The Primordial Record - Chapter 1818: Make Him The Villain
Chapter 1818: Make Him The Villain
In the depths of heaven, Asteraoth, Primordial Light, sat in darkness. He had sensed the tremors that erupted from all over Reality from the death of Chaos, Soul, Demon, and now Time.
His face was blank, and the thoughts that dwelled in his heart were unknown. In front of him, the first photon to ever leap from an electron waltzes around. Its presence was inconsequential in the larger scheme of things, but it did hold value and meaning to every life in this Reality, because it was a living testament to their history, and such things hold power.
Reaching across, Asteraoth snuffed it out, and then he smiled. From his beautiful face, a long black tongue snaked out to taste the last flavor of death left behind by the eradication of the first photon.
In the silence of this place, someone appeared. At the moment, he was not there. The next, he was. Elgorath, Primordial Memory, the First Cause, stood in the heart of heaven, wearing the body of the Adjudicator.
In the past, the Adjudicator had accepted the power of Light and had been somewhat submissive to its Primordial, but that time had passed, and the light of heaven flowed around Primordial Memory, he was no longer in a weaker position, the death of so many of their siblings had equalised the board, and now he was the only ally that Primordial Light could depend upon.
“You bring shadow, Elgorath,” Asteraoth slowly spoke, “Is this your answer to our doom?”
“No, brother, I bring context; everything has changed, and we need to change with it, or be left behind.” Memory gestured, a slow, fluid motion, and the air between them rippled.
The symphony of light in the depths of heaven flickered, and for a moment, a different scene was superimposed over it. The image was of Arena, not as it was, but as Primordial Memory held it: the terrifying, perfect forms of the five Primordials being challenged, the raw, unvarnished fury of Rowan’s speech, the silent, screaming unraveling of the Great Abyss, and the death of Primordial Demon.
Primordial Memory did not show the events; she made Light experience the memory of all the Primordials, with all its associated terror, shock, and the profound, paradigm-shattering realization of their own vulnerability.
All of heaven shook at the weight of these memories as a nearby constellation of newborn stars flared and died prematurely, their light turning a sickly, fearful yellow before winking out.
Surprisingly, Primordial Light smiled, “He is a storm. A chaotic, destructive force… but that is a lie. See the way he unmade the Abyss and shattered the Arena. He made sure to keep me here in heaven to counter Primordial Demon perfectly. How interesting…”
Primordial Memory frowned and then conjured another memory. “With the death of Soul, I was able to access some of her lost memories, see the history of this child, one that was hidden from us.”
The memory that appeared preceded Rowan’s rage. It showed a nascent Reality smothered in its cradle for the dreams of the Primordials. Showed the convoluted births and deaths of this child as he navigated a dead reality filled with the silent, grinding despair of a trillion civilizations living under the absolute, unchangeable law of beings who had grown bored and stagnant.
Primordial Memory made sure that Light felt what Rowan had felt; the immense, crushing weight of an eternity without growth, without hope, without destiny.
“Reality is dead and yet we gave these maggots a life worth living,” Primordial Light asserted, “See how the remnants rebel once something shiny takes center stage. All the peace we gave them was wasted; it only allowed a poisoned viper the chance to grow.”
“Rowan believes it was not peace we gave them but silence,” Primordial Memory pointed out. “The silence of a garden where only one type of flower is permitted to grow. And now a weed has broken through the stone, Brother. A weed with the power to shatter the very garden walls.”
Primordial Memory let the memory of Rowan’s confrontation with Primordial Demon flood the space. He did not show the battle itself, but the certainty in Rowan’s eyes.
The absence of rage had been replaced by the calm, terrifying resolve of a surgeon. The absolute conviction that he was not committing a sin, but performing a sacred task.
“He does not see himself as a destroyer,” Primordial Memory whispered, his form shimmering with the intensity of the shared recollection. “He sees himself as a physician… and we are the cancer. He will not stop and will come for what he believes to be the source of the sickness. He will come for us.
The light of Asteraoth’s form contracted, growing denser, brighter. The plain of Light Origin beneath their feet began to crystallize, the fluid light turning to a brittle, perfect diamond.
“Then we must be the scalpel that removes him,” Primordial Light coldly stated, in resonance. “We cannot reason with him, nor can we negotiate. He must be contained and used for our purpose; if that is impossible, then he should be erased.”
“With what army?” Primordial Memory snickered, “He took us apart with his bare hands and has killed so many of us. Or have you not seen that direct confrontation is the one language he has proven supremely fluent in? We have to change to match his might.”
With a gesture, Primordial Memory offered another memory, this one older, drawn from the deep, dusty archives of his own essence.
It was the memory of their own genesis into this Reality, the fragile, nascent flicker of their consciousnesses in the roaring chaos after the death cries of Eosah.
The memory was of a time when they were not absolute, but vulnerable, and they had to hide inside Algorth to consolidate their powers.
“We have forgotten how to be anything other than what we are,” he said. “We have defined ourselves as the top of the pyramid for so long that we have forgotten the strength that lies in the foundation. We have forgotten nuance. We have forgotten… subtlety.”
Primordial Light was silent for a long time. The symphony of light around them had stilled, holding a single, sustained, questioning note.
“What are you proposing, brother?” The light of his form now a focused, brilliant point, like a star contemplating its own collapse into a black hole.
The body of the Adjudicator shifted, as Primordial Memory revealed more of his true self via this shell, straining it to the limit; this body could hardly contain his excitement.
“I am proposing we remember that apart from our main bodies, we were not always supreme, we learn from the abomination. If he is the fever, we must become the immune system. We cannot be blunt with him; instead, we need targeted attacks to break his power.”
He began to paint a picture with memories and possibilities, his voice a low, compelling hum.
“We do not face him on a battlefield of his choosing. We do not challenge his strength. We challenge his purpose. He fights for a future free of our corruption. So, we must make that future impossible.”
“First, we sanitize the past.” Primordial Memory showed Primordial Light a vision of historians and scribes across a billion dimensions, suddenly ’discovering’ new, irrefutable evidence.
Evidence that painted the Primordials not as tyrants, but as benevolent shepherds who had sacrificed their own freedom to maintain a stable reality. Evidence that Rowan was not a liberator, but a mad dog, a primordial flaw who had always sought to unravel creation, and who had only now gained the power to do so.
“The death of the Abyss would be recast not as a liberation, but as the catastrophic release of every soul-destroying horror it had ever contained. We make him the villain of his own story. We turn his righteousness into a curse.”
