The Primordial Record novel Chapter 2048

Chapter 2048: Step Forward For My Mercy

There was a difference between knowing that there was a possibility of death for a Primordial and seeing this happen in front of them. They all sensed Noctis’ final cries; his voice at the end had reached beyond Existence, into a place that none of the Primordials could sense, and yet, it did not seem to help him; he still fell, and his remains became stars.

Primordials were never meant to die, at least not in such an abrupt manner that the possibility of resisting was useless. There were levels to power, and it was a fascinating process to see when Eos finally revealed some of the distinctions. A fascinating process... but it did not make it any less scary.

A ripple passed through the ranks of the Primordials as Eos looked down from the sky and said,

"I will ask only once. Step forward. Name yourself Architect. Return the privilege of my Origin that you stole, and I will let you fall into the kind darkness you crave. There will be no unmaking of your souls inside the Temple, only a permanent exile from my light that you once swore to tend. This is the greatest mercy I can afford any of my enemies. I shall kill you again, but you won’t die as a Primordial of my Origin Realms."

The silence stretched with the weight of Eos’s words and from the gathering of Primordials whose radiances shone like suns, one of the suns drifted downward, drawing an uncomfortable ripple among the Primordials.

A member of the third generation of New Primordials, the Primordial of Dawn’s Whispered Oath was the one who descended, wings folding tight against her back as though ashamed of their own glow. Her aura, once seamless rose-gold, now showed thin cracks of ink running through it like veins of oil in water.

She was revealing the power of the Architect that ran through her body without holding back. What gave the Architects power in the Origin Realms was their belief that Eos could not kill them when they became one of his Primordials, and so with their superior talent, they quickly rushed to reach the ninth-dimensional level and be seeded inside his Origin Land.

They had been smart about the methods they used, ensuring that they paced their advancements so it did not look too suspicious, but what they did not know was that Eos had the method to kill the Architects more than fifty million years ago, after he killed Noctis multiple times.

It was a mistake for the Architects to believe that Eos would not be able to figure out a way to break the hold of a Primordial’s Origin on his essence when he had reached the fifth layer of one of the Ancient Origins and his understanding of space had exceeded any being to ever be born.

Eos regarded her without anger, only sorrow so vast it made the nearest stars dim for a heartbeat.

"You were never asked to balance me," he said. "You were meant to be my children, but you have lived outside of Existence for so long that the thing you called darkness and light are just ephemeral concepts to you. The darkness is not just darkness, it is the screams of mothers whose babies were ripped from their wombs, the cries of entire realities being put to the torch... I write the names of every one of the fallen, and yet they are so many that even I don’t think I will be able to complete this task. Now be quiet, and I will repeat my words again, step forward any Architect among my ranks or face true death."

The silence did not last for long before another Primordial stepped forward to stand beside the Primordial of Unspoken Oaths, and it was Saul, the Primordial of Nameless Hunger, who walked forward with opened empty palms in surrender.

Before long, another two more Primordials stepped forward, bringing the total to four.