The castle.

-Thud-

The sound of the axe hitting the wood resonated through the place, when the wood began to fall. Noah placed the axe beneath his arm as he prop himself in it and watched the wood fall quickly.

The cut was clean and he did it in one hit, and soon the wood fell, making a loud sound when it hit the ground.

It had been a year since the beginning advanced training. Noah already knew that the canon would have started by that time, but it wasn't so much trouble for him.

Noah's Nen made a monstrous improvement, while he felt he had complete control. He activated his En, which encompassed more than 4km, had already passed so long, and since he ate many monsters. He also noticed that his En can't enter on the place where the castle was, just around it. Ignoring it, his forces more than doubled.

His Nen was no exception, he thought while making a perfect circle to show the perfect control. He rested the axe on the floor and looked at Alice as he turned off his En. She hit the wood with her axe, when each one crossed little less than half the trunk. She didn't need more than five hits to cut down the tree.

Her Nen improved by leaps and bounds, Noah even thought that if she could absorb other beings by eating just like him, she wouldn't be left behind. Noah now didn't care about much, he trained for a year straight without rest, just stopping to eat, sleep and go to the bathroom.

Alice came to his side as she sat together.

"So... Are you leaving?" Alice asked. In this year they spent together, it would be strange to say that they didn't get close, but Noah still didn't have much of a habit of socializing, despite talking once in a while.

"Yes, you don't have to worry about me. Worry about yourself." Noah said, while looking at her. Noah had grown a little, and was already about 1.59 meters, being 10 centimeters taller than her.

Alice nodded as she looked at his face, that was dirty to train for the day.

"I? Worry about a monster like you? I think it's more valid for me to worry about who gets in your way." She said, while giving a slight laugh.

Noah laughed too, as he picked up a cup that was on top of one of the many tree stumps, which were scattered throughout the oasis. The oasis, though it seemed small, seemed to have so many trees.

He had the tea. "Well, they won't have a problem if they don't do anything, will they?" He said, savoring the tea.

"Sure, that's if you're not hungry..." Alice laughed, despite being joking. She didn't see him devouring humans, but she saw every time he killed monsters, when he was hungry he was like a beast.

"Hahaha, you're right, but you can be sure I won't eat any aleatory person." Noah said with another laugh, while Alice froze, only to laugh too, thinking it was a joke.

Noah was already planning to eat some people, and thanks to his specialist hatsu, it would be much easier.

He had finally managed to use his Hatsu after so long.

Alice was not left behind when her Hatsu proved her to be a monster, not getting so far below Noah. She was able to create more than 100 golden weapons of Nen that obeyed her command. It was like a rain of blades, while she never stopped creating new ones as soon as the old ones dissipated. More than 100 golden weapons per second could be fired with your Hatsu.

She called this ability the Golden Blades. Noah didn't understand why she named a ability, since it's not a necessity, but he didn't care. She also created other Hatsus, one of which consisted of creating a large golden wall in front of her to defend herself from Nen attacks. It was harder than these trees they were training. While another was to create a black cage with her aura.

Noah liked these skills, they were simple and useful, really matched with the emiters.

"And then... Do you know when you're going?" Alice asked, while picking up the other cup that was on top of the same stump.

"Well, after the old man shows us what's inside that castle... That is today." Noah replied, taking another sip. Alice had a kind of sad look on her face, she knew she couldn't go along. But then she didn't care about that.

"I'm also thinking of going today, I think my training has already reached an acceptable level, I can't stay here my whole life..." Alice said, although her ability did not compare with Noah, she was extremely good, and she could say with certainty that she would have no problems with someone who is not among the strongest hunters.

"Hohohoho, do you plan to leave this lonely old man to die alone?" Miota appeared at that moment, while Noah looked at him.

"Speaking of the devil..." Noah said, while looking at Miota. "So you're taking us to the castle today?" Noah asked.

Miota looked at Noah as he scratched his beard. 'Noah has come so far that I wonder if he would be on the same level as Netero... He's just 9 years old! This boy is simply a monster, even if Netero is not in his peak, it is simply ridiculous something like that exist...' Miota thought, while nodding to Noah's request.

"Sure, I think you two are ready to see what's inside there." Miota said, as he turned back and walked toward the castle. Noah left his cup already without tea behind, while Alice did the same and followed them.

They didn't leave the oasis during all the training, so they were already looking forward to a new landscape to look at. They walked for a while, before arriving at the scene.

Stopping in front of the castle entrance, Miota looked at the two as he spoke.

"Turn on Gyo, and keep it on all the way." Miota said, as he walked inside the entrance. They both turned Gyo on and came in too. At the entrance, many pillars could be seen.

Noah admired the adornments of the black pillars. Drawings of large lions, with thousands of symbols on their bodies. But something surprised him, when he looked at the symbols, he could see Nen in each of them.

"What are these symbols..?" Alice asked, she was seeing the same as Noah, since she was with Gyo active.

Miota looked at this as he smiled as they noticed it. "These symbols, not even I could decipher correctly, but they seem to tell a story..." Miota said, as he approached the pillar and touched the symbols with his hands.

"I know that each symbol has its meaning, as if it had a function, and they connect with each other. These symbols were made by someone of the Manipulator Type..." Miota said, which made sense, since the symbols seemed to have been made with Nen.

Noah looked at it in awe... While i recognized the written symbols. They were Greek letters, but they seemed to come together in the same way as Mandarin. One letter merged with the other and formed something different, but you could see that each symbol was composed of Greek letters.

He could read, he studied the Greek alphabet a lot because he liked the culture. He took some meanings.

'Island, white, giant, tower.' It was the words he was able to decipher as he passed the pillar as he looked at the symbols on the lion's body. But these were the ones that didn't shine with Nen, the ones that shone were written other things that made him question whether he hadn't seen something like this before.

'Reinforcement, strength, endurance, life.' Those were the words he was able to decipher from the ones that shone with Nen. He could feel how every symbol worked, and he can't help but think...

'That's... Runes?' Noah thought, seeing that this was completely plausible, if the person used the manipulation type to manipulate the function of these symbols on the surface in which they occupy. As if the symbols were a manipulation tool.

Noah didn't talk about it with the two of them as they continued their way. Along the way he saw many more of these symbols, as in weapons drawings, their adornments were written. 'Cut, bleed...' And things like that, making him think more about whether that were really runes.

They continued, while the drawings seemed increasingly poorly finished.

Arriving at the end of the corridor, there was a ladder that came down.

"From here, be careful..." Miota spoke as he went down on the first step, and as if to respond to it, a huge roar resonated throughout the castle, causing it to tremble a little.

None of them seemed to care, even though they heard it, it didn't affect them anymore, even though they felt nen's amount imbued with that roar.

Going further and further, they reached what appeared to be a specie of basement, but it was more of a dungeon, it was completely dark, while the roar when it sounded was getting louder and louder. Along the walls, the same symbol was repeated many times.

'Endurance' was everywhere underneath. Miota picked up a torch that was in one of the corners and began to walk forward.

Once again the roar resonated across the place, while Noah felt the loud roar make his chest tremble... But he felt something else. His blood boiled for some reason as he began to get excited because of it. He controlled himself as he walked forward.

Alice was a little shrunken, but continued anyway.

Again another roar, and this time even louder, signaling that we were near. Noah once again felt his chest tremble, as he clenched his fists and could not contain the smile for some reason, while his mouth widened and the sclere of his right eye turned completely black and veins appeared.

The two didn't notice because of the darkness. But he still controlled himself, although he couldn't fully contain the excitement, he could control himself so as not to jump forward and go straight to where the sound was.

After a few more seconds, they arrived at a location. At the end of the hall, Miota used his torch to illuminate the front when a strange lion was chained.

The lion was strange, its fur was completely red and it seemed to be more than 5 meters. The lion's tail looked made of metal, and had a large, extremely sharp tip. It was asleep and from moment to moment, it opened its mouth and a loud roar came out of there. Alice looked at the chains holding him, only to see that they were already breaking. She wanted to get out of there.

Noah, on the other, His eyes lost their luster when he looked at the animal. His smile was gone when he walked forward slowly, as his left sclera began to turn black... But unlike his right eye, the left eye was with a yellow iris, while no veins appeared around his eye.

Miota noticed Noah going forward while putting his arm in front so he wouldn't continue. Noah didn't care as he passed Miota's arm and continued. Miota noticed Noah's eyes when the torch light ilumminate it and he felt a fear of it... He held Alice's arm as he walked away from the scene, slowly.

Noah didn't seem to mind that as he continued toward the sleeping lion. From his back, four wings came out, two red and two completely black, with pulsaing purple veins, but his chest was not covered as before.

8 Tails came out, 4 of them seemed like spider paws and the other 4 that looked like centipedes. The tails seemed restless as they moved slightly. Around Noah's waist down, he was clad in a specie of black armor that looked alive, while shaking slightly in tathering together with his tails.

Noah stood near the head of the huge lion, while one of his tails was headed toward its forehead. But before Noah's tail could touch the lion's forehead...

"NOAH!" Miota and Alice screamed together as the lion's tail crossed the center of Noah's chest at frightening speed, while the lion opened its large blue eyes as it stared at Noah.

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Author Note:

No, it will not give him a nerf, just wait until i make the next chapter XD

Thank you for reading!!! I hope you enjoyed it.