Bring the shrieking head of Primordial Soul to the Altar of Unmaking. Rowan pinned it to the stone slab using the blade of destruction. Killing her using this blade would take too long and would be a great distraction to his purpose of entering Soul Origin; besides, he believed he had a better tool for killing Primordials.
His eyes were dull, almost like those of a zombie; he should be resting his consciousness, but the hate in Rowan’s heart was lting him from the inside, and he knew if he did not find an outlet for it, he might go insane.
Rowan’s eyes darted around. Inside the Unmaking Chamber was not just this altar; there was also a crown, a mantle, a scepter, a fountain, and an anvil. Unlike the past layers of the Soul, Rowan knew that to fully take control of this layer of the soul, he would have to master all of these objects, or at least possess them.
Rowan had no mind to comprehend in his present state, so he dominated. Reaching across space, he commanded all of them to co to him; his Will was so focused that they could not refuse his call.
The crown flew into his hand first. It was a circlet that seed to be made out of fused constellation, still faintly glowing. Grabbing it, his hand did not even sink under its enormous weight.
Rowan sank his consciousness into it, and he knew that the crown was nad the Crown of Command, and to wear it was to claim ultimate responsibility over the welfare of the soul.
A dark side of Rowan chuckled. It was no wonder that Primordial Soul would dump this crown to the side.
Yet, the na and purpose of this crown were not the most significant finds. Rowan discovered while peering into the essence of this treasure that this crown, like the Echoes before, did not co from this Reality but was the remnant of another Soul Origin that was brought over by Primordial Soul.
Rowan was not too shocked at this revelation. He went through the Crown of Command for one last ti before he applied force to his hands and crushed it, rapidly absorbing its essence. He did not need this crown, as he already had one, and so it would serve as fuel for his advancent.
The mantle fell into his hands next, warm and soft, and his consciousness pieced through its defenses to explore the secrets it contained.
This was a cloak made from the threads of cause and effect, heavy with the knowledge of all potential futures. The Mantle of Tilines had the aura of the Soul Spiders from the previous layer of the soul. If Rowan was not wrong in his deduction, then this treasure must have belonged to the Reality where the Soul Spiders once lived.
It was a supre treasure of the soul that seed to be capable of influencing ti as well. Rowan had been able to analyze his mories, and he had seen the suppressive power of his authority of Ti over Soul. He decided not to consu the treasure yet; after thoroughly understanding its relationship with ti, he could find other uses for it.
Placing the mantle into a spatial pocket, Rowan took the third treasure and began to analyze his makeup.
A part of him was aware that he was distracting his mind because he was also dealing with his grief, but that part was quickly silenced. Rowan knew what he was doing, and the best revenge could not be rushed. The head of Primordial Soul was still shrieking in pain on the altar, constantly burned by the flas of rage, and she was not going anywhere.
His consciousness breached the defenses of the scepter, revealing its na and function. This was the Scepter of Creation. It was a nondescript rod made from cold, dormant star-iron, and its power was the burden of constant genesis, the exhaustion of always having to create from the remnants of the Soul.
The power of this scepter was eerily similar to Rowan’s ability to create anything using the essence of the soul. During the beginning of his journey to immortality, this power had aided him in reaching his present level, and seeing how it was expressed here in this manner, Rowan was interested in it.
Crushing the scepter for absorption, he pulled upon the fountain, which shrank as it zood towards him and fell onto his palms. It resembled a small black basin filled with liquid starlight. Its water was still, and Rowan could sense the power of oblivion inside of it even before he absorbed the power of this fountain.
Rowan could see that all of these different powers were the various aspects that the soul could take, and he did not hesitate to absorb this fountain into his own, discovering that its na was the Fountain of Lethe, and to drink its water was to gently forget.
He left the anvil for last, and that was because beside the massive black iron anvil rests a hamr that was forged from the heart of stars. He did not have to touch it to know that this hamr had shattered countless divinities.
Its powers were similar to the Altar of Unmaking, and Rowan knew no better way to kill off a Primordial than to use all of these treasures as well as his Will.
Touching the anvil, Rowan Will acted like a fusing agent, lting the black iron into the hamr, increasing its heft and power. At the end of its transformation, the hamr was now a great hamr, and its color was blacker than night.
Grasping the handle of the great hamr, Rowan began walking towards the altar while dragging the hamr behind him.
®
The air inside this chamber did not move, for it answered no laws made of the material realm. Instead, it was cold and still and tasted of stone and iron. The scent of stone ca from the altar, and the iron from the hamr.
As Rowan walked closer to the altar, the presence of the hamr and Rowan’s Will seed to trigger a resonance with it, and the altar began to transform.
From a thing of stone, it transford into a seething, silent vortex of non-light that drank the warmth from everything, even extinguishing the flas that tortured Primordial Soul.
A brush of his Will dismissed the blade holding her fast to the altar, and Rowan waited, and soon she began to heal. His cold eyes noticed that she was pulling power from a place that was slightly deeper than this layer of the soul, and Rowan allowed it to continue because he could now see that this hidden place was the secret that she had been protecting all this ti, and pulling power from it was essentially destroying whatever preparation she had made.
Even as her body beca more complete, Rowan knew she could not escape the pull of the altar, and he silently watched as she beca whole.
Before his sight was a paradox—a woman of impossible, terrifying beauty, her skin the texture of galactic dust, her hair a river of captured nebulae, her eyes holding the furious, cold fire of a newborn sun, yet now, that form was pinned not by chains, but by the Altar’s absolute negation.
The vortex crawled over her, not touching, but erasing. Tiny motes of her being winked out of existence without a sound, each a little death of a possible world.
Her star-fire eyes focused on him, and the voice that had commanded the alignnt of Realities spoke, though it was fraying at the edges, being unspun by the Altar.
"Eos, for all your gifts, you dare touch this instrunt? You cannot even comprehend its function."
Rowan’s hands trembled, not from fear, but from the sheer, gravitational hatred of epochs. The hamr felt like the only real thing in the universe.
"I comprehend enough," he said, his voice a rough scrape against the monuntal silence. "It unmakes. And you... are a thing that should never have been made."
He raised the hamr. At this mont, it was no longer a magical tool. It held no enchantnt. It was simply iron—the elent of mortal industry, of blood, of stubborn, unyielding reality. It was the antithesis of her primordial, abstract nature.
With a cry that was torn from the depths of all the silenced voices he had ever known, he brought it down.
"For my son!"
It did not strike her flesh, but the space just above her heart, within the field of the Altar’s effect.
The sound was not a clash, but a cessation.
Where the hamr passed through the unmaking field, a shockwave of absolute nullity blood. Her form shuddered, not in pain but in profound, existential violation. The galaxy dust of her skin dulled and turned to ash. The nebula of her hair unraveled into aningless, dissipating gas. A fracture line appeared over her heart, not bleeding but leaking a terrible, silent nothingness.
She scread then, and it was the sound of a law of physics being broken. The chamber trembled, not with vibration, but with the threat of ontological collapse.
Reviews
All reviews (0)