"A temporal domain," Rowan rcer mused. "Full of holes, but clever in its own way. I didn’t expect one of the Royal Sentinels to wield sothing like this."
The world lurched.
When his vision steadied, Rowan was no longer beside the Sacred Tree. He stood on a narrow path suspended in endless darkness. There was no sky, no ground beyond the road itself. Up, down, left, right—only void, stretching without limit.
A short distance ahead, an elderly woman sat cross-legged on the path.
Erica Huakina.
Behind her stood what looked like a doorway made of light. Behind Rowan, the path stretched endlessly into nothing.
"This is Heaven," Erica said calmly, her voice carrying quiet authority. "I am its ruler. You will be trapped here forever."
Rowan nearly laughed.
"Heaven? That’s a dramatic na," he said lightly. "Let guess. You leave wandering until my mind collapses under isolation."
As soone deeply versed in ti-based magic, he understood the structure almost imdiately.
"In here, neither of us can touch the other. No attacks. No damage. The only way to win is endurance. Whoever breaks first loses."
Erica looked up at him, utterly confident.
"Even if you understand it, you can’t escape it. No one has ever outlasted ."
Her limit inside this domain was seven hundred years.
Every enemy she had ever trapped here broke long before that.
"I don’t have seven hundred years to waste," Rowan said.
He raised his hand.
"ta-Magic: Fairy Sphere."
A luminous barrier ford around him, woven entirely from stabilized ti energy. Shielded from the domain’s influence, Rowan stepped forward.
Normally, no matter how long soone walked here, ti would rewind their position endlessly. You could walk for ten thousand years and still return to your starting point, body unchanged, hunger frozen, while your mind endured every second of that eternity.
That was how Heaven broke people.
But Rowan’s barrier isolated him from the domain’s temporal control entirely.
He walked forward.
Straight toward her.
"That’s impossible!" Erica’s composure shattered. She invoked her power again and again, but the laws of Heaven slid off Rowan without effect.
Since its creation, Heaven had only ever been escaped one way.
The caster giving up.
Even her own teacher couldn’t break it if she endured long enough.
Yet Rowan closed the distance effortlessly.
"Flawed," he said calmly, stopping in front of her. "But impressive."
He placed a hand on her head.
Before leaving the domain, he searched her mories and extracted the complete structure of Heaven itself.
It had weaknesses, but those could be fixed.
With refinent, it could beco sothing far more terrifying. A prison of endless ti with no escape at all.
The domain collapsed.
Back beneath the Sacred Tree, Rowan’s focus snapped fully into place.
"Spirit Command."
This ti, he layered the technique into his assault on the Tree’s core.
The resistance weakened instantly.
The Sacred Tree’s will was not a single mind, but a fusion of countless forr kings. In essence, it was a spiritual collective. And spiritual constructs were exactly what Rowan’s thod excelled at controlling.
He pushed forward without pause.
One barrier fell. Then another.
Roots of power spread outward as Rowan’s magic flowed through the Tree and into the island itself.
"Done."
The mont the last remnant of resistance collapsed, knowledge flooded his mind. The Tree’s origin. Its spell architecture. The chanisms by which faith and will were condensed into a functioning domain.
In that instant, Rowan rcer beca the new King of Natson Island.
"Long live the King!"
The Royal Sentinels stiffened, then dropped to one knee simultaneously.
Their loyalty was not to a person.
It was to the throne.
And the throne now answered to Rowan.
Nearby, the forr King stood frozen. She felt it clearly—the authority granted to her by the Sacred Tree was gone.
She stared at Rowan, emotions tangled and complex.
He had truly done it.
He controlled the Tree. The kingdom. The divine domain.
And unlike her, he was not bound by the will of past rulers.
Which ant he truly could do anything with Natson Island.
And yet...
That sa power ant he might actually protect it.
"Stand," Rowan said simply.
He withdrew his hand from the Tree and turned to the forr King with a relaxed smile.
"Don’t worry. If I’m the King now, I won’t allow foreign forces to overrun this island."
He had no obligation to the old kings’ wills.
But ruling Natson Island gave him access to one of the most sophisticated faith-based magical systems he had ever seen.
And he needed a place to stay.
A place to study.
Natson Island would do nicely.
As for Behemoth Corporation?
A global nace to others.
To him, an inconvenience at best.
Rowan’s gaze shifted.
"Elia Jones," he said evenly. "You were the one who broke the Golden Branch."
Elia stood nearby, rifle lowered, having never joined the attack.
Rowan already knew the answer. The Tree’s mories had told him everything.
Still, he wanted to hear it from Elia himself.
"Tell why."
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