The Third Prince felt a deep sense of disquietness, but it was a pity that his consciousness was not as stable as before, and his concentration had been dragged down by bloodlust and the pleasures of combat.
Yet this foreign emotion was so powerful that it triggered a fresh wave of awareness in his mind, shaking him away from his bloodthirstiness and he began to push towards escaping the desert, he remembered why he was here, and slowly but surely he was edging towards freedom.
Of all the foes arrayed against him, the King of Nothing was the most annoying, with its capabilities it turned every attempt he made to escape to be fruitless, as it turned space and time to nothingness, effectively turning any effort he made to be meaningless.
What made this scene of battle to be incredibly eerie was the fact that there was no sound, even with the level of apocalyptic powers being thrown around, this battle was soundless.
The instinct of the Third Prince was screaming at him, it was telling him that he needed to leave the desert, that something monumental was happening, and if he was too late in addressing it, he would have failed the entire purpose of his existence…
"What is happening? What am I about to lose? ARRRHHHHGGGG!!! Rowan… Not Rowan… You fucking bastard, what are you doing?!!"
With a scream of rage, the Third Prince ignored everything, ignited his Essence, and began to push to escape this desert.
This endless desert transformed into a red sea, as the Essence of the Third Prince ignited, even this powerful and feared location was transformed before the presence of the true might of the Third Prince.
For the first time in countless eternities, a great cry erupted from the desert, ancient beyond belief, and filled with an anger that would turn everything in existence to dust.
That reply was replied by the Third Prince whose cry of rage and despair was long and deep. Something in that cry silenced the desert and it begrudgingly took back its domain.
The desert bent the knee to the Third Prince, but its rage was not sated, from this moment he was barred from ever entering the desert. If he was to return the Third Prince would have to take another route, which was impossible, this was the inky method to reach the consciousness of the universe and return or he would have to become something else.
Igniting his Essence was the final straw, it gave him all the power he needed to escape his encirclement, as he slowly battled towards the ends of the desert.
Yet he knew that this action of igniting his Essence would mean his end, but he no longer cared, and he would willingly pass the torch to the next in line if that meant he did not fail his mission.
His screams of rage echoed through the desert once more,
"Fourth you win… bastard you have won!"
®
Rowan was unaware of the effect of his action on the rest of the universe. No, that would be wrong, he had recognized that something similar might happen, although he had failed to recognize the enormity of his effort.
He continued with his cleansing of his Mental State, there was a great force surrounding him that had begun to compress Reality until it appeared as if a silver corona was surrounding him.
He heard a heavy thumping sound in the distance that strengthened his resolve, and he realized that it was coming from his Angelic host of a hundred thousand.
They had all created spears of flames, and they striker the ground with the shaft, creating countless sonic booms with that gesture.
He could feel their belief, their love, and unshakable confidence, and Rowan drew strength from them as he continued speaking,
"I am not a Reality Butcher. My unchecked destruction was born from a mind without any control. I was nothing but a slave to an instinct that I ought to master, I…"
A whisper suddenly entered his consciousness,
"OH… BUT YOU HAVE NOT MASTERED THAT INSTINCT YET… CHILD OF CHAOS!"
Those words were so intrusive and loud, that it was almost as if every cell in his body was screaming.
Rowan's body exploded into a billion fragments and spread around for thousands of miles.
His roar of fury and resolve erupted from those fragments, his understanding of how deeply he had been corrupted brought a great sense of shame and anger in his heart.
"I have lived with all your Stench for long enough! If this power came from you, then it's not mine. I do not need it!"
His fragments reconstituted himself but he did not make himself whole like before.
Rowan was filled with rage and he deliberately did not heal himself all the way through, as he left himself separated into various parts, like an anatomy mannequin presenting the various layers inside the flesh, previously he was not capable of viewing himself like this or even taking himself apart like he just did.
The inner layer of his body was a golden cloud that was thick as mercury, a closer look would show it was not liquid but countless golden grain with specks of starlight inside of it, they slowly rotated and the Aura they unleashed was powerful, as they were no longer contained inside Rowan's Absolute Body.
This Aura contained the countless Empyrean Essence that Rowan took from the universe and the Essence that he transformed using Soul Energy.
Except for abnormal cases, there was no way any universe would ever grant a single being this amount of Essence, for it was the foundations of power that could crush them from the inside.
A great part of the reason Rowan was able to perform so many miracles while inside the universe like his ability to bring back his future state of being into the past when he utilized the Tower of Greed or how he was able to seed thousands of worlds while he was still just a Rift State Dominator was tied to the fact that the amount of Empyrean Essence he had was unprecedented.
This amount of Essence that Rowan collected was enough to birth a hundred Empyreans!
This Essence represented great power and its Aura began to destabilize the Forge.
The second layer was his golden bones, they shone like a sun and they were as stable as the pillars that supported the universe.
The Third Layer was flesh, they were like endless channels of power, as they held the ability to hold an unfathomable amount of Aether. It was the reason he could burn Eruption without turning himself to dust.
Rowan roared, "Eruption…. Out!"
