Veythar's voice cracked across the void. "You murdered my son, human filth! Now I'll erase every trace of your existence!"
His dual domains bled into each other, space bending in violent waves, corrosion dripping through the cracks like acid. His grin stretched too wide, teeth bared like a beast's.
Adrian pushed Varik toward Kaelith's warship. "Go!"
Varik's eyes widened, protests forming on his lips, but the force of Adrian's shove sent him tumbling through the vacuum.
Kaelith floated out from her ship, eyes fixed on Veythar. She caught Varik mid-space, then positioned herself between the planet and the battlefield.
Her fleet adjusted instantly, shields layering behind her. She stood like a wall between life and annihilation.
Adrian faced Veythar and directly activated his Source Form.
He could have fought using his space and fire domains, but he lacked mastery in battle with those concepts. And he had already learned his lesson, he would not underestimate anyone this time.
His form ignited in white-grey brilliance. White-grey essence spread across the stars, light bending around him, the void itself warping in reverence.
Kaelith's warriors flinched as their essence seeds trembled. Several staggered backward.
One of them whispered, "I was in the arena… but his essence feels stronger than before."
Kaelith's eyes narrowed. "He's grown."
This was not the same Source Form he wielded back in the arena. In this gap, he had comprehended many basic galactic concepts which made his Source essence stronger, deeper, more absolute.
Veythar felt the pressure too. His dual essence seeds pulsed under the weight of the Source, forced to yield for a heartbeat before his will crushed the suppression.
He laughed, his teeth glinting like shards. "You think this trick will save you? You can't defeat me with parlor light!"
He vanished.
Dozens of afterimages split through space, each one swinging with bladed waves of compressed void wrapped in corrosion.
They sliced through the vacuum itself, aiming for Adrian from every direction, a storm of annihilation converging on a single point.
Adrian's Source blade formed in his hand, burning white-grey. He met each strike head-on.
Every attack Veythar made vanished against the blade, swallowed by distortions that Adrian shaped mid-motion. When Veythar bent space to strike from behind, Adrian twisted the fold and countered through the same crack.
Sparks of collapsing essence scattered through the dark. The void flickered with afterimages of their exchange, movements too fast for mortal eyes to track.
The fight raged in silence, no sound, only light and motion.
Veythar blinked across space, folding distance, claws of corrosion carving trails of acid light. Each strike left wounds in reality itself, green-black fissures that hissed and bubbled.
Adrian met each one head-on, parrying, redirecting, countering. Where Veythar's essence devoured, Adrian's Source remade.
The Viridian Patriarch snarled and unleashed a flood of collapsing spheres, warping the void into imploding tunnels. Space folded inward, creating pockets of absolute destruction that would consume anything caught within.
Adrian turned Veythar's collapsing spheres inside out, reversing the implosions until they detonated into harmless bursts of mist. White-grey light washed through the battlefield, erasing the attacks before they could reach him.
The ones watching the fight felt it looked unreal, as if Veythar battled the void itself, every strike redirected by unseen law.
And Adrian himself looked like a seasoned warrior who had fought thousands of battles, his movements precise and perfect.
But Adrian felt the cost. His liquified mana burned away fast, evaporating with each parry, each counter, each reversal.
Twenty seconds had passed already. Longer than ever before, but it was slipping, draining.
His recent growth had expanded his mana limits, but not enough to sustain this forever. The Source Form demanded everything, and even his enhanced reserves were finite.
He pressed forward. He moved faster, knowing he could not let Veythar live longer, he had to kill him before his mana was exhausted.
His blade carved through space, seeking the killing blow. Each strike aimed for vital points, throat, heart.
Veythar sensed the danger. He was bleeding from every orifice, crimson tears streaming from his eyes, blood pouring from his nose and ears.
He had already spent most of his mana reserves in this fight and on the journey here. He was almost dry now, but his grin only widened, madness burning brighter than pain.
He pressed both hands to his chest.
Then, against all reason, he began to burn his essence seeds.
One could burn their essence seed to use all the stored essence when they lacked sufficient mana. But no one sane would do this, burning the seed meant certain death, the foundation of cultivation consumed for temporary power.
But sanity had long abandoned him.
The space around him warped into madness. His body screamed in agony, his own flesh liquefying from within as the seeds ignited, yet his essence flared higher, violent, unstable, unstoppable.
"Come then!" he howled. "Let's see which of us dies first!"
Adrian's eyes narrowed. He could feel the shift.
Adrian's blade met overwhelming resistance. Each strike now carried the weight of a collapsing world, Veythar's burning essence pushing back with suicidal fury.
The void shook under every clash.
Kaelith's warships drifted back, engines flaring as they repositioned. Their shields flickered under the pressure of distant aftershocks.
Kaelith herself moved forward, essence flaring around her in defensive layers.
Adrian's Source form flared brighter as he pushed back. White-grey radiance burned hotter, brighter, trying to match Veythar's madness.
But his reserves were almost gone. Only five percent of his mana remained, the liquified essence evaporating faster than he could control.
The calculations were instant, brutal. Seconds. That's all he had left.
He ended it. The Source form shattered like broken glass, light scattering into nothing as the transformation collapsed.
Adrian stood once again in human form, chest heaving. His body ached, blood vessels strained from the pressure of maintaining that state too long.
Veythar burst into laughter, voice guttural, distorted. "You're dry, human! I can smell it!"
His eyes gleamed with triumph, blood still streaming down his face in crimson rivers as the vacuum turned it into crystals. "Burn too bright, fade too fast!"
He launched forward, twin claws cutting through space itself. Distance folded beneath him, afterimages trailing like ghosts.
Adrian blocked with what strength he had left. His arms trembled under the impact, bones rattling as corrosive essence ate at his defenses.
Every parry shook his bones. The force drove him backward, feet sliding across empty void.
Sparks of Source flashed with each clash, white-grey light flickering weakly against Veythar's overwhelming assault. His essence was too thin now, barely enough to manifest.
Blood drifted from his mouth, crystallizing into tiny rubies in the vacuum. The droplets floated between them, catching starlight.
"You killed my son!" Veythar screamed, his voice breaking. "You took everything from me!"
Adrian twisted aside from a corrosive strike, the attack missing by inches. "He raped innocents in the name of rituals."
"He was MINE!" Veythar's next blow carved through space, leaving a gash that hissed and bubbled.
The battle dragged toward Kaelith's fleet. Each exchange pushed Adrian back, closer to the warships, closer to the planet.
The planet below shone serene and unaware of the apocalypse blooming above. Clouds drifted peacefully across blue oceans, forests spreading green across continents.
Veythar's body was coming apart. Chunks of flesh sloughed away, disintegrating into ash as his essence seeds consumed him from within.
But his madness didn't care.
He thrust both hands forward, gathering the last of his strength. Space compressed between his palms, corrosion spiraling inward in toxic streams.
Condensing his space and corrosion essences into one catastrophic mass. Everything he had left, all of it, compressed into a single point.
Before him formed a black-green sun. Small yet impossibly dense, barely the size of a fist but radiating pressure that warped reality around it.
Adrian's eyes widened.
Condensed essence swirled in the sphere, layers upon layers folding into themselves.
Veythar's grin stretched too wide.
"If I die, I'll take you all with me!" His voice cracked with laughter. "None of you deserve to live!"
He hurled it toward them. The sphere shot forward, trailing distortions in its wake.
Veythar's body was already turning into ashes. His legs crumbled first, then his torso, essence unraveling into gray dust that scattered across the void.
But he was satisfied knowing they couldn't escape.