Chapter 1189: I know You Rowan was silent and did not make a move or speak, anyone would think he was a golem crafted out of an erupting volcano. If this presence was expecting more of a reaction from him, it would not be getting it immediately, instead Rowan was focused on trying to strip away the layers of obfuscation shrouding this mystery figure; he had lived long enough to know that appearances and words could be deceiving, especially when it came to beings at this level of power. Their knowledge and their great age were often not considered, but it was what made them truly terrifying besides their powers. There was no situation that they had never encountered countless times in the past, and to surprise them or go against their will was nearly impossible, and so what it would take to stand before them was to become an existence that was also not possible. His mind was moving at a million miles a second, piecing all the clues and details he knew about the Eye of the Primordial of Time and Evil and what he was witnessing here in front of him. The eye had just set up the board and he had few moments to identify all the pieces, find out the flaws that he had shown and the various ways of offense and defense it was going to be using against him. As suddenly as a spark jumping out of a flint, Rowan had begun a life and death battle, even though an observer would think everything was calm, he was perhaps in the greatest danger he had ever faced since he was born. Rowan's mind went back into his memories and among the myriad of information he had compiled, he fished out a clue that he had missed when he was not aware of the reach of this enemy, it was a small detail, but it shifted the direction of this impending conflict and stopped him from making a terrible mistake. The memory came from Jerediah, the first Blood Slave. Rowan had gone through his soul when he destroyed the blood slaves underneath the continent he had raised as his new city, and he had seen where the pollution had begun. 𝕗𝗿𝕖𝐞𝐰𝗲𝕓𝐧𝕠𝕧𝗲𝐥.𝚌𝐨𝚖 Jerediah had been sailing through the endless ocean, his barren soul slowly driving him pass madness into something worse, and in all of his possible futures this unfortunate blood slave should have perished in this place and he would have finally found a measure of peace, but then he came across a presence, who changed his path, serving him up to become a tyrant that terrorized an entire race, and at first Rowan had thought that this visitor was perhaps another facet of the Will of Doom Star who was making sure that Rowan could never rise from death, but now he saw that he was mistaken. At that time it was easy for Rowan to have made that mistake not because he was not aware of the presence of the Eye of the Primordial in this realm, but because Jerediah had asked that unknown presence, "Are you, my god." It replied to the blood slave, "I am not your god, and you can not find him because I killed him." There... This was the moment that fooled him. There were many factors that led to his death in this realm, and chief among them was the World's Will that had warped his flesh into stone and sent the Undying to finish him off with a Primordial weapon, but it would be a mistake to think there had not been other subtle hands at play in his demise. He had always suspected that the influence of the Eye had contributed to his death, but he had always felt that it had simply been an opportunist, fleeing when it saw an opportunity to escape his hold. At this moment it was not looking like it was the case. The presence in the mind of Jerediah, it was not the same as the one that stood here before him, they were both powerful, and would have most likely deceived most people, but Rowan was not most people... his senses was vastly different from any mortal or immortal, because he we unique in all of creation, despite having just a soul, his soul was a dimensional soul, and its senses was different from anything else. Even if this presence came with a vastly different form, there was no way it was deceiving him. The Eye had just told him that it was been suppressed by the World's Will and the only reason it could reach out to Rowan was because he was ascending towards the fourth dimension using the Will of Time, but if this presence had been the one to manipulate Jerediah to create the caste of blood slaves, then he was lying. Rowan picked the words that presence had said to Jerediah soon after, "Your god is not one to rest in peace, even now in death his skin stirs across my surface like maggots, and his intestines slowly tighten a noose around my neck, but, he is dead, his remains only need to be reminded of that. Do you understand what I am saying and why I am saying it to you?" Jerediah had replied, "You want to bury him, and I am to be your hand." The presence had laughed and said, "If not for my hatred of him and his poisonous nature, I would have placed his darkness alongside my own. You are a peculiar find mortal, I do not want you to be the hand, you shall be his coffin." This was something that he had missed again when the presence had mentioned the word, darkness. This was a term he heard from the Undying and he also knew that Pure Darkness was a fundamental force of this realm, and his Ouroboros serpents had once consumed the darkness inside the body of a Calamity god, and this could have led this realm to believe that darkness was another aspect of Rowan's power, but the insidious Eye was referring to something else. With this knowledge, Rowan was not deceived by the words it had just spoken to him, the Eye was his enemy and the hatred it had for him was without bound, so much hatred it would make Shisu's own pale in comparison. All of these thoughts went by in a flash in his mind and Rowan knew that he had to flip the board immediately before the Eye had a chance for bringing whatever plan it had into fruition. "Don't do it..." the presence said and Rowan's golden eyes flashed, and it continued speaking, "You should know by now how interconnected Time and Soul is. This should not be a surprise, after all, Soul is my twin sister." Acting as if he had not just dropped a bombshell on his lap, and maybe for the Eye, this was simply normal information at anyone at a certain level of power would soon come to know, "I have eaten the souls of the Shadows, so I know you Rowan. I have watched your birth, I have watched you fall, and I have watched you rise again and again. Every secret of yours is known to me... your powers, your armies, your... black book. I know the way you react to threats and the methods you use. I know why you are here now, confused about the present and the past yet knowing nothing but to move on. I know you Rowan, I know you child, better than anyone can know you, and so I say to you... don't do it. It will never work, you have not faced anything like me before."