Chapter 1994: The Fifth Layer In the moment of burning his Origin, Rowan realized a fundamental truth. To become a Primordial... was a glorious thing. What did it mean to become an individual to stand at the peak of Existence, to control and embody one of the fundamental forces of creation? Time, Space, even the Soul... they became them. In all of Existence, during its birth and rebirth, there were extremely few Primordials, and only in this Existence, on the verge of destruction, had there been a large number of Primordials relatively speaking. Placed into perspective, the number of Primordials born in this Existence equaled the total number of Primordials there had ever been in all previous Existences combined. It was not as if this present Existence had greater amounts of geniuses and special individuals than all past Existences combined; in fact, it was the opposite. This Existence was ridiculously young compared to other Existences in the past, and it had barely lasted for 800 Million Cosmic Eras... which on the scale of Existences was barely a single second. In a regular Existence, at such a short amount of time, there would barely be a single Primordial born to it, but something important had changed, and it was the death of the Luminious and the dispersal of Enoch’s Essence all across Existence. The Luminious, by their mere existence, caused everything around them to be diminished. Their talents were so great that a majority of all Origin Powers were tied to the light of their Lumina and the sounds of their Abhima. If all the Origin Essence in Existence were a million in total, then the Luminious held 999,000 of the Essence of Origin. 𝕗𝐫𝚎𝗲𝘄𝐞𝕓𝐧𝕠𝘃𝕖𝐥.𝐜𝚘𝚖 Inside the core of his being, Rowan saw the end of Space, and he understood at this moment that he needed to be willing to burn his Origin, to give up his power, and sacrifice his ambition to see the truth. The Luminious needed to die for Existence to evolve and grow. It was a strange epiphany to get in the center of such a terrible situation, but Rowan knew that even if this information would not help him much, Eos would find it very invaluable. The Luminious holding most of the Origin Essence in Existence was not a problem; the issue came from their attitude towards Existence and the power they held. They were stagnant; they did not experiment with their abilities, did not create anything worthwhile with all the power of Origin in their fingertips, and as a result, Origin did not grow, but remained stagnant for countless Cosmic Eras. Origin Force was not weak; perhaps it was even stronger than End, but the Luminious, in their passivity, allowed a power like End to continue to grow and evolve until it snuffed them out. For countless Cosmic Eras as Existence was rebirthed and ended, Origin Essence was fixed. If there were a million Origin Essence from the birth of the Luminious, then till their death, there were still that many Origin Essence left. So many Primordials could arise from the present Existence because the Luminious were gone, and now all lifeforms could reach for the pinnacle of life, and for the first time in a long time, the power of Origin was beginning to grow, but the power of End would never allow that to happen, and Rowan could see the truth more clearly at this point. He may be fighting against the Primordials, Death, and Enoch, but that was just the surface; on a deeper level, there was something else, the power of End against the power of Origin. He was the first of the Ancient Primordial born after a long time, the first Primordial of Space, and within him, dwelling in the Primordial Record, was the culmination of nearly all the Origin Power in Existence. The Primordials claimed to be the champions of Origin, but they had become the tools of End; they stifled its growth and corrupted its nature. With the power of Creation, the only thing they could do with it was destroy, and they realized this truth when they saw the color of Rowan’s blood and the vibrancy of the Origin it contained. While it was true that Rowan became a Primordial barely a few minutes ago, his birth had led to the growth of Origin Essence in such a short time that it dwarfed every Primordial that came before him. He could have become the greatest of Primordials, but to fight against his enemies, Rowan burned his Origin Force. The way he burned it was more of an act of giving away than to consume, because he understood that sometimes, the best way to collect was to give. The force that erupted from his body was countless times greater than anyone here could ever understand. They could see through Rowan’s flesh torn by blade and claws the muscles beneath, yet his muscles were not made from flesh and blood, but the purest Origin Essence of space, and when they understood what they were looking at, shock rippled across everyone here. Rowan still had one hand, the other lost to him, and he looked at the wounds in his body, and he smiled, "Ah, so, this is the fifth layer of Space Origin!" In burning his Origin Essence at the root to give him the space to struggle, Rowan had found the fifth layer of the Origin of Space, where, from the birth of Existence, there had ever been four. It was a shame that his body was too fragile to hold the fifth layer of the Origin of Space. This realization should have come organically many years from now, when Rowan would have refined his body, soul, and essence many times over to be able to hold this power, but at this point, he was far from being able to control this power. It was unknown if even Origin understood the fifth layer of itself. In the short time that Rowan had become a Primordial, he had raised the bar, but he was too weak to hold it up. Nyxara, with her mouth open, stammered in shock, "We... we can’t let him live. Someone like this should not exist!" Rowan looked up at her, "The way I see it, you all here are the ones who should never have existed."