Chapter 1965: The Desolate Era Perhaps the flood of memories took mere seconds or an eternity, Rowan could not tell, and when it was over, he was kneeling on the ground, one hand outstretched in front of him that held the feather of Lumen, and his body resembled a sculpture of melting wax. He was dying. Despite how much power Eos pours into each Incarnation, they were never meant to replace him, and so he deliberately reduced their potential in order to ensure that death was a possibility for them. As useful and versatile as Incarnations might be, they were also the source of great weakness, as a powerful enemy could gain access to Eos internal network through them, and so they needed to be powerful enough to detect traces of such attacks, and weak enough that they could quickly die on command if it were needed. For someone like Eos, death did not come easily. If he were killed, then just the lightning of Ether flowing through his consciousness would take millions of Cosmic Eras, if not even billions of Cosmic Eras, to dissipate, and so his consciousness would still remain on one form or another for that long. Any enemy would have a field day taking advantage of that vulnerability, and so he did not make his Incarnations too powerful. The drawbacks to this were in moments like this one, where the Incarnation had come across such great powers that it could not handle the strain. There was no regret in the heart of Rowan, in fact, it was the opposite, like Lumen had said, knowledge like this came with its Karma, and the Incarnation was being twisted into the likeness of the being before him, but he had gotten what he came here for, and his only goal was to send everything over to his main body before it became too late. What he had learned was shocking, and through the faint connection with Eos, he continued pouring out everything to him. These wings, Lumen, came from Enoch; he discarded them because, after he saw Hundun, he was worried that the stillness of the Luminous that was represented by his wings would corrupt this new being. He tore it off while pushing his last connection with the Luminious away, and he thought that the wings had dissipated on their own, but they had not. Lumen had survived. Enoch hated his ancestry so much that he never truly dug deep into his foundations and discovered all the powers that they contained. His mindset had colored his outlook, and he felt his abilities were greater than anything from his bloodline, so he discarded the wings of the Luminious without any hesitation. This would turn out to be his greatest mistake. The wings of the Luminious did not just hold the power of their race; they also held their memories, and although Enoch had gone through these memories, he did not go through all of them. What he saw when he was checking those memories was countless Cosmic Eras of stillness. The Luminious were beings blessed with true immortality from birth, and as their life had no ending, their history was truly deep, extending so far into the past that Enoch did not know in that water of stillness there were changes, but it was so slow that he needed to take a long time to trace the patterns, and impatience was a trait that he sadly had. If Enoch had gone through the memories of the Luminious, he would have seen that the power of End was not a strange concept to his people; they knew of it, and they fled from it because they had seen what this power had done to the many Existences that had come before them. The Luminious, before they were ended by one of their own, was the only race in the history of all Existences that had lived through multiple Existence-ending events. Even Enoch had no idea that the Existence he knew was not the first, so impatient he was to change the state of things that he did not dig into the past and truly understand the concept that there was nothing new under the sun. Born from the purest light, in addition to their innate immortality and powers that were nearly unmatched, the Luminious, unlike every other lifeform, did not need to change or pursue power, since from their birth, they were the strongest. This led them to have no natural predators, and there was nothing they could not bend to their will. However, they did not conquer Existence, as they viewed their society as sacred and every other being as being lesser than them. This was not the fault of theirs, the Luminious did not have any equal, as any one of them could raze all of Existence to ash, and it was a good thing that they did not crown themselves as rulers of Existence, and they simply disained from mixing with the short lived creatures, even if these creatures were gods and immortals, because even the immortals would die and gods would fade. However, just because the Luminious disdained mixing with the rest of Existence, it did not mean that their presence was not felt. They did not accept worship, but they were worshipped all the same, and as it was inevitable, their strength invited envy, and those who wished to challenge them, in order to draw them from their pearly thrones and cast them to earth. In the quest to understand the power of the Luminious, it led many immortals to dabble in forbidden rituals that led to the destruction of Existence; however, the Luminious were so powerful that they survived the end of this Existence, and they simply remained in their realm and watched the birth of a new Existence. This cycle happened multiple times, with new races rising from the ashes of the departed, growing in wisdom and strength, and inevitably finding the presence of the Luminious, and after their awe and worship had faded, they grew jealous, and ambition took their hearts. It was by watching this endless cycle that the Luminious created the Cycle of Eras that Rowan once believed was created by the Primordials. They saw the rise and fall of Existence, and they discovered the pattern. Although they did not care about Existence and all that happened within it, the Luminous feared that this cycle was becoming worse as time passed, and they theorized on an unknown Era that might take place in the future, an Era so destructive yet led to such massive changes that nothing would ever remain the same again, because the level of change would be so great it might lead to the destruction of the everlasting Luminious, they called this Era, the Desolate Era. This knowledge was soon buried in the depths of their archives and never mentioned again. The Luminious were content in themselves, and watching the cycles of the Era was a source of amusement in their endless life. They wanted for nothing because they were content with the life they all led. Perhaps it was because of the endless cycles of destruction and rebirth wrought by the use of forbidden powers that something... A force was aroused from its slumber.