Birds of a Feather (Final)

The sword sliced even through the space around them as it moved but the space mended itself before it could take any real effect but not even Rowan's strength was prepared for the weight of the blow when the two swords met but he was quickly blown backwards while his wings instantly wired to stabilize his position. Rowan landed and skid across the ground at the same time that his master followed up with almost zero gaps in his offense. His ability to shuttle through even space with his cultivation limited to the 5th rank was absurd. Rowan was capable of immense speed due to his own enhanced physical ability and now with his mana body being in the third stage that was even more pronounced but his master technique, while it did require a strong body, was still a technique in the end.

His master had explained to him that the way that it worked was that the ripple technique created ripped in space itself, which creates a minute opening in space itself that he then moves through, which in turn makes it look like he is teleporting to his destination. Rowan tapered his excitement at seeing the advanced space technique as his master was upon him and with spells supercharging his sword already, his master's true fighting style began to show. He preferred a technique based melee fight while his spells empowered him, he could also directly turn his spells into further equipment but in this case he was just powering himself and now his fighting style had gotten even more dangerous thanks to the armament spell that gave him six floating arms to use as he pleased.

Rowan slammed his sword into his master and the force pressed him backwards while the other six instantly followed up and forced him back to the defensive. A sword swung from the left and Rowan dipped his body low and used the flat of the blade to parry the arm and spin it around and send it toward another arm that was slashing downward while his master appeared behind him and stabbed the sword forward and. Rowan acted in the last moment and used his open hand to swat the blade but his master stab was still pushing forward.

The blade slid directly into Rowans stomach but missed its original target of his heart, he grunted in pain as the blade left his body as quickly as it came while at the same time the six arms closed off all paths of retreat forcing him to take the sword in both hand and blast out with [Wind storm assault] which blasted the arms backward. The wound to his stomach had already closed by this time and he looked at his master with renewed vigor. "Fine old man full strength it is right lets do this! [Storm Armament: Full offense Berserk intent mode]

The storm armament slid off of his body and his clothes shimmered as they changed as well. Rowan was now wearing black cargo pants that shimmered with lightning and a shirt that would flash with different shaped clouds and had falcons flying across it. The storm armament on the other hand was forming towards Rowan's free hand causing the outline of a sword to form before it rapidly started to take shape becoming another greatsword. This sword was not shaped like a single feather like the storm sword but instead was shaped like a blown up longsword. There was no curve to the blade at all.

The sword was made from what looked like many feathers stuffed inside of the longsword shape creating an etched pattern on the flat of the blade but all of them looked like a replica of Rowan's bigger set of wings but cast in a dark black metal. The feathers still had a platinum band but they did not have the vermillion eye like configuration on them, instead they each had a single cloud symbol in their center that flashed a different color. Rowan wasn't done yet because he knew if he wanted to fight his master he really would need to be at his full strength, a drawback to him releasing all of those souls a year ago is he would not have the power boost that came with them.

Rowan's killing intent blossomed throughout the room as the falcon appeared behind him, a perfect mixture of his killing intent and sword intent as it flew down and lowered itself to him as it began to shrink and overlap its wings with Rowans. It turned every feather on Rowan's back into a blade which, when combined with the whole wing shape, made two more great swords that were coming out of his back and two short swords from his lower black. Rowan flexed them and they became less like wings and more like great swords held by his back. They had the same range of motion that he did with the swords in his hands. This was another new ability that Rowan had discovered in himself, a product of his bloodline and its ability to fuse different aspects of himself into itself the same way it assimilated the berserker. The fairy king was a special existence for sure.

Rowan, now ready again, smiled at his master as he dove back in and the both of them became a whirl of blades as they aimed to kill each other. Rowan's wings cut across Regius' abdomen before moving back to him to block the swings from the mechanical arms while Regius sliced into Rowan's leg and head-butted him to follow up while the wings were distracted. He hoped to get away, but not before one of the short wings dug into his waist with a cut so deep and so quick that you could see Regius' hip bone. He grimaced for the first time and dove backwards, the first sign of retreat any of them had ever seen, while at the same time he waved his hand. Now that his apprentice was serious, it was time for Regius to show him the difference between them. Rowan threw up his hands and runic circles formed before Rowand used all six arms to punch them and send air cannons to try to take Rowan's life.

Rowans slashed through the wind mana, dispersing Regius control over the element before asserting his own and sending it blasting back, coated in his own mana as platinum blades of air. Regius slid backwards from the force of the blows while a magnificent lotus appeared on Regius' chest before the petals all lit up with a different color and his body strengthened several times over. He tapped his foot and vanished before appearing behind Rowand and using Valkyrie's last kiss at point blank range.

Rowan had been waiting for this moment as he used one of the special perks that came with the armament blade. The clouds on the blade were just like the clouds that he could make with storm points. Two of them left the feathers as rainbow wisps and climbed up the sword before combining on the tip of the blade. Regius smiled as his disciple, "Alright kid let's do this one final attack, I told you the importance of a fight ender, now show me what you developed while you thought I wasn't looking, and I'll show you the one I developed while we fought. Rowan only nodded his head, as he focused on his mana as it began to rapidly drain as he used the category spell that he had not used in a long time, before it wasn't useful due to him only being rank two but that had changed now. A thin ring of clouds formed from his body and surrounded the entire arena while a brown color mixed into the cloud that was held on the tip of the armament storm.

Regius on the other hand had lowered his stance just like he did at the beginning of the fight while he placed one hand on the handle of the sword while the floating arms all at the same time created a replica of the world sword and did the exact same thing. A storm point formed on the tip of Rowan's left wing and then a red wisp flashed into it while at the same time the brownish cloud shot into the category spell. [Spell combination: Dust field.] The cloud ring turned brown and shot dust towards their location, blocking everyone's view while Regius smiled as the light pouring from the sheath of his weapon had reached a point that it was blinding to some. His voice seemed to drip with power that caused Rowans heart to beat rapidly [Valkyries infinite kiss] The sword began to leave the sheathe and then suddenly it was out and the sword beam was shooting outward towards Rowan but before he could adapt to even that one of the mechanical hands passed him another blade while taking the world sword and he slashed out again and then process sped up and as arms charged swords, he slashed out and before long a massive cloud of butterflies that the slashes had turned into charged at him at nearly the speed of light.

The next things that happened all happened at once and at an insane speed so the exchange took no more than what amounted to several seconds as both parties were moving at their fastest. The cloud on the tip of his wing shot forward and triggered a dust explosion that collided with the butterflies and made the majority of them turn faint but before the explosion could expand the category spell shuddered and shrunk in an instant. Rowan dropped his swords and they hovered next to him as the category spell became a shining point of light held in his hand , the whole explosion compressed to be no larger than a baseball. He lightly tossed the orb and it flew forward until the combination spell finally completed [Stardust Storm].

The storm cloud released a wave of shining explosions that chained towards Regius while his butterfly had nearly quadrupled before he ended the spell with one final large slash that was all the swords at once to form one massive butterfly behind the others. Space had trembled previously, but now it began to crack, much to even Regius' surprise. Then the two spells collided. There was a sound like a clock rapidly ticking as the mana collided and the massive explosion threw both parties backwards and directly shattered the space where they met.

The queens both stood and threw their hands up and closed the crack in space while Rowan painted at the amount of mana that he had used for the spell. Without the souls, his mana pool was much smaller. It was for this reason that the lapse in judgment led to Rowan laying the world sword across his throat. "This makes it my victory disciple, it was good effort though." Rowan nodded as the sword was moved. He was proud of his own growth in a year. A year ago, his master would have beaten him in less than a second, and the loss taught him that there was still room to improve. The crowd went wild and Regius smiled and waved back while Rowan did the same to the applause of thousands as they vanished into a tear in space and were back in the training room.

The wolf pups were in the training room playing, which by the Lowe family standard meant battles where someone could be accidentally maimed. There was a large monitor in the training room that had shown them the entire fight. They went wild, jumping and climbing on the two of them before Regius had them sent away with the shadows. Rowan humphed before his master snapped his fingers and life mana poured into him and fixed all of his wounds. "I guess it's time I go back home, isn't it?" Regius smiled and nodded to him. "Are you reluctant to leave? Gonna miss ya, master ya, baby?" Rowan looked obstinate at the comment "No. just the pups and maybe tea time with Queen Ash or the tips from Valentine, and the technique knowledge from wreathe, and the mana control from kara or the strength training from Zane, pretty much everything but you old man."

They both looked at each other and broke into laughter "Alright ya ungrateful twerp listen up, because I took you as my disciple things have changed, you can't have the same requirements as everyone else to reach here in the interest of fairness so as well as reaching rank ten before you can ascend you will need to complete a quest. A mission that even Valentine failed. Bring me the head of the leader of the necromantic association and any intel on what he's been doing in your universe." Rowan nodded his head once. "Master, I was gonna kill that bastard, anyway." They both smiled again as they echoed each other with their next sentiment, "Fuck Necromancers," They both shared a laugh before Regius waved his hand and a cut in space opened. "Are you sure you don't want to say goodbye to everyone? They are going to miss you, especially the pups."

Rowan shook his head and smiled at his master for one of the first times ever. "No thank you master for the first time in a long time. It feels like having a family once more and I don't know if I want to say goodbye to that." Rowan nodded in understanding as he pat Rowan on the back and sent him forward while he stepped into the portal before turning around and bowing his head low. "Disciple thanks, master, for everything he's taught him." Rowan nodded and beamed in response, "No thank you Rowan, we will all be waiting here for you, I'll be watching though, make me proud." Rowan nodded once and walked through the slit in space and back towards his home planet and evergreen city.