Chapter 1119: Assessing Wills
Connecting with Andar in the unknown memories he had seen of the end of the universe had shown him a peculiar vision of himself that Andar had glimpsed when he saw Rowan’s memory of the Chained god back in the Black Tower.
Rowan in his vision was an utterly alien entity whose inner workings could not be described, and he knew what Andar had seen was a small peek of his Consciousness Pillars. Rowan could be considered to be a machine that was so perfect it could imitate all forms of life to the extent that for brief moments, even he could forget that he lacked a soul.
Jerediah was a prime example, although his case was different from Rowan it was also quite similar, but unlike Rowan, he was not a Creator, he had nothing to balance the void in his heart, and that drove him to a state where insanity would have been a mercy.
Rowan had expressed the instabilities in his psyche in other ways, for one, one glaring manner was through the way he battled.
He had extremely powerful abilities, but unless absolutely necessary he rarely used them. Take for instance his wealth of spells as a Creator of Angels. In his head was likely one of the greatest deposits of spells, and with Knowledge Well, he should be able to easily tweak those spells along countless unique pathways, but he never bothered doing any of that.
It could be argued that the power that Rowan could access as a Spell Caster was a thousand times greater than any he could unleash using his fists, and they were infinitely more versatile.
He usually entered any combat scenario using his fist, a bladed or blunt weapon, and his Eruption ability that would make him hit harder as time went on.
It was a unique ability to be sure, but this was far from his total potential, it was not even scratching the surface of what he could accomplish if he placed his mind to it, yet with his soulless nature, the battle was enjoyable in the sense that it could bring him to the brink, but he did not see the beauty behind it.
He had once been riveted when he saw an entire field of butterflies and his painting, something that was an intrinsic part of him, had been a window into his soul, but he had lost all of that and became a well-tuned machine, whose emotions were only great simulations that it was impossible to tell the real from the fake.
Rowan did not want to think if what he felt for his mother or his children was not real, and if he had ever cared for anything beyond his purpose to see what lies at the center of everything. Such thoughts were a slippery slope he did not want to explore too deeply at this time, it would not aid him in the battle to come, instead, he was better off analyzing his combat situation.
Eruption for a long time was simply the most effective way he could kill his enemies as quickly as possible while being able to maintain a thrill in battle. This was not much of a handicap to Rowan because of how ungodly powerful Eruption was, enough that even without using a bulk of his abilities, he was able to crush everything.
This was an ability unique to him and it could exchange vitality for stats, although these stats were temporary, Eruption paired with his endless vitality meant Rowan could become so strong in a brief amount of time that he could technically become unbeatable if given enough time to gather enough stats.
However this ability’s weakness came in the time it took for Rowan to get the amount of stats that could make him supremely powerful, and it also had a rather debilitating effect on his consciousness, and this price was so great that even with his formidable alien consciousness pillars, he could not hold on to this ability for long without tearing his mental space to pieces. With the advent of his dimensional flesh, Eruption had transformed into Ascension, a much more broken ability, which gave Rowan the option to keep part of the stats he gained when he burned vitality, it had also removed the consciousness debuff it gave him any time he used it. It meant every time he used Ascension, he was becoming stronger, and Rowan would have been utilizing this technique at every moment if not for the sheer commotion it caused every time he used it.
Rowan’s size might seem small, but as a living dimension who had consumed a Universe’s Will, his true size was almost equal to a third-dimensional universe, and unlike other techniques that required him to use his Aether or vitality to operate them, Ascension meant burning the entirety of his vitality and spreading the effects all over his body, and his body was truly massive.
It was as if an entire universe was set ablaze, the commotion that arose from the technique would be literally shaking reality around him for countless distances, even reaching across time itself.
Ascension could only be used during times of battle where the chaos could hide the incredible changes going on in his body, any other time would simply be an invitation for battle and suspicion. If anyone had any doubt about his status as a dimension, using Ascension, an utterly broken ability would prove it.
His second Will, which was the Will of Elder, was a strange ability. Its description reveals secrets that should be known only by Primordials, and this Will was a rather strange one. The Primordial Record had given a rather strange description for this Will,
WILL OF ELDER: The Primordial Beast were not feared because of their power, but their potential. Their bodies were powerful enough to shatter all of creation, but their true
strength lay in a collective Will titled the Will of Elder, that grows stronger with every living Primordial Beast in existence. You are the last living Primordial Beast and this Will is dormant.
Combining the power of a Primordial Beast and an evolving dimension has resurrected this ancient Will, but there is something different about it. Something heretical.
Rowan had not been able to activate this will because of the simple fact that he was the only Primordial Beast in existence, or that was what he thought, he had not seen any hint of a Primordial Beast in his time outside reality, but there could still be time for him to find out… reality was pretty big.
Although he had an idea how to go around this restriction he could not be sure if it would work.
His last Will however was what he suspected had contributed to the birth of his new soul. That last Will was the Will of Soul Origin which he gained when his city of Sheol had evolved to the immortal level.
The last time he had checked the Primordial Record, this Will had been at the first level, and it had not displayed any changes that he could observe, although he could not easily tell with his present state, all the experiences he had been going through must have led to a growth in his Will because he was sure that this Will must have reached the 3rd level coupled with his growth as an Ascendant, it was quite possible that this was what gave him back a soul.