The fireball’s descent parted the darkness gushing out of the chest of the creature and sunk into its chest, where it disappeared, and then like the dawn of a new day, silver flames erupted from the creature.
It came with so much force that the fire rose up well over three hundred feet. It was a pillar of flames that bore through the ceiling of the temple and drove Rowan back.
The floor around the creature was depressed into a bowl, as the surrounding floor simply evaporated. The shriek from the creature ceased, as the pillar of flames began to lessen.
Suddenly, a figure leapt out of the glowing crater, it was covered in flames and had only a single leg, it landed on that leg and turned to Rowan, and it shrieked again, its lower jaw extended until it fell off, cutting out its screams.
The figure shook and waved the stumps of its arms, as if trying to put out the stubborn flames, it nearly fell before it steadied and tried to run on a single leg.
The creature did not go far, it could only hop five times, each time it landed, pieces of it fell off; it made weird sounds from its throat, as it attempted to jump for the sixth time, but Rowan Axe was waiting for it.
The blow dug deep into its forehead, Rowan silently cursing at the hardness of the bones, but the blow had revealed the hidden darkness inside the head, and it was rapidly consumed by the encroaching silver flames, finally, the creature fell.
The flames slowly began to die down, and Rowan peered down at the burning figure. It was now burnt to charcoal, and all the surface flesh had been turned to ash, except some stubborn patch of muscles, and the exposed bones glowed white-hot.
What was left of it was a glowing skeleton, eyes that were now black holes and pieces of squirming viscera.
Yet, this creature still moved. In its eyes were the growing runes, and they were near eighty percent completion.
Rowan stepped on the Shadow, its movement was weak and slow, but Rowan knew that could change in a heartbeat if the runes in its eyes were completed.
He raised Envy up and swung down on the skull of the creature. Envy dug maybe two inches deep, Rowan forcefully pulled back the weapon, the skull seemingly holding it fast, but with his strength and Envy’s vibrational force, he pulled it out.
Rowan was amazed at the tenacity of this creature. It was still fighting. It tried to bring the burnt stumps of its arms and legs to push Rowan off.
BOOM!
BOOM!
BOOM!
Rowan replied to its stubbornness with more blows from Envy, The sounds of the fallen weapon were like thunder. At the seventh blow he had nearly cut the skull in two, that was when he heard a sigh.
"Wait…. My sweet boy!"
Rowan did not pause. "I am not your boy."
Three more blows separated the skull in two. And the dull twang of the Sigils snapping was such a beautiful sound to him.
He felt an unknown weight drop off his Spirit, and he could not help but roar. He had taken the first step towards his freedom, he kept his elation aside as a new sensation struck him, it was of hunger… An intense hunger like nothing he had ever felt before.
It came from an unidentified location inside his body, and it was very infuriating, it was like a phantom pitch he was unable to scratch. He scrubbed through all his consciousness to drag it out of him.
The Primordial Record had always existed in a strange state inside his body, neither physical nor ephemeral, he could access it with his Spirit, but he could not necessarily touch it, if not for the tangible benefits he had received from the Singularity, he might have thought it was just a figment of his imagination.
Now, the Primordial Record changed its state to a physical form, and Rowan felt its presence more clearly. It felt… Alive!
It was with a rapt fascination that he watched the Primordial Record crawl it way out of his chest. An oval opening appeared in his chest and the Primordial Record slowly came out.
He did not think it might emerge physically, but he was mistaken. The Primordial Record resembled a black book. There were no designs on the cover and judging by the width, it would be a book that contained maybe a hundred pages.
When a portion of it came out of his body, its movement slowed. It appeared the Primordial Record was straining to leave his body, he was a little nervous because this was the source of his strength. If he loses this power, how would he be able to survive in this world?
It took a little while before he nearly laughed in a self-deprecating manner, for if he really thought about it, he did not need the Primordial Record all that much any longer.
It had already provided him with two Omnipotent bloodlines and as he had already escaped his most trying period, which was his lost lifespan, if he could leave this place, then he could slowly develop his bloodline over the next millennia.
His lifespan even in the Legendary State was 33,000 years, what sort of timescale was that! He would be able to achieve so much in that time frame.
Even if the development of his bloodline increased at a turtle’s pace over the next tens of thousands of years, he would soon ascend to the Rift State, in due time, and his lifespan would inevitably increase as well.
He could slowly experiment with Soul Points outside the influence of the Primordial Record, it was the stuff of creation after all, and if he was able to master it, he was sure in the upcoming future he would still be mighty even without the direct aid of the Primordial Record.
It had already given him the method to fish, why was he still holding tightly to it? If he could understand how to utilize soul points properly without the Primordial Record, he would no longer need it.
These thoughts flashed past his mind, and another unexpected shackle in his belief was dispersed.
Rowan eased the pressure he had been subconsciously heaping on the Black Book, and it quickly eased its way out of his chest.
The Book hovered in the air, before floating up to his face and lightly bop Rowan on the nose. Rowan’s eyes widened as he felt a slight annoyance mixed with amusement from the Black Book.
It almost felt as if the Primordial Record was reprimanding him, he could almost hear an old voice, "Kid, just because you can now crawl, you think you can already outpace me? Let me remind you that a single piece of my chest hair is larger than your thigh!" Or some nonsense like that.
Rowan had felt a slight embarrassment for holding back the Primordial Record, and humor was a good way to quell his mind of any negative influence.
The Primordial Record began to enlarge as it opened up. It grew so large it nearly touched the ceiling of the temple hundreds of feet above, It flipped through seven pages and then it turned ethereal.
Rowan’s eyes were fixed on it, then he was distracted by tiny glowing lights, he looked around and saw light dots emerging from the burnt Corpse of the creature he killed, the red light particles circled the Corpse before coming together into two pages.
These pages were enlarging and shrinking as though it were breathing. When enlarged it resembled a whole book similar to the Primordial Record, but the cover was white, and when it shrank down it was just a page with a picture of a quill feather and an open bowl, and the second page held many dense writings.
He felt a mental fluctuation from the Primordial Record, "Look Away!"
The two Ouroboros Serpent began to growl as they backed away, for the first time, Rowan felt a new sensation from them, it was a disquietness.
It was not long before Rowan discovered the reason for that, the hovering Primordial Record released a bright red light that struck the two pages, but before the light could touch them…
She was there…
The goddess!
