The Creature screamed in joy as it devoured the red stream of starlight shooting out of Rowan's chest, but something was different about this power Rowan was delivering to it, the power had become infused with something else… his Berserker Clones!
It was the reason the starlight had turned red, a subtle change that could be disguised because of the preparation Rowan had made before now.
The Berserker Aspect was an ordinary technique in the larger scheme of things, but in Rowan's hand, this Aspect had reached levels beyond even its creator's imagination.
Rowan was the foremost authority in this Aspect and a large part of this change depended on his physique, for the Berserker Aspect was a power that was rooted in the flesh and not the Spirit, which was an important distinction, and the reason why Rowan was picky with the technique he wielded, his Aether was too tyrannical and it would devour anything else.
His Flesh Light and other Bone Fire abilities were destroyed after using them for a short while because they were abilities rooted to his Spirit and were too weak to exist inside him, the Berserker Aspect narrowly escaped this purge.
His Ouroboros Bloodline gave him an impossible recovery ability, it was what barely helped his Berserker aspect to be able to survive inside his Mental Space, only because his recovery ability was shared by his Berserker Aspect.
Rowan's ability to create Berserker Clones that were special was all due to his physique that could transform Ordinary into Treasure.
The Berserker Clone took the foundations from the original body and created a lesser copy of it. Rowan's bodily foundation could put those of the gods to shame and a pale copy of himself was a force to be reckoned with.
it was the reason why a single one of Rowan's Berserker Clones would be ten thousand times more powerful than the Berserker Clones from a Dominator or a Mage.
During Rowan's creation of the Nosferatu technique for Vraegar, he became really versatile in the creation of his Berserker Clones, able to infuse a thousand clones in a single drop of blood at the start and before he left, he had increased that number to a hundred thousand Berserker Clones in a single blood drop.
What sort of Berserker Clone could he create with his current body whose Attributes were now in a Realm of power that it had stopped making sense to him?
Rowan had a thought very early on when he decided to bargain with this creature.
If he was going to be giving this creature this power, why did he not fish for more benefits, and infuse this power with his Aspect?
From the start, the creature referred to Rowan's power as his Shell, but Rowan always called it Essence. This was because he had already begun hatching this plan, and his language shielded his intentions.
Rowan would be giving it his Essence, he did not just specify what he would include inside of it. If the creature had any methods to detect falsehood, his words would not trigger any alarm from it.
He had begun to understand the wordplay between the powerful and knew that there were always hidden intentions behind the words of all of them, and the winner was the one who could play the game more deeply.
Rowan had no hope of battling this creature and winning, but when he saw the abundance of worlds and stars inside its body, he began to hatch a plan.
What if he could infiltrate inside of it and take it down from the inside?
It was not the sharpest blade that you could see coming that could take down a mighty warrior, most of the time, it was the hidden poisoned needle in the dark.
Rowan did not shoot his starlight from his crown but from his chest, and this did not cause any suspicion from the creature because the output from this location was at least a thousand times greater than when he shot it from his crown.
Rowan's great body began to shrink. His mighty claws and scales vanished slowly as the bloody starlight rushed out of his body in unending streams, so much power that if this was to be taking place inside a material universe, this energy would crush hundreds of galaxies.
Of course, this process hurt, both physically and psychologically, Rowan hated the fact that he was giving up so much power, even if he had gotten something perhaps greater in return.
Massive eruptions emerged from his shrinking body.
It was the sound of his bones being crushed beneath his weight without a massive source of power fueling them... Bones that were larger than entire worlds.
However only a single Consciousness Pillar was ruminating on the regret of letting go of this power, most of his attention however was on the great struggle of making even a single Berserker Clone survive inside the body of this creature.
Rowan was learning so much about the interaction of energy at this level with every single moment that was passing by.
Before he could only observe from afar as this creature disassembled the energy it was taking in, but now, what this creature was digesting was tiny clones of Rowan in their trillions.
However, he kept failing in this task.
It was happening too fast, Rowan was releasing trillions of Berserker Clones every second and they were being disassembled almost instantaneously.
Yet, Rowan was making progress, his Knowledge Well only needed a small leverage to begin chipping into the method that this creature was using to disassemble energy, and Rowan placed an eye on the amount of power he had to give before time ran out.
Yet Rowan feared it might not be enough, and so without hesitation, he dug both of his hands into his chest groaning in pain, and with a roar, he ripped his chest open.
The wound extended down to his stomach and up to his neck. Rowan's internals were more like superhighways where energy was transported, as the smallest of his arteries and veins could fit entire moons.
They spilled out from his body like bloody intestines in their millions, and the red beam of starlight increased by more than a hundred times.
The sight of Rowan's devastated body was shocking, as the millions of veins and arteries inside his body throbbed in intense anguish.
