Chapter 1799: The Resurrection Returning to Algorth, who floated over this non-space that the Great Abyss had become, Rowan took with him Telmus and Staff, the duo of father and daughter. The castle was eager to have a new Primordial settle in her hall, and she had already created a special wing for Telmus, who needed the time to master his abilities and learn about the future. An intense discussion was ahead, but for now, Rowan sat alone in the dark and switched off all his mental activities. The coming days would be tougher, and the sacrifices would be more painful, so for now, he should rest when he had the chance to rest. His recent battles had led to a great surge in his abilities, and he would tackle all of these changes, but for now, he wanted to rest for as long as possible. So, Rowan twisted time inside this dark room. A single second would go by in Reality, but an eternity would pass by inside here. Such an incredible time dilation could only be held by immortals with his physique and soul’s strength, but that was one thing that Rowan was not lacking. He had seen the fall of Seed and decided not to interfere; this was his mercy, and Rowan considered their Karma to be settled. Only when fighting and killing Primordials could Rowan fully understand the weight of their existence and the Karma they carried with them. By their presence alone, cause and effect were switched, and free will was a pipe dream. In all of existence, only a few could fight against their influence and knew that Seed and so many others like him had no chance to discover what their destiny might be like if they were not under the sway of the Primordials. Caine, the Eye of Time, General Augustus Tiberius, Seed, Elura, Labaletai... the Third Prince. So many names from his past, all of them had shaped him in many ways to become who he was, but they never discovered who they might be. This was the reason he fought, because no one else was able to stand against the tyranny of the Primordials... their absolute power demands a challenger that was greater than absolutes. Rowan sank into a dreamless sleep for an eternity. Countless trillions of years went by in the dark, and when he opened his eyes, only one second had passed, and he was greeted by the smiling face of Eva, the New Light. "Rowan, have you rested?" "I have," he replied, as he stood up from the silence of the dark, "let us go, our work is still many, and time is short." Rowan did not have to look up to see that the Nothingness had fully collapsed and Limbo was pressed against Reality. This meant that at this moment, the faces of seven Primordials like blighted suns bigger than any dimension could ever be, were pressed against the fabrics of Reality, and if not for the wall of Aegis blocking all sights below the ninth dimensional level, all life inside Reality would have perished if they could glimpse the faces of the Primordials overhead. "It is time to find Thenos and the World Stele." Eva paused, "Is he to be the third?" "If he is suitable," Rowan said, "If not, I shall clear them off the board. At this stage, unknown elements cannot be permitted to exist. But before that, we should talk to Telmus, show him what the future would bring." "I expected that meeting, and I have already prepared the grounds for it. He is waiting for you." "Good, let us go," ® The dust of shattered dimensions and the tears of forgotten gods formed a nebula of grief, drifting from the corpse of what was once the Arena and the Abyss, and circling throughout Reality. With the complete destruction of the Great Abyss, the fallout circled all of existence, causing fear and panic. Everyone knew of a new power, a Creator who had risen against the Primordial. The destruction of the Nothingness was being felt by the inhabitants of Reality, although only the Old Ones could see the implications of these events when they noticed that many new and mysterious creatures were appearing all over Reality. These creatures were known to inhabit the Nothingness, but their appearance inside Reality and their story painted a horrifying new change to all the things once held as immutable and unchanging. In this graveyard of desolation, a single artifact remained, landed on a small world inside a relatively unknown dimension. It was a simple, severe object: a tablet of dark, unreflective stone, covered in glyphs that were not carved but seemed to be natural imperfections, like the veins in a living rock. This was the World Stele, the Singularity of the Titan Thenos. 𝙧𝙚𝙚𝔀𝒆𝓫𝓷𝙤𝓿𝒆𝙡.𝒄𝙤𝓶 Thenos, one of the first children of creation, a Chimera who had walked the virgin worlds before the concepts of gods or demons held meaning. He had been killed twice: first, eons ago, by the Primordial Demon, who saw his evolving, consuming nature as a threat to the static order of the Primordials. The second time, by Rowan, in a conflict lost to time, when the Titan’s resurrection was blocked, and Rowan had used his powers to elevate to the next step. But Thenos’ essence was bound not to a soul, but to a principle: the principle of consumption and integration. The World Stele was the anchor of that principle. Rowan had not destroyed the World Stele, giving Thenos the opportunity to resurrect if the time was right. For a long time, it lay dormant. But the battle between Rowan and the Primordials, the death-screams of so many powerful beings dying in the Arena, the sheer volume of raw, unclaimed essence spilled into the void... it was a feast. And the Stele began to hunger. It did not glow. It did not hum. It simply began to drink. Invisible streams of power, the lingering echoes of the slain immortals, were pulled towards the tablet. The final screams of Ghribba, the serene sacrifice of Seed, the shattered light of the Elythrii, the raw temporal power of the battle itself—all of it was drawn in, siphoned into the dark stone. The Stele was a cosmic sponge, soaking up the death of a Primordial Domain. Then, it began to create. From the face of the tablet, a shape began to coalesce. Not a grand, fiery rebirth, but a slow, organic secretion. Like a pearl forming around a grain of sand, matter gathered—a strange, clay-like substance woven from the stolen essence of the dead. It formed a small, pulsing orb. The orb elongated, sprouted vague limbs. It was a child—a baby. But it was a child of the dead. Its skin was the color of a day-old bruise, mottled grey and purple. It had seven arms, each perfectly formed, tiny hands clenching and unclenching rhythmically. Its head was large for its body, and its face... its face was a smooth plane, featureless save for two eyes. They were not the eyes of an infant. They were pools of absolute blackness, voids that held no reflection, no curiosity, only a deep, ancient, and patient hunger. They were blacker than the space between dead stars. The baby Thenos drew its first breath. It did not cry. The sound it made was a soft, wet inhalation, and with it, it drank more deeply of the dead essence around it. The nebula of grief shimmered as new currents flowed into the tiny form. It began to grow. It was not a growth of joyous maturation, but of accretion. Like a snowball rolling down a hill of ash, it gathered mass from the environment. It lay on the surface of the World Stele, which now served as both cradle and conduit. The tiny body swelled. The bruise-colored skin stretched—the seven arms, once delicate, thickened with stolen strength. With each ounce of essence consumed, flickers of memory and talent—fragments of the deceased—flashed through its nascent consciousness. It tasted the vampiric power of Vraegar, and its tiny fingers twitched, feeling the ghost of shed blood. It absorbed a shred of the Elythrii’s song, and a dissonant hum vibrated in its throat. It drank the silvered resilience of Ghribba, and its skin gained a metallic sheen. It consumed the profound, patient wisdom of Seed, and a terrifying, knowing stillness settled behind its black eyes. It was not learning. It was incorporating. Thenos was born in the best Era for its growth, and it took advantage of it without holding back. Billions of immortals had perished, and even if it could not harvest a lot of essence, every single drop it was collecting was more than enough to make it into a monstrous being. It grew from a baby to a toddler, then to the size of a young child, all in the span of a few silent hours. Its seven arms now moved with a chilling coordination, the hands flexing as if testing grips on weapons that did not yet exist. Its body was a chimera of stolen attributes, a patchwork of powers not yet unified. But the core consciousness, the "I" that was Thenos, was reasserting itself. The hunger became directed. The black eyes scanned the void, not with sight, but with a sense that tasted potential. From ’It’ to ’He’ took barely a moment, and Thenos was truly resurrected and awake. The World Stele pulsed once, a dull, deep throb that resonated through the void. The message was clear. The First of the Titans was back. And he had been born into a world already prepared for him—a world of exquisite, limitless death. Thenos, one of the first children of creation, a Chimera who had walked the virgin worlds before the concepts of god or demon held meaning.