Emperor of the Source

At the center of the Andromeda Galaxy, within the raging chaos of the wider battlefield, a lone figure appeared before the sealed micro-dimension that contained the Peak Rule Stage beings.

She floated in front of the dimensional boundary as countless distant clashes lit the void behind her, her dark red skin reflecting the flashes of war. Her pupils were a mixture of red and black, and her long white hair drifted around her shoulders despite the absence of wind. She held one hand toward the sealed space, her expression tense with urgency as her thoughts cut through the noise of the battlefield.

"Ignis, Pyros, Asteria… hold on for a moment," she thought, her gaze sharpening as dark blue essence gathered around her fingers. "I am coming."

The authority around her surged. She forced her will into the sealed micro-dimension, and the artifact maintaining the isolated space resisted only for an instant before yielding beneath her power. The boundary opened just enough for her to pass through, and in the next breath, she vanished from the outer battlefield.

She materialized at a random location within the micro-dimension, surrounded by the barren darkness and distorted remnants of countless Peak Rule Stage domains. The moment she appeared, she sensed violent energy waves erupting from the center of the dimension. Without hesitation, she turned toward the source and rushed forward, her body moving through the void at a speed far beyond ordinary Peak Rule Stage perception.

…

At the center of the battlefield, Ignis's situation had become disastrous. His body was covered in wounds, his flames flickered unevenly, and his once-overbearing aura had been suppressed into a desperate, unstable blaze. Adrian drifted before him with the multi-colored forces still trembling around his body, and the sword in Adrian's hand descended toward Ignis's head, aimed to split it cleanly from his body.

But just as the blade neared Ignis's skull, it stopped.

A bare hand had caught the sword from the side, holding it firmly between dark red fingers without allowing the edge to move another inch.

Adrian and Ignis turned toward the figure at almost the same time. The woman who had appeared between them was humanoid, but not exactly human. Her skin was dark red, her red-black pupils burned with cold fury, and her white hair streamed behind her like a banner of ghostly flame.

Before Adrian could fully process who she was or where she had come from, the woman moved.

Her speed was absurd. Her fist slammed into Adrian's stomach, and the impact blasted him outward like a meteor hurled through the void. Space cracked around his body as he was sent flying, and the force of the blow scattered the arcane essence around him for a brief instant.

Blood filled Adrian's mouth. The punch had bypassed his instinctive arcane defenses entirely, striking his physical body with raw, overwhelming force. His ribs fractured, and the shockwave rippled through his internal organs.

The entire surrounding battlefield stopped.

Octaven and Kaelar instantly abandoned the Peak Rule Stage beings they were suppressing and moved toward Adrian's direction, their expressions sharpening with alarm. Nightshade's shadows stilled. The mercenaries and subsidiary sect leaders froze where they were. Even Yselia, who had been struggling against Kaelar's pressure, turned her gaze toward the newcomer with disbelief and fear.

The woman did not care about any of them. Her body turned toward Ignis, and when she saw the state he was in, rage flared in her eyes with enough intensity to distort the space around her.

Ignis sagged where he floated, his armour cracked, his chest heaving. Blood leaked from wounds across his torso and arms. His flames guttered weakly, barely maintaining their form. For the first time in millions of years, the Ashen Vortex Sect Leader looked small.

Emerald essence bloomed from her hand, flowing into Ignis's wounds and rapidly knitting together the worst of the damage first. Burned flesh, torn muscle, and shattered bones began to recover under the emerald light, and even Ignis's unstable aura steadied slightly.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice low but trembling with contained wrath. "Who did this to you?"

Ignis lifted one trembling hand and pointed toward Adrian, who was stabilizing himself in the distance. His voice came out hoarse, thick with humiliation and hatred. "Sister Hazel," he said. "He… he is the reason."

Hazel turned her gaze slightly toward Adrian, and the rage within her boiled even higher. Then she looked across the battlefield and spotted Pyros. Seeing him alive brought a faint flicker of relief to her eyes, but it vanished almost immediately as she searched the battlefield again.

Her red-black pupils swept across drifting bodies, shattered domains, the scattered remnants of divine essence. Her expression tightened.

"Where is Asteria?" Hazel asked.

Pyros floated toward them, his face pale and his aura still unstable from the backlash he had suffered earlier. His hands trembled slightly at his sides. "She entered the micro-dimension with us," he said, his voice heavy. "But she is nowhere to be found now."

The words hung in the void.

A terrifying wave of energy exploded from Hazel's body.

Aside from Ignis and Pyros, everyone nearby was pushed backward, including Adrian. The dark void trembled beneath the force of her grief and rage. Hazel understood exactly what Pyros's words meant. In a battlefield like this, for someone of Asteria's level to be missing could only mean one thing. She was dead. Truly dead.

"I should not have left them alone," Hazel thought, and the regret that passed through her eyes was quickly consumed by killing intent.

A few million years ago, Hazel had been part of the Ashen Vortex Sect. In fact, she had been the original leader when the sect had first begun its rise. Back then, she had only been a High Rule Stage cultivator, and her strength had not been significant in the grand structure of the universe. The Ashen Vortex Sect itself had merely been a lesser minor sect, struggling for survival among countless other insignificant powers. But during that era, she had encountered an elder from a Major Sect and was accepted as his disciple.

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Under that elder's training, she slowly rose in power, leaving Andromeda behind and stepping onto a wider stage where the galaxy of her birth became only one small point in the endless universe.

Recently, she had become an Astral being.

The moment she reached that height, she had wanted to return to Andromeda, to see the sect she had founded and the people she had left behind. But the rules of Major Sects were strict. Someone of her position could not openly participate in the events and battles of minor factions, especially not in a galaxy where various interests overlapped. If she forcefully intervened, it might provoke rival Major Sects to interfere as well, turning Andromeda into a catastrophic intergalactic warzone far beyond what any minor sect could survive.

Because of that, she had been forced to remain hidden. She could only help secretly where she could, sending resources, guidance, and protection without revealing her identity. She had trusted Ignis, Pyros, and Asteria to endure, to survive, and to continue protecting the foundation she had once built.

But now Asteria was dead, Ignis was nearly destroyed, and Pyros had barely survived.

Hazel no longer cared about the rules, the consequences, or what rival powers might say. She wanted the one responsible to die.

She suddenly roared, and an intangible, invisible ripple of energy spread across the battlefield. It did not tear space or burn mana, but the moment it touched the Peak Rule Stage beings around her, their consciousnesses shuddered violently. Aside from Ignis and Pyros, everyone struck by the ripple felt their minds going blank, as if an invisible hand had gripped their willforce and squeezed it.

Some of the weaker Peak Rule Stage beings went completely unconscious on the spot, their bodies drifting helplessly through the void. Mouths hung open. Eyes rolled back. Domains collapsed into fragments of scattered essence.

Octaven and Kaelar, who had rushed near Adrian, were forced to kneel in the emptiness. Their bodies did not bow from physical pressure, but their minds struggled violently beneath the roar. The force attacked consciousness directly, bypassing ordinary defenses and shaking the will that controlled their domains.

Adrian moved forward, trying to shield them as much as he could. He was not entirely sure what kind of power this woman was releasing, but whatever intangible energy came from her did not affect him as deeply as it affected the others. No, it would have affected him if he had stood alone. But the wills of all the arcane concepts stood with him, forming an unseen barrier that blocked the worst of its effect before it could invade his consciousness.

As Adrian stood in front of them, Octaven and Kaelar felt the burden lessen slightly, but their minds still trembled on the verge of fracture.

Nightshade slowly drifted toward Adrian, his body also trembling beneath the contagious force of Hazel's roar. His shadow domain flickered unevenly, but he forced his consciousness to remain clear enough to speak. "That woman," he said, his voice strained, each word dragged from his throat, "is the one who founded the Ashen Vortex Sect."

Adrian's eyes narrowed slightly.

Nightshade continued, "She disappeared millions of years ago. Many thought she had died, but it seems the truth was different. I do not know where she has been all this time, but I am certain of one thing. She is not merely a Rule Stage being like us anymore."

Adrian nodded, his gaze remaining fixed on Hazel. Just by observing her, the raging intangible energy, and the way the wills of the arcane concepts were blocking its effects for him, Adrian had already deduced several things.

This woman could very well be an Astral Stage cultivator, and the power she had just released was likely a willforce technique. It did not behave like ordinary authority. It did not simply modify the rules of reality. It attacked consciousness directly, bypassing many conventional defenses, and the fact that Octaven, Kaelar, and even Nightshade were struggling beneath it proved that it belonged to a level beyond normal Peak Rule Stage methods.

As Adrian thought through this, Hazel moved.

The next instant, before Adrian could fully notice her approach, she was already in front of him. Her fist landed against his chest.

Adrian could not react in time. The moment Hazel closed in, he felt most of his arcane concepts being locked by her authority. Only a few remained loose enough to answer him, including Time and the Prime Arcane Concept of Causality. The speed he had gained from freely wielding countless arcane concepts vanished almost completely, and Hazel herself was far faster than his normal physical movement.

The punch hurled him backward through the void.

Before Adrian could stabilize, Hazel was already upon him again. Her fist struck his face this time, snapping his head to the side and sending him flying in another direction. Blood sprayed from his lips, scattering as dark droplets in the emptiness.

Adrian's vision blurred. Pain exploded through his jaw, his skull. The world spun violently.

Hazel's expression twisted with disgust. "A weak little thing like you dared to touch my brothers?"

She appeared near him again and punched him toward another side, the force of the blow bending space around his body. Adrian was hurled back, tumbling through the void, ribs cracking further, blood filling his lungs.

But this time, he forced himself to stabilize in the void.

He pushed the arcane concepts with his will, trying to gather their power again, but most of them remained locked. Around Hazel, he could see a dark blue domain, cold and controlled, carrying eighty percent authority.

All the other Peak Rule Stage beings nearby had lost the stability to maintain their own domains properly after Hazel's roar. Their minds were still in a terrible state, which allowed her domain to dominate the region with its full weight.

Adrian felt a flicker of confusion. Did the Astral Stage only grant eighty percent authority? Or was she not truly Astral, but rather a Peak Rule Stage being with a willforce technique?

He had no time to study the answer. A sword began materializing in Hazel's hand, formed from dark blue essence, and Adrian knew that if he did nothing now, the next strike might truly kill him.

Hazel raised the blade, her red-black eyes burning with killing intent.

"No matter how much i plan... It seems the universe really wants to keep pushing me, again and again" Adrian thought as his expression gradually calmed.

He closed his eyes.

When he opened them again, they were pure white-grey.

The void around him shuddered.

A white-grey wave of energy spread from his body, visible to everyone on the battlefield. It was not invisible willforce, nor the chaotic multi-colored storm of arcane concepts. Every being present saw the white-grey tide expand, and the moment it touched them, the surrounding Peak Rule Stage cultivators felt their Rule Cores tremble. More than that, they felt their divine concepts, the very wills that formed the foundation of their cultivation, fall into reverence toward something they could not understand.

Nightshade's eyes widened, "What… is this feeling?"

Even Hazel felt it.

Her Astral Core trembled slightly, and her eyes narrowed with shock. "Does he have an ultimate-tier divine concept?"

As the thought passed through her mind, a white-grey energy sword formed in Adrian's hand. It was nothing like the prismatic arcane blade from before. This blade was calm, pure, and terrifyingly silent, its surface carrying no flicker of color beyond that white-grey radiance. It did not roar. It did not scream. It simply existed, and the void bent around it as though acknowledging its place.

Hazel's grip on her own blade tightened.

Before Adrian, Hazel, or anyone else could move, a soft hand touched Adrian's shoulder from behind.

Adrian turned, and the moment he saw the familiar figure standing there, his eyes widened slightly. "Hestia?"

Hestia stood behind him, her presence different from before. The aura around her was deeper, more complete, and far more oppressive than the Crimson Vital Dominion she had once wielded. Her body radiated a faint crimson-green light, the merged essence of two divine concepts perfectly harmonized within a single Astral Core.

Yet her attention was not on the battlefield at first. It was on Adrian's wounded, blood-soaked body, on the bruises across his face, the damage across his chest, the blood still leaking from his mouth.

"Calm down," Hestia said softly, her voice carrying a warmth meant only for him. "I will take care of this."

Then her eyes moved from Adrian to Hazel.

The softness vanished, and a raging fury burned in Hestia's gaze as she looked at the woman who had struck Adrian again and again, and the void around her began to tremble beneath the weight of a newly awakened power.