The Primordial Record
Chapter 1632: The Beast of Final Rest

Chapter 1632: The Beast of Final Rest

The flow of time in the land of the dead was extremely strange, almost non-existent but still present, and so in Reality, ten years had gone by, but inside this place, more than sixty million years had passed, but the presence of Death had not yet arrived.

Rowan was patient. He could wait for as long as necessary, even if a trillion years were to pass. However, he knew that he would not have to wait for that long. Death was patient, but that was only for the dead, not a living soul whose end was unknown.

His time was not spent fruitlessly; instead, Rowan used this as a period to understand Fate.

His low realm was one of his most significant disadvantages in the battle against the Primordial Thrones.

His dimensional body and soul had the potential to equal a Primordial, even exceeding them in certain ways, but because he was a seventh-dimensional immortal, the power he could exert from his body was limited.

In fact, his glaring weakness that had been used to take advantage of him, the Angels of Char, revealed to be a Primordial Killing Spell, Gilded Maw, was only a weakness because Rowan was weak.

If he had been truly capable of seeing through Fate, Destiny, and all the myriad laws at a glance, he would have never fallen to this move, even if he allowed them to unleash it inside of him.

So, Rowan had not forgotten his principal foundation, which was his overall Realm. He wanted to become an Old One.

Rowan did not know if it was possible for an Old One to kill a Primordial, but he was eager to find out. This sort of challenge was surely worth it. If he could kill the Thrones of Primordial at the seventh dimensional level, then would it not be thrilling for him to be able to kill Primordials at the eighth?

From mastering Space, Time, Space-Time, Memory, and now mastering Fate, he had climbed through the dimensions at blazing fast speeds, but mastering Fate became much more challenging because he was not just mastering Fate but Fate’s Origin.

These two were not the same. The Fate available in Reality, Eosah, had been watered down and corrupted by the Primordial, but Fate’s Origin was a power that led to the ninth-dimensional level, and not just a stepping stone in the seventh dimension.

For millions of years, Rowan pondered on Fate’s Origin, and although he was making progress, it was far more minimal than he had assumed.

Rowan paused in his efforts, not used to being delayed in this manner. Taking several steps back, he began reviewing his knowledge about all he knew about cultivation and his journey towards this point, and his powerful consciousness was aided by several tools like Knowledge Well, his Titles, and other supplementary spells and techniques he had mastered over the years, and it led him to a single conclusion.

His foundation, as robust as it was, still lacked the strength to fully encompass Fate’s Origin.

Of course, there were other paths he could follow to reach the eighth-dimensional level. Rowan could suppress the reach of his Fate’s Origin and use only a portion of it as the foundation so he could reach his Destiny, but that did not follow the direction of his character, and even if he attained his Destiny, it would be flawed.

’If I cannot encompass Fate’s Origin with my Will, that means my foundation is flawed. It would need to be rebuilt. This time I will no longer attain the mastery of Space, but I will claim Space Origin, Time Origin, Space-Time Origin, Memory Origin!’

This was Rowan’s thought, but whether he would be able to achieve it was another matter, when he had no idea of Fate’s Origin before he gained one.

However, it was not as if he did not have an indication of how to acquire the Origin of all these dimensions. Gaining Fate’s Origin mostly came about because of the superior foundation he had built after climbing through the fourth to the sixth dimension.

He figured out that he was not able to gain the Origin of Memory either because his foundation was still too weak at the fifth, or if Primordial Memory had a way of blocking the Origin of Memory from reaching him.

Rowan believed that the latter must be the case. If there was a Primordial Fate, then he was sure that he would not have been able to gain the power of Fate’s Origin; he did not believe that he had failed because his foundation was insufficient.

A moment before, Rowan had admitted that his dimensional flesh and soul were insufficient, but only he could make such a proclamation. The truth was that his achievements were highly inflated, and no one could reach the level of achievements that he had made, yet what made Rowan truly dangerous was the fact that he had limitless possibilities for growth.

Just because he attained what was considered the peak form for an immortal did not mean he could not still grow stronger. The entirety of his Fate rested on the premise that he was a limitless being who could not see his endpoint.

Rowan believed that with his foundation at the fifth dimension, then he should have gained the Origin of Memory, and if that is the case, it meant this path he wanted to take would turn out to be more difficult than he had previously assumed.

’Every great thing has small beginnings. I can start by gaining the origin of space first.’

Space was termed the domain of Primordial Chaos, but Rowan believed that as long as there was no Primordial Space, he could fight for the Origin of Space.

Primordials were nigh omnipotent, but only unto the things they fully controlled. If there were no Primordial of Space, Rowan believed he would have the capacity to understand space well enough to seek its origin.

With his mind made up, Rowan began channeling his consciousness to understand Space when he felt the space around him shift.

All of this while the presence of Death had been increasing, and now it seemed to have crossed a threshold, and Death was finally here.

Rowan opened his eyes to meet this entity.

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Death had no proper form. It shifted depending on who beholds it.

To a warrior, it might appear as an armored knight with a hollow helm.

To a child, a gentleman figure with a lantern guiding them into the dark.

To a sinner, a monstrous amalgamation of their worst fears. It was the ultimate mirror, reflecting the soul’s deepest acceptance or denial of the inevitable.

Rowan looked upon all the shifting forms of death. He had been many things in his life and had lived through the consciousness of trillions, and so Death was an endless parade of shapes and bodies, most having no meaning.

However, Rowan was not satisfied with all of this, because he suspected that if he allowed a part of him dictate the form that Death should take, he would forever lose the power to fight against this entity, because his sight would have restricted Death into a small corner.

It would be like looking at a reflection and believing that it was the real thing. Instead, Rowan wanted to see the real form of Death, not the shapes his mind was conjuring.

Doing this was undoubtedly incredibly dangerous—like a mortal choosing to peer into the face of a god. However, Rowan believed that the recent change in his presence when he acknowledged Death was enough to shield him. He did not care what happened to his body and soul; as long as his Origin Land remained, he had the foundations to rebuild himself from nothing.

Disregarding all the countless sights that were pouring into his mind, Rowan focused on making his heart clear as glass, leaving no bias or thoughts behind. He became like a newborn babe, open to the mysteries of the world for the first time.

A loud bang resounded in Rowan’s consciousness, and his mind nearly fizzled out. His ears saw the world, and his eyes smelled the breeze.

Death seen through the eye of a babe was nothing short of Ethereal.

Rowan finally knew the name of Death and whispered it, "the Beast of Final Rest."

It was not humanoid. In so much of his visions of death, he always took the personification of a humanoid entity, but the true form of Death was a beast.

A colossal shadowy stag with antlers that stretched far into the sky, and no matter how far he looked, he could not see its end. Perched on its antlers were countless ravens with eyes burning with green fire, and Rowan knew that every time he had seen the green suns of Death, what he had truly been looking at were these ravens.

The eyes of this stag were twin voids, and its breath was the cold mist that precedes the end.

Death spoke, "You see me."

Rowan replied, "I see you."