The Primordial Record

Chapter 2021  The Cost of Resurrection

Watching Noctis, the Primordial of Screaming Void, come to life was a learning experience because Eos could see that Noctis had no choice but to come to life, because before his mind was awake, his body had almost been brought to completion.

The process of resurrection for a Primordial was resource-intensive, but for Eos, it was only a slight loss of power before his regeneration took care of everything. However, Eos had come to realize that this was not all the cost associated with resurrecting a Primordial; the true bearer of this weight came from his soul. After killing Noctis a couple of times, Eos had not noticed that his soul had lost a small part due to the pressure of the situation, and because he had unleashed powers that harmed his soul when he was fighting with the Abomination.

It was after the battle that he was able to digest all the benefits and losses from the fight that he realized that a part of his soul had been lost forever, technically, it was not lost, the right term would be permanently borrowed.

When a being becomes a Primordial, everything about them is crushed into their Origin, including their souls. It means they no longer had any conventional weakness, and soul attacks, no matter how powerful, were useless against a Primordial; their effects were the same as other attacks to a Primordial, and the only thing they would be losing is their Origin Essence.

In that sense, Primordials were immune to everything… up to an extent. In a fair Existence where Rowan, the Ancient Primordials, and beings like the Beast of Inevitability and the Beast of Final Rest, Enoch, and the power of End did not exist, then a Primordial was invincible.

It was easy to forget that a drop of Primordial Essence was considered infinite, as a single drop of Essence could power all the inhabitants of a Reality, from mortals all the way to Old Ones, for all eternity.

For such a being to die and resurrect, the price paid by the host of a Primordial was high, and if Eos was a normal Reality, then he should maybe handle the death of its Primordial for at most three or four times before the weight of this resurrection destroyed it.

It was the reason no Reality would ever allow a Primordial to be born inside of them, and would push them to leave as they could not bear the cost of holding a portion of the Primordial’s Origin Force.

Eos could see that the part of his soul that had been taken, shattered, and transformed into Noctis’s soul. This process was so complete that without the sheer durability of his soul that still kept a trace of itself despite the transformation, Eos would not be able to trace where this part of his soul had gone.

In this manner, he knew how to finally kill Noctis. If his soul had not been taken as one of the materials for the resurrection of this Primordial, then it would take more thinking and experimentation to kill a Primordial rooted to his body.

It should be impossible, but Eos could draw back his soul that had been taken by Noctis, and using this soul as the lock into Noctis’s Origin, he could take apart this Primordial from the inside. He had already learned and mastered the Origin of Screaming Void to the fourth layer, and unless Noctis could reach the fifth layer of his Origin, he would not be able to escape from Eos’s hand.

With this discovery, the threat of Noctis had been sliced down by half, and Eos could begin looking for answers, especially after what he had seen and learned from the bone fragment taken from Circe’s dream.

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Noctis screamed himself to life, feeling his heart pumping the element of void all through his veins, and for a fleeting, painful moment, he thought he had become a mortal, but this feeling did not last for long. Memories from distant times entered his reawakened soul. A part of him had been lost and discarded anytime he died, and resurrection brought it all back.

A lesser being would have lost a part of themselves when they perished, but Primordials were different; they embodied their concept itself, and an Origin Force would need to be complete before it could be termed as Origin. Would the wind still remain the wind if it could not blow?

To escape the senses of the Ancient Primordial and Enoch, Noctis, the Architect of End, suppressed his memories and powers, giving the Noctis who was left to roam Limbo ahead of the Ancient Primordial and find the right Reality to birth the true owner of the Primordial Record.

In this manner, Noctis had been able to survive under the eyes of the most powerful beings in Existence, but it seemed as if his luck had run out, and it was a painful feeling, not because he had been discovered, but because he knew he was so close to getting everything he wanted, and the prize was set dangling before his eyes while he was chained down.

If all things went as they should, then Noctis would never abandon Eos, he would fight with him to the end, and when everything was over, he would be the one to lead him to the Temple of End and show him his true destiny; he was the one who would fight against Enoch and hold the power of End and Origin… How could he not see where his true destiny lay?

A heavy weight like a mountain pressed against his senses, and only then did Noctis truly awaken. He opened his eyes to see Eos looking at him with a piercing gaze, and Noctis knew that this monster knew the exact moment he transformed from Noctis the Primordial of Screaming Void to Noctis the Architect of End.

“Lord Eos,” Noctis said, “Funny that I can see you the moment I awakened, because I was thinking of you, even in death.”

“Even in death, I cannot be forgotten.” This statement meant a lot, and Eos did not bother trying to make Noctis understand its full implications, he reached for him, “I have questions for you, Noctis.”