Chapter 1730: To Unmake A Primordial Bring the shrieking head of Primordial Soul to the Altar of Unmaking. Rowan pinned it to the stone slab using the blade of destruction. Killing her using this blade would take too long and would be a great distraction to his purpose of entering Soul Origin; besides, he believed he had a better tool for killing Primordials. His eyes were dull, almost like those of a zombie; he should be resting his consciousness, but the hate in Rowan’s heart was melting him from the inside, and he knew if he did not find an outlet for it, he might go insane. Rowan’s eyes darted around. Inside the Unmaking Chamber was not just this altar; there was also a crown, a mantle, a scepter, a fountain, and an anvil. Unlike the past layers of the Soul, Rowan knew that to fully take control of this layer of the soul, he would have to master all of these objects, or at least possess them. Rowan had no mind to comprehend in his present state, so he dominated. Reaching across space, he commanded all of them to come to him; his Will was so focused that they could not refuse his call. The crown flew into his hand first. It was a circlet that seemed to be made out of fused constellation, still faintly glowing. Grabbing it, his hand did not even sink under its enormous weight. Rowan sank his consciousness into it, and he knew that the crown was named the Crown of Command, and to wear it was to claim ultimate responsibility over the welfare of the soul. A dark side of Rowan chuckled. It was no wonder that Primordial Soul would dump this crown to the side. Yet, the name and purpose of this crown were not the most significant finds. Rowan discovered while peering into the essence of this treasure that this crown, like the Echoes before, did not come from this Reality but was the remnant of another Soul Origin that was brought over by Primordial Soul. Rowan was not too shocked at this revelation. He went through the Crown of Command for one last time before he applied force to his hands and crushed it, rapidly absorbing its essence. He did not need this crown, as he already had one, and so it would serve as fuel for his advancement. The mantle fell into his hands next, warm and soft, and his consciousness pieced through its defenses to explore the secrets it contained. This was a cloak made from the threads of cause and effect, heavy with the knowledge of all potential futures. The Mantle of Timelines had the aura of the Soul Spiders from the previous layer of the soul. If Rowan was not wrong in his deduction, then this treasure must have belonged to the Reality where the Soul Spiders once lived. It was a supreme treasure of the soul that seemed to be capable of influencing time as well. Rowan had been able to analyze his memories, and he had seen the suppressive power of his authority of Time over Soul. He decided not to consume the treasure yet; after thoroughly understanding its relationship with time, he could find other uses for it. Placing the mantle into a spatial pocket, Rowan took the third treasure and began to analyze his makeup. A part of him was aware that he was distracting his mind because he was also dealing with his grief, but that part was quickly silenced. Rowan knew what he was doing, and the best revenge could not be rushed. The head of Primordial Soul was still shrieking in pain on the altar, constantly burned by the flames of rage, and she was not going anywhere. His consciousness breached the defenses of the scepter, revealing its name and function. This was the Scepter of Creation. It was a nondescript rod made from cold, dormant star-iron, and its power was the burden of constant genesis, the exhaustion of always having to create from the remnants of the Soul. The power of this scepter was eerily similar to Rowan’s ability to create anything using the essence of the soul. During the beginning of his journey to immortality, this power had aided him in reaching his present level, and seeing how it was expressed here in this manner, Rowan was interested in it. Crushing the scepter for absorption, he pulled upon the fountain, which shrank as it zoomed towards him and fell onto his palms. It resembled a small black basin filled with liquid starlight. Its water was still, and Rowan could sense the power of oblivion inside of it even before he absorbed the power of this fountain. Rowan could see that all of these different powers were the various aspects that the soul could take, and he did not hesitate to absorb this fountain into his own, discovering that its name was the Fountain of Lethe, and to drink its water was to gently forget. He left the anvil for last, and that was because beside the massive black iron anvil rests a hammer that was forged from the heart of stars. He did not have to touch it to know that this hammer had shattered countless divinities. Its powers were similar to the Altar of Unmaking, and Rowan knew no better way to kill off a Primordial than to use all of these treasures as well as his Will. Touching the anvil, Rowan Will acted like a fusing agent, melting the black iron into the hammer, increasing its heft and power. At the end of its transformation, the hammer was now a great hammer, and its color was blacker than night. Grasping the handle of the great hammer, Rowan began walking towards the altar while dragging the hammer behind him. ® The air inside this chamber did not move, for it answered no laws made of the material realm. Instead, it was cold and still and tasted of stone and iron. The scent of stone came from the altar, and the iron from the hammer. As Rowan walked closer to the altar, the presence of the hammer and Rowan’s Will seemed to trigger a resonance with it, and the altar began to transform. From a thing of stone, it transformed into a seething, silent vortex of non-light that drank the warmth from everything, even extinguishing the flames that tortured Primordial Soul. A brush of his Will dismissed the blade holding her fast to the altar, and Rowan waited, and soon she began to heal. His cold eyes noticed that she was pulling power from a place that was slightly deeper than this layer of the soul, and Rowan allowed it to continue because he could now see that this hidden place was the secret that she had been protecting all this time, and pulling power from it was essentially destroying whatever preparation she had made. Even as her body became more complete, Rowan knew she could not escape the pull of the altar, and he silently watched as she became whole. Before his sight was a paradox—a woman of impossible, terrifying beauty, her skin the texture of galactic dust, her hair a river of captured nebulae, her eyes holding the furious, cold fire of a newborn sun, yet now, that form was pinned not by chains, but by the Altar’s absolute negation. The vortex crawled over her, not touching, but erasing. Tiny motes of her being winked out of existence without a sound, each a little death of a possible world. Her star-fire eyes focused on him, and the voice that had commanded the alignment of Realities spoke, though it was fraying at the edges, being unspun by the Altar. "Eos, for all your gifts, you dare touch this instrument? You cannot even comprehend its function." Rowan’s hands trembled, not from fear, but from the sheer, gravitational hatred of epochs. The hammer felt like the only real thing in the universe. "I comprehend enough," he said, his voice a rough scrape against the monumental silence. "It unmakes. And you... are a thing that should never have been made." He raised the hammer. At this moment, it was no longer a magical tool. It held no enchantment. It was simply iron—the element of mortal industry, of blood, of stubborn, unyielding reality. It was the antithesis of her primordial, abstract nature. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶 With a cry that was torn from the depths of all the silenced voices he had ever known, he brought it down. "For my son!" It did not strike her flesh, but the space just above her heart, within the field of the Altar’s effect. The sound was not a clash, but a cessation. Where the hammer passed through the unmaking field, a shockwave of absolute nullity bloomed. Her form shuddered, not in pain but in profound, existential violation. The galaxy dust of her skin dulled and turned to ash. The nebula of her hair unraveled into meaningless, dissipating gas. A fracture line appeared over her heart, not bleeding but leaking a terrible, silent nothingness. She screamed then, and it was the sound of a law of physics being broken. The chamber trembled, not with vibration, but with the threat of ontological collapse.