Chapter 1957: The Blade Is Ready The Beast nearly collapsed inward from this soft touch as its shell scattered, exploding with such great force that if the majority of life inside Limbo had not been killed off, then its shooting shell would have torn through Limbo and destroyed countless Realities. Howling with pain and shock, the Beast surprisingly used this opportunity to slip out of the grasp of the Abomination. It left a lot of its flesh behind while it gathered the few Realities that remained in its grasp. The Abomination was not going to let any of the flesh left behind be wasted, and so it bent down, and thousands of child-like faces opened mouths wider than crocodiles and began to feed on the remnants of the flesh and the Realities that the Beast could not take. There was no urgency in the actions of the Abomination. Limbo was vast and empty, and it did not matter how far the Beast ran; it would hunt it down. However, Eos knew that the Beast was not the primary target... it was him. His Incarnation was about to complete the fourth layer of the Origin of Space before fully taking on the mantle of the Primordial of Space. When that happened, his next step would be to open the Primordial Record and discover the secrets that had been hidden from him. Apparently, Enoch would not allow this to happen because he was sure that this entity had just used one of its greatest trump cards, and there was no way he would allow Eos to succeed. The Abomination was consuming the remnants of what was left while staring at the fleeing Beast; thousands of eyes were blinking in a slow and calculated manner. And then it slowly turns towards the direction of the Origin Land of Eos, but some of its eyes were fixed on the shades of the Watchers, and Eos knew that Enoch had found them, and the Abomination smiles with every mouth that it had, and this smile is Enoch’s. Childlike. Wondering. Craving more experience with every breath it took. There was a promise of savagery in that smile. Limbo shook as the Abomination charged towards the Origin Land, its massive body tearing through the shades. ® Eos had been growing too fast to forge an armor for himself, not that he needed any armor when his Slaughter Revenant Aspect could clothe him in the scarlet armor of vengeance and endless fury; instead, he wore a robe made from time and memory, as he was fond of the color of purple and gold. No one in existence, not even Rowan, had seen his present form, and he was no longer a baby, and from an extremely far distance, Eos resembled a sixteen-year-old youth, perfect in every way, with features that seemed to be carved from marble. From the moment he heard the whisper of Enoch ripple across the Cradle, he knew that the Abomination would be coming for him, but he did not run. Running was for those who still believed distance mattered. Instead, he reached behind his back, into the folded layers of his own reality, and drew forth the Destroyer. After all this time, nothing seemed to have changed on the surface of his favorite weapon. The greatsword was longer than he was tall, yet it weighed nothing in his hand. The blade was no longer metal, not after it had fed on the flesh and blood of Ancient primordials. With his experience using the highest concepts of killing and destruction, Eos had forged the edge of his Destroyer from absence itself. He had taken this absence from a dimension where endings go when they are no longer needed. This was a concept he had discovered after all of his battles and the sights he had seen... the Concept of Absence, and it had become the edge of his Destroyer. Along its length ran veins of golden light, the same light that had once filled the space of his birth, now tempered and sharp. The hilt was wrapped in the leather of forgotten lullabies where his head had lain. When he held it, the sword hummed a low note that was almost, but not quite, forgiveness. He was a Creator as well as a Destroyer, and if there was any weapon fit for a Reality to wield, it was this one that combined all the traits of creation and destruction in one. Eos had brought out the stone that he had sat on when he first killed his first immortal. After all this time, this stone had remained with him, and now it had grown to the extent that it was the only material strong enough to bear his weight and size. He laid the Destroyer across his knees, and he began to sharpen it with his fingertips. He ran his bare fingers along the edge, slow and deliberate, as if stroking the cheek of a sleeping child who might wake angry. Where his skin touched the blade, sparks of golden light flared, sparks that were memories of his life and all that he had lost. This battle was not being fought for his sake alone, and when his blade bit into Enoch’s neck, he wanted him to know the weight of all those who have lost.... everything. Each pass of his fingers honed the absence sharper as the blade drank the memories and grew hungrier. Creation feeds on Destruction and Destruction feeds on Creation. Eos did not hurry; he had time. All the time the Abomination would allow. Even if it came for him in the next second or the next hour, he would sit and wait, and then he would strike when the time had come for him to strike. Far away, yet close enough that the entirety of Limbo trembled, the Abomination approached Eos, not in a hurried manner; instead, it was savoring the moment. Unlike when it battled his Primordials using the dead body of Eosah, ENoch now had access to all the best materials inside Limbo, and he would not need to struggle for the energy needed to contain all of his malicious will. Its vast body eclipsed entire folds of Limbo as it moved, white flesh pulsating with the rhythm of devoured hearts. Arms trailed behind like bridal veils made of hunger. Mouths opened and closed in silent anticipation, tasting the air for the flavor of the one who carried Enoch’s missing piece. Its thousand eyes were fixed on Eos’s realm and the fragile domain he was protecting that held Rowan, who was on the verge of becoming a Primordial. The Abomination reached the layer of space where Eos sat and stopped at a distance, and the weight of its presence pressed across Limbo, but it did not come closer to Eos, because there was a boundary surrounding him. This boundary also surrounded the Abomination, and in the invisible line separating the Abomination from Eos, their boundaries clashed, and Limbo tremored. The eyes of the Abomination did not look at Eos at first; instead, it focused on Rowan, and then it looked away before concentrating on Eos. "You carry him..." it said as a statement, but there was a hint of puzzlement in his tone. Eos did not look up. His fingers continued their slow passage along the blade, as golden sparks danced across its length. "Yes," he said quietly. "Rowan is my extension. The part of me that could still fly through this graveyard called Limbo without breaking it. I am the root. He is the branch." The Abomination grinned and, probing past the boundary, it reached for Rowan, and Eos’s fingertips paused, and he lifted the Destroyer. The blade was ready.