The old man quickly realized that he had been wounded and instantly manifested his most powerful Natal Treasure, a silver orb the size of a grapefruit, with a great cry.

The appearance of the orb came about like an explosion of light and force that could be seen for miles, enormous blast waves that shattered the earth and left cracks that extended for miles, leaving only the black building that contained the Teleportation Prism intact, even the Shiik was flung away, losing dozens of limbs, and its armor was nearly crushed to pieces.

One moment the old man had seemed confused and the next he had released enough power to level the entire complex. It was apparent that when there was a great jump between the Glorious Rank and the Heroic Rank, this divide only increased drastically when it came to the Legend Rank.

The partially destroyed ship a few hundred feet away was crushed into pieces as wave after wave of destructive silver light carrying intensive concussive forces slammed it to the earth repeatedly, like an egg placed between a hammer and an anvil, the ship virtually vanished. His cries stopped and the old man who had been hovering in the air looked around him in exasperation as his feet touched the ground, in his wrath and fear he had destroyed everything around him. He wanted to slap himself with anger when he saw that of his ship the largest pieces left were not bigger than a small plate.

He could regrow his ship but that would take months, the advantage of reaching a hidden resource point like this one would be lost when others arrived, and that was the least of his trouble, his brother was a Deific Ranked Explorer working for the Silver Alliance, and he would skin him alive if he knew he rushed here to loot this area instead of helping to protect

it.

An opportunity for great wealth like this came about once in a lifetime, and if he wanted to reach the famed inheritance ground, he needed every edge he could get.

Looking at the devastation he had wrought, he understood that he had been fooled, he knew of certain techniques or Natal Treasures that could warp the perception of others, and that was what had most likely happened to him, his men had not vanished and no naked little boy was standing on his shoulder, in one swoop he had destroyed his entire crew.

His throat hurt but it was not a debilitating wound, nothing that his physique was not already slowly healing and he should be fine even without any elixir in a week or at most two weeks. Those conniving bastards had just traded a nonlethal wound for his entire crew and shamefully he had been the one to dispense their will. This thought filled him with shame and rage.

He needed to draw them out any way that he could and then he could crush them like the bugs they were,

"You must be enjoying yourself eeh? Tricking me like the little rat that you are. Don't think you can hide from me, I will find you and make you beg for your death... Do you know who I am and the things that I have done?! I shall find all of you, be certain of that, and my rage, hehehe..."

Rowan suddenly appeared in front of the old man, held up by parasitic tentacles that emerged from his spine so he could stand at the same height as the old man, and he was so close that they were face to face,

"Now I am curious," Rowan drawled, "about the things you have done that give you such confidence, although I fear that as always it is unfounded, but I am willing to give you the benefit of the doubt. Some mortals as it turns out are indeed quite fascinating creatures, I know of one called Telmus, so be warned, I hold a particularly high standard, and if you don't meet them, I would be very disappointed."

"Bassstaard!!!" The old man screamed furiously, releasing several pulses of concussive force from the silver orb, he soon manifested a silver gauntlet and a halberd, and he released waves of destructive forces from the halberd while a silver dome of force covered his entire body.

Summoning his entire trove of Natal treasures made the spine of the old man straighten as his vitality surged, his black hair began to redden at the roots.

Rowan appeared once again, just outside the dome of force covering the old man, unaffected by the destruction, there was a look of disappointment in his eyes,

"In my experience, I have seen that sometimes it is not the strongest who wins the battle, the wisest that wins the arguments, or the swiftest that wins the race, and yet of all the showings of the weak before the mighty, that turned out to be... disappointing. Is this the full reaches of your powers?"

"You are nothing!" the old man spat, a thick vein throbbing on his forehead, "Nothing but a mirage, you hide like a worm and throw shadows at your betters! Come forward and face me, you craven!"

Rowan sighed, "There are many ways that I can kill you. Including the several parasitic worms

I have around your heart and brain, I have evolved them white extensively and they can chew through even tough organs like yours without much trouble, but sometimes, I believe the old ways are best."

Saying this Rowan opened his hands and two short daggers appeared, they seemed to be made from blood before they solidified into ruby. He slightly leaned his body forward like a panther, taking a step, Rowan vanished.

"More mirage!" the old man screamed and launched a concussive wave of force from the silver orb while looking around with a piercing gaze, his waving halberd leaving lines of silver in the air, that hummed with a sharp piercing power.

"Then this should not hurt," Rowan appeared behind the old man, who whirled around to face him, bringing his halberd upwards so he could cut the imposter in two, but then he noticed that his dome of force shook and flashed before vanishing.

'That can't be right?' looking down at his left hand, he noticed that his entire arm from the elbow which held his gauntlet that was responsible for the defensive dome around his body was hanging by a single strip of skin.

That skin stretched down before the weight of the arm tore apart the skin and the arm fell to the ground with a dull thud.

The old man looked at his stump and back at Rowan with disbelieving eyes, "How..."

Rowan rolled his eyes, "This is becoming quite boring, could it be that I was wrong about you?" scratching the side of his face with the sharp edges of his knife Rowan asked with curiosity in his gaze, "From your earlier words it seems you believed that I used your hands in dealing with your crew, but if that is the case, why have you not yet received your bounty of Aura from this mad realm?"

The old man shivered, and stammered, "You... you..."

"Yes me," Rowan sighed and crouched again, "Now focus, Roael, you are about to die, and you should do it as a warrior. Something about your fate intrigues me, and it would be a shame for you to fight me without putting in your all. Rulers of entire realities would kill for this honor."