The Primordial Record

The destruction of the Luminious might have emerged from the hands of Enoch, but its roots lay with them.

After the end of every life in Existence, the Luminious had won the war against End, and they believed that everything would remain as it was forever, and for a very long time, this had been the truth, they remained in their gardens of Lumina, and the songs of the Abhima were their companions, as the eons meant nothing to these eternal beings of light.

However, it would have been better if they had not entered Existence and interacted with the myriad life within it. Memories of the people they had known and all the stories they had shared haunted the Lumionious.

They could not forget the passion and the ambition of all the various races they had seen, heroes and villains, gods, immortals, mortals, and all the countless shades in between. These memories stained the songs of the Luminious, and their Light sounded a bit off.

A solution would have to be found before this small problem was magnified beyond control, and soon a solution found itself in the shape of a boy about to be born.

The Luminious were created from the first light itself, and unlike every other race, the nature of their birth could not be analyzed or controlled. In the gardens of Lumina, a few motes of light would gather and not scatter. This happened by chance and was not regulated by the Luminious.

This gathered light would slowly call more stands of light to itself, and over the course of many eons, this light would grow, and in an unknown future, a Luminious would be born from it.

The Luminious took a long time to be born, and so, despite how long their society had existed, there were only a hundred and twenty Luminious.

Enoch took even longer to be born, even though the cluster of light that became Enoch had gathered a long time ago; it seemed as if it could not take the last step to become a Luminous.

However, everything changed when one of the Luminious, tortured by the memory of the life they had all ended, sat beside the cluster of light that was the nascent Enoch, and pushed out his disquiet as a song.

He discovered to his astonishment that the cluster of light beside him drank this grief and memory, and he was cleansed from the torture of it. Not daring to believe his eyes, he poured what was left of his disquietness into the Lumina, and the cluster of light drank it all up.

For the first time in countless eons, he felt clean and sacred like all Luminious should be, and he told this tale to the others, and a quick investigation revealed that this was the truth.

At first, the general consensus was horror, and the Luminious was responsible for pouring all that grief into the unborn child was to be punished for this despicable act, but he said a few words that resonated with the Luminious.

"If we carry this stain, it will magnify, and End will feed on our dissonance. The state of our mind is not natural to us, and we can no longer hide behind our walls and think it will go away. Is it not better to give it to the new, let it bear the weight we cannot? It does not know the End or the significance of what it holds unless we tell it. Why would the child think of this as a burden when it was born that way?"

No matter how the Luminious wanted to deny this truth, it was apparent that perhaps this might be the only solution. They feared that End had grown too powerful, that they had unknowingly been stained by its touch, and this stain would grow, and what they were about to do would be like what they had done to rid Existence of the End, only now this sacrifice would be more personal.

Debate raged for eons, but the dissonance in the hearts of the Luminious grew. They saw that the first luminous who sacrificed his grief to the unborn child was thriving, the light of his Lumina was bright, and the songs of his Abhima were beautiful… he was sacred and pure, and his act had indeed saved him.

As for them, their songs faltered more, and their light dimmed in places. Then, as if it were inevitable, the Luminious relented.

One by one, they approached the cluster and sang their regrets. The memories of the many existences they had seen were not shared, because they believed it would be too much of a burden for the newborn, but they shared the passion, the striving, the beauty in imperfection ,and the grief of so much potential laid to an end.

The cluster that would be Enoch drank deeply of these emotions, and the strands of light that would become him gathered faster. Eons compressed into a brief moment, and the boy formed.

Yet, despite all of the grief that was poured into him, Enoch was born with the purest white Lumina that had ever been seen.

For the first time in eons, the Luminous felt clean, sacred, and eternal again. Their eternal life depended on the fact that they could live a long time without needing change, and so contentment was theirs. Now, because of the birth of a single child, all that they were about to lose was returned to them.

Of course, they welcomed him with open hands, and all the Luminious were his teachers. They taught him perfection and the grace of the Luminious, and Enoch did not disappoint them. He was the best student they had ever seen, absorbing every knowledge like a sponge, and making great progress for someone so young.

But the weight was in him. The burning question that he could not find an answer to, and he was unable to even conceptualize the question into a meaningful form. All he knew was that there was a need in him that he could not describe.

The Luminious watched Enoch and, seeing no great changes within him, finally rejoiced that they had won against End by ending Existence themselves.

They had sealed the rebirth of Existence, and End was starved.

But in cleansing themselves of the weight of that decision, they planted the final spark.

The boy, Enoch, who carried their discarded grief, would one day ask why nothing changed while he felt nothing but the need for change.

That question was all the invitation that End needed to begin its whispers into the heart of Enoch, even when he was inside the realm of the Luminious.

Rowan understood that the destruction of the Luminous emerged from Enoch's hands. But its roots lay with them.

In the choice to remain pure, at any cost, even the cost of everything.

Half of Rowan's body had melted, but he knew that he had just been given the entire foundation of this conflict, and without this context, everything going forward would not have been properly understood.

He knew that Enoch ended up shattering Existence, destroying the Luminious alongside it, and when he did this, he unsealed the shackles of rebirth placed on Existence by the Luminious, and when he hid from the devastation, Hundun was being created.