Video Game Logic

Rowan stood within a cloud, hovering high above the main base for close to ten minutes. , he had begun to worry that something had happened to Em when the tracker beeped in his pocket. It looked like a stopwatch and it now had a message scrolling across the screen that read "Decided to go sneaky, I leave the big bads to you brother." Rowan could only sigh at this, she had become rather willful over the past couple of days which made him smile. She was less of the wounded little girl that lost her mother and only family. She was gradually becoming someone new.

Rowan shook the thought from his head as he decided on a course of action and was about to make a plan when he remembered something very important. He was stronger then all of this rabble put together. He let the storm armament go back into combat form and slowly let his wings recede as he slowly and simply started walking right up to the front door. It was a massive warehouse, something that Rowan noticed rather quickly was that it was too big. He had been in Evergreen city his entire life and could be said to know almost every building in the city, yet he had never seen this door before.

He walked through the front door and was greeted by what was a throng of people. Each of them gave off mana, but not a single person was doing anything but staring at the door that Rowan had first walked through. All the people present held a weapon in their hand and were at the ready for the battle that was inevitably going to follow. Rowan's hyper vision had evolved. It took nothing more than a simple scan to know that there were 500 mana users in this room ranging from levels ten- thirty.

Rowan smiled to himself as he guessed their plan. He had allowed Fiona to come back here to see what changes would take place in their forces, but also because of this. He wanted them to throw cannon fodder at him just like he suspected they would. Rowan's strength was no secret at this point and so anyone with a brain would create a plan in which they drained his mana and took him out that way. Rowan was about to commence the slaughter when screens he had not noticed turned on in the background.

The man on the screen could only truly be described as a wall of flesh and muscle. He was a walking tank. He smiled the moment the screen turned on, as he seemed to stare directly at Rowan. "Rowan Raid, it's my pleasure to finally make your acquaintance. Rowan could feel that the room felt like it was ready to blow. He could tell that each person here was waiting to leap at the opportunity to strike and they were just waiting for the man on the screen to give the word. "I go by Tiger. I'm the second in command of the Zodiac gang, and allow me to welcome you to our headquarters. Now typically a man as talented as you, this would be the point in which you are offered money, equipment from the system, woman, anything you want really, but after the events of today, we are certainly past that point. You've killed four of our highest ranking members within the past week and while we may have been the initiators, this simply isn't something that we can allow. The men standing before you are there with a single purpose: to wear you out and spend your mana. We assumed you guessed it, but our headquarters is quite special, so you truly have no choice but to play this game with us."

Rowan had been sending his mana into the ground and had already realized that the facility that they were currently in extended downwards into an underground tower, that each held a single floor. Rowan was unable to see past the first three floors before his mana could not go any further, but he assumed there would be twelve, at least one, for each member of the zodiac.

He looked back up to the screen. Rowan really looked around like he had stepped into a video game as he looked up at the screens. "This is the part where you tell me that the only way that I can proceed to the next level is by clearing each stage right and at the end, I'll face your boss and get my friend back, right? "Tiger smiled and flashed a thumbs up on the screen.

"You got that right! I look forward to seeing you at the bottom. "He raised his glass and clinked it against whatever was broadcasting him and smiled. "Lets see if you live long enough to see me again. Dog pack… Attack." The whole room barked in unison and kept barking as they charged. Rowan was really just appalled at the whole situation while a smile spread across his face. He wouldn't even bother with Berserker's trance for this. Unfortunately for the zodiac gang, the berserker stance gave him a permanent plus 1 to all of his stats as long as he took someone's life.

[Call of the Fairy King] was able to bring all the souls to him, so at this point after this he would get another 500 points into all of his stats until he used [Berserkers Sin] again. Rowan smiled at the charging enemies that were inches away at this point, while those that could understand the difference between the two of them felt genuine fear as Rowan's killing intent began to leak out. Side effect of the berserker is that his desire to kill was so incredibly bolstered that he had a desire to lay waste to the whole room. It was a side effect of his berserker gene , the innate desire to use pure strength to crush his enemies.

Rowan shook his head as the cloud band on his wrist shattered apart. "Rain Form" The clouds condensed into a single dagger and then split into ten and then twenty until there were close to 100. Rowan clenched his fist and with him as the center the rain form spun itself into a magnificent tornado and unfortunately for the dog pack, as Tiger put it, they rapidly became nothing more than a spectacle. The first person to die , never really even got a chance to fathom how they died. The rain form had punched a hole in his chest the size of a basketball.

Rowan had done two things for this effect. He had increased the weight of each dagger to close to 500 thousand pounds, mainly because he realized his stats were about to soar through the roof again. This mana expenditure meant nothing. Rowan flicked his wrist and a storm point appeared on each of the weapons. He released the wind from his storm attribute, which helped the blade tornado form but also made it so that the blade was unobstructed. The scene that would follow could only be described as absolute carnage with a complete disregard for any facet of human life

Some of these people were just following orders or had made a poor decision, some of them had never even done much wrong, but on this day they chose to stay in Rowan's way and whatever life they thought they were going to get to live it all ended in the same instant that Rowan fully completed his planned action. The blade tornado turned them into little more than a blood mist and mixed them in, so by the time a second passed Rowan was standing in the center of a tornado that looked like it was composed purely of blood. Rowan simply stood there, the look on his face never changing. They died so quickly that they never even had the time to scream. No one got to beg or anything of the sort. They simply became a part of the tornado until Rowan's hyper vision registered that there was nothing living left in the room.

He stood there as he released the rain form and his clenched hand and turned the weapon back into a cloud band on his wrist. Rowan had never even let a drop of blood touch him, but it had been flung around the room thanks to the tornado. The room had been painted red as blood dripped from the walls.

A panel in the floor opened with a hiss while stairs that led downward, which he started to make his way down the stairs. He had gotten better dealing with massive jumps to his stats and the walk to the next floor. Rowan made his way down the steps while thinking to himself that he kinda liked a setup like this. Maybe this would be some fun fights. Rowan found himself looking forward to the lower floors and what surprises the floors that belonged to zodiac members that he already killed would be like.

...….

Rowan was walking down the stairs, unaware of the horror that his actions had caused in the security room that was watching the first room. Tiger and Fiona were the only ones still left in the room; the others had already left. There was a sound of something dripping and Fiona looked down to realize that at some point she had peed herself out of fear. Her abilities had evolved in the process of watching Rowan, but not in the same direction as Camille. She was only able to see his stats, nothing else. This meant that as the carnage unfolded she was watching in pure fear as his already ridiculous stats that she now could see began to soar with the addition of the six hundred skill points but more important the fact that his mana body was still in effect so his other two stats just kept climbing, it took all of her willpower to not run on the spot.

She was now blankly staring at the monitors with her legs quaking as she bit her lip and turned to Tiger. "I'm getting out of here, I won't face that monster for any of you, I don't think I'd face him for anything left in this world, I don't know what hold your boss Azure has over you Tiger but not me, you can come with me right now and leave this place, anywhere is an option, you will get stronger with time but if you face Rowan Raid then your time stops today."

Tiger could only shake his head at her as he took off his coat and wrapped it around her waist to hide her embarrassment as he also began to remove things from his own inventory to give her. "I don't know if I will survive today's events but if not I hope you live well Fiona , I have enjoyed your company but this life of mine belongs to Boss Azure. I wish nothing but the best for you."

She began to walk away towards a hidden door that the two of them knew of. She left without looking back but her words echoed in the darkness of the corridor "If at any point you choose to not die here today, then while we may have started using each other, I don't think I would mind spending the Apocalypse with you Tiger."