Chapter 1459 First Strike There had been eight of them a moment before, and in the blink of an eye, only six were left. Rowan had expected such losses, but he would have preferred if his companions had died while striking the Dark One with their last breath, it was the only consolation that could be afforded to them, however, he understood that this was how things were going to be when mortals stood against what could be best described as a force of nature, even his death could be unexpectedly swift and sudden and he had no way of preventing that from occurring. As suddenly as it had begun, the eruption of this corrosive liquid stopped, and Rowan looked below to see that the pool of acid was gone, the force from the cry of the Dark One had blasted them out of the area, and it finally revealed their foe, and Rowan blinked, because the Earth god here was familiar, even through the ruinous state of his features, his face belonging to someone he had killed not so long ago, Drakul, the Old One, that ancient vampire that had fed on countless universes and dimensions, well, in this Fracture he was an Earth god aspiring to become a god. Rowan did not try to analyze if this scene had ever happened in the past, due to the many inconsistencies surrounding it, for one, it was unknown if Acturus and Drakul had been born at the same time period, he suspected that Acturus had existed far before Drakul was born because Seed was ancient, and even if that was to be the case where these two had lived in the same time period, Acturus had been a mortal because of the wishes of Seed his father, Drakul, on the other hand, was born during the Primordial Era, and he began life as a gigantic extra-dimensional bat-like creature. It was in the endless bounty of the Primordial Era where power could be easily obtained that Drakul had grown into the horror that plagued reality for countless years until he was slaughtered in the war that ended the Primordial Era. What Rowan believed he was witnessing here was most likely a random fusion of multiple events he must have glimpsed throughout his life. With the shattered state of his consciousness beset with madness, this Fracture had most likely pieced together fragments of Rowan's Memories, his hidden pain, and mental wounds into a deadly soup, and he was being made to face them without any barrier of his great power or omnipotence. So it did not matter whose face he wore or which enemy he was going to fight, they were all his trauma in one shape or another and Rowan shook his head as if he wanted to blow away his wayward thoughts. This was not what should be distracting him at this moment, so Rowan simply threw away these streams of thoughts, he was acting like his mind still had an unlimited processing power, and he was wasting it on useless thoughts when he should be focused on nothing but the battle, although he knew that these seemingly random thoughts were important, because battle against immortal beings involved more than just the physical aspects but many random pieces of information which could come together to lead to a breakthrough, however, he could not afford to be distracted at this point. 𝘧𝘳𝘦ℯ𝓌𝘦𝒷𝘯𝑜𝑣𝘦𝓁.𝒸𝘰𝓂 This space resembled the insides of sick and bleeding giants, and they were the parasites in its system. Everything pulsed and bled, and the smell was intensely foul, like a battlefield filled with bodies left to rot under the sun for days. The Dark One was kneeling, naked, at the center of this space, appearing more like a decaying cadaver than a living person, large portions of his skin had sloughed off and his muscles were exposed, massive pulsating tentacles connected to this fleshy sac that resembled worms were pierced into his body, and Rowan could see that a constant stream of a powerful corrosive liquid was being pumped into his body through those tentacles. Rowan watched as the Dark One slowly grabbed one of the tentacles and began to pull it out of his flesh while letting out groans of pain, there seemed to be too much of its length inside his body for it to ever be natural, despite this Earth god standing more than fifteen feet tall, on his knees he was as tall as Rowan in this body. In a single motion that sounded as if someone was tearing struggling flesh with an unreasonable amount of force, the Dark One pulled more than four feet of wriggling tentacle from his body, but there seemed to be more left inside, and he had to struggle for every pulling motion he was making as the tentacle fought to be buried again inside his flesh. There were already dozens of such tentacles lying at his feet, most likely the result of his labors for the past few months, and only three were left inside of his body. Rowan understood that the moment that he freed himself of the last of these tentacles, the Dark One would have gained his freedom and it would signify that he had conquered the Tribulation. They had come just in time, the Dark One was almost through with his Tribulation. As the Dark One struggled to pull out the tentacles from his body, blood, and the corrosive yellow liquid oozed out of his flesh, and Rowan could feel another rising scream emerging from the body of the Earth god, his team would not survive something like that a second time. It was time to act. Rowan gestured to the Mage who had spared a bit of his concentration on the fading remnants of his two companions and was already used to loss that could break the mind of any mortal, Valgus the Mage nodded at Rowan, and he made two actions simultaneously, the first was to make Rowan invisible and the second was to throw a massive white fireball at the kneeling Dark One.