The Origin warriors started boarding their starships, the journey to Drakthor had finally come.
Adrian watched them from his vantage atop the Construct. Children waved farewell banners from observation platforms, their parents departing with confidence rather than dread.
Then suddenly everything slowed.
The sounds around him stretched into distorted echoes.
Golden threads erupted across his vision; they covered his eyes.
The world dissolved as he saw a vision.
...
Months flashed by in seconds.
Adrian saw Drakthor. The Origin Clan's banners flew over fortified positions, warriors standing watch along defensive lines.
The first few months passed without incident. Patrols reported demon movements but no direct assault. Warriors trained, rotated shifts, maintained the formations.
Then the siege erupted.
Demons poured from the void in numbers that blotted out stars. Thousands upon thousands, led by Demon Lords.
Adrian saw the origin warriors fighting, saw himself among them, coordinating with the Voidrender Clan and Infinitus Clan. Three forces moving as one, their combined might carving through demonic hordes.
The Resonance Network flared across the battlefield, origin warriors sharing power in perfect synchronization.
Demons fell in unending waves, and soon they achieved an overwhelming victory!
He saw his warriors celebrating afterward, their banners shining across the shattered void. Then the vision twisted.
The scene shifted violently, yanking Adrian's perception across the galaxy.
The Origin Capital.
Two figures materialized before the origin capital, one cloaked in gold, the other wrapped in shadow.
The Aethelian Emperor floated beside a man Adrian did not recognize.
Behind them stretched a vast army. Fleets of warships, thousands of vessels bearing imperial insignia. Stellars and Stellar Lords hovered in formation, dozens of them.
All descending upon the Origin Capital.
The main formation activated immediately. White-grey light met the imperial bombardment, Source-infused ink channeling power through.
The formation fought back valiantly.
Warships exploded as counter-formations redirected their attacks. Stellar assaults scattered into void pockets, but it wasn't enough.
The Aethelian Emperor and the stranger moved.
Both wielded tri-essence, their combined power creating something beyond individual mastery. Gold and shadow merged, forming a lance of absolute annihilation. Dozens of Stellar Lords joined the assault, their attacks converging on a single point.
The formation cracked under the impossible pressure, then the Imperial forces poured through the breach like a flood.
And the vision ended.
...
Adrian stood motionless.
The golden threads vanished. Sound rushed back, everything returned to normal speed, but nothing felt normal anymore.
His hands trembled.
For a moment, his mind refused to process what he'd seen. It felt too vast, too certain, too wrong.
Then realization crashed over him, "Fate," He murmured.
He'd learned the concept from Cassian; it was one of the stranger galactic concepts for Adrian, a force that occasionally granted visions to those it deemed worthy or necessary.
Cassian had explained it with his usual prophetic detachment. "The visions come randomly; There's no way to force one, no technique to summon insight. When Fate wants to show you something, you'll see it. Whether you can change what you've seen... that's the real question."
Now, Fate had shown him the doom of his clan.
Rage burned within him, his essence stirred, Source responding to the fury building in him, but he forced it down.
Right now, he needed clarity.
He closed his eyes and reviewed every moment of the vision in his mind, dissecting each detail.
The formation held for a time. Long enough, surely, for news to reach him at the Edge. Long enough for him to cross the galaxy and return.
A question formed, "Why?"
Why hadn't he rushed to the Origin Capital?
The formation had held. He'd seen it resisting the bombardment, buying precious time. With the Origin Net, he would've known about the attack instantly.
So why hadn't he returned?
Adrian's eyes snapped open.
Did something trap him at the Edge? A place similar to that structure where time flowed differently, and the Origin Net couldn't reach? Even so, what about the others? Why hadn't Kael or Selena or the Celestials rushed back to defend?
Was there something else, something that blocked him and the entire Origin Clan at Drakthor?
He didn't know. The vision showed only the attack, not the reason for his absence.
But one thing was certain. After the Origin Clan's victory at the Edge, the Aethelian Emperor no longer cared about pretense. He'd openly attacked the Origin Capital, consequences be damned.
And Adrian, along with everyone who could have stopped it, wasn't there.
His gaze dropped to the warriors below.
They were smiling. Boarding ships with confidence.
None of them knew.
None of them realized that while they fought at the frontlines, bleeding and dying to hold Drakthor, their families would burn at home.
Mothers, Fathers, Children too young to fight. Refugees who'd found safety under the Origin banner. All of them, defenseless against an imperial armada.
Adrian's hands clenched into fists.
"No." The word came out as a whisper, "I will not let this happen."
Kaelith, who had been nearby, caught his expression. "Adrian?" she asked, "What's wrong?"
"Nothing," he replied, "Just… a change of plans."
Before she could question him further, he turned toward the fleet and raised his hand.
"Everyone, stop boarding the starships!"
The command echoed across the docking platforms. Warriors froze mid-step.
Adrian's next words sent confusion rippling through the assembled forces. "We won't travel by ships. We're moving… differently."
No one understood what he meant, but none questioned their Patriarch.
Adrian ascended, rising above the Origin Construct until the entire capital star system lay beneath him.
Then he activated his Source Form; his silhouette dissolved into pure essence.
Then he spread his Source Essence outward, covering the entire Origin Capital, its planets, moons, and suns. And then, the impossible began.
The Origin Capital moved.
The entire star system began to shift through space as though swimming through the void.
Stars outside the viewing platforms blurred into streaks of light. The void itself bent around the formation, responding to Adrian's will.
Sovia staggered, gripping a railing. "What—"
"He's moving everything," Varik whispered, his voice shaking. "The whole system."
Then Adrian's voice boomed across every world, carried through the Origin Net. "Those who do not wish to travel with the Origin Clan… may depart now."
Within the embassies, representatives from dozens of clans watched in disbelief. The stars outside their windows were moving.
A Duranthian envoy stumbled backward. "This isn't possible."
"The formation's anchored to the void itself," a Lexarian inscriber stammered. "It can't—it shouldn't—"
Some rushed to evacuate, their ships launching in panic. Others simply stared, too stunned to act.
A few Lexarian inscribers who had been studying the formation fainted outright. What they witnessed defied every law they knew.
Formations were anchored to the void, carved into the very fabric of space. They could not move. Yet here was one gliding through the galaxy like a living thing.
"How is that possible?" one screamed before collapsing.
...
Inside the Command Hall, the core members gathered. Kaelith stood at the center, her expression grim.
"I noticed it just before he ordered the halt," she said. "Golden threads covered his eyes. And after that, he changed."
Cassian's expression darkened. "Threads of gold… that's Fate. He must've seen a vision."
Selric frowned. "A vision strong enough to move the entire capital?"
Cassian nodded gravely. "Whatever he saw must have been catastrophic."
Draven crossed his arms. "He wouldn't do this lightly, not with children and civilians."
"Then what did he see?" Elara's voice was tight.
No one answered.
They simply watched the stars outside streak into blurs of light, the void bending around them as Adrian carried them toward the Edge.
...
While everyone was speculating, Adrian kept moving. What he was doing now was not simply moving planets; he had covered the entire void around the Origin Capital and moved the void itself with him. This was what enabled him to move the main formation without shattering it.
This was only possible due to his Source Form. And he noticed something strange as he moved the void; the place where the Origin Capital had existed before looked empty, covered in nothingness. Then something began to flow between the gap, and new void was created there, filling the absence.
Even Adrian didn't understand how it was working, and he didn't have time to research it.
He had decided to do this because he refused to let the Aethelian Emperor attack his people while he was gone. To stop it, he would take the Origin Capital with him to Drakthor.
This was an extremely dangerous decision. First, this removed all trade routes and stopped visitors from other clans, making the Origin Clan's entire Knowledge Sphere sales halt. But that was only a financial concern.
The most important issue was that Drakthor was an Edge sector. Even the void at the Edge was chaotic; anything could happen there. Taking all his people, even children, inside the Origin Capital, was one of the worst decisions he could make.
But Adrian didn't have any other options. Rather than leaving his capital here and letting it get attacked by the Emperor, bringing it with him was many times better.
With this, not only could he personally protect his people, the main formation would also help him. And with it, he could maintain his Source Form longer, making it easier to face whatever the Aethelian Emperor sent his way, whatever that had stopped him from returning to defend his people in the vision.
Adrian moved extremely fast. But most people inside Origin Capital didn't feel anything. Even the void remained the same for them. The only thing they saw was the stars shifting rapidly, like they were traveling in a starship.
Across the galaxy, however, chaos erupted.
"He's moving an entire star system!"
"He's leaving the Aethelian Empire and defecting to another empire!"
Forums across both the Lexaria and Origin Net exploded in chaos.
Some called it the most foolish act in history, cutting all trade routes, severing all connections. Others called it a miracle.
Some watched in awe as Adrian crossed their star systems like a streak of starlight; it was so fast.
And soon, he arrived at the northern void. He saw the massive sectors at the start of the Edge. He didn't stop and kept moving.
The guards stationed there froze as a star system appeared.
"Wh—What is that?!"
"How did he get here this fast?"
They had seen on the Galactic Net that the Origin Patriarch was moving his capital, but that announcement had been made only minutes ago. So how had he arrived here already?
Adrian guided the system calmly, positioning it beside the Drakthor defense grid like one might dock a ship.
No one could answer. And mainly, they had thought Adrian was fleeing to another empire's domain. But now he had actually come to Drakthor!
The entire sector trembled in awe.
The galactic network exploded in speculation, admiration, and outrage.
"We'll have to fly to the Edge to buy Knowledge Spheres now?!"
But Adrian didn't care.
He had to do this for his people's safety. If he was going to lose trade because of it, that was fine.
Right now, only one thing occupied Adrian's mind. He wanted to see what the Aethelian Emperor sent toward him that had stopped him from going back in the vision.
He glanced at the main formation and smiled faintly.
"No matter what it is, this time I came prepared."