The Primordial Record-Chapter 1205: For My Flame

The crystal of Aetherium he held carried an ephemeral weight, and as he brought it closer to the sphere it was as if he could hear faint screams emerging from it, and looking closer at the crystal would reveal that the three swirling streams of colors that were inside was rotating faster than before, making the dark crystal almost glow purple.

"Here goes nothing," Rowan whispered as he pushed the entire Aetherium crystal into the rune fractal, it was accepted into it with a dull metallic clink and a sigh as if something that had been meant to happen for a long time had finally been fulfilled, and the vibrating sphere unexpectedly imploded.

Rowan braced for the third announcement from the mysterious voice, but he did not get it, and he thought he might know the reason, the process was not yet complete. Then he chose to focus on what the sphere had become after this transformation, and the closest description he had of it was a black hole.

It did not suck in any light or had any attractive force that he could sense and was entirely silent, and if not for its massive size, it would almost look unreal, it was even glowing with all the colors of Rowan's varied powers, and it resembled a vortex that was leading to somewhere unknown,

"Or a doorway bringing something in here..."

Rowan frowned, again that voice that came to him from nowhere, almost as if he could hear it in his mind or beside his ears, it was hard to pinpoint. With the power of his soul and mental abilities, it was sort of ridiculous that he could still be plagued by unknown whispers, his biggest fear was that this whisper should not be coming from the Eye of Time or the World's Will, if this was the case, then he considered himself to be fucked.

"As soul-crushing as that might be to witness. This whisper is coming from you, a part of you that you cannot see. You should trust in yourself that you will never leave it that vulnerable."

"If what you say is true, let me see them, these hidden parts of me" Rowan replied. This was not the first time he was talking to himself, and Rowan had endured stranger encounters, and he did not find talking to a mysterious part of himself to not be normal, his powers had reached the extent where nothing was out of the table. There was a picture here he was not seeing the entirety of, but what he instinctively knew was that his hands were the ones responsible for painting them.

"I cannot show you for you are not yet whole. Now that you have a soul, you can try to draw out your heart once more, although I doubt you would have the time until everything is over. We are so very close now to the end, and you have met our expectations and exceeded them."

This missing part of himself, was this referring to the last portion of his dimension? Anyway, instead of debating with an unknown voice inside his mind, Rowan would rather investigate the result of this so-called doorway he had just summoned, and at the earliest convenience he was going to paint, now that he had his soul again, he was curious what would come of it.

He began to extend his perception into the vortex but was interrupted by the voice, "Before you are completed, do not go too deep into the Memory, or you will be lost. That would be a rather amusing way to end our story."

"Hmm... A memory," Rowan muttered as he resumed his investigation, but this time he went more slowly, and he gingerly reached for the vortex, and a portion of his consciousness went blank.

R

Rowan had become extremely familiar with traversing the Memory/mind dimension after spending centuries inside the Memory of Shisu, and with the warning of the voice combined with what he understood about the sixth dimension, he knew that he had just entered a new Memory.

However, this one was different. It was detailed and solid in a way that Shisu's Memory was not, and it did not take long to understand the reason for that, for the devil was in the details.

This Memory was extremely thorough and yet was lacking a substantial amount of extra information which was not surprising when he knew that he was just grasping gently and was barely skimming the surface.

It was words from a familiar person that he first heard and then the memory opened up for him in vivid detail, and Rowan could not help but smile,

"I have always thought the solution to every problem would be in your hands." the voice said, and then he heard his voice replying,

"How I wish that were to be the case. However, what I have learned in my life is that to be a good leader, it is not about having all the answers, it is knowing who does."

Like a gray picture that was acquiring color, the memory focused and Rowan tried not to be distracted by the separate part of himself that was inside the mental space and the one sucked in the Memory, traversing Memory was different from simply splitting up his consciousness and multi-tasking, it was draining in a manner that could not be easily explained.

The Memory opened up and he saw himself, and Rowan had to pause for a while as he observed his full form that he had not seen for a million years.

He was wearing a disguise that reduced his beauty by a large margin but he was still stunning. Armored in gold, with long hair that resembled threads made of diamonds, he radiated strength and majesty and would instantly be the focus anywhere he entered, beside him was another equally stunning man, that would shake the minds of anyone who saw him, yet he was overshadowed by Rowan's presence.

No one could equal Rowan's light, even when he tried to soften it.

The man was tall, nearly seven feet, but beside Rowan who was almost eleven feet tall, he still appeared average. He had black hair and shiny silver eyes and wore a long gray jacket with silver trimmings, and the shadow that he cast was not of a man, but a creature with enormous wings and tentacles, this man was Andar, the Magus.

"How long do I have to do this?" Andar spoke, his voice was strong, and although he had expressed concern before about the risk involved in this project, when it came time for him to step up for his mission, he did not falter.

"For as long as you can. I will not give you any task that you will have to perform long after you want to quit. At the moment you think you can not go on any longer, there are measures already put in place to ensure your smooth retrieval."

Andar shook his head, "but that does not suit your purpose and my own, does it? How else can I find my answer?"

"Yes, it does not suit me at all, that world," Rowan pointed below, "I want it, for my Flame."