The Primordial Record

'What a lovely speech,' Rowan thought, 'if it is meant to rouse the pride in my heart to challenge a horizon above my comprehension then it is a great pep talk, the only issue here is that I don't care about the Supreme Circle as he thinks, what others crave with all their soul, is for me, just one more weapon in my arsenal. How can I crave a weapon that can topple all of realities when I have others that can do that job ten times faster?'

When the Primordial Record showed Rowan a breakdown of his bloodline and abilities, it was done in the simplest and most efficient manner possible, and if it had chosen to reveal the might of any of his powers in the same way that Old Man Seed had presented the Supreme Circles, it would be a thousand times more memorable.

The presentation of information can sometimes hold more weight than the information itself. It was all a matter of context, and this old man was a master in the act of context. Rowan felt his Will of Truth react to this realization and he almost smiled.

Rowan cleared his throat, "I am a mortal, and yet I carry a third-dimensional Will and the Title of a World Bearer. You have seen my strength and my ambition, and you should know that I will never settle for anything lesser with the potential I have,"

Rowan smiled as a thought entered his heart and he said, "There is something I always say inside my heart when I am before a great challenge, for it is in those moments that I am truly alive, nothing else can ever top those moments. I say to myself: Let the storm rage ever higher, I cannot be shaken, my Will is stone. Old Man Seed, let the weight of power come for me, let it rage, let it slam itself against the barrier of my Will, it would only return spent, for I cannot tremble. My Will is Stone."

Inside his dimension, Rowan felt a ripple and his consciousness witnessed a grand change in his thought process, and his jaws nearly dropped when his Will of Truth transformed before his eyes, hiding its core and bringing forth a new fruit.

This event was potent enough that after a thousand years, the Primordial Record stirred and it spoke, and Rowan thought it could detect a sense of tired amusement from the Singularity.

Will of Truth (First Masking) — Will of Stone.

'Huh,' Rowan scoffed internally, 'Apparently if I say something with enough conviction, it becomes the truth. Interesting. The pieces I have to play with have gotten larger.'

®

Above the frozen waste, in what appeared to be a few miles away from the heads of the Sirens, space shivered and two figures emerged, Rowan and Old Man Seed. the old man had his eyes closed and his palms cupped together as tiny bursts of light occasionally escaped from his hands. He appeared to be creating something.

Whatever it is that he was making must truly be incredible for the tiny pulse of power that escaped from his closed palms made Rowan's heart beat in trepidation.

At his present level, a small strand of light from those closed palms would turn him to ash. This process continued for hours and showed no sign that it would be ending soon, Rowan tried to piece together the process behind the energy surges he could detect, but he was puzzled when he continually felt the emanations of spatial energy inside the palms of the old man.

He shrugged at this mystery and simply concentrated to see what more he could learn.

Being this close to the Sirens, he could not help but turn to observe them but was a bit surprised when he noticed that they were already observing him.

Six pairs of eyes the size of universes observed him in silence. The sizes of the Sirens Rowan had come to discover were due to the fact that these beings must have controlled the power of higher dimensions, and their heads still carried their power, and in the eyes of those that were at a lower level, each of their heads was larger than a universe.

Perhaps to Old Man Seed, the head was the size of grapefruits because his senses could wrap around and understand them in their totality.

As the Sirens of Thenos observed him, he also observed them in return, he knew he held their message and if he filled the last pages, their torture would end, but he was not ready to make that move at this time.

He did not understand these creatures, not really, they only showed him a part of their history, and their message even though it had been recorded was still cryptic. Who was their enemy? Who cut off their heads and kept them fixed to the skies so they could scream in pain for all eternity? What crimes did they commit to be deserving of such a fate?

You see, when Rowan said there were fates worse than death, the Sirens were an example.

By his side, Old Man Seed grunted in frustration at whatever was happening between his palms, it was clearly more difficult than he had anticipated, before looking at Rowan, then at the sky,

"Ignore those wailing cretins overhead, even as heads, they are still greedy bitches who smell opportunities when they see it. Damn it, why is this so hard to collect… Hah! I got it… Do you think you can hide it from me Hephy? Hahaha…"

Opening his palms, Rowan noticed a small lump of black iron, but it did not stay that way for long before Old Man Seed began to tap it with his fingers as if he was playing a tune, and before long the small lump of black iron expanded to a full body armor.

The armor was featureless, with no adornment whatsoever, it had no openings and resembled a black mannequin. Immediately Rowan was reminded of the shell he had as a mortal when he unlocked his Ouroboros bloodline.

Old Man Seed looked at the armor in fascination and blew on it, this gesture blew away a thick layer of brown dust that had settled on the armor, but Rowan's eyes constricted when he noticed that these brown dusts were remnants of dead universes.

Perhaps this was not something that someone could easily recognize, but Rowam knew what a dead universe looked like, he had just left one not long ago, but gathered thickly on this inconspicuous armor was the remnant of tens of thousands of dead universes!

"Until you complete your Fifth Supreme Circle, you shall forever remain inside this armor. Forged from the heart of Tenebris, the last-born son of the Prime of the Great Abyss. This armor has inherited his name and his Will, and it would break whoever wears it. This would be your greatest test on your way towards the greatest heights of the Circle Romion, would you allow Temebris to break you?"

"You ask too many questions old man," Rowan growled.

"Oh, the pride of youth, do not lose it, Rowan, for it might help for the pain ahead."

Rowan's vision was suddenly covered in darkness, but his perception was acute enough to notice that the black armor had assumed a life of its own and leaped onto his body, covering Rowan from head to toe, and plunging him into a great darkness with no end in sight.

The voice of Old Man Seed reached him as if coming from the other end of the universe, "..... Hold on to your convictions…"

Then the first crack occurred, it sounded as if a galaxy had been split apart, and the pain began, as Rowan's body was crushed to a state a trillion times smaller than an atom.