The secrets Rowan held were earth-shaking and although his feats were miraculous, it was nothing before the secrets he held inside his mind, if Caine understood the source of his powers then Rowan knew he was finished, for this creature would stop at nothing to acquire everything.
Rowan's eyes grew cold, "Caine, let us cut to the chase, I am not a mortal that needs…" he gestured to the body of Caine hanging over the flames of burning universes, "all these unnecessary theatrics to instill awe and fear in my heart, tell me what you want and we can negotiate, saving all of us time and effort."
"Oh… I love the way your mind works. Of course, I can do this, you have to forgive me, eldritch beings like us have to cultivate a certain atmosphere," Caine winked at him and everything around them transformed and Rowan's consciousness returned to the Forge with blistering speed, and Rowan suspected that what he saw was not a mirage, but was real.
With no barrier over his senses, this time he was overlooking the terrible events happening inside the Forge, with no way to connect to his broken flesh or stop this tragedy from happening.
Caine was no longer hanging over a fire, he now appeared in the replica of the body he gave to Rowan, he had a smirk that stretched the scar on his cheeks, almost making it seem like another leering mouth. There was something about his disposition that made it easy to hate him, this trait was almost innate, and it took a brief moment for Rowan to sort through this powerful emotion and place them aside.
Caine proceeded with speaking with evident amusement in his eyes, "Believe me Rowan, the last thing I want to do is to make an enemy out of you. You remind me so much about our father… cold and merciless, like a broken piece of winter steel, there is nothing of warmth inside you, which begs the question, how can something as cold as you create creatures like this? My children are not so warm even though my heart is nothing but flames."
Rowan did not say anything, his stance was that of waiting for Caine to continue speaking. Anything this individual does is carefully calculated, including his words, and he would rather Caine move straight to the point than allow his questions to push them off track.
Caine smiled again and Rowan had to fight the urge to tear off his jaws and beat him to death with it, and he calmed his rage and listened to him,
"To tell you the truth, I don't want to waste your time… clearly you need it." Caine pointed out below as if Rowan was not aware of the conflicts happening.
The battle occurring inside the Forge had reached a feverish pitch, the Six Ouroboros Serpents roared their sorrow and rage as their bodies were driven without their consent.
Rowan had benefited greatly when he returned from outside the universe, achieving powers that made him matchless even at his level, but as always, the gains for his Ouroboros Serpents were much more substantial. His enhanced Attributes were only a small portion of what his Ouroboros Serpents received.
At this moment his Serpents were a shell of their previous self, they hardly had any skin or flesh left and a greater portion of their bones had vaporized and merged with the Core, but it did not detract from the fact that each of them was more than five thousand miles long!
The space of the Forge was truly compact and resistant to force and pressure and this was the only reason that the winds generated by the Serpent's movements were not enough to tear all of reality to pieces, yet this Space was under severe strain and only the aid of Eva, Lost and a whole Host of Angels were fighting to keep the Forge in one piece, but they were beginning to fail.
Large portions of the Forge were beginning to collapse, and if this deterioration were not halted, the material universe would seep into the Forge, and this would create an explosion ten times more terrible than a supernova, everything here would die.
The Ouroboros Serpents were attempting to devour the remnants of Rowan's body, if they succeeded, his consciousness would be destroyed and whatever was influencing them would be able to fully take over. Caine would be the winner here.
Suriel and Erudiel were battling the Six Ouroboros Serpents by themselves, and they were holding their ground against the crazed serpents, but they were being restricted from calling on their full might.
It did not take long to see why there was a big problem in this fight. His Sovereigns could not go all out and battle the Serpents because any damage they inflicted on them had an adverse effect on the Core above.
They could only push them back, stalling them for as long as possible, and his Ouroboros Serpents were very adaptable, whatever methods the Sovereigns were using to hold them back were slowly losing their effect, it would not be long now before they lost their hold over the Serpent or risk destroying them so they would hurt not Rowan, he knew what they would choose.
His Sovereigns would prefer that the Core would be lost than for Rowan to be killed. There was nothing wrong with this choice but there was still another bad actor here that would gain the advantage, no matter how this conflict played out.
Caine seemed to be enjoying the battle ongoing below and turned to Rowan and continued where he stopped,
"That is the reason why I took you to my home, to show you everything as quickly as possible, a picture is worth a thousand words, so to speak, " Caine giggled.
"Oh yes, the person you saw is the real representation of me. Let's not go into my torture, I admit that portion was a bit blaise if I say so myself, but I'm sure you saw the purpose for which I created the devouring technique."
He waited for Rowan to speak and Rowan duly replied, "I don't know the purpose of your actions, but I saw that you were feeding on the Will of Chaos."
Caine paused as if in deep thought and he laughed, "You are far less curious than I thought, by now I would be expecting you to be thinking more deeply about the meaning behind my efforts, are you deliberately trying not to actively think about your situation?... Smart!"
Rowan rubbed his brows, fighting the deep irritation that was constantly growing in his soul, "Is there any reason to beat a dead horse? Your intentions are plain as day, why don't we cut the crap and skip to the portion where you make your demands."
