A chuckle from Rowan pulled Caine away from his search and he looked at the dying form of Rowan with a growing irritation in his heart.
A broken voice emerged from around the body he had placed Rowan's consciousness into, that spoke slowly, but every word was clear as if Rowan was making sure that Caine understood every word,
"Are you not finding the prize you have snatched?"
Caine began to revert to his mortal forms ridding himself of his nightmarish visage, "As a matter of fact, I cannot. What did you do with your memories?"
The voice from Rowan's body was beginning to fade, yet it was still clear,
"hahaha… Here I thought you were smarter than this, but again as I am slowly learning, excessive powers dull the minds of the incompetent. I don't think you understand the enemy you have made for yourself. You interrupted my Ascension, but it is not yet over. Hahaha, I have one more Title."
Caine paused, and he slowly asked, "Who are you?"
Below them, the silver corona that was encircling the shattered body of Rowan suddenly vanished as if it never existed.
A last whisper emerged from the corpse, "You are about to find out."
The entire Forge shook as if held in the hands of a giant and a roar emerged in the center of the clouds above that was filled with Primordial Aether.
That sound tore the clouds apart and a ring of lightning that was filled with Primordial Aether was suddenly drawn into a single location, dispersing the entire tumultuous cloud that had gathered for thousands of miles in an instant.
A massive white dragon with a red spine and eyes emerged from it, and the silver corona that appeared behind its back was a figure with hair that was like a spurned diamond.
That figure swallowed all the power of the Primordial Aether and his body exploded with radiance more brilliant than a thousand sunrises. His glory spread throughout the Forge as his Will solidified in a shell around him.
The sound of a hundred thousand Angels falling to their knees in worship heralded him as the figure took a step forward and cried out,
"I AM A PRIMORDIAL!"
The process of finalizing a Will and completing his destroyer resumed as the true body of Rowan Kuranes emerged in the clouds above, carried by his child, Vraegar.
The Core began to revolve as the entire Forge began to slowly fracture to pieces.
®
ONE YEAR AND NINE MONTHS AGO.
Rowan was standing barefoot on the surface of a star. His arms were folded on his chest and his eyes were clouded with worry.
He tried to restrict his senses and used only a small part of his sight to see the universe, but with his massive six hundred miles body, the amount of sensation he could collect at every single moment, even while muted, was enormous.
Light, heat, radiation, vibration, gravity… they bombarded his senses, but still, they were just a tiny fraction of what he was processing every single moment. If he chose to go deeper, he would begin to see the lines of reality, that ethereal music beneath all of creation.
He did not wish to see this portion of reality, but he had no choice… this was the price of power.
Rowan sighed and allowed the gravity of the star, which was almost the same size as the sun of his previous life, to drag him to its core. As he fell deeper into the star he began shifting his mass inside his Mental Space until he became less than eight feet tall.
Rowan surrounded himself with his Berserker Intent, he did not wish to be hurt by the stars, and his Intent bent reality and made it so.
Originally, his Berserker Intent had not been this versatile, but Rowan had begun experimenting more deeply with his Intent, and the reason he was able to perform such fantastic feats that went beyond his Attributes but touched on something deeper—the formation of Will.
His Berserker Intent acted autonomously and ensured that every move he made, had the breath of finality inside of it, it knew only to attack, and his intentions were frozen in time, disregarding the laws of the material universe to a larger extent.
It was the reason why the battles between gods were so terrible, even if their Attributes were not so powerful, their Intent could bridge the gap, making diamonds out of coal.
A god without Intent could only depend on the Essence of his Divine Kingdom to muscle through any difficulty and was no match for another god with Intent. In fact, if a mortal could control Intent they would be able to for a short while battle a god, because it did not matter the strength of their Attributes, what truly mattered were their intentions, so any blows from a god always carried an extra zest.
Yet as his sight was beginning to reveal to him, this was just the start. There was something more.
Rowan sank into the sun, disregarding his forcefield, his Berserker Intent isolated the heat and gravity from his body until he reached the Core of the star. He arrived and selected a spot at precisely the center of the star.
It was a bit difficult, like a mortal molding drying concrete with their bare palm, but Rowan constructed a mansion from the Core of the star that he created from his memory, it was the mansion that he lived in for a short while during his time in the Nexus.
He followed familiar passages, now made from fiery bricks, and entered its bathroom where he disrobed and sank into the bath tube that was filled with plasma that Rowan compressed until it resembled a blue gel.
He closed his eyes and sank into a troubled sleep, as a frown crossed his features every now and then as if he was going through a terrible nightmare.
"Your condition… It's getting worse, are you sure you don't want to discard the Ouroboros Bloodline and chart a path for outside the universe? It would be difficult, but I'm sure with your growing luck, we might be able to survive in a barren corner of the Great Darkness,"
Eva's voice entered Rowan's consciousness but he was silent for a long while. She was content to wait, knowing he would reply to her in his own time.
The mind of Rowan was beginning to grow deep, reaching places that would take a little bit longer for her to follow.
The Lady of Shadows was nothing but patience incarnate. She waited by his side for Rowan to reveal their future direction.
