The Primordial Record

Chapter 1867: The Foundation of Existence

Rowan shrugged, “With all the clues that you have given me, isn’t it obvious?” he pointed at the endless field of bones, “You know, one of the most potent signifiers of death has always been bones. I have read through a trillion pieces across countless worlds on their understanding of death, desolation, suffering, and all the forms it takes, and bones are an ever-present staple. I am in a place of desolation and death, and I have eaten the hunger of Primordials.”

He sighed and once more tried to push his perception deep into this realm, hoping that he would be able to see an end to it, but his actions were futile. It was possible that he was only seeing a mere fraction of this place.

“I was born in Eosah’s Reality, and she contained nearly an infinite number of lives despite being an extremely young Reality that was killed not long after she was born. Now I understand that the Primordials had killed a lot of Realities, but I do not know the exact number. But what I know is that Realities do not have bones, at least not these, all of that…” Rowan pointed at the bones, their number and form boggling the mind, from skulls the size of mountains with eight eyes sockets to limbs smaller than an ant’s, “… should be the bones of every living thing inside the Realities that were butchered.”

Rowan turned to the boy, a frightening glow in his eyes that almost resembled a pale, ghoulish fire, “Although what I don’t understand is the connection with this place to Enoch and the power of End.”

The boy was silent, and then his stomach growled. Rowan did not bat an eye; he walked over to the space where he had first prepared the feast for the boy and began conjuring new ingredients.

With his age and vast experience, the number of culinary recipes Rowan had inside his head was astonishingly vast, from trillions of worlds with their unique culture and taste, and if he decides to begin combining the recipes he knew, then technically, he could prepare a different dish every day for nearly all of eternity.

There was no chance that he would not be able to satisfy the gluttony of this boy.

The first time Rowan had cooked for him, he had prepared a wide array of dishes, and although the boy had blown through the dishes quite quickly, Rowan had been watching closely, and he noticed the dishes that the boy had favored.

Knowing this, Rowan had begun to adjust the plans he had for the sort of meals he would be preparing for the boy. It was a complex array of dishes that he had pulled from billions of worlds. If this boy was helping him, going beyond what should be his programming because of his love for food, then Rowan intended to more than satisfy him.

In a few hours, the cave was filled with the aroma of hundreds of various dishes prepared to the peak of their potential taste, vastly surpassing what the initial creators of those recipes had intended. It was not as if Rowan was the greatest cook in existence, although he could see himself among those lists if he took the time to perfect his craft; it was also the ingredients he used that were the best and in perfect condition.

Cooking could be a rather complex act, although it might seem simplistic to the layman, but many things go into creating a tantalizing dish that could not only excite the senses but also transcend the entire concept of eating in general, making it seem almost like a spiritual experience.

From the groan of pleasure that erupted from the boy, Rowan was sure he was achieving his plans in a rather spectacular fashion.

He sat patiently and waited for the boy to finish devouring his food. Watching his main body flail around in confusion had been a painful sight; more than anything, it showed Rowan the price of ignorance. He was willing to wait for this boy to give him the answers that he needed because he had spent too long in the dark, and with the endgame approaching, this was his only salvation.

The boy gave a long belch and collapsed in midair, his hands twitching in food coma paralysis, and it took hours before he was settled. “Okay, you have been patient enough and your answers are mostly correct, but there are a few things you are missing. These bones are indeed the remnants of every life in all the Realities that the Primordials had destroyed, but this is not the true reason you have been brought here.”

The boy made a grand gesture with his hands, “You used the power of End to consume the hunger of the Primordials, but tell me, Rowan, do you feel that you have consumed anything, and if you do, what then are the benefits that you have acquired? Or do you think your actions only served to benefit the Primordials?”

Rowan chuckled self-deprecatingly. He knew there was much to this matter than met the eye, and even though the boy had said he had become the personification of the Cradle of Enoch, meaning that it should bring unexpected benefits, it was still hard for him to reconcile that fact with the knowledge that he was the one responsible for freeing the Primordials from their cage after all this time.

“I can see that you are still down,” the boy sniffed aloud, “Your actions might have led to the end of existence as we know it, but is it such a bad thing? Existence for a long time has been shit, don’t break yourself over what you cannot control, and despite how it may seem, you made the right choice, because no matter how you slice it, your previous path would only lead to your destruction, and you needed to flip the entire board to see the true cards of the players.”

The boy floated over and poked Rowan’s nose gently with his index finger, “Obviously, such an action would be consequential, and while it is true that it was beneficial to the primordials, it also gave you the chance to do something that no one would ever expect, that is, if you are strong of Will to seize this opportunity.”

The void where the boy’s features should be was blank, but Rowan could feel his gaze boring through his body as if they were trying to weigh the size of his Will. Whatever he saw must have satisfied him because the boy floated back a bit and gestured towards the opening of the cave and dragged in a small piece of finger bone.

“This is the remains of all who were slain by the Primoridials, and it contains everything they had that could not be taken by the Primordials… You can call this place the Cradle of Enoch, but I think a rather apt description for it should be the Foundations of Existence. Rowan…” the boy threw the piece of finger bone towards him, “…eat!”

Rowan caught the bone, surprise in his eyes as he tried to figure out all the implications of what the boy had just told him. Groaning in frustration, the boy shook his head, “Stop thinking of everything so deeply, you are out of your league at this moment, and your intuition may likely steer you around without finding a direction to point you towards. You wanted to eat the hunger of the Primordials, but you have never actually begun to eat; instead, you have been running away from the feast!”