The Primordial Record

Chapter 1875: The Armies of Death (Final)

The Incarnation of Rowan inside the Cradle of Enoch had seen a small part of the face of infinity. In that space, he had seen bones that rained from the sky, their numbers so vast it could not be counted, but that awe-inspiring scene was nothing in the face of what faced the seven Primordials as they stood over the Regions of Death.

When Rowan had seen only a fraction of infinity, and these were mere bones, the Primordials faced an army that was truly infinitesimal in number. The army of the dead stretches across the battlefield like a cataclysmic swarm. Their numbers could only be possible due to the higher-dimensional state of Limbo, where space could be stretched for an infinite distance as long as there was one whose Will was strong enough to control all of that power. Death was a being whose Will was strong enough.

Having harvested the souls of the dead from every conceivable dimension in Limbo, the armies of the dead spread across the battlefield in numbers that could not be counted, yet this was still a fraction of their might.

Clustered around various points in the battlefield were countless generals, and each of them was a fractal infinity. This meant that each General was a nexus point where infinitely more legions could be summoned when needed.

This was the true meaning of infinity that pierced through multiple dimensions. Still, this was looking at the armies of the dead in a macro perspective; coming closer to their ranks would reveal the true horror of this army.

Be it the flickering soul of a mortal dreamer, the radiant core of a godling or celestial, the shaded core of an Abyssal, or the bio-luminescent pulse of alien flora, Death has plucked, drained, and woven all of these lives into the ranks of his army. No dimension remains untouched; the harvest of death is absolute.

The Primordials in their madness had left behind only husks of Realities, echoing voids where life once thrummed with great glory, and Death had ensured that nothing went to waste. Its Will had grown stronger the more of the dead it consumed, and finally, the result of more than a billion Cosmic Eras of foundation was revealed!

Yes, Death was truly ancient, among the first to ever exist.

The seven Primordials did not back down before this power, while it was true that the armies of the dead were infinite, so too were they, and in the end, the ones with the greatest foundation would come out on top.

The dead were silent, even as their numbers stretched across spacetime, widening like a gangrenous wound through multiple dimensional infinities.

Then, in the deepest layer of the Realm of Death, the voice of the Beast of Final Rest whispered,

“So, it begins, the final dance to end all light in Limbo. I was here from the beginning, yet you chose to forget my existence. Now you can no longer hide from my shade, and you wish to tear it down. Your stories all end here, step forward and meet your end!”

The entirety of Limbo trembled as Death unleashed his power and created a ground beneath his army’s feet, where the war to battle Primordials would be fought, and in the Cradle of Enoch, all the Realities that had been sending messages of calm and the joy of creation among themselves all froze in place, like deer caught in the light of a falling lightning bolt.

Outside of the Cradle, they knew that Limbo was a realm of death and desolation, where horrors powerful enough to destroy entire Realities roamed; however, the nature of that conflict was far from them. Under the light of the Cosmic Record and the guardianship of Ananke, the Beast of Inevitability, all Realities in the Cradle were safe.

They did not have to fear the onslaught of the Primordials and for nearly twenty million Cosmic Eras, no new Realities had been killed, although there were rumors of Realties outside the Cradle deep in Limbo that were still being hunted by the Primordials, such news could not be verified, and it was difficult to imagine that any new Reality could be born in a tainted space like Limbo.

Still, they had all felt that trembling… that surge of power that swept against the Cradle, and despite being shielded from it, all Realities found that seed of fear and doubt in their hearts that promised them they could never be safe bloomed once more.

In the distance, they all heard a roar; it came from Ananke, and the sound of that beast dispelled the doubts in their hearts to some degree. If there were any force in creation that could protect them from the horrors of Limbo, it would be Ananke.

Eos also felt that surge of power, and his eyes, which were closed, snapped open. “It has begun,” he whispered, and he knew that the time for hesitation was over. A new plan had been shaping up inside his head for a while, crazy and daring, but Eos knew that if he did not take this step, he would have no right to be a part of this battle.

Limbo was truly infinite, and there were Realities and other strange entities still roaming its depths that had not come across the Primordials, but they all felt the surge of power from Death, and they all knew that change was coming.

Back in the Realm of Death, the ground for battle had been made, and the dead in their silence began to walk towards their ultimate enemy.

The vanguard pours forth first, skeletal colossi forged from the calcified regrets of fallen empires, their bones etched with the screams of harvested billions, glowing with necrotic runes that pulse in rhythms stolen from dying hearts. Their powers stemmed from the many ninth-dimensional beings or the nascent ninth-dimensional beings that the Primordials had slaughtered or who had died even before the Primordials were born.

Each step they made carves the ground into multidimensional craters, where gravity warps into loops that would trap the unwary in eternal falls. Even the Primordials had to be wary of this. Their weapons are extensions of harvested agony: scythes spun from the condensed wails of extinct species, blades that slice not flesh but timelines, unraveling potential futures into threads of oblivion.

Behind them, the bulk of the army unfolds in layers that defy Euclidean sight.

There were no words spoken between the Primordials and the hosts of Death; their true enemy, the Beast of Final Rest, had not emerged. With their powers, the Primordials could also create armies of their own, but why would they need to do that after they had lived for so long behind he mask of proxies? Spreading their wings, the Primordials charged into battle.

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In the Cradle of Enoch, Rowan had been sitting on his throne of wood for eight thousand years as he pushed for the thirteenth level of the two nameless techniques. The boy had not visited him in all these years to demand that Rowan cook new meals. Rowan suspected that after devouring his mortal blood, the boy did not have any more interest in any of the food he might prepare for him.

Rowan did not think this was much of a loss because he had discovered something peculiar after feeding the child the food from his memories: the memories of the food began to change.

Where once a desert had been sweet or a roast extremely succulent and tasty, the new food in his memories tasted a bit different. It was as if his memory of that food had been altered. The change was incredibly slight, and if he hadn’t developed the habit of constantly reviewing his memories and consciousness while in this place, Rowan would have missed it.

However, Rowan believed that it was not his memory that had changed; it was the ingredients in Reality that had changed. Where once he knew that the color red was well, red, now the color red had always been blue.

With his perfect memory, he was able to discern that Reality as he knew it had become split in two. The first Reality that he remembered was swept to the side, and this new Reality took its place, almost as if it was forcing his mind to acknowledge that this was the new state of things and not the one he knew before.

“So, this is one of the functions of End,” Rowan muttered to himself.