The Primordial could only exist for a single moment. Time opened his eyes and he saw everything, understood everything, and… hated everything. His body was being pressed under the endless weight of reality, the countless filthy mongrels desecrated his flesh with their touch, and if not for the disadvantages of alerting his siblings of his return, Time would have ended all of existence at this instant. "𝕄𝕪 𝕟𝕒𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖 𝕓𝕖𝕥𝕣𝕒𝕪𝕤 𝕞𝕖… 𝕀 𝕙𝕒𝕧𝕖 𝕤𝕝𝕖𝕡𝕥 𝕗𝕠𝕣 𝕥𝕠𝕠 𝕝𝕠𝕟𝕘." Time was not supposed to remain bound for so long, unlike what his brothers and sisters might have thought, he had a backup plan for even the worst scenario, and that backup plan was his forgotten eye that was born from Evil, and possessed enough distinct presence from Time that he was able to hide a single portion of his consciousness inside of it. Dormant. If he was to remain hidden from the eyes of his siblings, none of his touch must remain in this Eye, and so he forfeited every touch of his Will on the Eye, trusting that when the moment came when it was in deep trouble, it would rid itself of its consciousness and free the last fragment of Time hidden inside it. The Eye of Time became both his jailer and his savior, and Time had expected the Eye to have succumbed to death before the end of the Primordial Era due to the chaos of that period, instead, the Eye had survived through the cleansing of Reality and into another Era, the Supreme Era, it was even able to create Reflections, amazing beings in their own right that was able to carry part of the weight of its existence. Time did not expect the Eye to fight for survival for so long, it was like a crazed beast that refused to give up, the Eye had been fighting to survive in a reality where any of the great powers would give anything to prey upon the fragment of a Primordial. The likelihood of its survival was so abysmal that Time understood that it was impossible, and the most likely explanation was that a Grand Working had interfered with the destiny of the Eye. ’𝕋𝕠𝕣𝕔𝕙 𝔻𝕣𝕒𝕘𝕠𝕟… 𝕎𝕖𝕝𝕝 ℙ𝕝𝕒𝕪𝕖𝕕. 𝕐𝕠𝕦 𝔹𝕠𝕣𝕣𝕠𝕨𝕖𝕕 𝕄𝕪 𝔼𝕪𝕖 𝕋𝕠 ℝ𝕖𝕒𝕔𝕙 𝕋𝕙𝕖 𝔽𝕦𝕥𝕦𝕣𝕖, 𝕎𝕙𝕖𝕣𝕖 𝔻𝕠 𝕐𝕠𝕦 ℍ𝕚𝕕𝕖?’ The Third Prince and the Reflection were always feeling a great burden in their souls, a burden they termed as The Call. This burden came from carrying the weight of the Eye of Time, and so too did the Eye of Time feel this same burden, but the sensation for it was far worse, and to it, this burden was the tiredness that plagued it from the moment of its birth, the desire to give up and unleash its powers in one final burst to silence all of creation. Of all the enemies it had faced, Rowan in a stunning twist of fate had become the one to make it let go of this burden and in doing so, unleash Time upon reality. There were many hidden undercurrents in all these events that led to this moment, and in an instant Time knew all and he laughed, perhaps being reborn in this moment was not so bad after all, the prey may be weaker, but there were not lacking in variety. The Game just got more interesting. ® Time stretched forth its senses and it touched everything, it encompassed all of reality and extended into the Nothingness where it surged until it reached the Aegis, only then did he stop and allowed his omniscience to feed his consciousness, as Nine hundred and sixty quadrillion paths opened their way to him. He frowned, not used to this modern look of reality that his siblings had crafted, and responding to his will, the appearance of the path turned to a vast interconnected field of endless cogs and gears, all meshed together, yet all moving individually according to patterns that nobody but the Primordial of Time could understand. He blinked and eliminated 99.99999999999999999999999999 percent of these paths until he was left with sixty-five million possible destinies, this was a tiny sample size that he could work with. Like a tiny stone thrown into a boundless ocean, its ripples would be lost under the countless mighty waves created by his siblings, but they would still be strong enough to shift the tides in his favor. Of all these destinies, he saw two that interested him, and arranging the paths ahead, he ensured that these destinies would be snuffed out, but not before they fulfilled his Will. Holding up Reality had great disadvantages, but all of that could be offset if his Will was aware, a potential that his siblings thought had been long snuffed out. Such an advantage would be quickly patched if it was seen through, but for now, Time could exploit it as long as he wanted. Omniscience informed him that he needed to finish his task in the next moment or his traces would be caught and everything he had accomplished would be unmade. Time took a step forward and appeared outside Reality and in the Nothingness, and with another step he reached the Aegis and he paused as he viewed its grand design, the source of their hope and madness. He yearned to touch it, but with the fragment of his consciousness here, he would simply be assimilated by it. Even at the heights of his powers, Time would never think of touching the Aegis, and so it became the best place to safeguard something precious that needed to stay out of sight from his siblings. Another eight more steps took him across the boundless Aegis to a small corner of it, and there he stopped and he called for his Map, his two hands outstretched. He stayed in that position for a while, and then he placed his hands down with a slight chuckle, his plans had been seen through, and his Map was missing. "𝕎𝕙𝕠 𝔻𝕒𝕣𝕖𝕤?!" His moment was about to end, and Time’s eyes flashed with great fury, but he did not fight the dissolution of his consciousness, he had planted enough seeds, and when it was time he would rise again. A portion of his Omniscience brought about an intuition that made him glance back at the place he had just left, there was a slightly amusing mongrel here with a Singularity that was extremely odd, possessing a trait that was almost familiar… perhaps could it be? No, it was impossible, his Map could only be taken by a Primordial. His moment ended and Time closed his eyes, his consciousness vanished. ® Rowan did not understand what was happening next, his senses were burned raw at the moment that extremely powerful entity appeared and vanished. It was only for the barest of moments but he had nearly perished. Cold sweat ran down his spine as the emotion of fear that he had left behind pounced on his consciousness with such ferocity it almost crippled him. He knew in that instant that if that entity wanted him dead, then it did not matter how much he fought, it did not matter the breath of his talent, it did not matter if he reached the eighth-dimensional level and was a step below a Primordial… if that entity wanted him dead, he will be dead. There were no two ways about it, there was a reason despite how many powerful beings had existed across all existence Primordials remained on top, they were the greatest of existence. At this point, Rowan’s body had been reduced to ash and he could barely heal, a force that he could not understand delaying his regeneration, his senses were scattered, and even if he was at his full mental capacity, he would not have noticed that one of the pages of the Primordial Record that was stuck together fluttered open for a brief moment before it closed, and on that page was an image of a map. Unlike Rowan who had stayed close to the blast as the entity appeared and vanished, Gothra’Inul had been blown far away, toward the edge of the World Stele and then over it, and he had escaped death because of that reason. Despite how far away he was from everything, he too had nearly died when it seemed like all the weight of existence had just appeared for a brief moment. He had been crushed to nothingness, but his Will still existed and so did he, and despite the fact that he had no single energy stores left in his body but his Essence, he still healed from his wounds, pushed himself over the edge and looked across the World Stele, and he shuddered at what he saw.