Chapter 212: My Last Tears
The time brought for him by his clones made sure that Rowan's head had already regenerated, and he summoned a great ax, the previous hammer already destroyed by the red beam.
Dorian growled, "You..."
"Boom!" Another heavy attack that froze Dorian in place, as his body had already been driven hundreds of feet into the ground, as Rowan was determined not to give him a single chance of respite.
A fragile game of keeping Dorian frozen in place while he dealt as much damage as he could dish out, and he had to put everything into this battle for a single slip up by him would mean his death. Yet even with all his abilities and his perfect grasp of timing, he was always at the edge of failure, always near a single moment from dying, as every tiny gesture made by Dorian was an attack.
Rowan's head had been vaporized more than a dozen times, his clones had detonated hundreds of times, he was expending enough Aether that would have burned out a hundred Dominators, and he was barely surviving.
After the furious attacks he had been slamming into Dorian, he had broken his jaws once more, it may seem pitiful against all the efforts he was putting out, but Rowan was still just a Legend, and the Dominator he was fighting was many levels above him, to do what he was doing would be considered impossible.
Yet, he had to do the impossible, and continue doing so until it became normal for him.
Rowan heightened his focus until everything before him became a dance. The movement of his weapons, the way his Aether flashed through the air, the slight glow when his clones exploded, his footing, the heavy beat of Dorian heart that only occurred for a brief moment before his ice stilled that activity.
Rowan became something else at that moment, something pure... he became a true Berserker. His attacks were mostly concentrated on the head and the neck of Dorian, as he needed to destabilize the central control system to have a chance of killing Dorian.
Dorian resisted, "How dare..." Rowan's attacks silenced him.
The next clone Rowan built he filled it with more than fifty grains of purple black Aether and the explosion froze Dorian in his act of summoning the red beam, the freezing effect was so powerful Rowan could see that the Red beam was coming from the forehead of Dorian, which was open and seemed to be filled with a burning red furnace.
Rowan's blow had begun to slowly cut into the neck of Dorian, and now he could see muscles and indications of frozen blood, he was using so much energy that his energy cloak was beginning to glow and crackle as the amount of energy Rowan was giving off was nothing short of colossal.
He was barely waiting for his Berserker Ability Rune to heal before using it to cast Combo Attack, he had gone through hundreds of weapons and had burned well over six hundred grains of purple black Aether.
Any beam that managed to escape the freezing effect he was maintaining on Dorian had vaporized his body more than fifty times now, and their battle was getting deeper into the earth with every pounding Rowan was giving to him. He wanted to push the battle as far from the surface as possible, in order to reduce the mobility of his opponent that he could not match, and reduce any chance for more destruction to reach the convoy.
He knew he was unable to let up for a single moment, if he gave Dorian a hint of a chance he was going to get free and Rowan knew he would lose. Dorian had a firm grasp of his abilities now, and would never let him have the same chance he gave him before.
Sometime during the relentless onslaught, the eyes of Dorian had become frozen open, and he could see from it. Within those eyes, Rowan saw contempt and arrogance. After all, Rowan had been smashing into him for the better part of an hour. He was waiting for a single mistake, and his retaliation would be swift and terrible.
Rowan did not care for his disdain. He would kill him here with whatever methods he had. With his two pillars of consciousness, Rowan did not let up, his body would never get tired, and his Aether would never run dry.
Another hour passed, and slowly within those eyes of Dorian, the look of arrogance and contempt began to change, the blows on his neck were getting so savage Rowan had reached bones, and now he was on the edge of cracking his spine, which were harder than Divine metal.
First there was perplexity, for Dorian had blasted this annoying foe apart many times, and surely the power to heal those wounds must have taken a toll on his vitality, but yet he showed no signs, his breathing was still steady, and he detected no weakness from them, how was that possible?
But the disturbing aspect was the freezing ability of Rowan and the fact that he could endlessly spam this disgusting ability, he made no mistakes and his Aether seems unending.
Yet to Dorian that was not the most troubling issue, he had met other Dominators with an unfathomable well of energy and vitality that seemed able to fight until the world ending, that was not a problem, he was ready to go head-to-head with them and compete until the world shatters, if that was all, it would not be a problem, even if Rowan was perfect, the world was not, something would inevitably break the stalemate.
He had calculated the might of Rowan's blow when they first clashed, and he knew that even if he stood still and let the man beat on him for a thousand years, he would not be able to kill him, that was his assessment two hours ago, and an hour ago as well. Not now.
Every moment that passed by, the power of Rowan's blow was increasing, and Dorian eyes began to be overtaken by surprise, how was that possible? There were always improvements in battle for the bodies of Dominators was a fantastic tool for evolution, but nothing so drastic, it felt almost funny.
Dorian was a genius. He also improved in battle in great leaps at a time, but Rowan seemed to be making an unending series of great leaps. He could tell, his body was the whetstone testing the edge of the blade, and every moment that passed that blade scraped ever deeper.
If only he knew Rowan took six hours to upgrade his Berserker Aspect from the Refined level to the Earth Level, perhaps he would never have allowed him time to battle.
Average Dominators would use decades to grow even simpler battle skills than Berserker, Dorian had used a year to grow his family signature battle skill to the Earth Level, and he was commended as one of the brightest stars in ten thousand years.
It was generally known that Aspects, techniques and spiritual skills grew faster in battle, and for Rowan, this battle was a tonic, he continuously made breakthroughs in his Earth level techniques that indirectly fed more attributes into his body, and his blows became marginally faster and harder.
He could feel the Berserker Aspect in his Mental Space beginning to pulse and grow, every destruction of his body enhanced Enrage, every blow from his hammer grew Dash, Smash and Bash, his Clones used Vortex and Combo Attacks tied all these together into a dance of a Berserker. He was beginning to reach the edge of the next level, barely two hours after he reached the Earth level.
The first crack appeared on Dorian's spine. Yet, those eyes only held surprise and anger. With one last mighty blow with a blade made from bone, Rowan decapitated his head.