No Loose End(Part 1)

The queen just nodded at Rowan's words. She was still stunned by what had happened. She had seen plenty of death, but even for her, this was particularly gruesome. She nodded and flicked her wrist as a gate opened for Rowan to exit Atlantis and the trial world. Rowan told Feng that he would meet him on the outside and walked towards the gate, but not before stopping and looking at the queen. He had only rinsed the blood from his face and part of him was still covered in blood, making the sight of him rather chilling. "I hope to see you sometime soon on the first layer, Queen Vernize. It was a pleasure to meet you."

The queen nodded her head once in acknowledgement and hesitated before speaking, but followed through on it all the same. "Is it so important that you reach the same heights as your master? Your legacy does not need to be one of blood, too. A soul affliction can be restrained. You don't have to give in to the beast that slumbers within you." Rowan shook his head as he walked through the portal, but his words echoed behind him. "To suppress your soul affliction is akin to suppressing yourself. To not give in to the berserker is as good as ending my path of cultivation. It would be the same for anyone. This is just simply who I was meant to be." Rowan fully stepped through the portal and through the original gate where a battle was already waiting for him.

On one side were Genma and the ship that held Em and Camille, as well as the vice principal. The senior Lark was already dead. Based on the death mana in the wound, a surprise attack from the senior slate had been what did him in. On the other side of the fight were the Slate,Vitesse and Flud families, a fact that made Rowan feel better about killing Orellia. She was a pawn, but a pawn whose families had sided with the necromancers. The problem with necromancers was death mana. While the mana itself did nothing wrong, it had a negative effect on anyone that practiced it. To date Rowan had not heard of or seen a single human wield it without becoming corrupted. It was something that required more study, but Rowan was just happy that he would not have to think of a reason for killing the three individuals.

Rowan appeared in the center of the battlefield while standing on top of a rainbow cloud. The senior slate saw him and his eyes seemed to spit fire. "YOU! If not for you, then I would have continued my plan with no issue. Of course, that tyrant would send someone to interrupt our plans, anything to keep himself on the throne, and you want to speak of pawns, preposterous. You will die with all your friends for your meddling. Come forth death legion."

Mana began to fall from above them in the form of what looked like ash before all of a sudden a swirling back portal opened behind him and a massive skeletal hand reached out and widened the portal with force before stepping through. The massive skeleton was in thick plates of metal that wrapped around its bones and left a few places to attack the massive monster. While the massive entity stepped through the gate, a legion of the undead charged into space and made their way towards the defenders and towards Rowan. Rowan sighed and pulled the storm glaive out while turning and looking at the defenders who were bracing for battle. "Genma, you and the rest just keep EM and Camille safe. I'll handle the rest." Genma, who knew firsthand just how powerful Rowan was, knew that he would not say that if he was not confident that he could handle this, something he had to explain to the vice principal. Rowan turned back to the army of the dead and its vanguard, the skeleton of a Giant. "Cloud Giant, come say hello." The cloud under Rowan began to warp and morph until it was a ring and then it widened as the storm Giant, the representation of the spirit aspect of Rowan's bloodline, greeted everyone.

Thanks to the things that had happened inside of the Trial world, the storm Giant now looked much different. Its body was entirely fluorescent purple, while platinum tribal markings decorated its entire frame. Its eyes had now appeared and looked like the eyes of a falcon. The storm giant surveyed the army, charging it and held a hand out, which caused Rowan to chuckle. He lightly tossed the storm glaive towards the outstretched hand and the weapon began to enlarge in front of everyone's eyes until it was big enough for the storm giant. Rowan, on the other hand, cracked his knuckles and rolled his shoulder and reached downwards, towards the cloud that had returned to under his feet. "Let's go with a sword for this one." Rowan patted the cloud, and it began to reshape itself. The cloud compressed itself into the shape of a longsword. The blade itself was pure white, while the edge shone with the light of a rainbow and the flat of the blade was inscribed with platinum clouds that each held a rune. The cloud that Rowan was standing on this entire time was the combined form of all of his weapon masteries reaching the Soul stage.

Rowan referred to it as the infinity cloud due to the fact that it was capable of infinite transformations to become any weapon Rowan needed. It was a weapon created purely based on his attainments in weapons, laws, and cultivation, making it a force to be reckoned with. It also gave Rowan the freedom to let the storm giant wield the storm glaive, who was capable of using his entire cultivation base as well as his spells. Rowan stared at the mastermind of the attack and the aura billowed out of the hilt as a platinum and purple light that coated the blade and then started to vibrate and took the chainsaw form. Now it looked more menacing and the aura blades on it each thrummed as the chainsaw sword roared to life and Rowan vanished from his position. He appeared in front of Orellias' father while at the same time the storm Giant swung down on the army.

A massive blast of air followed the attack and scattered the weaker members of the undead legion. The giant skeleton wielded a massive mace that crashed into the glaive with a boom that shook space. The skeleton slid backwards and the Storm giant advanced again, whereas Rowan had moved in the exact moment that things started so the patriarch of the Flud family could not stop the blade that pierced through his chest and turned his heart into shreds.

He looked down at the blade impaled in his chest still whirring and then looked up at Rowan and reached out towards Rowan with mana forming on his hand before it fell limp. He was only being held up by the blade that was whirring inside of his chest, causing Rowan to be covered in blood once more. Rowan released the man and his body fell towards the depths of space without the mana to keep him afloat. Rowan vanished once more and appeared in front of the patriarch of the Vitesse family, who had sent the assassins after him. He swung for his neck and was greeted by a dark black staff that held depictions of emerald green vines along it.

The force of the blow had blown the mask off of his face and revealed the half of his face plagued by death flames. He snorted and slapped out with his staff, the blow forceful enough to turn Rowan's brain into nothing more than a splatter. Rowan parried the blow and stepped inwards, elbowing the man in the throat. His staff shot vines at Rowan at the same time. Rowan dealt with the vines in several short sweeps while Vitesse threw seeds out that bloomed instantly and became massive plants that all attacked Rowan at the same time.

One plant looked like a massive hydra made from plants and attacked Rowan the moment it was fully formed. Another plant behind it grew and began to spit spikes at Rowan that were capable of causing the surrounding space to vibrate as it struggled to hold itself together as the spike passed and forcing him on the defensive to avoid the joint attack. The Vitesse patriarch had launched his spells silently and forced Rowan on his back foot as he fought the plant creatures and him at the same time. Rowan formed a storm in his left hand and sent fire mana into it and then wrapped it in his laws of weapons before throwing it at the hydra. The cloud burst like a firework and out of it shot thousands of flaming rain drops and lighting bolts that had formed into shears as they decimated the plant summons. Rowan was ready to parry another blow when Vitesse struck towards him, forcing him to block the blow.

The moment he blocked the blow with his weapon, the senior slate who had been summoning more and more undead to hold back the storm Giant struck. His weapon of choice was a dagger that was currently piercing right towards Rowan's stomach which caused him to shift more to the left to avoid his vitals as the edge of the blade cut into his side and sent a pulse of death mana into the wound. Rowan was fighting two demigods and an entire army and had just got his first wound but instead of grimacing he smiled at the two who had decided to battle him at the same time while in the deepest parts of his soul his berserker gene thrummed in excitement. "Come, let's battle to our hearts' content and until there is only one of us left." The smile that graced his lips made it hard for the people present to think that they were being stared at by the devil himself.