Chapter 1039: Blood Bound Rowan no longer fought with any bit of fairness anymore, now understanding that his softheartedness came from the kinship he had felt with this old man that emerged from a diluted part of his blood flowing in his veins. This was so unexpected that his bloodline could escape his control and in such a prevalent manner that Rowan shook with anger. When Rowan died the first time inside this world, his consciousness had been placed in a coma and he was unaware of the battle that took place between the serpents and the Ascendants, only awakening at the end to futilely fight against the World Will where he lost, and although he should have regained all his missing memories the instant he had awakened, he was killed once again, his consciousness likely scattered all over Doom Star and so at this moment was not complete, leaving a large chunk of the previous battles a mystery. The presence of this old man and the bloodline he contained meant that in that battle Rowan's bloodline must have spread through the world. It was unlikely he would get the full picture from the memories of the man, but it would be a first step. He feared that pieces of his body were spread all over Doom Star and its influence was already spreading throughout this world, but this spread was chaotic, or at least he hoped it was, his reawakening was strange, it still felt that he had not awakened from death naturally, but was summoned. Roael, not knowing the great changes happening inside Rowan's head, cracked his neck, screamed his defiance, and charged toward Rowan, "I am an Explorer, and today you shall fall!" Rowan stretched forth his hand and the old man's body stiffened in mid-charge and rose into the air, carried by an invisible hand that rendered all his actions futile, he could more easily move the world than move even a single finger. Rowan's eyes closed a bit as he focused, the large shadows of the Shiik emerged behind him as the Calamity had finished healing its wounds and came to rest behind Rowan looking at the old man with fury in its dead white eyes. 𝙛𝓻𝒆𝒆𝒘𝙚𝓫𝙣𝙤𝒗𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝙤𝙢 "I once thought that you were something special, but it was not you, it was what inside your blood that calls to me, a shame, and I was expecting more from you, I wonder why that is? Have I truly fallen to such an extent?" Saying these words, Rowan pulled. The broken state of his consciousness had made it hard for him to find traces of his blood inside this Explorer, but he had sensed it, a faint connection that made the old man favorable in his sight. Roael wanted to scream but he could not, suspended in the air, the absolute dominance of those with bloodline authority was fully displayed at this moment as from every pore in his body, every single drop of liquid contained inside his mortal frame was extracted in an instant. In one moment there was a vibrant man filled with bloodlust and righteous fury, and in the next moment, a shrunken bloodless cadaver with no single drop of moisture in his body remained in the air, thankfully Roal lived for a single second after this before the hands of death mercifully took him, even his impressive physique as a Legend Ranked Explorer was useless to fight against such a terrible injury, and when his remain touched the ground they collapsed into dust. Rowan floated the nearly eight liters of fluid that contained the blood, marrows, and every other liquid content in Roaels body to him even his urine was part of this mass, and he swiped his hand to the right repeatedly, every time he did this, a part of the liquid was flung aside, as he ejected everything in the blood that was not needed by him, and what was left was a golden drop of blood the size of a pinhead. Rowan closed his eyes as he assimilated all the memories of Roael from the soul of the Explorer and when he was done his eyes snapped open in fury. His body shuddered as the infusion of nearly a hundred Heroic Ranked Explorers, three Glorious Ranked Explorers and a Legend Ranked Explorer filled him to the brim, accumulating with so much density inside his cells that they all turned blue, and there was a faint cracking sound that seemed to reverberate in the heavens above as Rowan reached the Enlightened Realm as an Explorer. His body readjusted itself, no longer like a ten-year-old, now he was a teenager at fourteen years old and his hair now reached his waist. With the dense amount of Ascendant Aura inside his Enlightened body. Rowan's feet no longer touched the ground, no more a mere mortal, he had enough Ascendant Aura inside him to rival a Deific Ranked Explorer, his body no longer obeyed gravity, and he stayed a few inches away from the ground, his legs would no longer touch the earth. However, his primary focus was not on his realm advancement, it was the memories he was still riffling through and the dot of gold on his fingertip. According to the limited knowledge inside Roael, his kind, those with the fragments of Rowan's blood inside them were called the Blood Bound, and the period when they first began to sight them was primarily unknown, but it was generally placed between five hundred thousand years ago and a time period more enshrouded in dust. Knowledge of those periods was left in the dark, especially for those beneath the Ascendant ranks whose lifespan could only be counted in decades and centuries, it was nearly impossible to know what happened in the depths of history for those of their ranks. This realization that he had slept for half a million years and perhaps even more was not as shocking to Rowan, he could detect the flow of time to a limited degree even with his broken consciousness and he was aware that a long time had passed since he slumbered, and it had indeed taken this long for this minor fragment of himself to wake up. Yet this confirmation that he had slept this long filled him with great fear, but the reason he was afraid was unknown, his memories were still too shattered, but Rowan knew that the only thing he truly feared were matters involving Primordials, and if that was the case, whatever was missing in his memories was crucial, and time was a fundamental aspect to it. His mind immediately focused on the word 'time.' He knew that what was troubling him deeply was linked to time, but he could not remember, he frowned but pushed these worries aside as he perused the last of the memories. Blood Bound were Explorers whose blood had become tainted, their potential was halted at the Deific Rank, unable to cross to Ascendancy, because the corrupted blood inside their bodies was so dominant in its control over the flesh, it held the Explorers bound to their fleshy body. An Ascendant was supposed to leave the fleshy body behind and take the form of Aura, only in this manner would they become truly immortal and no longer bound to the frailties of the flesh, but the Blood Bound was unable to take this step.