The Primordial Record - Chapter 2197 Which Strength Did You Earn?
Chapter 2197 Which Strength Did You Earn?
That single arrow consumed almost half of Eos’s energy store, and while he was gasping at the pain he was experiencing from his essence being erased by End, he was also watching Enoch convulse in absolute agony as his body was shredded.
Origin and End, being erased at the same time.
It was almost funny to him that, for an entity that was responsible for most of the pain across all Existences, they did not seem to be able to handle this pain when it was given to them.
But he was not surprised. Most of the time, the ones who hurt others the most did not know what it meant to be hurt in the same manner.
Enoch screamed, and his arms, even the one that had been severed, clawed at his chest, trying to find the wound and closing it. But there was nothing to close.
The arrow had erased the moment of his beginning, and without that moment, his body was unraveling. The End that made up that part of him was gone forever.
“You dare shatter my light…” Enoch gasped, ichor bubbling from the wound that would not heal, “…I am End, and I will tear your efforts to shreds… Everything you have—”
Eos vanished from his position, and he was in front of Enoch, and he whispered, “You have not learned anything. It was better you were reborn as a mortal and struggle till you found invincibility, and now, you are mine.”
From the moment he vanished and reappeared before Enoch, the bow had transformed into a dagger of possibility. A possibility of maybe and what if.
Enoch roared in anger, and he began to move, but it was too late as Eos drove the dagger into Enoch’s throat.
The blade went in at the base of the neck, just above the collarbone, and slid through flesh that was not flesh, through muscle that was not muscle, through whatever held Enoch’s head to his body. Eos pushed until the hilt pressed against the wound and the tip of the blade emerged from the back of Enoch’s neck, dripping ichor and something else.
The thing might have been marrow, memory, or the screaming of End facing its end.
Enoch’s hands closed around Eos’s wrist; his grip was crushing, even now, with his body unraveling, his Origin form erased, and his throat impaled, he was strong, but strength like this was nothing to Eos.
He wanted to show Enoch the depths at which he had fallen, and then break the mind of this destroyer.
“Can you not see,” he whispered even as the bones of his wrist cracked, “That you are the one holding End back. I am Origin, and you are End, but you cannot even handle this crown. Everything you have was given to you. Tell me, Enoch, which of your strengths did you earn?”
Enoch screamed in anger, and this time his voice was not layered, and an eruption of power greater than any explosion ever was blasted out from his body. Eos could have made defensive actions, but he knew those were useless, and so he braced himself to endure it.
He was right, Enoch could not wield the power of End properly. He was a child given the strength to crush worlds, but did not know any basic application of the rules of reality. That part of him, the part of the creator that yearned for the wonders behind all things, was gone.
If he was given time to grow, then sure, there were many ways for Enoch to change and grow alongside End, but why would Eos give him that time?
Inside the explosion, the light in Eos’s crown flickered, and the Origin Tree behind him shuddered, its branches shedding worlds like leaves in autumn.
Many budding worlds were destroyed to keep him alive, and this hurt more than he wanted. He had run out of Ether and Essence, and there was a void inside of him where something new was brewing, but without completing his fusion with Existence, that new energy could not appear… now to live and fight, he had to consume worlds.
These worlds were not like the lower-dimensional worlds; in a sense, they were all mini Existences that were rapidly growing, and in any of the worlds, there would be countless realities and dimensions.
This was what Eos was becoming; all of this was what he was fighting to preserve, and he knew that sacrifices must be made for him to prevail in the end.
The scream of the tree behind him shook the void, and Eos’s eyes grew red.
“You are nothing,” Enoch hissed, ichor spraying from his throat, chest, and from the wound where his arm used to be. This had been struggling to reattach itself without success, and it was slowly wilting away. “You are a child. A temporary thing. I have seen a billion of you rise. I have watched a billion of you fall. And I will watch you fall too…”
Eos headbutted him, driving his forehead, his actual forehead, the bone and flesh and light that composed his face, into the absence of Enoch’s face that glowed like the sun.
The impact was the kind of thing that would shatter the previous Existence if it happened anywhere near them.
Enoch’s head snapped back. The dagger in his throat twisted, and the wound widened, and ichor sprayed in a black arc that painted the void behind him.
Eos didn’t stop, he could not stop, because every action he was making was born from the sacrifices of countless lives.
He pulled the dagger out and drove it in again. And again. And again.
Each strike was a different Origin, as every part of Existence needed to give itself to this final battle.
Enoch began to scream as mouths tore from all over his body, and from each mouth’s hands emerged, trying to grab the knife, but each stab and sound that was caused was a different truth.
The Origin of Light carved through Enoch’s cheek. The Origin of Laughter pierced his eye, the Origin of Fire seared his chest, burning through ichor and bone and whatever was underneath, and more Origin Forces rampaged in Enoch’s body in a stunning act of violence that shook the void.
