Yet, Rowan’s perception did not disappear. He was in a state of darkness, and everything he saw was merged with a black fog, but he was still in here with them.
Rowan began hearing a dull groan and the sounds of chains clanking together, there was a series of whispers around that when he attempted to listen to what they were saying suddenly ceased and whatever sounds he was hearing vanished.
He saw Rico grabbing a glowing skull with missing jaws, and realized it was his own, and he smirked and tossed it to the ground, where he stamps on it, crushing it to pieces, and he spoke something, but Rowan could only catch the end because his voice sounded like he was underwater. "—justice."
The sounds cleared up, and his sights and perception were slowly returning.
"—know who I am?"
"I don’t know, and I don’t care, but I like your style. Hey buddy, how about you check out if that cockroach is really dead. He did withstand my flames hundreds of times, that sort of vitality is really unfair, don’t you think?"
"I’m going to kill you for what you did?"
"If you are going to do so, why stand here and talk about it when you could be doing it already… Wait a moment, "Dorain snapped his fingers as he scratched his head, "I know you, don’t I? You are that brat who stole his sister’s…"
"Enough!" Rico screamed and from his chest another long blast of thick lightning blasted out towards Dorian.
Rowan could really appreciate the power of this move now that he could see it on the other end. The sounds the lightning made as it exited Rico’s chest was hard to describe, but it was like an unearthly wail, and the lightning shot out with so much force it left long ragged tears in space.
The thick stream of lightning slammed Dorian into the earth, which obstructed him for less than a fraction of a second before it was vaporized, and he was pushed deeper into the earth, vaporizing thousands of tons of earth along the way, after thirty seconds the lightning beam halted.
Dorian was a thousand feet away and was on his back, a faint red light surrounded his body, and he groaned in pain as he attempted to stand, that was before another blast of lightning slammed into him once more.
Rico was screaming like a mad man, as he moved forwards, and the lightning from his Territory was not letting up. Rowan felt a tingle in his skull that was beginning to rematerialize, and his perception increased, and he felt something click inside him as his Palace of Ice was being regenerated along with his Mental Space.
The blast of lightning never ceased as the area around Dorian was expanded for tens of thousands of feet across from the intense heat generated, and a river of lava began to form on the ground.
Rico increased his offensive as lightning bolts began raining down from the skies, the air was thick with snakes of lightning roaming around, and it seemed gravity was beginning to lose it sway because pieces of rocks began levitating. No, not gravity, Rowan realized, it was the wind. Rico had begun calling on the wind!
For an instant Rowan thought this series of moves might really do it, it would finish off Dorian, but then the bastard began to laugh.
"I don’t blame you when you thought you had a chance against me, after all, that annoying cockroach was able to put me in quite a spot, but, you fool, I know you are aware I’m of who I am, and was there a single moment in that hen pecked head of yours that made you think you are my match."
"Aaaahhhh… I will kill you." Rico kept screaming over the unending lightning blast.
"Silence, coward."
Suddenly Dorian was behind Rico and in his hand was a beating heart with sparks of electricity running out of it. Rico sagged and dropped to one knee as he held his chest, blood pouring down from his mouth.
Then Dorian began to transform into something monstrous, "It is so hard to reach the Third circle, merging with your Incarnation and illuminating your Cinder Spark had been denied for untold billions of Dominators along the ages, yet those failures dared lecture me about my path. They all called me a fool for choosing a single Mayfly tree as my Territory, yet here I am, the first of my Generation to merge with an Incarnation!"
Rico stood up, a new beating heart appeared inside his chest, his eyes were filled with disbelief and fear. "No, this cannot be possible, I’m supposed to be the …" he drifted off into stunned silence.
"Suppose to be what coward? " Dorian sneered as his eyes turned into two orbs of flames, his height increased until he was now twelve feet, and he transformed into a Flaming Treeant.
His hair now had branches and leaves, but they were all aflame. His body was no longer flesh but wood that has burning Runes inlaid on them, wicked spikes that was gleaming red protruded from his elbows and shoulders, and he now had three eyes with a third one in his forehead, and all of them were like three flaming pits. He became a merge of flesh and wood, "I have heard of you Coward, the man who stole his mother’s Territory and robbed his sisters of hers, and to think even with all that, you could not even surpass the Incandescent Realm after all this time."
Rowan ran through the realms of the second circle in his mind, they were Spirit Territory, Incandescent and Proclamation. Apparently, Rico was in the Incandescent Realm, and yet he sought to challenge Dorian, who was well known to be at the peak of the Proclamation Realm.
Rowan recalled the size of Rico’s Territory when he touched him, and knew it was vast, and with this reveal from Dorian about Rico stealing Territories from his mother and sister, maybe it enhanced his powers and made it easier for him to develop faster, yet it was not enough for Dorian had a foot into the Third Circle.
Did Rowan even have the possibility of killing him? Wait, the blade, during their battle, he held on tight to that blade, and Rowan was not wrong about seeing the true fear of death inside his eyes. Dorian was scared of the blade.
With his growing perception, Rowan realized that the blade was still near his skull.
"Doesn’t matter." Rick gasped, "My powers are unmatched, and I will kill you."
"Spare me coward, you have no idea what I’m capable of, and my enemies are not such weaklings as you." Dorian’s voice was now deep and sounded as if a mountain was talking.
Rico snarled, and his Territory opened wider, and he fired another blast at Dorian, who only brought his hand forward and blocked it and began walking slowly towards Rico.
"Why do you scream so?" Dorian mused, "was it because I killed the people you stole from? Shame that cockroach you killed also felt pain when I did it… strange, don’t you think?"
"Haaaa, yes I do believe I remember her name, was it not Circe? The girl who was born with lightning inside her heart. Tell me, did she give you freely or did you deceive her? How old was she then, twelve?"
"Silence you wretched quim!" and Rico’s Territory became wider, and he unleashed his Incarnation, a horse with wings made of Lightning. The blast of Lightning increased drastically as wings of lightning appeared behind Rico, the blast pushed Dorian back, and he set his feet firmly on the ground and roots spread out from them, anchoring him to it.
