Emperor of the Source

The void within the micro-dimension trembled as Adrian launched himself into the epicenter of the five-way slaughter. The moment he moved, the crimson energy sword in his hand hummed with a violent pleasure as he layered the rule modifications he had just observed from Ignis.

Adrian twisted through the void, pushing his Source veins to their limits, and unleashed the strike. The crimson blade carved a blazing, destructive arc through the emptiness, aimed directly at the cluster where Ignis, Balthazar, and Morwenna had briefly become entangled in the overlapping shockwaves of their domains.

But millions of years of training and life-and-death combat were not so easily bypassed.

Ignis did not even turn his head. He simply tilted his torso a fraction of an inch, allowing the lethal edge to graze past his blazing armor, the crimson force tearing sparks from the golden flame surrounding him but failing to bite into flesh.

"Predictable," Ignis muttered, his eyes tracking Adrian's momentum without concern.

Morwenna, floating like a phantom inside her pale grey mist, drifted backward with exquisite timing, the strike passing through the empty space she had occupied a microsecond before.

Balthazar merely shifted his massive frame, creating a localized pocket of gravity that pulled him effortlessly out of the blade's trajectory without wasting even a fragment of authority.

"They do not even need authority to dodge," Adrian analyzed, his gaze sharpening as the missed strike continued past them. "Their battle instincts have reached something close to precognition."

But Adrian did not halt his momentum. Using the recoil of his missed strike, he anchored his footing against the invisible fabric of space itself. With a localized burst of his arcane Space concept, he snapped his trajectory at a sharp, unnatural angle, redirecting all the force of his failed attack into a second immediate assault. This time, he targeted Ignis directly.

Ignis scoffed, his burning eyes filled with disdain.

He did not bother to dodge a second time. He raised his jagged, blazing broadsword in a casual one-handed parry, fully expecting the same moderate resistance he had felt during their previous clashes. In his mind, Adrian was merely a fast and durable insect, annoying enough to demand attention, but lacking the true destructive output needed to threaten someone like him.

The crimson sword crashed into the blazing broadsword, and the impact exploded outward with a catastrophic shockwave that tore a massive circular ripple through the void.

Ignis's eyes widened in shock.

The strike did not feel like Adrian's earlier attacks. A terrifying, exponential multiplication of force and pressure traveled down the length of his broadsword, slamming into his arm with enough destructive output to make even his reinforced bones groan in protest. The impact pierced through the flames around his weapon, hammered into his shoulder, and physically forced him backward, sliding several meters through the void before he could anchor his stance again.

"What the hell was that?" Ignis thought, his blazing eyes locking onto Adrian with sudden intensity.

He could not see through the rule modifications, not the way Adrian could, but Ignis was far too experienced to miss the sensation. The violent amplification of force at the exact moment of impact, the compounding acceleration, and the sudden spike in pressure all carried a familiar structure. It felt like he was seeing his own authority technique reflected back at him, not perfectly, but close enough that the resemblance sent a sharp current of disbelief through his mind.

"That was similar to my technique."

For a fraction of a second, Ignis was genuinely confused. How could this supposed discarded disciple possibly possess an offensive authority technique so close to his own? The technique was not something taught casually. It had been guarded within the deepest archives of the Ashen Vortex Sect, refined by his own hands over endless millennia, and shaped through battles where entire star systems had burned beneath him.

"No," Ignis reasoned, gritting his teeth as he pushed a surge of golden flames through his arms to stabilize the lingering numbness from the impact. "It should be a coincidence. He must have stumbled onto a similar authority technique and managed to use it crudely."

Dismissing the anomaly as mere coincidence, Ignis let out a furious roar. "You think a heavy swing makes you my equal? Die!"

He lunged forward, his broadsword igniting with even greater intensity as he sought to punish Adrian for the momentary humiliation. Golden fire spiraled around the blade, condensing into a superheated edge that distorted the space around it. But before Ignis could fully engage with Adrian, Balthazar appeared from his flank and attacked him.

Seeing this, Adrian moved towards them, but then a deathly chill brushed against the back of his neck.

Morwenna's pale grey domain washed over the space to his right, and from within the suffocating mist, her towering bone-white scythe descended in a sweeping, silent arc.

Adrian pushed himself backward, contorting his spine at an unnatural angle. The scythe's curved edge missed his chest by less than an inch, but the conceptual rot weeping from the blade caught a few trailing threads of his crimson essence. The essence blackened instantly, dissolving into ash that flaked away into the void.

As he dodged, Adrian's Source Eyes locked onto Morwenna. He watched her pull the scythe back into a defensive guard, floating near the edge of the clash rather than pressing forward recklessly. Her entire combat style was patient.

"She still is not using authority techniques," Adrian observed, his mind cataloging every detail even as he avoided the residue of her decay.

Throughout the entire battle, Ignis, Balthazar, and Nightshade were constantly burning willforce to modify reality, weaving complex authority commands to gain leverage over each other. Morwenna, however, never fully committed in that way. When she struck, it was purely through the raw application of her divine concept and the properties embedded in her scythe.

As Adrian thought about it, the reason made sense. Her divine concept was forged from Death, Rot, Decay, and Silence, and the concept itself was inherently lethal upon contact. Why would she expend vast amounts of mana and willforce attempting to modify reality when a single scratch from her blade guaranteed a slow, agonizing death unless the victim possessed enough power and knowledge to expel it?

As Adrian stabilized his footing from Morwenna's assault, the space to his left warped violently.

Balthazar, having disengaged from the clash with Ignis, saw Adrian isolated and charged. His massive gauntlets hummed with gravitational force, aimed directly at Adrian's head.

Adrian braced himself, preparing to meet the crushing blow, but before Balthazar could close the distance, the shadows beneath the giant stretched and twisted.

Nightshade materialized instantly, directly in front of Balthazar. His twin daggers flashed, coated in shadows that devoured ambient light, aimed precisely at the exposed joints of Balthazar's heavy armor. But instead of showing frustration at the interception, a cruel smile spread across Balthazar's face.

"The attack was not meant for me," Adrian realized instantly. "He used me as bait to draw Nightshade out of the shadows."

Nightshade also realized the trap a fraction of a second too late. As his daggers moved to strike, a suffocating pressure wrapped around his forearms with impossible precision. For a terrifying instant, his hands were completely locked in place, frozen in the void as if the space around his limbs had been condensed into steel.

It was Balthazar's authority technique that isolated specific limbs Adrian had observed earlier.

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Recognizing the authority technique immediately, Nightshade did not panic. His own authority pulsed outward, and he issued a direct command to reality, "Negate."

The rule modification wrapping around his arms shattered. But as Nightshade attempted to pull his daggers back and retreat into the shadows, his eyes widened slightly.

His hands were still locked.

Adrian, watching through his Source Eyes, saw exactly what had happened, and the brilliance of the trap left him momentarily stunned. It was a multi-layered trap. Balthazar had not merely used an authority technique. Beneath that authority command, he had cast an ultimate-level divine spell with the exact same limb-locking effect, then placed the authority technique directly over it as a disguise.

It was a psychological masterpiece. In a battle between Peak Rule Stage beings, reactions to authority techniques were deeply ingrained into instinct. When Nightshade felt his limbs locked by a rule modification, his instinct was to negate it. He succeeded in shattering the authority layer, but because he believed he had neutralized the threat, his guard dipped for the smallest fraction of time. He failed to realize that a conventional mana-fueled divine spell was still active beneath it, continuing to lock his limbs even after the authority command disappeared.

By the time Nightshade understood the divine spell remained, it was too late to cast a defensive barrier or issue another command.

Balthazar's gauntlet crashed squarely into Nightshade's chest.

The impact was deafening. Even in the vacuum of the micro-dimension, the sound of ribs shattering carried through the trembling domain layers. Nightshade coughed up a violent spray of blood, his body folding around the massive fist before being hurled backward like a broken doll, tumbling wildly through the void.

Before Balthazar could deliver a follow-up strike, Nightshade's survival instincts took over. His battered frame dissolved entirely into darkness, blending into the ambient shadows to hide, recover, and remove himself temporarily from the center of the slaughter.

With Nightshade temporarily removed from the board, Balthazar let out a booming laugh, his massive chest heaving as he stabilized his stance after the monumental punch. "One down."

He had successfully removed one of the most annoying variables on the battlefield.

But Balthazar had forgotten the other variable.

Adrian turned into a streak of crimson lightning and crossed the void in an instant, appearing directly at Balthazar's exposed flank. Balthazar's eyes snapped toward him, his gauntlets already rising to crush the incoming threat, but as Adrian swung his crimson blade, his white-grey eyes glowed beneath the crimson radiance with fierce, unrestrained focus.

He had just witnessed the intricacies of Balthazar's multi-layered trap. He had seen the exact rule fragments used to isolate and lock limbs, and he had seen how the divine spell was woven beneath it.

Now, Adrian mirrored the authority technique.

As the crimson sword descended, Adrian unleashed his own fourteen percent authority, modifying the same rules Balthazar had used. At the same time, he pushed mana into the arcane Gravity concept, layering it seamlessly beneath the rule modification as a second hidden restraint.

His version was not identical in material because he did not possess Balthazar's exact divine concept of Gravity, Density, and Lock, but with his comprehension of Gravity and his ability to mirror the authority technique, the structure became close enough to produce the same tactical effect.

Balthazar braced to block the sword, but suddenly, an impossible pressure clamped down on his massive shoulders and torso. His colossal frame, mid-motion, was violently locked into place.

Balthazar's eyes widened. "My own technique?"

It was not merely a similar binding effect. The targeted isolation of physical pressure was unmistakably familiar, carrying the same battle logic he had spent hundreds of thousands of years perfecting. He could feel Gravity, Density, and Lock rules twisting against him in a pattern close enough to his own that disbelief nearly disrupted his reaction.

"Impossible," Balthazar growled, his voice strained.

Reacting with the same honed instinct as Nightshade, Balthazar roared, "Negate!"

The authority technique shattered. But then he felt the second layer still dragging at him, not as a divine spell like his own version, but as a gravity-based arcane spell hidden beneath the rule modification. Even though it was a simple Gravity spell compared to his perfected divine construction, breaking it still cost him precious momentum.

That fraction was enough.

Adrian's crimson blade slashed across Balthazar's massive chestplate, carving a deep glowing gorge into the obsidian armor and drawing a spray of blood from beneath it. Balthazar dashed backward, putting dozens of meters between himself and Adrian as he hovered in the void with one hand pressed against the bleeding gash on his chest. His eyes stared at Adrian with unmasked confusion.

"How?" Balthazar's mind reeled. "Is he using a technique of his own that only happens to feel exactly like mine? Is it mimicry? Or is it a direct command?"

Balthazar looked toward Ignis, who was currently clashing with Morwenna, then back to Adrian. The thought that Adrian was merely some discarded disciple from a Major Sect no longer sat comfortably in his mind. Whatever this boy was, he was not fitting into the explanation Ignis had so casually thrown at him.

Adrian felt a thrill of pure adrenaline-fueled battle joy surge through his Source veins. He was in the crucible of kings, standing among beings who had guarded their secrets for millions of years, and he was learning faster than they could comprehend. The pain in his body, the blood on his face, the pressure of their domains, and the constant threat of death only sharpened his mind further.

Adrian wiped blood from his chin with the back of his hand, his grin widening, "Thank you for the lesson."

Saying that, he dashed back into the melee, and the true nightmare for the galaxy's oldest rulers began.

Adrian began to weave both authority techniques together.

Morwenna glided toward him through her pale mist, her scythe aiming to slice across his midsection. The bone-white blade moved with perfect silence, leaving trails of decay in its wake. Adrian met her advance, his eyes flashing as he used Balthazar's limb-locking isolation directly onto her wrists.

Morwenna felt the sudden crushing pressure clamp down on her arms, and her eyes narrowed in surprise. She immediately used her authority to negate the rule modification, then even broke the underlying gravity spell with a pulse of decay before gliding away, refusing to engage further once she realized the nature of the trap. From within the mist, she stared at Adrian with far greater wariness than before.

"Balthazar's technique," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "How?"

Then Adrian turned his sights back to Ignis. 𝒇𝙧𝙚𝓮𝙬𝙚𝓫𝒏𝓸𝓿𝓮𝒍.𝓬𝙤𝓶

Ignis was roaring, pushing Balthazar back with a wave of golden fire, when Adrian appeared above him. The flames parted around Adrian's approach, unable to slow his momentum.

Ignis scoffed, raising his broadsword to swat Adrian out of the void.

But the moment Ignis moved his arm, the crushing pressure of Balthazar's isolation technique clamped down on his shoulder.

"What the—?" Ignis gasped as his arm locked in place.

He recognized Balthazar's signature move immediately, even though it had come from Adrian. "Is he using direct command to do this?" Ignis thought, fury and confusion flashing through his mind together.

If someone possessed enough mana and willforce, they could issue almost any kind of direct command to reality. Perhaps Adrian was forcing reality to mimic Balthazar's technique through sheer resource expenditure.

Ignis could not confirm it, and he did not have time to research the phenomenon in the middle of battle.

He flared his authority and negated the technique. He expected to be free, but just like the others before him, he was caught by the hidden second layer. The underlying gravity spell held his arm captive for a crucial fraction of a second.

"Damn it—" Ignis snarled.

In that fraction of a second, Adrian's sword arrived. But it was not a normal slash. Adrian had poured his authority into a replication of Ignis's own offensive authority technique, modifying Fire, Impact, Acceleration, and Force rules along the crimson edge.

The blade crashed into Ignis's shoulder guard.

The destructive output multiplied exponentially upon contact. Ignis's armor shattered, and the sheer impact hurled him downward through the void like a falling meteor, his golden flames sputtering from the shock. He tumbled through the vacuum before stabilizing himself, coughing up a mouthful of searing blood.

"My own technique," Ignis whispered, staring at his trembling hands. "He used my own technique."

He looked up, his chest heaving, his mind spiraling into utter, bizarre confusion.

He had just been locked in place by Balthazar's signature technique, only to be struck by a sword carrying the exact unmistakable destructive logic of his own signature offensive technique. Both had been delivered by the same person, in the same exchange.

Ignis, Balthazar, and Morwenna slowly drifted into a loose triangle, their ongoing hostilities temporarily pausing as all three turned their gazes toward the lone figure hovering at the center of the void. Even Nightshade, hidden within the darkness as he recovered from Balthazar's devastating blow, watched silently from the shadows.

Adrian stood there with his crimson robes torn in several places, blood slowly crystallizing on his cheek, and a long crimson sword pulsing in his hand with an amalgamation of their greatest secrets. His posture was relaxed, not because he was unharmed, but because the wounds, pressure, and danger had not broken his rhythm. If anything, he looked more alive than when he had entered the battlefield.

A creeping dread began to settle into the hearts of the galaxy's oldest rulers.

They had spent millions of years guarding their techniques, perfecting their arts in secrecy, refining their combat styles until they were peerless within Andromeda. Yet within the span of a few violent exchanges, this unknown boy was somehow mirroring their methods.

Even if he was simply using direct command, the energy cost should have been extremely high. Direct commands are always costly, since a cultivator never knows what the reality did to succeed in the task. Adrian mirroring them meant he possessed enough energy and willforce to issue such commands!

"What are we fighting?"

The same unspoken question echoed between all of them. How could one person possess this much energy fuel, this much conceptual knowledge, and this much adaptability?

Adrian raised his sword, pointing the tip directly at Ignis. A faint, unapologetic smirk formed on his face, his eyes bright with the thrill of learning beneath the blood and exhaustion.

"Come on," Adrian challenged, his voice carrying clearly across the trembling void. "Show me what else a million years of experience can do."