Chapter 172 Palace of Ice (final)
When Rowan woke up, he was alone in the plain, except for the Ouroboros Serpent that curled around him. They had reduced their sizes, and their watchful eyes covered both the heavens and the earth.
Nothing could come through them. He ran his hands down their scales, and even though they existed in a void inside his heart, they were still warm. He almost wanted to snuggle deeper into those scales and sleep.
But now he knew that with this new bloodline, he could no longer rest or sleep. For everyone else, sleeping was too akin to dying, they would not remember the moments of their rest.
For him, however, sleeping holds no solace, even in the darkness of sleep, he was aware, and inside that darkness, time had no meaning, and it almost seemed like he had spent a thousand years alone inside of it.
Rowan drew strength from the heat of the Ouroboros Serpents, unlike the chill he felt inside his Soul. This new bloodline made him want to curl up in silence and forget all of existence.
Except for her. He could feel her gaze around his Spirit, and in that darkness he had felt someone else there with him, and there was an open hand that was hard to discern inside that endless black.
The hand spoke to him of comfort and forgetfulness, of peace and the allure of death. It told him to rest his burdens on her shoulders and all will be well.
Fu*k that!
Rowan gritted his teeth and stood up. He was no man, and he would never let his bloodline control him.
If the Ouroboros Bloodline threatened to consume his flesh and dominate his body, he would crush it with his will.
If the Avatar of Eve wanted to control his Soul, then she would have to wait until the end of time.
They were his bloodline, and he would not allow them to dominate.
His senses swept through the plains, there was no Ice palace or Angels, except for the entire plain that was empty of bodies and the fading scars where reality was slowly patching itself, it all resembled a dream.
Rowan senses swept through his body and he saw that his body felt strained, almost like he was under a similar curse like those he received from the goddess, but with the State of his Ouroboros bloodline, he could fight it.
He began burning his vitality, from one percent slowly up to forty-five percent, but the feeling of ice in his veins persisted and then he realized the sensation of chill was not harming him, what was emanating such a cold was his Soul or rather his lack of it.
His Ice–Fire soul that was unique and was the element of his human identity.
It was gone.
Rowan knew every Empyrean bloodline activation brought with it, significant changes. He had lost his mortal body when he activated the Ouroboros Bloodline.
Now he had lost his Soul with the activation of Avatar of Eve. The chill he was feeling was from a body deprived of a soul. How was he still alive?
His Soul was nothing but a void and his Spatial Sight was also gone, for its roots were based around his Soul Sight.
Rowan nearly laughed in frustration, this new bloodline was appearing more and more like a mistake.
How much more was it going to take from him?
He had depended so much on his Spatial Sight that he hardly used his senses. He had always fought against the view shown to him by his eyes because it just separates the world into two : power or the lack of it.
People below the Legendary State would resemble lumps of gray shadows—Meaningless. As he grew in power, he expected that view point to also grow with him.
When he reached the powers of a god, what would all of existence appear to him as?
He could still observe the world using his body, giving him a full 360° degree view of his surrounding, where he could literally taste sound and hear colors, but those senses were at first so alien to him, that he had unconsciously rejected them.
Spatial Sight was linked to his soul, and every time he had used it to touch the world, it was almost as if his soul were also touching it. The beauty of the world or its horrors entered his mind with no filter.
It made him full of love for something, or also full of hate for another, for his vision was being filtered by the perception of his soul.
Unknown to him, something that had contributed to Rowan remaining in humanity was his Spatial Sight. His Ouroboros body was an unbreakable shield, and it would have protected his soul from the world.
Kept him sacred and inviolable. He would have truly lost everything that made him enjoy being human, and he would have never realized it. He would have forgotten what it was like to be weak and human, truly forgotten it.
Spatial Sight served as a bridge to the world, and every one he saw, and every moment that passed within the gaze of his sights. All those passed the barriers of his Empyrean flesh and touched his soul.
Bringing him warmth and happiness, and love and joy, pain and pleasure, it kept him human.
It would be a lot harder for him now to ever feel those emotions again. The bridge was gone.
He felt loss and sorrow, for it was easy to pursue power, and even when it felt like he truly understood the consequences, it turned out that he might just be mistaken.
But, whatever regret he felt was dull and muted, as if it was meaningless to him. Such concerns were beneath him.
Rowan's eyes remained the same, the Avatar of Eve bloodline did not affect his physical body as much as the Ouroboros bloodline, yet his gaze had become colder than ice.
Whatever the benefits Spatial Sight gave him was gone.
This was the price for power.
Now you grow. Now you become. Now you conquer!
Rowan closed his eyes and went still for a while, and when he opened it once more, that coldness had retreated.
He was the master of his body.
This new bloodline of his, was never meant for the material universe, and except for his Six headed Ouroboros bloodline there would be no way to contain it.
Whatever it is, he would understand the bloodline, and he would conquer it. Perhaps his true battles were not against the world, it was also a battle with himself.
He would never win this battle against his bloodline, if he did not first learn to accept himself.
For the first time ever since the Nexus, Rowan completely opened himself to the world, let it stream into him.
He let himself see the world as an Empyrean for the first time. Without the aid of his Spatial Sight.
And, it was… Beautiful.
The world became divided into layers, and on each layer were countless wonders. With each layer, his Empyrean senses showed him, he was struck with awe.
He held out his hand, and the motion of its movement was music.
He could hear the heartbeat of this world, and for a few moment Rowan became incredibly aroused, as if he had just seen the most stunning woman he had ever met.
This sensation drove him out of his vision, and he looked below to see that he was indeed aroused, and his face went white.
This is interesting and disturbing at the same time.
Rowan sighed and looked into his Mental Space, he wanted to finish that talk with the Oracle before he was interrupted due to his lack of Spirit, then he saw his Mental Space was no longer empty of all but the Origin Treasure.
Now there was a palace of black and purple ice, and standing before this palace were 101 angels.