The Primordial Record novel Chapter 1774

Chapter 1774: I Have Their Memory

With a roar that tore from his very soul, Telmus channeled the pain of the lightning strike while using its chaotic energy as a catalyst. He didn’t fight the vines binding him; he focused his entire being into a single, upward diagonal cut with his will-blade. It was a cut that sought to divide the very sky, to sever fate itself.

This was the first time he was doing something like this, and even with his comprehension, there was a chance for failure; however, a quiet power of the cold breeze and the green leaves surrounding him seemed to aid his sword, and the move that was nearing perfection, instantly became perfect.

The blade passed through the vines, through the air, through the approaching vessel of Anthesterion, and through the crackling form of Hekaton in a single, flawless motion.

The thorned vines ceased to exist. The vessel of Anthesterion stopped moving. Its blooming-rotting cycle froze. Then, a clean, diagonal line appeared across its torso. The top half slid from the bottom, both parts crumbling into inert, meaningless earth before they could hit the ground.

’Three.’

A tiny vine like a snake began to circle around Telmus, and he turned towards the vessel of Hekaton, who similarly had been cleft in two.

But being pure energy, it didn’t crumble. It dissipated. The contained lightning, finally free, exploded outward in a spectacular, harmless shower of sparks and light that briefly illuminated the entire arena before fading into nothing.

’Four.’

Those sparks surrounded Telmus like stars as he turned towards Metagei and Maimak in their Golem bodies. They both charged at him, enraged, their bodies freely bleeding magma-fissure as they resembled battering rams of stone and fury.

Telmus, suddenly feeling a wave of exhaustion, nearly fell to his knees, but his Will held him steady. He was wounded and exhausted, but the elimination of four foes had shifted the balance. His will felt sharper and clearer despite his weakening body.

Maimak attacked Telmus, who brought his blade to defend, but the titan suddenly vanished, and in the split moment where Telmus’s form was a bit out of order, Metagei, as a fiery golem who had been coming behind, threw a punch that could shatter a Primordial Domain.

Telmus felt the cold hand of death touch his soul. In fact, he thought he could see a black crow at the edge of his perception, and he responded the only way he knew how: he brought up his sword, while growling inside his head,

’I cannot be defeated!’

He did not use a form; instead, he used a principle. Telmus’ growth in this battle had been insane, as his Will strikes were slowly encroaching into the realms of Origin.

The principle he used was that of the weak defeating the strong. He didn’t meet the punch. He sidestepped it by a hair’s breadth, and as the massive stone arm passed him, he laid his will-blade against the deep fissure in its chest.

He didn’t need to cut. The Golem’s own momentum did the work. It essentially ran itself through on his blade. The absolute edge of negation met the raging magma heart within.

There was a silent, internal detonation. The magma, the source of its power, was negated. The light in its stony eyes died. The granite body froze, mid-motion, and then cracked apart into a million mundane, lifeless stones.

’Five.’

A burning heart of stone arose from the broken golem and began to circle Telmus. The heat emerging from it healed his wounds and slowly removed the pain he was feeling.

All this time, the remnants of the Ancestors of Trion circling him had been pouring strength into his body, but because Telmus had been using so much power, he had not felt the effect. With the addition of the fifth remnants, the revitalization effect grew potent enough that Telmus was able to feel himself healing better and faster than his innate resilience could achieve.

Only two remained: the vessel of Truiplop, its fungal blooms now weeping a black, tar-like substance, and the vessel of Maimak, who no longer took the Golem form of Metagei but became the ice of Yuleti.

These two titans hesitated. Telmus’s relentless, technical perfection in dismantling their siblings had instilled something alien in their stolen essences that they could not define, but it aided them in pushing the corruption of Xylos aside for a brief moment.

Enough for Telmus to look across and see who they were... their true form and spirit under the corruption of the demon. He nodded at them, an acknowledgement to his ancestors, and they smiled at him.

Their gazes held for a brief moment before the furious Will of Primordial Demon suppressed it.

Xylos’s consciousness, now confined to these two vessels, raged silently. This was not possible, but Rowan had found a way to break the Agreement in a manner that Primordial Demon could not refute.

Telmus stood. He was bleeding, burned, frozen, and crackling with residual energy. But he stood tall. His white hair was a banner of defiance. His black skin was sheened in sweat and blood, a map of his endurance. His will-blade was steady in his hand, its darkness seeming deeper, more absolute than ever.

He looked at the two remaining vessels, and despite the corruption of the demon, he saw not monsters, but perversions. He saw the stolen legacy of forests and glaciers.

"You took their power," Telmus said, his voice hoarse but carrying across the silent arena. "But you never understood it. A forest is not just growth. It is patience. It is community. It is a system. A glacier is not just cold. It is time. It is persistence. You saw only the force, not the wisdom behind it."

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