Rowan did not push deeper to investigate this barrier because he noticed it was filled with Ascendant Aura, most likely from the Divine Ascendant who had assimilated this continent to become his Natal Treasure.

However, this was not the reason he was investigating the depths of the earth. It was as he had once suspected; that calamity Gods could not be found under every continent, and the fact that his descent had been directly over the mouth of one of these elusive creatures while he was in the helpless form of a stone egg was not a coincidence.

The entire battle as it played out, including the death of the Calamity God, the summoning of Berrion the Undying, and finally a single Deific Explorer who stood above the battle and watched it all in grim amusement, as it mocked Rowan and all of existence.

“So this is the form you have taken, Eye of Time? A mortal shell… risky, but that is the only way you should be able to exert influence without calling attention to your killers. Smart… hahaha… our family line seems to be filled with nothing but daredevils.”

Knowing that dwelling on the incoming battle was pointless, he focused on his next agenda, killing the Divine Ascendant and claiming this continent.

He opened his left palm and the tattoo of the hunched-back woman and the Shiik blossomed in scarlet radiance as Rowan converted his increased stream of Soul energy into the Aura of Calamity, and in less than three days, the Shiik whose capacity for Calamity Aura was truly stupendous and rivaling those of Rowan also reached the Deific Rank.

The progress Rowan made upon reaching the Deific Rank had truly shown its value at this moment; it took him six months to reach the Deific Rank using the converted stream of Ascendant Aura, but he did something equally impressive in just three days.

If the stream of Soul energy he could utilize previously came from a thin straw, it was now a large pipeline, a dozen feet in diameter. With the Shiik at the Deific Rank, its size tripled, but this amazing transformation did not end there, due to its merger with the corrupted Explorer Nyla, it took on certain traits of Ascendancy, and its form took a fog-like state, appearing to become a beast made from black smoke and red flames.

Nyla shrieked, the sound from her mouth was distorted, almost sounding like that of a Shiik, the elevation of the Shiik also benefited her, and her powerbase that had been stuck at the lower levels of the Deific Rank reached the peak, and only fulfilling certain prerequisite would be enough to push her to the Ascendant Rank and make her a Temple Matron.

The Shiik did not have any of such restrictions, a Calamity only needed a great amount of Aura and an equally greater amount of mayhem and chaos under their belt to transform into the Nascent state of a Calamity God, their lifespan became almost infinite, and the energy they needed to transform to a higher state became more restrictive, and so they would sleep for millions of years, devouring entire continents to evolve further.

Rowan had also pushed his Ascendant Aura to the peak of the Deific Rank, and only until he assimilated all required number of continents would he push to become an Ascendant, and it was as of yet unknown the number of continents he would require to become an Ascendant, and therefore summon the third and also possibly the fourth portion of his consciousness, but that would all depend on the abilities he would gain as an Ascendant.

Looking towards his left where the palace of the Divine Ascendant lay, Rowan began moving with measured steps towards his target.

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The Divine Ascendant lived at the top of Stone Reach, his palace had ten floors, and the top three floors were restricted to the Ascendant alone, with the Ruler of Stone Reach, a Deific Ranked Explorer with bloodline connection with the Ascendant having his official station on the fourth floor, the six-floor below was a combination of armory, barracks, warship port and administrative center.

The seven floors in total housed tens of thousands of Explorers and was the most secure area in all of Stone Reach, even an insect would be unable to pass through the door, and yet as Rowan walked past hundreds of Explorers heading for the higher floors, no one seemed to notice him.

His ethereal presence passed among them like the wind, stirring the hair of some, and causing others with enhanced senses to feel goosebumps breaking across their flesh. He walked unimpeded across the three lower floors until he reached a barrier at the fourth where passing through it would draw attention unless he used powers outside the sphere of Ascendancy.

Rowan sighed, he had hoped to be able to reach his destination quietly, but that was not an option. He revealed himself before the blocked gate leading to the fourth floor, and he began to run his hand across the metal, made from Trithon, but infused with a peculiar combination of both runic sorcery and surprisingly herbal components, this door was almost alive.

For a while, nobody caught sight of Rowan, but an Explorer caught a glint of gold at the side of his vision and he looked down and stumbled from his workstation in shock as the ground below had all transformed into a river of gold.

Successive exclamations emerged from the surroundings as the hundreds of Explorers on this floor found that the ground beneath their feet had all turned to gold, and soon few caught sight of Rowan standing by the gate to the higher floor, idly stroking it.

Observant Explorers soon noticed that the river of gold beneath their feet all emerged from the robe of the mysterious stranger in front of them, but before the full realization of what they were witnessing sank into their consciousness, a sense of weightlessness overtook them all as the golden river opened up and swallowed all the Explorers in the floor and the other two floors below.

A few seconds ago, the first three floors were a bustling area with thousands of Explorers, and in the next, nothing but silence. Rowan did not seem to even notice what had happened, his focus was on the door ahead which opened a few seconds later silently, as he convinced the door to unlock itself without alerting anyone else in the building.

Rowan stepped forward, his robe sweeping ahead of him like an endless wave, and wherever it passed, where previously there were hundreds of Explorers going through their daily responsibilities, only silence was left. The fourth floor was cleared in a second, three seconds later, Rowan was at the gate to the fifth floor.

Understanding the mechanism behind the door’s operation, a look from Rowan was enough to unlock the gate, and what happened on the fourth floor repeated itself on the fifth, but this time Rowan paused to look at the map of the entire Silver Alliance that was arrayed on a large dais on this floor before moving ahead.

However, on reaching the sixth floor, Rowan stopped, he looked at what was waiting for him ahead and smiled, behind him the door closed with a resounding bang,

“Who are you?”

a whispery voice that sounded like the breeze passing through leaves swept through the hall. It came from a figure that seemed to be made from silvery smoke hovering in the air. The Divine Ascendant was waiting for Rowan on the sixth floor. ƒгeewёbnovel.com

“Your death,” Rowan replied.