The Primordial Record

The floating eyes above him glowed with delight, and suddenly, one of the eyeballs exploded, creating a portal made of blood in midair.

A hand devoid of skin emerged from the portal. The hand clenched its fist and the blood that Elias shed on the floor began to bubble, and like iron filings drawn to a magnet, they shot into the limb, fashioning it a skin made of blood, and inflating the muscles, granting the arm strength.

The red arm opened its palm and a drop of blood flew from it and embedded itself in the forehead of Elias, who gasped as his skin began to writhe, and his bones cracked, his body looked like it was consuming itself, as fresh blood fell from his chest, but this was thicker and appeared more black than red.

The last thought of Elias Tiberius was of acceptance. The moment the blood of Augustus entered his body, he saw the difference between their talents, and even though he hated the man. He could not deny the sheer power in his blood.

As his body tore itself apart, he incarnated. He should have used decades to get to this step, but a drop of Augustus blood achieved it in mere moments. His Incarnation extended his suffering as the depth of his being increased. Augustus had more to feed upon.

He did not shame Tiberius. He did not shame his God. Not only that, but he did his duty. Elias Tiberius was no more.

A second hand emerged from the bloody vortex, and rapidly absorbed the last of the blood from the husk left behind. With this blood, it had gained all the power it needed.

The hand seized both sides of the vortex and began pulling it apart, a bloody head appeared that had no eyes, the rest of a male body followed.

General Augustus Tiberius slid out of the vortex, and once more he breathes air again, his empty eyes were like a window to an unfathomable abyss, he took a few seconds to breathe deeply before he began laughing.

He spent the next three minutes cracking up while inspecting his new body, which was at the peak of the Incarnation State, making sure the restriction curse did not affect this new body if his, after a few moments, his laughter stopped and he frowned deeply.

The body he used for his reawakening would not be his preferred choice, but he was careful not to draw any attention to his fail-safes. If he had used a member of his family with a better foundation as a pawn inside the Nexus, he would not be surprised if those bastards had thought it might be his backup.

Moreover, this body used a Wasted Pathway, no-one would believe it was nothing else but fodder to be used at his leisure, but Augustus had planted a seed of Origin inside his mind, and no matter how the carrier had loathed him, he would perform his duties when he needed to.

This body would restrict his path, and it would no longer be able to exceed the Incarnation State, but he had other plans. His skin was still red with blood, but it was soon absorbed into his body and he took his remaining eye floating in the air, and placed it into his eye socket.

Still having a few drops of his blood left inside his eye, he unflinchingly sacrificed half of it, to boost his bloodline to the peak of Incarnation, until the First Great Circle was completed…

He gasped in irritation as spikes began erupting from his skin and an armor of red bones was forged around his body.

The color of his bone armor deepened until it was nearly black, and he consciously made it lighten up to red.

You don't live up to two thousand years in a world in a constant state of war without knowing how to always hide your cards. Anyone that judges his armor at the early Incarnation State was in for a nasty surprise.

The ground began to tremble intensely, and he cast his gaze outside, the limitation of the senses of an Incarnation frustrated him, but he would slowly build it back up, nevertheless, his gaze covered the entire Nexus, and he saw a pleasant sight.

He was inside the Nexus, and judging by the activities he was witnessing, the Origin Treasure had brought him back in time by a week, although he would have wished for at least two weeks, he would have to make do with what he had.

His body was truly dead, and there was no way for him to change the destiny of his main body, who was going to die a week from now. It would be extremely foolish to try, as this travesty would be detected by the Justice Council, and he would burn for an eternity.

The Justice Council controls the fate of every living being on the planet under the grace of the God King, and preserving the stability of his rule was their solemn purpose.

He was a copy of Augustus that had been given all his memories and a few drops of his Source blood because that was all the broken Origin Treasure could handle.

That copy was flung down in time to an Anchor he placed inside the Nexus–Elias Tiberius, and it was his last backup, in the event that he was betrayed, or he failed. He had also placed another Anchor somewhere else, but he doubted he would have the power to shift his Spirit towards that place.

The battle between the mortals ahead was of no concern to him, he would have to take control of the Nexus and make minor inauspicious changes to its working processes.

He had to be as discrete as possible, until the moment his main body perishes and the threads of destiny returned to this copy.

His eyes lit up as he saw the test subject began creating multiple phantasmal images with the Axe, while using a powerful vitality that left Augustus in awe.

He had placed this weapon here to draw the eyes of the Third Prince away from his true intentions, it was seized from a Principal Demon from the Abyss by the God of War himself, and over millennia, they had been trying to break open its secrets. It was said this weapon was not even created by the Principal Demon but was discovered by him in the void outside of space and time.

Having failed to uncover the secrets of this weapon, it was used as a container to carry the family's bloodline battle technique.

Augustus began to laugh. "It is mine. Everything here is mine."

Making sure his sight was discrete as possible, he saw that the soldiers he placed in the forest were beginning to attract attention from the supervisors of this place, and three of them were already dead.

He waited for them to cause damage and draw more firepower towards their position, as he knew the Guardian of the Nexus would not allow such a volatile aspect to remain for long.

His sight was fixed on the extremely hidden opening of the Control Hub. He licked his lips as he began crafting thousands of red bone spikes with the hardness of diamonds and placing them inside the Red Shrike Incarnation.

After those were done, he began creating swords, shields, hammers, and all the myriad instruments of war he had learned to wield over his two thousand years of life.

"Open the door. You know you want to, Boris."

The soldiers he brought with him began to fall, although he still needed them for the next part of his plans, he only needed ten to live, the rest were insurance, he kept his eyes fixed on that opening and when it opened for an instant.

General Augustus Tiberius Grinned and appeared inside the control hub.

"I have won!"