Chapter 1126: Map

From the massive waterfall enormous chains sprung out in numbers that were almost infinite, and Rowan knew that each Chain represented a unique power of Will. Despite knowing this, the number stunned him as he understood that except for the powers there-be had hidden a lot of their forces, the majority of immortals had not even begun to scratch the full potential of Will and that perhaps only a fraction of these chains had been found.

As the Chains of Will descended on Time he did not even make any motion of defiance, Rowan knew that he should be able to, nothing could hold down a Primordial entirely as he chooses to be held.

Time stood still and allowed the Will chains to bind his body before they pierced into his flesh, and for a while, his body seemed like an endless black hole that swallowed all the Will chains, and in what could be considered both an eternity and a single moment, the Chains entered into him completely and Time fell to his knees as he tried to hide the grimace of pain that streaked past his face.

With a loud shrieking sound that Rowan was sure he was not going to forget any time soon, the chains began to return to the waterfall, and each of them took a piece of Time along as they systematically ripped the Primordial to pieces, he was healing despite the grievous injuries despite the severity of the ongoing injuries, but even Rowan could see that his energy levels were beginning to falter.

This became more evident when Time began to bleed. He looked at the other Primordials in the heavens with a strange expression in his eyes. It was as if he was expecting them to still make a move, but they only observed.

Even when the chains returned, to collect more from the body of Time, who now seemed lethargic and was not responding to his body being brutally savaged. At first the chains that entered his body had been careful, although they came at once, there had been a certain solemnity to their actions, but now the chains were rough, they tore large pieces of Time, taking more than they carried before, and these particular sets of chains who took more of Time became larger than the rest.

Rowan and the Primordials watched as Time was savaged.

It did not seem possible that his body should be able to hold following the abuse he was taking, but it took a while before Time was reduced to a shell of his former self, he was not dead, and Rowan felt a stirring amongst the Primordial above, and he suspected that they had not expected Time to still have enough power to keep pieces of himself back.

The internals of Time were strange, he had no bones, instead it resembled cracked pistons and broken gears, but Rowan suspected that this image was what his Spirit could interpret, and the insides of a Primordial was stranger than he could fathom at this period.

One of the Primordial gestured and the metallic shrieks of the chain began to resound once more, but he was stopped by the others, even from this distance, he knew the Primordial that wanted to attack was Demon, and the first to stop him was Light.

Time waited a while, his body so broken it was almost as if he was one step from the grave, before he chuckled weakly and he turned and walked away, his broken back carrying a grace that it should not have. He slowlyly vanished, so too did the memory, and Rowan’s consciousness snapped back into the soul and he returned to the place he had been before Time had entered him.

He was not thinking about the memory he had just witnessed, instead, he was focusing on the new state of his soul which shocked him for a brief moment when he thought that somehow he had regained his body.

That was right, Rowan’s soul had taken the guise of a fleshy body, and he brought his hands up in amazement and watched the tiny capillaries and blood vessels throb under his skin. It was not just any sort of body, but one that was practically indistinguishable from mortal flesh.

The only difference was there was no blood flowing in his vein, only Time, whose appearance had taken the form of a yellow river filled with spinning cogs and gears, even his eyes now resembled the face of a clock, but with nine dials on it. There was a burst of information that was about to burst out from the depths of his soul, but Rowan suppressed it.

From the experience with the Primordial Record, he knew that understanding something meant he had acknowledged it, making the changes final, before he took the next steps he must review his memories first.

For the first time since that ancient age, the bloodline of Time had returned and Rowan kept the excitement in his heart aside for the moment, distractedly feeling the movement of his heart as it pumped the Rivers of Time throughout his body.

He had yet to come to terms with what he had witnessed in the vision.

If he was not wrong, the Primordial of Time that existed before he was taken apart, and the one that was killed by all the Primordials he had seen in his first vision opening his Spirit Matrix Gate were very different individuals.

Although Rowan did not understand the entirety of the issue that had happened between the Primordials, and unless he knew what the great goals they seemed to be pursuing he could not judge them for their actions, and for sacrificing Time.

Whatever deals that were made in the past, it would seem that Time had the shorter end of the stick, and yet by his admission, he had not fled from these terrifying acts, and he had only wanted the trust of his fellow Primordials. This was not the actions of a Primordial of Evil, no of he was right, this came after.

The second vision that showed Time surviving being ripped apart and also the actions of the other Primordial was especially telling because none of them had expected Time to survive this process, Rowan had suspected that even Time himself underestimated his strength, and with his survival came bitterness.

Yet what was puzzling was how could the Primordials have been wrong? How could they not have predicted that Time would survive?

The next time Rowan had seen Time he had become an Eldritch horror, pinned to a table by weapons from other Primordials, his essence corrupted by a second Will-Evil. Also there was something that Rowan had seen on that table that he had naively disregarded.

On that table had been a chalice that had hidden the last living blood of the Primordial, it was from here that Erohim and the Shadows had hidden the destruction that came upon the Primordial, and he has also seen a map, but it held no meaning to him, until now, because this was not the only bombshell that was revealed, for although it was spoken in passing, Rowan had learned more about Singularities and perhaps the presence of a third Singularity, which Time and Light had referred to as simply Map.

Light had told Time,

“your Map, this Singularity cannot be trusted… it is outside everything we know.”