Chapter 1067: Shaking The World The Ascendant paused, he seemed shocked by Rowan's lackadaisical attitude and then he chuckled, shaking his head in disdain, "Even if you have hatred against Ascendants, surely you cannot believe that the animosity of the Blood Bound can justify this travesty. Challenging an Ascendant is death, mortal, and I promise that not only you would suffer this fate." Rowan closed his right eye, brought his left hand up, and made a finger gun with it; he knew the Ascendant would understand the significance of this move. He pointed at the chest of the Ascendant with the finger gun, "I never said I was a Blood Bound, you gave me that tag without any sort of confirmation apart from my hard flesh. Besides, you do not know the things I have challenged as a mortal." he mimed a shot, "Bang." The Ascendant looked down at his chest and he brushed it as if shaking off invisible dust, and then looked back up, any note of amusement or civility in his voice was gone, a mortal mocking an immortal was a story that had never had a great ending, "You do not think you would leave this place alive, do you? Allow me to disabuse you of that notion." Spreading out his hands, the Ascendant manifested a silver blade and shield in a flurry of blue sparks as his body compressed, his wispy shape hardening into something that resembled black metal. His Natal Treasures appeared simple without any decoration, just a two-sided short sword and a round shield that barely covered his torso, but Rowan immediately sensed the resonance between the shield and the entire continent of Stone Reach; he also felt the resonance with another distant continent from the blade. These were Natal Treasures that were already linked to a continent. The blade and the shield were suddenly engulfed by blue flames that burned so hot, the space around the Ascendant began to crack, and the wave of heat that erupted turned everything on the floor to ash, including the thousands of kneeling corpses, without any warning, the Ascendant attacked, launching himself towards Rowan so quickly his body was like a mirage, Rowan blasted a beam of Ascendant energy at the incoming foe, who batted it aside with his shield, the beam punching a hole through the castle and heading towards the sky, and he swung his flaming sword in retaliation, releasing a shaft of blue flame that sliced through the air, leaving cracks in space, Rowan hands snaked forward, catching the blade beam with his two hands and snapped them in two before letting go. The broken blade beams passed by him and sliced through the entire floor level in a circular arc. The palace of the Ascendant groaned before the top half tilted with a loud crash that resounded throughout the Stone Reach castle and sent tremors to the earth below. Hundreds of thousands of mortals looked to the sky in shock as the palace of the Divine Ascendant was sliced in two, and hundreds of thousands of tonnes of bricks, metals, and all sorts of things collapsed, causing a cascade of debris that built up like an avalanche. The screams of fear and confusion erupted as the mortals began to flee, but few could escape far as with a titanic rumble the debris impacted the bottom level of the castle crushing the elites of Stone Reach into paste and decimating the entire castle that had stood in place for more than three hundred thousand years. But even this loud blast from the crash could not equal the successive bangs ongoing at the top of the castle from the battle between Rowan and the Divine Ascendant that was slowly growing to a feverish height. Blue flashes of light that lit the clouds for miles and sounds like continents splitting apart came about so constantly from above that it merged into a constant stream of chimes reminiscent of a world-ending cataclysm, and if one was to listen carefully, they would hear the sound of laughter. Rowan in the sky was grinning, red hair floating behind him like a storm and golden robes waving around like wings, he blocked, parried, and dodged the attacks from the Divine Ascendant using his bare hands, retaliating with a quick series of punches that made the shield from the Ascendant and the entire continent below to quake. For most of the mortals, the continent was their entire world, and today the world was being shaken to its foundations. The Ascendant growled in frustration at the direction the battle was heading, his heart surprised that he was not killing a mortal with a single move but he had to actively defend against his attacks. He thrust his blade while rotating it with a peculiar pattern that caused blue flaming flower patterns like roses to bloom in the air, Rowan's eyes lit up in appreciation as he discovered that because of the soul-like nature of Ascendants, their comprehension ability was greatly exaggerated. Every Ascendant would be a great genius in the outside reality, as their massive soul power gave them a much vaster spirit, hence greater comprehension capabilities. The move the Ascendant made was so intricate yet held so much power, if he had used it outside in reality, he would have butchered a God Emperor with this single move, even without placing much energy into it. Cladding his arms for the first time with a thick gauntlet of Ascendant Energy, Rowan punched the flaming flowers multiple times in quick succession along certain patterns only he could see, and the flaming flower not only shattered to pieces but was launched back at the Ascendant with three times more force. Blocking with the shield he rapidly brought up, the Divine Ascendant thrust his blade below the shield, expecting the weapon to reach Rowan due to the shield blocking this insidious move. Yet Rowan saw this move coming a mile away and with a powerful spin kick, he blasted the short blade out of the hand of the Ascendant. The eyes of the Divine Ascendant widened, he might be able to wield the sword freely, but that was because it was his Natal Treasure, for anyone else, this blade weighed more than three thousand million million million tons. Not to talk about moving it a single inch, Rowan had just knocked it spinning into the sky, and what happened next continued shocking the Ascendant so much so that he paused his assault. Rowan had reached forward and grabbed the falling blade. He did not grab the sword by its hilt, instead, he held it by its blade and pointed the hilt at the Divine Ascendant while grinning, clearly offering the blade back to his foe, "Hold more firmly to your weapon Ascendant, after a million years of sleep, I want to enjoy this fight to the limit!" Wary of a trick the Ascendant wanted to step back but he saw the glow in Rowan's eyes, there was no scheme inside, just happiness... happiness that came during combat where you had to focus and everything was left behind. In this moment the Ascendant understood Rowan more than most would ever could. This was a being whose heart held a heavy burden, and sometimes the only way he could forget for a while was during battle. "Why do you fight me empty-handed?" the Ascendant asked, disdain no longer in his tone, only a sort of shock, "You will only last a single move if I use a weapon," The Divine Ascendant paused and then he took back his blade, Rowan laughed with happiness, "Good, let go!"