, they are looking for a different balance now that they had lost so much energy.'

The lizards were struggling against the avatars and currents of lightning bolts, but their eyes lit up when they saw Noah crossing the clouds. However, he remained still and watched the fight instead of helping them.

Noah wanted to observe before jumping into a battle. Heaven and Earth had changed in ways that went in the opposite direction of their previous approach. Their stronger punishments tried to express their magnitude in the past, but they had turned into individual assets capable of releasing denser energy now.

Noah didn't know how to feel about that change, mostly because he felt he was to blame. Heaven and Earth had been able to show traces of personality only with rank 9 punishments, but they were attempting something different now. They almost resembled cultivators, even if they remained too messy to appear as a single existence.

'Are they trying to transform again to adapt to the new flaws?' Noah questioned himself.

That wouldn't be the first time Heaven and Earth had pulled off something similar. They had transformed when they found themselves unable to defeat the magical beasts, so it didn't feel unreal that something similar could happen due to the orange city, the monster, and Noah's group. Actually, it suited their behavior quite perfectly.

The issue was that Noah probably was one of the main reasons behind that transformation. He had forced Heaven and Earth to waste massive amounts of energy multiple times, and his companions had also affected their foundation.

Noah couldn't help but think that Heaven and Earth were striving to reach a smaller but denser shape. Wasting energy and losing laws could help create a firmer foundation capable of overcoming the magical beasts and the new threats that had appeared after their first transformation.

'It should be impossible,' Noah thought after evaluating every possibility. 'They have already lost too much of their original selves. They would only throw away what they have left of their personality and drive if they perform another transformation.'

Noah found the loophole in that reasoning immediately. Completing a second transformation on such a vast scale would be impossible unless Heaven and Earth found a way to retrieve what they had lost in the past. They would have the chance to fuse the best of their two versions and develop something stronger that didn't have flaws in the current state of the world.

'Why are they targeting the magical beasts then?' Noah wondered. 'They have enough power to deal with the old rulers. It would have been easier to focus the entirety of their energy on them instead of filling the higher plane to attack the various packs.'

The answer to those doubts didn't take long to appear in his mind. Noah could imagine everything. Both Heaven and Earth and the old rulers had deep flaws in their current state. The former still couldn't approach the breakthrough, while the latter had yet to retrieve and overcome their previous level.

By attacking the magical beasts, Heaven and Earth were slowly pushing their state closer to the tenth rank and giving room to grow to the old rulers. The process wanted to prepare the field for a vaster project that involved their existence as a whole.

Of course, all of that was happening in Noah's mind. He had vague clues gathered in an environment that he had yet to understand properly. However, his existence had never been stronger, so his ability to predict Heaven and Earth's plans and intentions had also reached insane levels.

Moreover, Noah had a general understanding of the world and the cultivation journey as a whole. He could see the possible paths in front of Heaven and Earth. Predicting where they would decide to walk felt almost natural after adding their past behavior to the current situation.

'The first step before the final battle has strived to the total control of the world,' Noah summarized in his mind. 'The second is focusing on reducing the population of magical beasts, and the third probably will probably involve the transformation that Heaven and Earth need to prepare for the fusion. Interesting.'

"Enough," Noah casually growled when his reasoning ended, and his voice sent waves of destruction throughout the battlefield.

The avatars and currents of lightning bolts directly shattered and released waves of energy that converged toward Noah's figure. Yet, the clouds didn't suffer any damage and began to emit angry crackling noises that resembled growls. He could even feel that Heaven and Earth's attention had finally fallen on him.

****

Author's notes: I had to sleep.. The third chapter should come relatively soon.

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