The Primordial Record novel Chapter 1348

’The journey to the peak of existence was a road that was without end, why else do Primordials still strive? There is always something… Something more on the horizon, and the pursuit of power is an endless journey, that is what I crave.’

Unlike the other Reflections who had no knowledge about their main body, the eighth Reflection knew about him, and at the moment of his creation, he had glimpsed a bit of his creator’s spirit, and he had held on to them.

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The Reflection becoming a Demon Duke was also not the only good news as he was also able to enter deeper into the Sirens, passing the layer of the skin and entering the muscles.

This was significant, displaying that his merger with the realm was becoming deeper, his dimensional senses were merging with the realm with incredible ease, and it was only a matter of time before he fully possessed the Sirens.

The Reflection suddenly went still before he brought up his front paws and held his head in a very animated display of anguish, that in the body of a large fox was almost comical, the screams of Tenebris had increased in intensity, and of the many jumbles of words they were pushing into his consciousness, one of them was more prevalent,

"Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?!....."

These words that were once whispers slammed into his mind with the force of an exploding sun, and the Demon fox could only whimper in anguish. To assimilate the power of a Demon quickly enough, he had to separate a lot of qualities that made him more resilient to mental corruption, knowing the risk he still went ahead because he had sacrificed more time than he thought in order to find a method to assimilate a Demon Lord’s Essence, and he could not trust that the World Stele would enter this realm long before the time that it had previously stated that it did.

According to the World Stele, it found this realm several billions of trillions of years in the future, which was essentially many Minor Eras from now, and the Reflection should be calmly proceeding with his plans, but the Reflection didn’t trust those words, as it was very easy for the World Stele to disguise its tampering of Doom Star.

He did not want to be caught pants down in the act of merging with the realm, so he was pushing ahead with no safety guardrails, and although he would have still faced this same challenge if he proceeded more slowly, he would have been better prepared to handle them, but now he had no option but to manage his condition.

His constitution as a Heavenly Demon gave him a bit of a buffer, but his mind was rapidly being torn to pieces, the only thoughts he could hear were the screams of the Demon Lord, and he could not even give attention to his reasoning anymore under the strain of bearing these songs of lamentation.

"Why?! Why?! Why?! Why?!....."

The Reflection stayed like this for years, at first he thought he would adapt to the madness, but no matter how he trained his mental resilience to push ahead, the madness inevitably followed, there was no salvation for him, only madness, and his mind was collapsing inside of it, more and more of himself fading with every passing moment.

"If that is the case…"

Green eyes opened, filled with madness and malevolence, streams of darkness bled out of the eyes like tears, and the Reflection took his paws and seized a thousand portions of Tenebris Essence.

The decision to go all out or die in the process was decided upon when he realized he could not outrun this madness, not in his present state at least, and he did not hesitate to push ahead with what remained of his sanity as he could still make reasonable decisions, any later and he would be entirely lost, however, even in his crazed outburst, despite the madness pressing down on every corner of his mind, he made sure that what he selected was still the smallest portions of Tenebris Essence. This single line may just be the difference between victory and defeat.

Swallowing the Essence a pained howl resounded in a world that had been condemned to eternal silence, as the body of the Demon General began to break down. His bones collapsed, his flesh was vaporized and his haunting howls remained in the air longer than they should have.

Instead of going through the motion of anticipating the next round of torture that was going to erupt when he proceeded to devour more of the Tenebris Essence, he would rather continue forging himself inside this crucible of pain and madness to reach the highest levels possible.

In other words, he was not going to stop until he reached the pinnacle.

And then there was the spark that had been born inside of him.

He did not understand what it was at first, but somewhere inside that endless madness where he could no longer hear his thoughts and forgot who he was, the core of his being that had decided that it would never give up despite the challenges he would face began to gather.

Like metal being repeatedly tempered, that mindless part of himself that did not need conscious thought to operate, that part of his spirit that was the essence of who he was, pure and unfiltered, drawn out by pain and madness beyond comprehension began to take shape.

Even without the Primordial Record, the Reflection knew what that spark was, and it was Will. A Will all of his own, born from an unyielding spirit.

A Will that was integral to who he was in a manner that could only be discovered by taking himself to a limit where he had no option but to push on, he could not scheme or fight his way out of this malady, he only needed to endure and press on, until something emerge from that crucible, he would either break or rise.

It was the reason he drew upon more of the essence of the Demon Lord, not just to fuel his evolution, but to temper the embers of his Will.