Chapter 1588: The Black Blade Inside Rowan’s dimensional flesh and soul was an upheaval that denoted the final moments of his ascension to the seventh dimensional level. His body was piecing together the final portions of his apotheosis. These last sets of changes were so shocking that Rowan’s powerful consciousness went blank, and he slowly fell to his knees. His hands rested on the hilt of his Destroyer, which sank into the ground to arrest his fall. Rowan’s head came to rest beside his hand as if he were asleep, and from a distance, he painted a haunting figure. It was of a sleeping warrior of such great size that it defied imagination. The last remnants of Fate vanished from this space, and as it went, the power binding a portion of Bahamut’s strength vanished. In the distance, the four Primordial Beasts doubled into eight. Now he no longer had any distinct shape of flesh, but resembled a vast expanse of living lightning bolts that erupted with great roar as they fell upon Primordial Chaos, who did not seem to be at too much disadvantage despite the growing pressure against him. Rowan had no way to know what was happening; everything was tied up in his elevation, but it was clear that if nothing changed soon, Prinordial Chaos was going to lose. If an Old One were to enter this space, they would not be able to look in the distance where the battle between Primordial Chaos and Bahamut rages, but they would be able to see Rowan. At this point, all his higher-dimensional energies were focused internally, so they would see a man with long red hair, like a celestial waterfall made from blood, leaning on his great sword as if asleep. A normal image, but that was thrown out of the window when Rowan’s size was taken into consideration. Rowan was as large as Reality! A red light flashed in front of his kneeling figure, but due to his size, it was hardly noticeable. From that flash, a tiny figure, Caine, the First Betrayer, emerged. ® For a time that seemed as long as an eternity, Caine waited, trapped in his flesh as he was ridden like a beast of burden by Primordial Chaos. The experience for him was extremely unbearable, as he had gone mad countless times in this space where his mind was kept. The pain he had experienced could not be described, and his pleas for mercy could as well be screamed to the mountains; he would have received more consideration from them. Anyone would have gladly taken the chance to be possessed by a Primordial because the benefits were endless. A single second in Reality was an eternity in the perception of a Primordial. Coupled with their Supreme understanding of every higher-dimensional force in existence, this was an opportunity that would take a mortal to the level of a Supreme Old One in an instant. The problem here was that the Primordial in question was Chaos. Rowan, whose perception of madness and sanity was extremely blurry at its best, had unequivocally declared that Primordial Chaos was insane. Perhaps the real body of Primordial Chaos outside Reality may be different, but what was inside Reality had become something incredibly foul. His love for pain and every sort of negative mortal travails made every possession he took to become a singular affair, because the possessee usually killed themselves not long after, because it was the only salvation they could find. Rowan had watched Primordial Chaos torture his body by feeding himself to creatures of pain that were at the eighth-dimensional level during the time of their discussion, which hardly took five minutes, but for Caine, those five minutes could as well be trillions of years, and the only solace he had was that it was not equal to the pain he had endured under the heels of Primordial Chaos due to the Primordial accepting most of the pain. Caine knew that this was not because of mercy; Primordial Chaos wanted him to be in shape when the time came for him to strike. However, his mind had long been lost to madness and apathy after the countless years, his consciousness was bound inside his body, when, a moment ago, the voice of Primordial Chaos, carrying so much power that he could not resist even if he wanted to, rang out in his consciousness, "The time is here. Take his head!" Caine opened his eyes, and for a moment, he was confused by what he was looking at. It took his powerful consciousness a while to resolve that the immensity in front of him was not another Primordial Domain but Rowan freaking Kuranes. Every Primordial Domain was located inside Reality, yet they were bigger than Reality. Seeing Rowan like this, Caine fully understood why Primordial Chaos wanted him dead. "This bastard, so this is your true potential. For fuck sake, you are not even an Old One yet. What would you be when you reach the eighth-dimensional level and seize your Destiny?" Caine gritted his teeth with anger and jealousy. However, these emotions were hollow. He had entered the mind of a Primordial, and he knew the distinction that existed between all beings; there was an endless gap that left him in despair. The heavens were not fair, and not everyone was born equal. Caine understood that, given the same opportunity as this man before him, he would not reach this height, where Primordials begin to fear his potential. This close to Rowan, he could sense the weight carried by the man, a relentless wave of Karma that left him breathless. Caine asked himself how long he would be able to take a single percent of the burden on the shoulder of this colossal titan, and the answer humbled him. There was a time that he wanted to rob Rowan of his talents and bloodlines, believing that he could slowly lead the naive mortal to a trap to seize all he could from him, but looking at this titan, Caine knew that he could have never succeeded, because only a mind of this level could hold such a power as a mortal. If he had succeeded in stealing Rowan’s talents by chance, he would not have reached the point that Rowan was at; his consciousness and resolve were too weak, like a tiny pebble before a grand mountain. "Caine!!!" The roar of Primordial Chaos in his mind shook him away from his reverie, and his eyes widened in horror when he noticed that he had become lost in the sight of Rowan. If not for the prodding of Primordial Chaos, he would have been stuck in place, looking at the being before him. Caine began to head close to Rowan in the distance, it appeared that he was close to him, but the distance separating them was nearly impossible for a normal Old One to traverse, but it there was one thing that his great age had granted Caine, it was giving him tools that most had forgotten. Primordial Chaos had taken most of his strength, and Caine was barely stronger than an average Old One, but that would not matter for what he needed to do, because he was borrowing a part of Primordial Chaos’s power at this time. There was some benefit in being possessed by a Primordial. Caine discovered that this space was extremely strange and dense beyond belief. Without the power of Primordial Chaos in his veins, he would barely be able to move inside. With this enhancement, Caine pinched the space in front of him and swept his hand to the side as if he were unzipping a massive zipper, and space unfolded before him. He tried not to look at the battle happening in the distance because he feared that even the protection from Primordial Chaos would not save him. If this had been done in Reality outside, he would have seen the Passage of Time hidden deep in the layer of Reality, but in this space, what he saw was a passage of flesh and bone, like looking at the internals of a beast. Caine entered this passage, space closing behind him as he made the same unzipping motion. The space in front of him parted to reveal a realm made from what seemed like living lightning. He braced himself and plunged into this space. A moment later, he appeared above Rowan, at the center of his forehead. His body was smoking as if he had just crawled out of a furnace, and lightning snakes shimmered all around him. Crawling through the depths of a primordial beast’s domain was not an easy feat. Caine knew that he was under severe time constraints and did not pause to contemplate what he was about to do. He called upon his Will of Flesh and forged it into a blade. He was distinctly aware that this blade differed from any he had ever made using his knowledge and Will. The power of Primordial Chaos was warping this blade into a tool of pure killing, and if he had not been so frightened of the power he was holding in his hands, Caine would have been enthralled. In his hand was enough power to wipe out everything in Reality a thousand times over, and what made it more frightening was how it was precisely focused into a single point. His blade was usually red as blood, but now it was black. The hand holding this killing weapon had begun to decay and turn black, as a wave of death erupted from the blade, and a green fire consumed Caine. Before meeting Primordial Chaos, this level of pain would have made him insane, but at this point, it was barely an itch. "I will not live past this day, and it saddens me that the culmination of my life would be to kill you, but Fate is a wily host, and this is the hand that I have been dealt. Goodbye, Rowan, may your death mean something more in the end. I fear that for the rest of us, we are nothing in the grand scheme of things."