The Primordial Record

Chapter 1895: A counter Offer

Rowan closed his eyes, and he did not bother replying to Enoch; he already had all the tools he needed to figure out the secrets, and making a promise to Enoch at this point was beyond foolish. He understood that Enoch was throwing out feelers to gauge Rowan’s responses, especially given that Rowan had reached the sixteenth level of the nameless technique not too long ago and was about to head out of the cave to consume the bones falling from the sky.

If Enoch had previously believed that Rowan would be unable to bear the strain of holding the Origin and the End of all lives in existence, he was wrong, and every time Rowan ascended a tier in his nameless technique and went outside the cave, the mockery in his eyes began to fade.

If Enoch was shocked at Rowan’s ability to not only endure the burden he was carrying but also resist the curse he was also imposing on him by consuming his mortal’s blood, then he was not alone; Rowan was also shocked.

He knew that this place was slowly transforming the foundation of these techniques, but it was not supposed to be this drastic. Rowan expected trillions of years of slow progress; instead, it seemed to be evolving faster than Rowan could have expected, and he had a likely reason for this to be happening, and that was the rapidly growing invisible flame inside of him.

This flame already occupied the entire chest area, and it was one reason Rowan refused to shrink his body, remaining a thousand miles tall. He did not understand the mysteries behind this flame or what Lumina was, but he did not want it to be exposed to the outside world, at least not until he was able to control it.

Whatever it was, this Lumina was a power he was not supposed to know about or be able to touch, and if that was the case, it was to his most significant advantage to keep it as secretive as possible.

Rowan had no way to judge his present strength at the sixteenth level of the nameless techniques. Still, he had a sneaking suspicion that, among all of the Incarnations created by Eos, he had become by far the strongest at this point. He wondered how strong he could become if he completed the techniques that reached the nineteenth level. Would he reach the power levels of his main body, or would he exceed them? It was a fascinating issue to consider, and one that also raised significant concerns for him for many apparent reasons.

At first, he counted the number of lives he was safeguarding, but then the number grew so much that it became ridiculous. Now, he was only counting the time he could spend while collecting the lives he was safeguarding.

With every tier of the nameless techniques that he ascended, the benefits it gave him became more ridiculous, greater than his expectations could ever be. At the fourteenth level, he was able to last for an hour, when he had previously barely lasted one minute at the thirteenth level.

At the fifteenth level, Rowan was able to last for seventy-three years.

He remembered Enoch mocking him when he was at the fourteenth level, telling him how ridiculous his efforts were in comparison to the infinite number of lives that were present here. Still, at that time, Rowan kept his calm, determined to push beyond his limits when he reached the fifteenth level, but he could never have thought that he would last for so long.

Now that he had reached the sixteenth level, he could see the look of wariness in Enoch’s eyes, and no matter how he tried to hide it, the ability to see the truth in the eyes of others had always been something special about Rowan. He could not discover how he obtained this ability, as it was something that even the Primordial Record could not pin down. Rowan did not bother investigating it, taking it as a quirk unique to him.

This ability was inconsistent; otherwise, no one would be able to lie to Rowan, but when it activated in certain moments, Rowan trusted that intuition.

He was not surprised that Enoch would make a move. Rowan had long been expecting it; after all, at the sixteenth level, it was unknown how long he could last. The vision of Reality in the present was shown to him.

It told him two things, and the first was that even at the level of Origin or End, the future could not be truly known. Many things could be hypothesised with startling accuracy, but there was no proper way to see the future.

The second was that Enoch had an almost direct view of Reality, else he would not be able to show Rowan everything that was happening inside and outside Reality. However, Rowan believed that one of the reasons why Enoch may be able to see into Reality was rather simple: he was feeding on his mortal’s blood.

In this strange place below existence, Rowan was not the only one who was acquiring power; Enoch was also doing the same thing, but while Rowan’s concern was safeguarding existence, Enoch’s concern was to consume Rowan, and he was already making progress in this.

Enoch had shown Rowan the present state of Reality, and his expectations would have been for him to be deeply concerned about the ongoing affairs and his main body’s seemingly drastic actions, but he had unknowingly revealed the truth behind his consumption of his own blood.

Rowan had closed his eyes in contemplation for a few seconds, and when he opened them, there was a bright light in his eyes. “The truth, Enoch? I have seen enough. Did my main body realize that the pages of the Primordial Record are not exclusive to my gaze alone?”

Enoch paused, and Rowan almost rolled his eyes. “You remember that you did try to possess me when I tried to merge with the Singularity. Only a fool would not realize that the Primordial Record has more going for it than meets the eye.”

The light in the eyes of Enoch brightened slightly before going dim, but Rowan caught it, and he stroked his chin, “Unless… You were not aware of that event happening, did you?”

Rowan slowly stood up from his throne and began to walk toward the entrance of the cave, his footsteps shaking the ground beneath him. He glanced back at Enoch, who was frozen in place, still considering Rowan’s last words, and he left him with a few words before entering the field of bones.

“I can tell you the truth, Enoch, you just have to make a deal with me.”

Stepping into the field of bones, Rowan thought he could see an edge to this place in the distance; it was most likely a mirage, but Rowan would like to believe it was not. Only away from the cave did his eyes show the pain and weariness he was carrying.

The weight of existence was endless, yet he kept taking more of it on his shoulders. The only thing he wanted to do was to let it all go… the relief he would feel would be beyond divine, but Rowan gritted his teeth and stared at the skies,

“Bring it on, I will never break.”

The sky responded with a roar as the bones began to fall. Rowan grinned and with portals opening around him, he charged at the heavens.