Chapter 1630: Castle Upgrades Rowan was not exaggerating his present condition. Primordial Demon had accurately pointed out the time of his death, and he had to work with what he had. He could barely investigate this strange and new party he had come across or find another route for escape, not when he was this close to death. This was the reason he had missed obvious social cues and appeared rude to his hosts. Rowan was focusing everything he had to keep the New Light safe, and that meant dealing with the obvious loopholes inside this castle. He was a Supreme Creator and a Crafter, able to create both flesh and stone, and all the mysteries of Reality up to a point were open to him. He had been causing a lot of destruction these past few moments, killing hundreds of billions of Celestials and Thrones of Primordials, causing his understanding of destruction and the act of taking lives to multiply exponentially. Rowan’s learning ability was matchless, and if an outside observer had filled in his fights, they would have seen that his attacks kept growing stronger as time passed, as he had endless breakthroughs in his combat abilities. In a single hour, Rowan had made more progress than all the geniuses in Reality combined had made in a billion years! However, he was an Eclipsed Creator, which meant that destruction went hand in hand with creation. As his power of destruction grew, so also did the power of creation. Rowan had been able to preserve his life for so long despite losing everything, from his flesh, soul, and memory, because of the countless breakthroughs he was having in his understanding of creation. With his present level, just like Primordial Chaos was able to exert more force out of nowhere, Rowan’s creation could now be made out of nothing. He had three moments to work with, and Rowan needed to make it count. With the power of creation heightened, whether it was because he was at the edge of death or the time constraints he was under, his consciousness was moving more fluidly, and Rowan was gaining countless inspirations. ’The walls of this castle are made from quantum-locked dark matter, but I can cancel out the weakness of spatial collapse from a remote source by adding metatemporal alloy to the mix. This is an alloy I have just created which has the ability to self-repair and exist simultaneously in multiple quantum states, rendering it indestructible to all conventional forces.’ Thirty percent of his remnants soul was allocated to the production and administration of this creation. ’Now for the internals. These corridors that shift endlessly using the flesh array below extend in Koch curve patterns, which recursively branch into higher-dimensional subspaces. I can see how someone like Memory or Chaos can be able to infiltrate using thought projections, even Intent can penetrate if applied using higher-dimensional rules. Hmm, I don’t think I have the resources to block them, but if I crate a dimensional subspace using my Origin land as a reference i can cause navigation to require a forced rule using eighth dimensional Riemannian compass or an enchanted Aetheric Waystone, while making every direction seamless like a Hibert-space labyrinth on steroids.’ Placing another thirty percent of his consciousness into completing this task, Rowan sighed internally in relief. Even if there were any unexpected changes that would occur, with his arrangements about to take hold of this space, he would be able to react quickly enough. Two of the greatest problems facing this castle were about to be dealt with once Rowan unleashes his consciousness, yet he still had forty percent of his soul power left, and it would be a waste to die without using all of it. While fixing this castle of its loopholes, Rowan could not help but notice areas that were lacking or needed improvements. He could not fix everything, but he could still improve the few that were within his reach. The method by which the internals of the castle were reorganized, which he dubbed Room Transcience, could be improved. He could assign each quadrant to be seen as chambers, and then he could make each chamber shift via topological morphing. All of these could be governed by sentient spacetime geodesics, but something in him shook against following those paths. There was something about this castle that screamed freedom and the desire to run till the ends of infinity, and Rowan listened to his instincts; he had no time to pursue this frame of reasoning. Still keeping the exact spacetime geodesics, he did not make it sentient, but placed it under the control of the castle, which would be like giving a dragon wings. Rowan smiled, surprised how much the act of creation was fulfilling to him at this time, seemingly balancing the endless bloodshed he had just committed, for even now, he was still making breakthroughs in his techniques of creation. Looking at his overall state of consciousness, Rowan saw that less than two percent was left. He looked around for any area he could apply a finishing touch and decided that one thing the castle was missing was an enhanced area for observation. Picking a random tower, he made it into a pocket dimension observatory, which could be used in observing Reality from a higher Planck-brane vantage point. He sighed and looked around him. There was so much to be done, and his fingers were itching for him to dig into them. Rowan knew that in his first moments of free time, he would begin a marathon of creation. It was something that he craved. From the castle’s power system to its internal ecosystem and defense, and a thousand areas he could touch, Rowan could only place those in his memories. Then, pointing upwards with his right hand, he unleashed the last shard of his soul, which was filled with all the creation potential he had made in the last two moments that he had left. A blast of energy erupted from the soul shard, and the castle began to hum in distress as massive changes began sweeping through it, but Rowan had no way to follow those changes. He was dead. Only his body remained standing, right hand pointed upwards. In the distance, Noctis looked at this figure with a solemn gaze. He had always been a leader, and it was rare for him to find someone that would want to follow, not even the Primordials were worthy in his sight, for they were all thieves and liars, but him... this man, what sort of person could do these things so easily? Creating miracles just by his mere existence. ® Rowan found death a strange concept. After all, he was a being who could extend his lifespan infinitely, even as a mortal, as long as he seeded worlds. Rowan had met trillions of life forms at this point, and even for the few special beings with ridiculously long lifespans, no one could match his talents. Already, as a mortal, his lifespan was many times longer than others, and if he had added his many other abilities to gain more life, his natural death would have always been postponed. That was when he was a mortal; everything changed when he became immortal. Rowan was not simply growing stronger as time passed; he was also evolving. The difference between his previous state and his present one after every evolution could be likened to the difference between a worm and a dragon. His endless evolution gave him more tools to achieve a longer life and sustain his immortality than any so-called immortals could boast of, and when he added his powerful soul to the mix, Rowan became something that could be regarded as truly endless. All of these powers and abilities also blinded Rowan to the presence of Death. Rowan could be killed, and he had escaped dying many times, but he could never die a natural death. Like an extremely rich man who could only be robbed of his wealth, but would never be poor even after a hundred lifetimes, Rowan did not know the meaning of poverty. 𝙛𝒓𝓮𝙚𝔀𝒆𝒃𝓷𝒐𝓿𝙚𝓵.𝙘𝒐𝒎 All of this changed when he underwent his last evolution to the rank of Origin, and he faced a unique challenge he had never encountered before: the presence of Death. In his evolution, he began to lose lifespan in prodigious amounts, drawing the attention of death, whose left hand that had always been far from Rowan’s shoulder, finally gripping his flesh. This event had shocked Rowan to the core. There were few things that could shock him at this point, and the presence of Death was one of them. At that time, he knew that he had been tricked. It was almost impossible for him not to have come across the concept of Death, unless it had deliberately been hidden from him. Rowan had experienced too many things in his time alive, secrets that most immortals could never imagine, and Death had been hiding from his gaze for so long. Why would the Primordials go so far as to hide the presence of Death from him? The answer is simple: it was a hidden weapon that he could not fight against or anticipate. If Rowan had not evolved to the Origin Level, he would have never been aware of the presence of Death. The shock of losing so much lifespan would cripple his decision-making abilities, and he would plunge into a state of misery that he would never be able to escape from. And so from that moment forth, Rowan began to prepare for his next meeting with Death, knowing that the presence of this malevolent entity was inevitable. However, he wondered if Death was ready for him. If Noctis could peer closely at the face of the dead Rowan. He would see a slight smile decorating his lips.