The Primordial Record

Chapter 2170  A Garden

This sapling rapidly grew to a tree no taller than a mortal child, its leaves the color of dawn, its roots reaching into the fabric of Existence and drawing from it, nourishment.

It was the first true life that had been born in this Existence using the power of Origin untainted by End, and Eos had created it from the flesh of a Primordial Demon. For a moment, the eyes of the Demon were transfixed by what grew out of his chest, as bizarre as it looked, he could see that the transformation made to his body was almost natural; it was as if this was what he had always meant to be… a small tree.

If millions of cosmic eras ago, his destiny had not been changed by the Luminious, he might have been this tree, slowly growing and connecting to all life around him.

It was the first time in his entire life that Xylos had seen beauty and peace, and he recognized it.

He always knew of these concepts, but he did not understand them… could not figure out what beauty meant or what it would feel like to be content and at peace… he only knew power and the desire to pursue more of it.

At the end, it was almost as if his greatest enemy had given him the best gift he had ever received in his life.

Xylos’s body collapsed around the tree, his corrupted form dissolving into ash that rained down on the sapling like fertilizer. And as he faded, his voice came one last time in a whisper.

“Thank you,” it said. “Thank you for—”

Then he was gone.

Eos watched Primordial Demon turn to ash for a moment before he turned back to the sapling that was pulsing in his hand.

From the bottom of the little tree, the root began to spread, but Eos stopped it from spreading into Existence. Just because he could create a miracle from the Primordial Demon’s body did not mean he could maintain it across Existence forever.

Instead, he bent the roots with his Will to enter his body where they began to spread across it, causing the seeds inside his chest to gravitate towards the tree.

Its branches began to spread out as it reached toward the heavens of his Origin Land, and golden leaves began to spread across it, and from those leaves came a cleansing rain that began to generate an ocean of pure Origin Essence.

Eos reached into himself and caught a drop on his new arm, and where it touched, the question that was his arm became something a little more certain and real.

This rain was not just Origin Essence; it represented one of the core parts of himself that was being expressed in the purest state possible.

It was like the cry of a child, or the surprised gasp of a blind boy who suddenly gained his sight and sees the light of the rising sun for the first time, and finally understands what that warmth that touched his skin in the morning truly meant.

“That was beautiful,” a voice said behind him.

The voice was eerily familiar, coming from someone who he once thought was his family.

Eos turned around to see Primordial Life wearing the form of Old Man Seed.

He had not joined Xylos in attacking him, nor did he run; instead, he seemed to be waiting.

Eos gestured at the body worn by Primordial Life, “You would wear a body of a so-called lower lifeform. This body is weak; it was made with materials from Eosah’s Reality, and that Reality is far more broken than this Existence. Are you sure that you want to face me wearing something like that? Also, do not forget its history… You can spare yourself unnecessary pain if you do not anger me at this moment.”

Primordial Life suddenly grinned, “I have always liked this body, but never thought I would get to wear it. A shame, now that I do…” he bent his waist back and forth and stretched his arms, “… I think I have fallen in love with it.”

Eos cocked his head to the side, surprised at the actions of Primordial Life.

“You killed my brother,” Vorthas said, and his voice was not angry or afraid, as if everything that had happened here was not related to him. Eos almost thought that he sounded almost… curious. “You took what he was and made it something new. Can you do that to me?”

Eos turned to face him. The thousand eyes in his crown focused on Vorthas, and in each one, the Primordial saw a different reflection of himself. A creator. A destroyer. A gardener. A gravedigger.

In this moment, he understood that Vorthas, as the Primordial of Life, was more in tune with life than any of the Ancient Primordials, and he knew that his life was about to end.

With this knowledge, Vorthas chose not to run or fight; instead, he set down his burden and wanted to face the end with dignity.

Did he deserve a dignifying end? No, but at the moment, Eos was not here to judge, only make the slate clean, and in many ways, he could see that the Ancient Primordials were like him, but their only sins were the fact that they had weak minds and weaker convictions.

Primordial Life, at the end of his life, chose to have a spine, and Eos respected this.

“What would you become?” Eos asked. “If I gave you the choice?”

Vorthas was silent for a long moment. His form rippled until it showed the verdant rot that had consumed so much in the cracks growing on his skin.

Inside him, something else was visible. Something that had been buried in him since the moment of his creation.

“I don’t know,” he said finally. “I don’t know what I would be without the hunger. Without the need to consume. Without the…” He stopped. His voice cracked. “Without the pain.”

Eos’s new arm reached out, and this time, when he touched Vorthas, he did not transform; he waited a moment as if he wanted to be sure that he was making the right choice.

“You were made to consume,” Eos said. “To destroy. To end. That is what your creator wanted. But you are more than what you were made to be. You always were. You just never had a choice.”

Vorthas’s form shuddered. The cracks in his skin widened, and from them, light began to emerge.

Eos’s eyes widened a bit because this light was not the light of his transformation; it was softer, as if it had been waiting in the darkness of Vorthas’s being since the moment of his birth.

“I remember,” Vorthas whispered. “I remember what it was like. Before the hunger. Before the need. When I first became Primordial Life, I remember the first life I ever made. A single flower. Growing in the dark. I watched it bloom, and I—” His voice broke. “I was happy.”

The light from his cracks intensified, and Eos did not have to transform him. Vorthas was doing it himself.

The verdant rot that had composed his body began to peel away, revealing what had been underneath all along. Not a monster. Not a destroyer. Something that had been waiting to be born since the first seed was planted in the first soil.

He was a garden.