The Primordial Record

Circe was not startled by his unexpected appearance; her connection with Rowan was deeper than most would expect or understand. Still, Archimedes nearly leaped out of her skin, hissing like a scared viper. The Lightning Kirin beat her small black wings with annoyance, and bolts of blue lightning illuminating the surroundings emerged from them before they faded into harmless sparks. She looked away with a little huff. Her behavior was unbecoming of a higher-dimensional being, Archimedes thought in despair.

"Welcome back, Romion, and I am sorry for what will happen to Maeve. I trust that they shall pay for this transgression in blood and screams. Everything you asked for has been prepared, my lord."

Circe spoke gently, the hint of fire in her tone could barely be contained, and Archimedes looked at her in confusion, not understanding the entire words being spoken by her mistress.

"The War Room is ready for your supervision."

Rowan nodded, his smile fading. He always tried to show a picture of gentleness when he was with his children, hiding the wrath and the pain inside his heart, but his connection with Circe meant that he did not need to do this because she understood him.

"Lead the way."

Circe bowed and turned around, her blue dress swirling around her like a blooming rose as she began heading deeper into the Booze Palace. This building was small on the outside but extremely massive on the inside. It contained areas that others could not access using fundamentals related to Rowan's ability to fold his dimensional space into a small area, yet retain all its internal volume.

Passing through many passages and doors that would confuse the mind of an average immortal, even though this was not the point of their creation, Circe finally led Rowan to a nondescript wooden door similar to the hundreds they had passed along the way, and she opened it while stepping to the side.

Something flashed briefly on the surface of the door, and it was the image of the Tower of Greed, Rowan's Source Level treasure of Time that he had integrated with this door in preparation for what was to come.

This ensured that everything inside this room was cut off from the current flow of time and space, and because it was a Source-Level treasure, Memory, Fate, and Destiny were forbidden from entering this place.

If anyone searched for this room, it would not exist in their mental landscape, and Rowan wanted it to remain this way.

Within the room, there was simply a large wooden table that appeared to be crafted out of wood, and several similar chairs clustered around it. This table was identical in design to the one seen in the vision of Primordial Time's death, and Rowan recreated it as a symbolic gesture.

If a Primordial had been killed upon a table such as this one, it would serve as a potent reminder of the task he was about to undertake, where he would have to kill Primordials.

Walking to the head of the table, Rowan sat on the chair and glanced back for a bit as he noticed the seat was subtly transforming to fit his Aura.

From wood, its materials began to darken until they had the texture of charcoal, yet interspersed throughout its form were pale golden lines that resembled branches that wrapped around the entire chair—creation in the midst of Destruction.

Rowan looked to his side where Circe was standing, her hands folded in front of her stomach, and Archimedes resting on her shoulders, who was looking at Rowan with bright, expectant eyes. The Lightning Kirin should not be here. Soon, the forces he would begin unleashing would be so mighty that they would destroy her in body and soul just from being close to him, but seeing her enthusiasm, he decided to let her remain for as long as she could last.

Tapping the table with the index finger of his right hand, Rowan spoke aloud,

"Let us see what we have."

The air seemed to shift as a subtle booming sound echoed, and the table before him transformed into the image of Reality.

If this image had been static, it would have been seen as an enormous accomplishment because not even Old Ones could claim they had mapped out all of reality. But Rowan had taken it a step further and made it dynamic. He was looking at the current state of the entirety of reality at a glance!

Well, he should not say the entirety; it was mostly the surface of reality, but it was still extremely astonishing.

He could hear the Lightning Kirin's gasp of shock. Her eyes were opened so wide that it did not take long for them to bleed, and before long, Archimedes went blind. But she furiously blinked her eyes, pouring essence into them so she could heal. Then she returned to staring at reality with awe in her eyes.

A faint storm began to encircle the black cat, and Rowan looked on in appreciation and surprise as the Lightning Kirin began to break through.

It had barely been six hundred thousand years when she made her breakthrough to the fourth dimension, and with her talents, it was likely that she would need at least tens of millions of years to reach the fifth dimension, which on the grand scale of reality was still a very short time. However, she had gained a fortuitous encounter today as she saw reality spread out in a way that even Old Ones might never witness in their lifetime.

This perspective, showing the true breadth of space, was enough to trigger a transformation of her understanding of the fifth dimension, and it was more than enough fuel to boost the Lightning Kirin to the fifth-dimensional level.

Rowan smiled at the changes within her, knowing she would scale through with no danger. Gesturing for Circe to take Archimedes to a safe location for her upgrade and Tribulation, he turned towards the table.

Booze Palace contained many dimensions within which Archimedes could safely ascend. Each wooden door was backed by the energy of the Tower of Greed, leading into dimensions that Rowan had painstakingly created. Because he did not want to taint any of his personal abodes with the touch of normal space, this was simply allowing Primordial Chaos a window into his operations.

Bowing toward Rowan before she left, Circe hurriedly carried Archimedes, whose body began seizing up as a shell of blue lightning began to cover her up.

Circe had also looked at reality spread before them, but she did not have as much reaction despite not even touching the higher dimensions, and Rowan knew that it was because the weight she bore was greater than what was shown here, and she was the only one he could trust with it.

Circe was holding a large part of his Memories, which were powers at the sixth-dimensional level and higher, and she bore them with a grace that astonished him.

Finally left alone with the Map of Reality, Rowan allowed his mind to sink into it, as his glowing gaze zoomed toward all the Primordial Domains at the same time.