Chapter 1071: It Ends Here For Me The Divine Ascendant had intense fear and frustration building inside him, and a healthy portion of confusion, the battle had been ridiculously fast and went in a direction that he could not have predicted, and the reason for that was simple when he thought about it more than a second, the amount of Ascendant Aura inside of his enemy was to be considered in the simplest term... impossible, not to add the fact that they were pure with no touch of Calamity inside of it, and in addition to that, he was still mortal, not even an Ascendant. To achieve anything close to this, then he would need to devour countless trillions of Explorers, and even if there was a way this mysterious Explorer could do such a thing, how could any mortal flesh contain such a ridiculous amount of Aura? Not even he with his flesh now made of purified Aura could hold a fraction of what this creature had unleashed. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖 Then the second explanation would be his fighting techniques, despite all the power he had unleashed, he had controlled every move perfectly, blocking, countering, and attacking in such a smooth and violent manner that again was... impossible. It was normal to wield a short sword with finesse, but applying the same concept to a great sword the height of a mountain was ridiculous, and yet that was what he had witnessed, that unreasonable power and control had torn him to pieces in less time than he would have ever dreamt possible. "I am the last living part of a broken world, and I will match your strengths, and exceed them." The words from his enemy rang in his mind and he now saw them through fresh eyes. Perhaps he should not have dismissed those words rather quickly when he had first heard them, and he should have realized that he was not fighting against an Explorer, but against the world itself, who else could make the entire heavens shake with a single palm? He had always been blessed with the talent to read the mysteries behind reality, and for most of the time, he could not understand the words or visions that came to him, it was the reason he sequestered himself in the mortal world below, wishing to slowly peel apart his unknown talent. The Divine Ascendant had always hated this talent, but he felt that one day it might show its effects properly, perhaps warn him about incoming dangers, but he had received nothing but cryptic messages about giants in gold. At the end of his life, with the little hint Rowan had given him, Arthurius Rais began to find a connection between the present and the past, and he remembered a forbidden text about a piece of heaven falling from the sky nearly a million years ago that led to the death of eight Ascendant, an infant Calamity God and the descent of the World Will, he could not follow this stream of thought for the pain reached its crescendo, and everything went white, after all, he was being presently torn apart, and his Core Aura being violated. "This is how it ends for me..." Loud cries of anger and admonishment came from some of the descending lights as the Ascendants screamed out for Rowan to cease his actions, they could as well be ants for all the regard Rowan gave them. The Divine Ascendant finally screamed, the blue light of Rowan's Aura shooting out from his mouth and eyes, and as the light from his insides built up to a feverish pitch, his body no longer able to hold cohesion, the Ascendant exploded. A fourth Ascendant sun appeared in the sky for seven seconds before winking out. "VRRBBOOOMMM!!!!!!! The greatest explosion of the battle erupted from the body of the Divine Ascendant, and all of reality seemed to turn white, silver, then red, as flames hotter than a star, and exploding out with the force of a supernova blasted out with a loud shriek. Rowan set his feet steadily on the ground and held his hands wide as he was baptized under the heat and pressure of the explosion. He withstood the damages with a grin as his body struggled to contain the calamitous damages being inflicted upon it. "Aahhh..." he groaned, "I remember this feeling once more, my blood is getting warmer." He was never afraid of running out of Ascendant Aura and even when he was left with only bones, he could heal back nearly instantaneously, it helped that although Rowan appeared just eight feet tall at the moment, he was many many times larger than this, and every damage he was taking was spread out in a very large area. When the explosion subsided leaving a field of flames that stretched for a thousand miles, only the figure of Rowan with eyes closed was left standing in the center, and on his left hand was a shining silver Ascendant Crystal. Inside the crystal was a small form of the Divine Ascendant that appeared to be asleep. Rowan Ascendant Aura did not just blast the Ascendant apart, he had crushed his Core Aura into a crystal, almost as if he was manipulating soul energy. The similarities between the body of an Ascendant and souls made this an easy feat. Rowan could feel something that felt like a heartbeat from the crystal and faint cries of pain that seemed to be coming from a distance. "Traitor! You shall die for this." an angered roar came from above, an Ascendant who had pushed ahead from the rest and wearing similar gleaming armor and cape of the Divine Ascendant he had just slaughtered was already a few tens of miles away from Rowan, and he brought out a long silver greatsword. Screaming his fury and the blade shining like a descending star, he swung it at Rowan unleashing a blade beam that drew the power of time like a storm, in a stunning move that was ten times greater than anything the Divine Ascendant was capable of unleashing. The blade beam vanished in midair, appearing an inch before Rowan's head, who calmly sidestepped the blow that then continued to travel and impacted by his side, tearing the field of flames in two before blasting it apart, creating a shockwave that disappeared far into the distance. Rowan's red hair and golden robes were blown to the side with so much force that it appeared as if they were held in the air by invisible hands, but other than this he was completely unharmed, his feet did not move a single inch. He casually waved his hand and broke the shockwaves apart. The descending Ascendant screamed in anger when he noticed that in the midst of all this, Rowan had not once acknowledged his presence but was focused on the Ascendant Crystal he was holding. Rowan breathed out, a slight tension in his heart, and he crushed the crystal. What would happen next would determine which path he was going to follow. "How much of the World Will can I penetrate before it finds me?" The crystal turned into fine silvery dust that swayed slightly in the air before heading towards Rowan's head and he breathed them in and closed his eyes. Around him, hundreds of Ascendants began to land.