Chapter 1591: I Stand... Unbroken (1) At his present dimensional level, Rowan had long understood that his previous life was in a small world, in an inconspicuous universe in the lower realms. The destruction of a planet might have seemed a big deal for Rowan at that time when Empyreans represented the height of power that he knew, but now this had become mundane. Across countless worlds in countless universes, worlds were being destroyed as new Empyreans were born, and his death, like everyone else in existence, should have been random, but it was not. It was true that Primordial Soul was locked inside Oblivion, the only power that could suppress her for all eternity, but that did not mean her influence could be easily destroyed, and to watch over her prison, while constantly suppressing her powers, was Primordial Chaos. He was assigned this task by the other Primordials, and his reward was the entirety of the Lower Realms. He was given complete dominion over the soul energy that emerged from Oblivion, and Primordial Chaos gained great power, but he was also forbidden from gaining significant influence in the higher realms. Although this restriction did not stop Primordial Chaos from creating the Inheritance Ground in the higher realms, his powers grew faster than other Primordials had anticipated, but they retaliated by suppressing the Inheritance Ground until it became the weakest Primordial Domain in the higher realms, and if not for the presence of his Throne that preserved the core of the Inheritance Ground, Primordial Chaos would have no forces in the higher realm. For a long time, Primordial Chaos was able to suppress Primordial Soul entirely, but she was both powerful and wily. She waited for the perfect opportunity to make her move because she alone understood the nature of her powers and knew that they could never truly be bound. You see, while in Oblivion, Primordial Soul was supposed to be deeply asleep. A sleep where she should have no awareness, and in this manner, errant soul power would drift out of her body, cleansed by the power of Oblivion and emerge into the lower realms, where it would transform into Soul Origin and hence the birth of all mortal beings. Some special souls carried the Will of Primordial Soul every now and then; it was these souls that Primordial Chaos was supposed to destroy. In this manner, her influence over reality was simply her ability to ensure that life would always flourish. For a long time, this arrangement had worked. Primordial Soul was too powerful and dangerous to be let loose, and she would not have given up her powers for the benefits of the Primordials except that great tributes were paid to her. Using the powers of Oblivion, the Primordials took away her ability to rule over them all and benefited from her slumber. Yet, they were not aware that Primordial Soul did not tell them everything about the nature of the Soul. A soul emerged from the Gate of Oblivion, and there was nothing special about it. It was the same as the billions of blank souls that had emerged from this gate since the dawn of Reality, and Primordial Chaos hardly granted this soul a second look. This soul gained its origin and drifted into the universe, but it could not find a compatible host and existed alone for a long time. Unlike any other soul origin in existence that could easily take root, this one seemed to be rejected by all things. It sought to become a tree but was kicked aside; it could not take root and point to the skies. It sought to become stone, but when it approached, even the earth cracked into pieces. It sought to become the breeze, instead hurricanes formed out of nowhere. It sought to become a man, but it was always killed even before it could be conceived, either by nature or at the hands of other men. It seemed that in all creation, this soul origin was cursed to remain unformed, forever. Reality existed for twelve Major Eras, and this number was truly astonishing because not all Major Eras had the same lifespan; some tend to be longer than others, yet each Major Era represented a stupendous amount of time. This soul origin, which could not find a place to call home, drifted through Reality for twelve Major Eras. Reality was a massive place, and within it were various unknown variations. A soul origin that could not find a home was incredibly rare, but such cases still occurred; however, these soul origins never lasted. It was in their nature to take root in something, and if they could find no home, they would slowly fade into nothing, their energy feeding any lucky soul origins that happened to be around them at the time of their death. Any soul origin that was usually baptized by the death of another would become more gifted as their base nature would become more stabilized. If they became a tree, they would grow up to become a World Tree, and if they became men, their least achievement would be godhood. This singular soul origin, which refused to let itself fall into oblivion, unknowingly became a magnet for all the lost soul origins that could find no home. From all around reality, they drifted towards this unique soul origin, and they died around it. It was as if their last act of defiance was to give their all to this soul origin, which refused to fall. Over time, that soul origin developed special traits that resonated with the sleeping Primordial Soul, and this connection allowed her to feed on the power of this soul origin. Even the soul of an Old One would not be capable of withstanding the hunger of a Primordial, but this small and unknown Soul Origin bore the burden of this parasitic connection for a long time before it reached its limit and was at the threshold of its destruction, when a sliver of Primordial Soul’s awareness was awoken. Two impossible miracles happened at the dawn of the Supreme Era, and none of the Primordials were aware of it. Primordial Soul was grateful to this soul for giving her the opportunity to awaken; she did not know how the soul became so resilient and lasted for so long because it had nothing special apart from its stability. She had taken nearly all the potential that would have allowed this soul origin to become something so magnificent it would be hard to imagine its limit. Primordial Soul could not allow it to waste away into nothing after it had fought for so long.