Chapter 1679: The Question In Your Heart Rowan took a step beyond Oblivion, and when he wanted to take another step forward, his body stopped moving. He looked down in astonishment to confirm if there was anything blocking his advancement, but there was none; his body was simply refusing to move. "What is this?" Rowan muttered in astonishment, his senses had gone through the entirety of his flesh, and he knew there was nothing holding him back. There were no outside forces that were messing with his mind or an undetectable energy coursing through his flesh; his body by itself was not moving. "Why do you find it strange, Eos? Perhaps this is your first time?" Rowan frowned, "First time? Who are you truly? These words hidden behind shadows have long passed the realm of irritation." "Hahaha... look deep into your heart, Eos, you know that my voice does not irritate you, but you need an answer to this strange sensation that has filled your body, yes? I do not blame you, I, too, felt it once, but by then it was already too late." 𝗳𝚛𝗲𝕖𝕨𝕖𝗯𝚗𝚘𝕧𝕖𝗹.𝗰𝗼𝕞 "You keep calling me Eos, and you have not told me the reason why you call me that name. Do I have to rightly assume that you are Eosah, or the remnants of her consciousness?" "You have only these two questions? I am ready to answer all the queries you have in your heart; you have only to speak them, and I will answer." Rowan’s frown had not left his face, and he attempted to move back, but he could not, frozen in place; he could neither advance nor retreat, and he sighed, "Well, you can start by answering the first two questions ." "Very well. I call you Eos because that is your true name, and it was your first name. Eos is the name given to those like us... Realities. Surely you did not think we were the only ones in existence. The mode of our birth differs, but our names were already written in the Cosmic Records, even before we were born. Your birth has been foretold for long, Eos, and I am here to show you your destiny, hence my name, Eosah." Rowan blinked, astonishment in his eyes. He had so many follow-up questions, but he kept silent, knowing his questions could distort the answers he was given. "Eos, you are not a lone wolf howling into the void, you are among the greatest power in existence, and our might draws envy and challenge from all." "So, you knew I was coming and would be here?" "Yes, it was inevitable that one day, you would stand before me. After all, it was said that my death would bring about your birth. I know you have many questions, Eos, and I will answer them if you understand the question in your heart." Rowan chuckled coldly, "The reason I cannot move. That is the question in my heart, but I have no answer." "Sure you do," and a woman made out of the most primordial stuff of creation appeared beside him, touched his shoulders and brought her lips to his ears, she spoke, but Rowan could not feel her breath, he could feel nothing at all, and even her hand on his shoulder was not felt, and only by seeing her did he know she was beside him, "I have discovered that you are fond of ignoring the obvious truths, but allow your mind to take you on a tangent of countless possibilities. For beings like us, this sort of perception is a privilege of our powers, but it can be distracting, and one of the first things we learn is to silence the noise. But no one has ever taught you how to do this. I am sorry for that, Eos. If everything had gone the way it should, you would not have walked this path alone for so long." Rowan closed his eyes, trying and failing to suppress the irritation in his heart, "Obvious answers? It is amazing how you have said a lot but still not said enough. I have no answer to this because..." The eyes of Eosah glowed bright, and an orgasmic smile filled her face, as the beginning of realization filled Rowan. "Yes, go on... acknowledge the question in your heart." The breath rushed out of Rowan’s lungs, ".... I have never experienced anything like this before." "What is it that you are missing and have never known?" Rowan stammered, the words feeling like they were being forced out of his heart. "This is the end... my end, the final layer of the void would unmake me, all of me... I am scared?" Eosah smiled sadly, "There are only four layers to Origin. This was what I believed and what everyone in all of existence also believes. It was at my death that I saw the truth, and I discovered this gate. It has kept the last remnant of me alive, keeping me when I should be lost, now you are on the verge of seeing it too, that is, if you can take one more step forward." "And if I can’t take the last step?" "Then you shall never know the truth. You shall remain on the threshold of your birthright, and you shall never step through it, and will never be complete. For what lies ahead of you, is the source of Truth as I know it." Rowan closed his eyes for a long time as he looked into himself. He had been down this road many times over as he broke down his will and remade himself from the ashes, but he had never met any challenge like this that he felt he could never understand. If he looked beyond the figure of Eosah, he would see a blank space ahead of him, nothing to indicate that there was anything special about it, but only glimpsing it had tied his body in place. He had no memory of this place or any idea of what it contained, but his body knew that even if Death itself came here, alongside the Primordials, they would not be able to understand what was here. "Is this the reason they remain, the Primordials?" "This?..." Eosah smirked, "Yes, and no, you see, they could only catch a glimpse of this place, but not as much as they believed. They think it is something else, but some among them know the truth, and it will not be long before they all understand it, but by then it will be too late. For you, and everything in existence. Even the Cosmic Record will shatter." Rowan was silent; the scale of what Eosah was speaking about was exceptionally broad, extending far past what he had come across or could understand at this moment. Like a broken clock, Rowan could not help but repeat himself, "So, you are telling me that the answer to everything is in front of me. Whatever lies below oblivion is what the Primordials seek." Eosah smiled at him, and Rowan did not know if he should be horrified or amused that his face smiled back at her. "Why did you think Soul risk her dissolution and trapped herself here. Do you know where Primordials come from? I do not; that secret is known only by the Cosmic Record. What I do know is that they have been here since the beginning of everything, and they are always hungry for our light. They are always hungry, they are never satiated, and if they can claim what is inside this place, then everything would fall into an endless storm of suffering and depravity the likes of which you can never imagine. You see, I don’t think I need to know about their origins; I only need to understand their motives, and I was able to see a glimpse of it when they killed me. What I know is that the Primordials are in pain, and their pain would not end or would ever be resolved, and so they seek to drown everything in a wave of madness, only then do they believe they would find reprieve from their own." These words were shocking, and they threw Rowan off, but inside his heart, a growing wave of anger and resentment had been building for a while at his sheer incompetence and weakness, and although he knew that this was not the lesson he should be taking from all of this, he could not help himself. Rowan had never cared to be the most powerful; he certainly wanted it, but that had never been the core of who he was. He had always wanted to be strong enough to ensure that those who sacrificed themselves for him to reach this point, those who believed in him and worshipped him, and that their love and devotion were not in vain. Everything here was so grand and so impossibly vast that he had forgotten for a while the small things that gave him strength. He had forgotten that for all of his powers, he still had the heart of a mortal inside of him, and that heart would never quit, even in the face of impossible odds. He had not forgotten his hatreds, or those he loved, but it was easy for them to be swept aside when the grand display of powers was revealed. Elura had killed Maeve, but to allow Primordial Soul to aid him, he had given her up to the Primordial. Seed had tortured his mind and killed his children, but Rowan had not bothered seeking him out before he began preparing for his duel with Primordial Demon. It was not as if he had grown cold and forgotten his responsibilities, but sometimes it was too easy to get lost in the endless struggle for power. Standing here and seeing his immortal body betray him, Rowan finally understood that his origins might be great, but there was something else that had brought him to this point, and it was not necessarily the powers of his flesh, but the bonds he had made along the way. Rowan’s gaze had been downcast, but then it shifted sharply: "I can understand the hunger of the Primordials. For all their power, their desire makes them easy to read. In life, it always seems we know our enemies the most. In time, I shall know the Primordials fully because I shall kill them all. This is my promise to all who believe in me. Still, these are not the lessons I am eager to learn from you." "Speak what is in your heart, Eos, I shall answer to the best of my capabilities." "You call me Eos, and say I was born a Reality, but that was not what I know of my past. I became a Reality by evolving from a mortal." Eosah waved her hand in dismissal, "You became a Reality with the aid of a Singularity, the Primordial Record, yes? So, have you ever wondered about the origins of Singularities? They are the remnants of shattered Realities. They are seeds, and only in fertile soil would they sprout. It does not matter how you began; Eos has always been your name. That name was the soil, and the Primordial Record was the Seed; only together can a new Reality be created. I know you must have seen my seed, although it has become somewhat ruined as time and death devastated its senses."