Chapter 1908: Experiments With End (1) Enoch clasped his hands together and grandly announced, "And so ended the age of the Luminious, and their unending order with the death of the last light of Lumina, and the darkness was born, ever expanding, infinite, and in that darkness a new power was created, and it was Chaos." Suddenly, Enoch cocked his head to the side, "You are being especially quiet, Rowan. Did my tale entrance you so deeply that you forgot to speak? Or is there something else going on that I am missing out on?" Rowan shrugged, "You have given me more to think about in a single moment than I have ever had to contemplate before. You will have to forgive me if I reserve my thoughts for more... suitable moments." "Ah, is that so?" Enoch paused and then he blinked slowly, "Well, I guess a story like mine is the sort you don’t hear every day, but I am approaching the end of it, and the beginning of everything you know. Tying the nonexistent past to this turbulent present." Rowan had a lot to say, but he was able to partition his mind and focus on the most important task at hand, not even counting the fact that he was hastily researching this flame that he suspected was Lumina, which was arising inside his body. Enoch had claimed that he was the Primordial Record, but Rowan found it hard to believe due to many reasons, and the primary concern he had was that being a Singularity as powerful as the Primordial Record was suspected to require much more power than he could ever acquire. Rowan had come across the Primordials and knew the power they controlled, and this was them mastering a single Origin Force. If by consuming all the lives here meant that Rowan would hold all other Origin Forces inside his body, that meant there must be something more to catalyze this process. It would require a sort of power that was incredibly potent and yet fully aware, and this power would have to be... Rowan paused this line of thought and looked at the invisible flames burning inside his heart, which were slowly merging with his consciousness. Was this the answer, the reason why Enoch believed he was becoming the Primordial Record? Did Enoch already suspect that he had Lumina inside of him, or did he suspect something else? The fact that Rowan could survive for so long and consume so much of the lost lives of existence meant that Enoch was becoming deeply suspicious of his capabilities, and while he had claimed that Rowan would not survive the next sojourn outside the cave, Enoch could not be sure about Rowan’s capabilities. All Rowan knew at this point was that to become the Primordial Record, something more was needed and there was no way Enoch was not aware of this, and the reason he was telling Rowan his story was not just to come clean from the troubles of his past; there was a deeper meaning to all of this, and one Rowan suspected would soon come to light. Enoch was building up to something, and by the time he unleashes it, Rowan had better be prepared. Enoch did not take a long time to continue his story, but something about his tone and demeanor had changed. If eradicating existence and the race that ruled over it did not draw any sort of reaction from him, what happened next seemed to have affected him more deeply, but Rowan was not surprised; he did not need much to know that Enoch cared only about one thing in existence, and that was himself. "You see, like you, I had wielded the fundamental force behind existence, and by sheer luck, I satisfied one of its primary rules, which was one of equal exchange. I wanted change and the power of End responded, and when everything I knew was lost, something new took its place, and for a long time, even till this moment, I often wonder if my action was what gave birth to a force like End, or if this power was always here, waiting for someone perceptive and powerful enough to touch it." 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖 This time Enoch reached forward and cupped the air with his right palm before closing his hand as if he had just grabbed the air. He brought it slowly before his face, and he gently opened his palm, and within it, Rowan could see... something. It resembled a wisp of gray smoke that soon vanished, but he was aware that he was able to see this wisp only because he was in this place that could be built literally out of the power of End, and the number one wielder of this power was the one manipulating it. "Were you able to see it?" Enoch called out in excitement; the light in his eyes was almost childish, and Rowan nodded his affirmation. "It is a shame that I can not show you more of the power of End, it is not beautiful like the Lumina. Nothing can take its place, and I have lived long enough to know this. I am the oldest being in existence, and I have not seen anything like the light of the Luminious. The power of End does not need beauty, because it has something that Lumina lacks, and that is pure power, of a sort where everything you have ever known is nothing before it. I discovered that End does not need to understand the subject it changes, it simply changes it... It can do anything if you only have the fuel to feed it. Or maybe I am wrong, but... but...." Enoch gave a manic laughter, and the black lips stretched across his face like a serpent, and the light in his eyes became darker. There was madness here, one that had become warped by associating with a being like Enoch, giving birth to a monster, "I can never be sure of this! Can you imagine, spending so much time contemplating the intricacies of this power that I have done and understanding that you still know less of it, just like the first time you saw it?" Rowan’s eyes tightened as he asked a question for the first time in a long while, "When the Lumina vanished, what did you find in the darkness and the chaos of the ever-expanding existence?" Enoch’s focus, which was on the last vanishing wisp of End in his palm, looked up, his eyes burning with dark flames that made Rowan’s skin crawl. It was as if Evil Incarnate was staring at him, but then Enoch closed his eyes, and that sensation vanished. "I found End, and so much more, but at first I did not know what this power was, all I know was that in the vast expanse that existence was becoming, there was a force at the center of everything and because I was the one who had touched it so deeply, it remained close to me, ad I could feel it, near my skin. Then I did what I had craved from the moment of my birth, I began to experiment with the darkness and the chaos using the power surrounding my skin."