Rowan would never be beholden to any powers again.

This was what everyone else did when they advanced to a higher dimension, but Rowan knew the dangers of that path. It might be safer for anyone, but not for him, his abilities made him a threat to the Primordials.

Although he doubted anyone else besides him had the choice to choose whether or not they had to connect their dimension to the Great Darkness, to grow their Will and still have access to the Third Dimension, they had to fuse a portion of their power to the Great Darkness, after all, mortals and other scarce resources could only be born inside a Third Dimension.

Rowan had not confirmed this but he was about ninety-eight percent sure that it was the case and this was the feeling he got when he thought of learning about Aetherium. 𝚏𝚛ee𝐰n𝐨𝘃l.𝐜𝐨m

This power seemed to be the logical next step in the evolution of power. Enhancing his might with Aetherium would grant him intense powers, but it would create a link to an unknown entity. If Aetherium was this important to get stronger, it was no wonder that a Primordial would decide to control it.

This seemed to be the modus operandi for Primordials, they gave great powers and convenient abilities to lesser beings, but their gifts always had a hook attached to them.

Aetherium was no different from the trap that was the material universe, he wondered how many people knew of this and even if they did, would they really care? He doubted anyone else had the ambition of becoming a Primordial or even had the thought of exceeding them.

Rowan sighed, the Third Prince was right he had failed, but Rowan knew the truth was that he had also succeeded because he was chasing another goal. The entire purpose of learning like a mortal was for him to have the capability of pushing through obstacles, despite knowing they would break him. It was a mental shift that allowed him to do this…

Rowan had been blocking with his right hand ever since, he was experimenting with his movement whilst suffering under the hold of Aetherium, and he felt he had gathered enough data. Aetherium was still killing him, but it could no longer hold him. Like a mortal, suffering was only a part of the growing process, it would not stop him from moving forward, he had accepted this truth and this changed everything.

Rowan’s empty gaze glanced across to the incoming Will Holders who would be close to them in the next few moments and he acted.

The next swing from Golgoth he did not block, instead he swerved around it, earning him a nasty cut alongside his shoulders that nearly shaved off a portion of his neck, but it meant he was suddenly behind Golgoth and their backs were against each other, nearly touching.

Golgoth gasped, the sudden change made an intense feeling of doom pervade his heart.

Rowan’s right hand, which was made from his Serpents bent backward and snapped across his head to clamp around Golgoth’s neck, the six serpents’ heads chewed through the heavy armor nearly instantaneously, digging into Golgoth’s neck and nearly chewing it off.

Golgoth choked and screamed in pain, he pushed power into his weapon and attacked, attempting to swing his blade behind him to bisect Rowan in two, but Rowan applied force to his sinuous right arm, picked up the panicking Reflection, and lobbed him at the incoming Will Holders with all his strength.

What happened was a grisly sight, Rowan threw the Reflection but the heads of his serpents were already chewing through Golgoth’s neck and holding onto his head, and with the force of his throw, his head was torn away from his body, held aloft by the greedy serpents, while his body flew towards the Will Holders.

Golgoth’s last panicked attack was still ongoing when Rowan threw him, and when he landed amongst the charging Will Holders, his blade carved a line of destruction among their ranks.

Minerva who was among the most cautious among them had easily leaped past the rotating torso of Golgoth, but the gravity from the bridge slammed her back down not long after and she narrowly missed her abdomen being sliced open.

Two of the God Emperors were not so lucky. Golgoth’s blades were imbued with Aetherium and it carved them into pieces that exploded into shrieking fragments, their body and soul were thoroughly destroyed. For the next few moments, the body swung its blade around like a crazed marionette, unleashing a wide area of destruction and shattering the spells being conjured by the Third Prince.

A massive river of rotten darkness flowed out from the headless body and the Aetherium wreaked havoc, creating a storm of darkness that swept throughout the bridge and into the Nothingness at the other end of the bridge, making that darkness rumble as it was fed with great power.

Everyone except Rowan hunkered down to weather the tide of chaos and destruction, and Gaping Undoer in the hands of Golgoth began to scream in pain and misery as power without limits poured into it, without Golgoth to hold back his might, the living weapon that never got the chance to evolve to a higher state could not hold it back.

The shrieks of pain from the blade reached a feverish peak and then it exploded into fragments, slicing the body of Golgoth into tiny pieces and carving lengths of destruction through the bridge, newly forty percent of the bridge was almost shattered.

Silence soon prevailed after a while and the choking voice of Golgoth could be heard, “Rowan… please, don’t kill me. You and I… are kin.”

The only sound that was heard after this plea was the voice of Golgoth could be heard, “Rowan… please, don’t kill me. You and I… are kin.”

snake heads chewing through the helm of Golgoth to finally reveal his face.

Rowan brought his eyesless face closer to the head, the holes in his skull seemed to be a passage to nothingness, and something inside them made the eyes of Golgoth widen in realization. There was no pity in that merciless darkness, no anger, for all his powers, Golgoth could as well be an ant. In his heart the false God King understood that he was only a minor hindrance in Rowan’s path, the person he wanted to kill was Third.

“I wonder,” Rowan said in his deep baritone voice, “When Erohim stood at this place you are standing, what went through your head? Did he not beg you for his life?”

Golgoth gaped, “No… How can you know what happened on that day, inside that long-dead universe? Are you him? Are you our…”

A snake head plunged into his mouth silencing him and digging into his skull after chewing past his tongue and the softer portion of his throat. The eyes of the false God King widened in pain, fear, and desperation as tentacles burst out from his jaw as he attempted to pull out the serpent chewing him from inside.

The tentacles squeezed the snake, and struggling with the strength born from desperation, he partially succeeded as they slowly pulled the chewing serpent out of his mouth, but another serpent head joined the fray and plunged into Golgoth’s mouth, his screams were muffled but it was impossible to hide the degree of torture he was suffering.

Two other serpents came to his ears and he only heard their dull hisses before they plunged into the side of his skull digging their way into his brain. His eyes bulged out.

Suffering this pain was terrible enough, but doing it when you have been reduced to a mortal and feeling this amount of pain, knowing you were irrevocably marching towards your death was a torture that most immortals could not comprehend.

His crazed eyes saw two more snakes hover above the delicate orbs, and they slowly opened their jaws which seemed to lead to a place filled with coldness and silence. At the precipice of madness and fear, Golgoth discovered that the eyes of the serpents were closed, it reminded him of an unborn infant whose eyes were still not mature enough to see the skies.

He did not know why this realization that the entity he fought was barely a newborn almost broke his soul to pieces and the slowly descending snakes were the last thing Golgoth would ever see as his existence was plunged into darkness and pain that seemed to extend for countless eternities.

“Who are you…. Who are you… Who are… Who…”

The last fragments of his skull exploded in Rowan’s hand and his serpents hissed in satisfaction.