"Hmm…" Caine had immediately noticed the change inside the Forge, and his eyes turned to Eva, "What little games are you playing beneath my sight?"
The Sovereigns stopped blocking the Ouroboros Serpents and retreated, flying towards the clouds above. The Ouroboros Serpents now freed from their clutches, thundered past, their movement creating massive tremors in space. In a few seconds, they would be reaching his body.
Caine tapped the side of his chin in contemplation, "I will admit, that was a stupid move; releasing your beasts. You could have lasted a bit longer, the game was just becoming more interesting. Are you that desperate to fade from the Immortal Coil?"
'She was not referring to them.' A thought flew past Rowan's mind, and Caine beside him froze, his two-colored eyes slowly turned to Rowan, and a feeling of hate and revulsion bubbled up within him and this time he did not fight this feeling, allowing it to wash over him.
Rowan chuckled and he spat at the ground, "So you were reading my mind."
"Am I? Funny how I've not been able to see beyond your surface thoughts." Caine growled and immediately Rowan felt the slight scratching sensation he had been feeling all these while intensifying into a tornado made of teeth and barbed wires.
They began to dig into the fabrics of his consciousness, taking no heed of the damages or his defenses. Rowan's mind was not like a god or an Archmage, it was fortified beyond reason, and with his growing knowledge of mysticism, it had also enhanced the defenses and reaches of his mind, although he was not at his peak, it should be incredibly difficult to break into his mind… but Caine was succeeding, and he was no longer being gentle about it.
He must have seen a slight deviation in his plans as Rowan's action was incompatible with his words, and he no longer took his time to savor his victory. He wanted his prize now.
Rowan made no sound even when his left eye exploded and he began to bleed from his nose and ears as his mind was ravaged to the edge of destruction, he only watched his Ouroboros Serpents reach the remnants of his flesh and encircle it.
They no longer had eyes, in their place were the faces of Caine, whose face was painted with trees and lust. At least it was only Rowan that could see this grim sight, everyone else could not perceive the presence of Caine.
"What are you hiding? It is too late to make any meaningful difference, open your damned mind to me. It should not be possible for you to resist me like this. Fine, if your mind does not go first, then I will consume your body, without that foundation, everything will fall and I shall take what is left."
Rowan's body buckled but he kept his focus on his Serpents.
They suddenly struck, mouths that were wide enough to swallow entire continents descended on his flesh, but at the last moment, they stopped. They halted their motion so suddenly it left cracks in reality, and this was the Forge of all places, anywhere else and their momentum would have crushed planets.
Hurricane winds and lightning buffeted their bodies, as the Ouroboros Serpents against all odds began fighting against the forces controlling them, the faces of Caine that were their eyes warped into one of incredible malevolence.
"Now would you look at that," Rowan groaned as blood poured out from his smiling mouth, "My children do not bow to your Will, they now see you for what you are… a maggot feasting on the flesh of the dead, you have no right to touch their eminence. They are proud."
Caine's eyes widened in surprise, the ever-present scorn that was always inside his eyes was gone, "You stupid mongrels, obey my Will or perish!"
The Ouroboros Serpents screamed their defiance, their massive bodies shuddering in rage. These beasts were no longer the normal variant of an Ouroboros Serpent, they were an extension of Rowan, and they carried with them all the traits of their master.
Caine had made a mistake, his Ouroboros Serpents were the Children of Rowan, not Chaos nor Caine, and their arrogance and valor knew no bounds."
Rowan began to laugh, and he turned to Caine, "Beware they are fearless and therefore powerful."
Caine's eyes lit up in annoyance and he seized Rowan by the neck, "I don't care for your games any longer, even if they refuse to devour your flesh, then I shall have all the time to devour your mind, and this time I will not be gentle."
As Caine spoke in anger, his body began to slowly transform as he shed the guise of a man that he had been wearing, leaving something terrifying in its place.
Dozens of bones erupted from his neck and they spread out like the hood of a cobra with slimy pieces of connecting tissues between the bones, the bones in his legs collapsed and extended, until he grew several feet taller, his stomach swelled and the skin over his face fell off, leaving behind a grinning skull with two hungry eyes peering deeply into Rowan's mind, as a slimy black tongue wiggled behind his closed teeth.
Rowan gasped in pain as the pain in his skull exploded a thousandfold, countless hands digging into his head and he grinned at the beast that Caine turned out to be, "Your true nature is sickening and perverse, you are just a cancer struggling for the scraps of the mighty."
Caine shrieked in anger, the sound utterly inhuman, and Rowan's last barrier shattered to pieces.
Caine began to laugh, "Your mind, your secrets, your everything, are mine!"
and as suddenly as a striking viper, his black tongue entered through the left eye socket of Rowan and plunged into his brain, and there it began to drain everything…
Rowan's body began to shake as if it was being electrocuted, and a smaller set of arms erupted from the ribs of Caine and held him in place until he finished feasting on the remnants of Rowan's brain.
Horrifyingly enough, Rowan was not dead. His overall Constitution and Consciousness capabilities meant he could survive such amounts of abuse without immediately dying.
Caine smacked his lips in satisfaction and discarded Rowan's body like a thrash, his eyes squinting as he began churning through the memory of this enigmatic creature.
Soon, suspicion flooded his heart and he was struck with confusion. Caine swept through the memories he harvested again and again.
