The Primordial Record

Chapter 2194  The Hunger Is Still Here

The seals he had placed on Enoch’s head traveled from his head and covered Eos’s fingers, causing it to dig into Enoch’s head. Eos began to pull, and the core of End was screaming.

The Luminious had the bloodline of End, but End could not create, and so what this meant was that their bodies were forged from Origin, even though it had been distorted by the power of End.

This distortion was considered to be permanent, but Eos thought differently, and at the moment, he was pulling out the Origin from Enoch, and what that fundamentally meant was that he was trying to tear Enoch in two!

Eos saw weakness, and he was not one to take half measures. If there was a chance to drastically weaken Enoch, he was taking it before the creature of End realized what he was up to.

Like a midwife giving birth to a stubborn child who refuses to leave the womb, Eos dragged another screaming Enoch from the face of his colossal body.

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Eos dragged a pale and slimy creature with malformed wings from the face of Enoch, and he changed his grip to grab this creature by the neck, whose face, although distorted, still held the handsome feature of Enoch’s Luminious form.

As he pulled, the Origin body of Enoch opened his eyes, which were blue and filled with confusion for a moment before he began to scream.

Eos could understand what this Origin Enoch was screaming; this was the scream of a being who had been seen for the first time, his true nature unclouded by the malice of End, and there was nothing to hide what he had done from reaching his consciousness.

Every life he had taken, every Realities shattered and Existence consumed, everything became imprinted in his mind, and without End to shield him from his actions, Enoch could only scream.

He was a Luminious of great power, and so the prospect of madness was not a solace for him, and he could only scream and scream while begging for death.

The cathedral of suffering that was his body was still frozen in place, and then it began to shatter. As it shattered, more memories of what Enoch was before the power of End corrupted him grew deeper.

The moment when Enoch, young and hopeful and whole, had looked at the void and seen nothing but potential. The moment when he had reached out and made the first light. The moment when he had held a newborn universe in his hands and felt something that had no name in any language that had ever been spoken… The moment when he had been happy.

Enoch stopped screaming because the pain he felt at that moment had exceeded the limits of pain, and if he were not truly a being with a great and powerful heart, anyone else would have perished. Eos acknowledged this; Enoch was dangerous even in this form.

“I remember,” Enoch whispered, “I remember what it was like to create… to dream… to love.”

Eos bent his head to the side, his eyes flashed, and he slowly held out his second hand, and imprinted on it was the shape of his Destroyer. If Enoch willingly took his hand, then he would perish.

“Then come home,” Eos said. “Come home and rest. The labors of eternity have weighed heavily on your soul; it is only fair that you should lay down your burdens and return to nothing… You have earned your peace.”

Enoch looked at the outstretched hand, and he knew what waited for him was true death, but the pain of living like this was just too much for him to bear. He deserved this peace; he needed rest from the endless nightmares.

He smiled, and he took Eos’s hand, and his form began to dissolve into nothing, causing a pillar of light to erupt from his flesh and push back the darkness of the void, as the Destroyer shattered all he was to nothing.

The fragments that had composed him, Echo, Stillness, Emptiness, Paradox, Sorrow, began to emerge. When Eos had dragged out the Origin form of Enoch, he had also affected these ones as well, and they did not have the hunger of End, appearing more like children returning to a father who had been waiting for them since the beginning of time.

They, too, could not stand the strain of surviving with their memories and followed Enoch into dissolution.

Echo’s form was no longer a symphony of screams but a lullaby.

“Thank you,” it whispered. “Thank you for remembering us.”

Stillness came second; his form was a gentle breeze when he had once been a glacier terror.

“We were so alone,” he said. “We were so afraid. Thank you for bringing is peace.”

Emptiness followed, appearing like a garden waiting to be planted.

“Feed us,” it whispered. “You have fed us with hope, and at the end, I am satisfied.”

Behind him was Paradox, her form now a dance of possibilities, where once she had been a knot of contradictions

“We were lost,” it said. “We were so lost.”

Sorrow came fifth, and he looked deeply at Eos, recognizing the trick that was used to destroy them, but appreciating it all the same.

“And now,” he whispered, “now we are found.”

The pillar of light began to bend towards the tree, because everything that was Origin returned to it in time. Enoch had faded until he was almost nothing, and he watched his fragments return to the Origin Tree, take root in its soil, and watched them bloom, and in that blooming, he found peace.

“Thank you,” he whispered, “Thank you for saving me.”

Eos pulled back his hand, the Destroyer glowing from the bounty of ending a being as powerful as Enoch. “You saved yourself,” Eos said. “I just helped you remember.”

Everything should be over, but Eos was not relaxed, because after the Origin Form of Enoch was vanquished, he could still sense Enoch.

It would seem that destroying his Origin Form was not enough to undo what he had become. The hunger was still there, wrapped around his core like a serpent, whispering in his ear like a lover, feeding on his essence like a parasite.

In the shattered remnants of Enoch’s colossal body, the core of End was beating furiously, and the mind of Enoch was rising from its depths.