Emperor of the Source

Elsewhere on the battlefield, Aerin laughed as she twisted through a storm of burning blades, her twin daggers flashing in her hands as she emerged behind an enemy cultivator and drove one blade through the gap beneath his shoulder guard. Her weapon's pressure inscription activated instantly, crushing the internal organs around the wound before he could reinforce them with mana. She withdrew before the body even began to fall.

"Thirty-seven," she called out, her voice bright despite the chaos around her.

Not far from her, Caelia cut down an enemy with a precise slash across the throat, her curved sword leaving a thin silver line in the void. She turned her head slightly, her expression composed despite the crystallized blood drifting around her. "Thirty-nine."

Aerin's eyes widened. "What? When did you get two ahead?" 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚

"When you were showing off."

Aerin clicked her tongue, dodging a molten spear as she twisted backward. "I was not showing off. I was using proper combat technique."

"You vanished behind him, spun twice, and stabbed him from above."

"That was necessary."

Caelia's expression remained calm. "It was excessive."

Aerin grinned and disappeared in a flicker of space, reappearing beside another enemy and forcing him into a panicked defensive stance. The man's eyes widened as he threw up a hasty barrier, but Aerin's dagger punched through it with ease, the gravity inscription carving through his defences like they were paper.

Unlike many other disciples, she did not rely on a spatial ring. Space had always answered her directly through her own comprehension, and even under suppression fields, she could still use authority when necessary to force small openings. She was not reckless enough to waste authority freely, but her control had grown precise over centuries of training.

This was her first true war and her first time killing sentient beings.

Yet her hands did not tremble.

Aerin had been raised inside the Crimson Vital Sect, trained by Hestia, watched over by Sentinel, Aurelia, Adrian, and surrounded by the people from the Milky Way Galaxy and the disciples who carried the scars of the previous wars.

She had heard their stories since childhood: stories of her parents' struggle to save Earth, her uncle's journey to form the Origin Empire, disciples hunted during retreats, elders who had stayed behind to buy time and never returned, and friends whose names survived only on memorial walls. She had seen older disciples fall silent when certain names were mentioned. She had watched grown cultivators stare at those memorials with eyes that had long since run out of tears.

So when she killed now, she did not feel joy, but she felt no regret either.

These enemies had come to destroy them.

That was enough.

Around the battlefield, many of those who had come from the Milky Way fought among the Crimson Vital disciples without distinction. Most of them moved through the frontlines, laughing and arguing while exchanging blows with enemy cultivators. Kael, Thomas, and Elara fought in coordinated rhythm near the rear support line, protecting injured disciples as they were pulled back.

Lysandra, Selena, and Mira moved between inscription squads, reinforcing battlefield formations where enemy suppression began to break through.

Nearby, Marivelle moved among the alchemy support units, calmly directing the distribution of pills, stabilizing wounded disciples, and coordinating emergency recovery measures in Lara and Maelis's absence.

Her hands never stopped moving, administering mana pills to disciples whose mana reserves had collapsed, directing stretcher teams toward the warships.

Technically, if counted by the years that had passed within the time formation, the hundred-year mercenary contract Adrian had imposed on her should have already ended, but such contracts were calculated by external time, not accelerated cultivation time.

More importantly, Marivelle herself no longer stood here merely because of a contract. After witnessing the Crimson Vital Sect's transformation and after seeing Adrian's true character across the years, the fear and resentment she once held had gradually changed into genuine respect. Somewhere along the way, the man who had once nearly killed her and forced her into service had become someone she truly acknowledged as her master.

But even with their connection to Adrian, none of them were treated as special figures here. They were simply part of the Crimson Vital Sect's war machine, mostly Mid Rule Stage cultivators among countless others, fighting under the same banner and facing the same risks.

From a short distance away, Sentinel and Aurelia watched Aerin and Caelia carefully while cutting down enemies who came too close. Their protection was subtle. They did not interfere with every exchange, nor did they shield the girls from every danger, but their awareness never left them entirely.

Aurelia's gaze tightened as Aerin blinked through a cluster of enemies and emerged dangerously close to a heavier combat zone. "She is moving too far."

Sentinel followed the direction of her gaze. Aerin and Caelia had indeed begun drifting deeper into the battlefield, chasing retreating enemies and taking advantage of gaps in the chaos. For a moment, his fingers tightened around his weapon. Then he stopped.

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Aurelia noticed immediately. "Sentinel?"

He remained silent for a moment, watching Aerin cut down another opponent. "She has grown."

Aurelia's expression shifted. "That does not mean we stop watching over her."

"No," Sentinel said quietly. "But it does mean we stop keeping her inside our shadow."

Aurelia looked at him, worry clear in her eyes.

Sentinel continued, "If I had done this to Adrian, if I had stood behind him every step and prevented him from walking into danger, none of us would be here. He became who he is because he was allowed to face impossible things. We cannot ask Aerin to become strong while refusing to let her make choices."

Aurelia's gaze returned to Aerin. She watched her daughter laugh as she teleported behind another enemy, her daggers flashing in a blur of motion. The girl was reckless, too confident, too eager to prove herself. But she was also skilled, adaptable, and frighteningly competent.

Aurelia had watched Adrian grow as well. She knew the truth of Sentinel's words, even if accepting them made her heart ache.

"She is still reckless," Aurelia said softly.

"Yes," Sentinel replied. "And so was he."

A faint, reluctant smile touched Aurelia's lips before fading. She exhaled slowly and nodded.

Together, they turned their attention toward another collapsing section of the battlefield, where a Crimson Vital squad was being pressed by enemy reinforcements. They moved to support it, leaving Aerin and Caelia to carve their own path.

The war around them stretched far beyond what any single gaze could hold. The Crimson Vital Sect and Thousand Veils Sect occupied only one sector of a much larger war, their combined front forming a sharp wedge against the Ashen Vortex and its allies. Far away, the Grave-Sky Sect's deathly fleets clashed with Ironbound Path defensive armadas, each side using warships reinforced with layered domains to grind against the other. In another region, subsidiary sect armies fought brutal close-range battles across shattered asteroid fields, their domains flickering like unstable stars.

Micro-dimensions opened and closed throughout the void. High Rule Stage elders with sufficient wealth activated smaller versions to isolate dangerous opponents, creating sealed pockets of combat that flickered like purple wounds in space. Some dimensions collapsed violently when one side died, spilling corpses and shattered weapons back into real space. Others remained stable and silent, concealing battles that would only reveal their victors once the formations expired.

The scale was beyond anything most disciples had ever imagined.

A single squad's victory meant little before millions. A single enemy slain vanished into the ocean of war. Even a hundred kills felt like drops of blood poured into an endless sea.

At first, Aerin did not understand this. But somewhere between her forty-eighth and fiftieth kill, her smile faded.

She looked around and saw that nothing had changed. The war still raged. Enemy lines still stretched endlessly. Cultivators still screamed and died in every direction. She had killed dozens, perhaps more, but the battlefield did not care. Her efforts vanished into the scale of it all, and a strange frustration tightened in her chest.

"Fifty-one," Caelia said, cutting down another enemy with a clean stroke across the spine.

Aerin did not answer immediately. Her daggers hung loose in her hands as she stared at the endless expanse of battle.

Caelia glanced toward her. "Aerin?"

"I'm fine," Aerin replied quickly, forcing a grin back onto her face. "Just thinking."

"That is usually dangerous."

"Very funny."

But the thought did not leave her.

She was not a child anymore. More than five hundred years had passed within the time formation. She had trained for centuries. She had learned from Hestia, fought beside Caelia, listened to Adrian's stories, and watched the entire sect prepare for this day. Yet now that she was here, in the middle of the greatest war their galaxy had seen in millions of years, she was just another fighter cutting down enemies one by one.

Was that enough?

Her uncle had never been like that, right?. From childhood, she had heard the stories. Adrian standing before armies and changing the flow of entire wars. Adrian creating miracles when everyone else believed survival was impossible. Even when he was young, even when he was weak, he always found a way to do something that shifted the battlefield itself.

Aerin's grip tightened around her daggers. The inscribed hilts warmed beneath her fingers, responding to her rising emotions.

She wanted to be like him.

Not because she wanted glory or praise. She wanted to matter. She wanted her actions to change something. She wanted to be someone who could protect others not only by killing the enemy in front of her, but by shifting the entire outcome.

Her gaze drifted toward the center of the battlefield.

There, suspended in the void like a faint purple scar, was the shimmer left behind by the Micro-Dimension Formation Token that had swallowed the Peak Rule Stage beings. Beyond that shimmer, the true kings and queens of the galaxy were fighting. The result inside that dimension would determine everything.

A thought entered her mind.

It was reckless, stupid, and exactly the kind of thing everyone would tell her not to do.

Aerin smiled as she continued fighting as though nothing had changed, slowly guiding their path deeper toward the center. She blinked between enemies, struck from unexpected angles, and used the natural flow of battle as cover. Her movements became more deliberate, each kill positioning her closer to the purple shimmer. Caelia followed, frowning slightly but assuming Aerin was simply chasing openings as usual.

Only when they reached the region near the purple shimmer did Caelia's expression shift.

"Aerin," she said slowly, "why are we this close to the center?"

Aerin looked at the faint dimensional ripple ahead, then back at her friend. Her grin widened into something entirely too bright. "Hehehe…"

Caelia's eyes narrowed immediately. "No."

"I didn't say anything."

"You do not need to say anything. Whatever you are thinking, no."

Aerin spun one dagger in her hand and floated slightly backward toward the purple shimmer. Her expression shifted, becoming something softer, more serious. "Be careful out here. I'll return soon."

Caelia's face changed completely. "Aerin, don't you dare—"

Before she could finish, Aerin vanished, slipping directly into the purple shimmer.

For a fraction of a second, Caelia stared at the empty space where her friend had been. The battlefield noise seemed to fade, and her sword hung loose in her hand.

Then her composure shattered. "Damn shit, you idiot!"

She rushed forward instinctively, her hand reaching toward the dimensional boundary, but the purple ripple rejected her violently. The formation flared, throwing her back several metres. She couldn't enter it as Aerin did. She gritted her teeth, panic and fury mixing across her face as she grabbed her UNI-OS with shaking fingers.

"I need to tell Aunty Aurelia," she muttered, activating the emergency channel. But before she could even send the message, enemy cultivators began noticing her momentary distraction and turned toward her with killing intent. Their domains flared as they closed in.

Caelia's grip tightened around her sword, her eyes blazing with frustration as the enemies approached. "Aerin," she muttered, raising her blade, "when you come back, I am going to kill you myself."