The Primordial Record

Chapter 2190  The End of Hope

It almost felt unfair that Existence was ending in such a manner, and that all of its life forms should be mourning the passing of the torch, but there was nothing to mourn about these changes, and everything to celebrate.

From this point forward, Eos had escaped the painting; by not stretching it out, he remade it.

As Existence shattered, it was possible to see the strange void between Existences, and now it was no longer empty as the light and song of the growing Origin Tree swept across the darkness.

This void was never supposed to be black and empty. The light of Origin should have filled it up, but the Great One preferred the shadows, and this shadow had been broken, and the light of Origin was beginning to spread.

However, much of the old Existence still remained, and it would take a while before it was completely destroyed. Enoch could no longer hold back his fear, and he attacked, his massive body crossing the shattering Existence to crush Eos and his growing Origin Tree.

Eos raised his right hand, and around his wrist were what looked like six golden and black bangles. He gestured towards the charging Enoch, causing the bangles to fly out of his wrist and transform to the massive form of his Origin Ouroboros mid-flight.

It was a good thing that Existence was on its way to destruction, and there were no more Realities inside of it because the massive bodies of the Origin Ouroboros would have crushed nearly all life inside of it.

Their size was nearly impossible to measure as only the top of their bodies emerged from the breaking dimension of space-time, making it impossible for their true size to be determined. It was eerily possible that Existence, as it was, could no longer contain the serpents; they had simply grown too big!

Perhaps if the old Existence had been given the time to expand for many billions of Cosmic Eras, then it would have been able to comfortably contain beasts of this size, but for now, it was much too small.

The serpents and Enoch slammed into each other. Enoch had the weight of a hundred dead Existences behind him, making each step he took to be the death of a trillion Realities, and his breath was the silence after the last scream, and each of his thoughts was the end of a possibility that had never been born.

But what did it mean to these serpents whose endless hunger that had been satisfied from feeding on Origin had been cut off, and the only source of energy was moving towards them? Enoch may be the most powerful being in the collapsing Existence, but to these serpents, he was nothing but food.

Their bodies shattered Existence, moving through the void and out of it as their scales had to anchor into the fabric of non-existence, just for their weight to be borne.

Their maws opened so wide that the ten thousand Origin Realm would fit inside it with space to spare, and the fangs of the serpents would make a primordial shark tremble in shame.

Everything seemed to freeze when their scaly bodies slammed into Enoch, and they began to tear into him, pouring oceans of venom into his body, while wrapping him under their coils, and shifting their weight away from Existence and placing them upon the body of Enoch.

In that instant, their golden black bodies became even more solid as a weight that could crush everything radiated from them; even Primordials would be crushed to nothing trying to come close to the serpents from the aura of their weight alone, and Enoch’s speed was slowed to a crawl.

“Do you think this changes anything?” Enoch roared, “You think your little garden can stop me? I have consumed Existences. I have unmade Origin Avatars. I am the end that your creator feared. And you and your children…” multiple arms burst out of his body and wrapped around the throats of the serpents, pulling them away from his body, “…are nothing.”

More hands appeared around Enoch to push back the serpents, but their weight was not something that could be extinguished, as it was an intrinsic part of them. Enoch grunted in anger, knowing that he would have to kill these serpents if he wanted to reach Eos and stop him from destroying Existence in this manner.

“I am not nothing,” Eos said, and his voice was soft, as if he was not worried about Enoch reaching him. “I am what you could have been. If you had chosen differently, hoped differently.”

Enoch’s grip tightened, and from his core, the power of End began to flow without restraint, creating a gauntlet of End around each of his arms, and this gauntlet began releasing a vast amount of End into the bodies of the serpent, causing them to roar in pain as they began to wither. However, this only brought out the tyranny buried in the bones of the serpents, and they attacked more cruelly, as they all struck Enoch’s face, attempting to tear his head off his body.

“You all are not worthy!” Enoch roared, and his entire body erupted like a supernova. The power of End tore through the bodies of the serpents, and they roared in anguish as their bodies glowed a sickening black color before they exploded.

The blast was so powerful that it shattered all of Enoch’s arms, and it destroyed all the scales of the serpents as well as their heads, leaving their massive bodies to retract into the void, as their necks spewed out massive amounts of Origin Essence.

Enoch watched them vanish, and he smirked, recreating multiple new arms and walking towards Eos.

“Hope?” Enoch’s laugh was the sound of an Existence being unmade. “Hope is weakness. Hope is the reason I was shattered. Hope is the reason I was born alone. Hope is the reason I am becoming the end of all things.”

He stopped before Eos and pressed his face closer to his own.

“I will show you what hope really is,” Enoch whispered. “Hope is the hunger that consumes all things. Hope is the need that can never be satisfied. Hope is the end that comes for everything, eventually.”