Chapter 1779: The Perfect Counter The massive body of the beast blurred across many universes and dimensions, and only very few immortals could perceive something crossing the heavens by the distortion in the stars, but they had no idea what it was. Oblivion was the fourth layer of the void, but its Gate had been brought to a hidden higher-dimensional level, the Underverse. As a master of space, Primordial Chaos was one of the architects of the Underverse, alongside Primordial Soul, and at the depths of this unfathomable dimension was the Gate of Oblivion. Reaching his present level had shown Rowsn that the Gate of Oblivion was not a physical structure. It could be said to be a metaphysical event horizon, a point of infinite conceptual mass where all things—light, time, thought, reality—were pulled apart into their constituent nothingness. It appeared to Rowan’s senses as a vast, swirling iris of black so absolute it hurt to perceive, framed by silent, lightning-like arcs of non-light. And anchored to this non-place, by bonds woven from the fundamental forces of discord and entropy, was Primordial Chaos—his target. Primordial Soul was dead, and Chaos was the perfect candidate to be the next on his list. Primordial Chaos in his raw state, was a formless, shifting storm of might-be and never-was. A million limbs of lightning and shadow, a billion eyes of nascent stars and dying galaxies, a core of pure, screaming potential. The chains that bound him to the Gate were his own essence, solidified into unbreakable vows. He had become a living cork in the bottle of the void. Previously, there had been several titanic beings who had been worshipping Chaos for many Eras, but the greed and hunger of the Primordial knew no bounds, and he had consumed them all. Like all Primordials, Chaos saw no need for worship, and if needed, everything was fuel for their needs. There was a time when Rowan could not have imagined killing something like this, but times had changed, and the instrument for his Will was traveling towards Primordial Chaos with unerring accuracy. ® After Rowan killed the Demon King, Minerva, he eradicated her flesh, but something remained behind: his essence, which was torn from him and had taken the shape of a centipede. This was his right arm, which had been corrupted by the essence of multiple Primordials, including Time, Life, Demons, Chaos, and even Soul. Rowan, who had begun cleansing his body from the essence of the Primordials, wanted to immediately destroy this centipede, but a thought had held back his hand... A door could open both ways. The Primordials infect all life with their essence and Wills to be able to possess them if the need calls for it, but could it be possible for him to be able to use this door as a passage to get to the Primordials? To Rowan at the time, this thought was like madness, but he knew that this might be what he needed to win—something drastic that would shake the status quo. He knew that he had no means to take advantage of the doorways placed inside his arm at the moment, but perhaps in the future, many things that were impossible for him at this time would become possible. So, placing an Incarnation inside the heart of the beast, Rowan buried it and apparently forgot about it... until it was needed. ® When the beast had awoken, it was a three-dimensional being, but that did not last long as it began growing stronger and rapidly climbing the dimensional ladder. Rowan had kept it at the third dimension, to reduce its weight on Reality, but as the beast broke into the Underverse, its ascension accelerated, and before long, it had gained its Destiny and knew what it was meant to be. The centipede had stopped its forward momentum and curled into itself when it entered the Underverse, as it seemed as if a large hand covered its entire body and began making changes inside of it. That hand was Rowan’s, and even though he knew that Primordial Chaos would still detect his presence, by that time, it should be too late to change anything. What he was creating here was not a beast in any natural sense. It was a conceptual entity, a living, breathing algorithm of absolute order. He had forged it over millennia in the silent places between worlds, weaving it from the strands of fate he had severed, from the immutable laws of physics he had enforced, and from the cold, hard certainty of a single, inevitable outcome: its own death. There was no sorrow over its Destiny and its short lifespan; there was a great sense of fulfillment in knowing that its purpose was complete. It took the shape of a centipede, not out of malice, but because its function was linear, segmental, and inevitable. Its body was a segmented chain of iridescent, geometric carapace, each plate a perfect platonic solid. It had no eyes, for it did not need to see. Its purpose was its only guide. It did not crawl through space, but through probability, its countless legs—each a needle of crystallized cause-and-effect—piercing the maybes and selecting the must-be. This was the Centipede of Certainty. Forged from his Will of Truth that could become anything. Rowan did not expect this Certainty to last; it was too rigid, although this made it powerful behind belief, enough to pierce through the power of a Primordial. It also made it brittle and short-lived. Its entire existence was a single, unalterable command: to travel from Rowan’s hand to the core of Primordial Chaos and be annihilated by him. It was the perfect counter to Chaos. Chaos was infinite possibility, random chance, beautiful, destructive unpredictability. The Centipede was the absolute antithesis: a single, unwavering truth. A truth that ended in death. Rowan looked at the works of his hand, satisfied with what he had created, and released it. As he released it, the Incarnation of Rowan appeared, and behind him were a dozen Archai, "Seal the Underverse," he commanded, "Do not let a single whisper from Chaos to emerge." They bowed to the Incarnation before going to their task with an efficiency that would make any Angel proud. ® The creature that was released by Rowan did not move. It simply was here, then it wasn’t. In the blink between thoughts, it was before the Gate of Oblivion, traversing the infinite distance between Rowan and the chained Primordial in a single, logical step. It left a scar of pure order in its wake, a temporary, rigid pathway through the tumultuous void that screamed against the chaos around it. Primordial Chaos sensed its approach, and the entity, assured of his omnipotence, recoiled, not in fear, but in profound, instinctive disgust. This thing of absolute law was an abomination to his very nature. It was a crawling, ticking blasphemy. "WHAT IS THIS? WHAT SORCERY IS THIS, ROWAN? YOU BRING A TOY OF RULES TO MY DOMAIN?" Chaos’s voice boomed, shaking the very foundations of the Underverse. A limb of pure chance, a tendril that was a probability wave, lashed out. It was a blow that could spontaneously generate a universe or unmake one, a strike that contained every possible outcome simultaneously. But the Centipede of Certainty was immune to possibility. It existed in the state of one absolute outcome enforced by a truth that could not be denied. The chaotic limb of Chaos did not so much strike it as it was used by it. The Centipede’s path incorporated the attack, its causal needles redirecting the energy, refining the infinite maybes into the one necessary reality: the limb’s force was perfectly transferred to propel the Centipede forward, faster, on its unwavering course. Chaos roared, a sound like a thousand supernovae giving birth to nothing. He tried paradoxes, spitting logical impossibilities at the creature. He tried raw creation, throwing newborn galaxies in its path. He tried absolute negation, spheres of nothingness that could un-exist anything they touched. The Centipede simply passed through them all. It was not that it was powerful; it was that it was inevitable. It was a fixed point in time. The galaxies were shunted aside, their creation rewritten as a minor obstacle on the path. The spheres of negation were negated themselves, their un-making unmade by the sheer certainty of the Centipede’s purpose. It was a drop of pure, undiluted order in an ocean of chaos, and it sank unerringly toward its target. Rowan watched, impassive. He had not created a weapon to harm Chaos. He had created a key. And the lock was Chaos’s own nature. The Centipede reached the heart of the storm. It did not attack. It did not bite or sting. It simply presented itself, a perfect, iridescent jewel of absolute law, before the raging core of infinite disorder. And Primordial Chaos, in a fit of ultimate fury and revulsion, did the only thing his nature allowed him to do when faced with such an absolute, singular truth. He destroyed it. The Incarnation of Rowan grinned and sent a message to his main body, "The hook has been cast and your prey has bitten it."