Adrian appeared inside the command hall in the Origin Construct.
The spatial fold dissipated around him, white-grey essence bleeding back into his skin.
Kaelith, Cassian, Selric, Aurelia, and the other core members stood around the central holo-table, waiting.
Cassian spoke first, "Adrian… what did you see?"
Everyone already knew something had happened, and nothing short of that would make him move the entire Origin Capital to the Edge.
Adrian's gaze swept across them all before he finally spoke, "I saw the future."
"We stood against the demon siege and won. We annihilated their forces, united with two allied clans. It was a victory that shook the frontlines."
"But the moment we won…" Adrian's voice hardened. "The Aethelian Emperor struck."
"He attacked our capital directly. Alongside another, a tri-essence warlord. They struck when we were at the Edge, and somehow… none of us returned in time."
A silence thicker than the void settled.
Selric clenched his fists, "You mean… the Emperor struck our home while we fought for his war?"
"Coward," Draven spat.
Adrian nodded grimly, "Yes. And the strangest part is, we didn't come back. The formation held long enough for us to return, but… we didn't. Someone stopped us."
Kaelith's eyes flickered, a rare trace of fear in them. "It could be one of them."
"Them?" Cassian asked.
Kaelith turned to the others, "Ancient cultivators, beings that predate the empires. They live in the Edge, beyond reason, beyond order. Only they could do something like that."
Septimus asked, "You're saying the Emperor has allied with one of these beings?"
"Every empire has connections with them", Kaelith replied. "Ancient cultivators care little for empire politics, but they respond to the right… incentives."
The hall fell quiet again.
Adrian finally said, "It could be them, or it could be something worse. We don't know for certain yet."
He placed both hands on the table, leaning forward. "The vision showed the siege comes months from now. That's the time we didn't have before. And with the Time Field active… We'll make it count."
Over the next few hours, orders rippled through the entire Origin Capital.
Defensive units were divided into strike formations. Half of the Origin Warriors were assigned to Drakthor's defensive lines, anchoring fortified stations along the shattered void.
Varik coordinated the logistics, his voice echoing through the Origin Net. "All SSS-rank squads, report to deployment zones. Stellar commanders, assume positions at anchor points."
The Duskbane veterans moved, guiding Origin's newer warriors through the chaos.
When the first Origin troops stepped into the Edge, they felt it instantly.
The void here was… different. Chaotic folds of space warped their senses; distance twisted, directions changed.
But they adapted. Thanks to their tattoos and the Blink skill, they navigated the distorted space with almost supernatural ease.
A young Origin warrior grinned, space essence shimmering around her. "We trained in void simulations for eighty years. This is nothing."
The rest of the Origin warriors remained within the capital, training under the extended time field once more; every second mattered.
What none of them realized, however, was that their defiance, Adrian's act of moving the Origin Capital, of denying the fate shown to him, had already begun changing the course of the future.
...
In the deepest reaches of the Demon Empire, there existed a world of silence and stench, a planet formed from congealed blood.
Skies bled crimson here, mountains rose in the distance, jagged peaks constructed entirely from bone.
In the middle of this nightmare stood a fortress, the Abyssal Citadel, the throne of the Demon Emperor himself.
Inside its high chambers, a blood-soaked game was unfolding.
A blinded Stellar being staggered across the floor, sword clutched in trembling hands. His robes hung in tatters, soaked through with his own blood.
His eye sockets gaped, hollow. Someone had plucked his eyeballs out, leaving only darkness.
A voice echoed through the chamber, bouncing off the walls in a way that made pinpointing its source hard.
"One strike, that's all you need. Land a single hit on me… and I'll let you live."
The tone carried amusement, the kind reserved for watching insects struggle.
The blinded Stellar screamed, swinging his sword in a wide arc, but the blade didn't cut anything.
"Here now," the voice teased from behind. "Try again."
The Stellar whirled, slashing toward the sound with everything he had left. His blade whistled through empty space, hitting nothing.
Then, without warning, a pebble shot from somewhere in the shadows, it struck the Stellar's skull, making his head burst open like overripe fruit.
Blood and brain matter painted the black marble in arterial sprays, the body collapsing in a heap of twitching limbs.
From the shadows near the chamber's edge, the demon that had been playing with the blinded Stellar appeared. Grey skin stretched over wiry muscle, jagged teeth filling a mouth that seemed too wide. Long claws clicked against the marble as he stepped forward.
"Tch. Damn it, Voren! That was my last one!" he snarled, kicking the corpse.
Another demon, nearly identical in appearance, sat cross-legged nearby. He hunched over a basin of liquid mana, fingers trailing through the glowing substance.
Voren chuckled without looking up, "Relax, Aren. Look at this instead."
Aren's irritation faded as curiosity took hold. He squinted, moving closer to peer into the basin, a scrying pool showing ripples of life essence across the galaxy.
When he saw it, his jaw dropped, "What the hell is this? Why is there so much life gathered at the Edge?"
The concentration was absurd. Life essence clustered in a single location, dense enough to create visible distortions in the scrying pool's surface.
Voren's smile widened, "They must've found something…"
"If we tell His Majesty, maybe he'll finally let us go there. It's been millennia since we've feasted."
Aren's grin matched his brother's, "Then let's go see the Emperor."
They ran, tripping over each other, shoving and elbowing like children racing for a prize. Their laughter echoed through the blood-stained halls as they sprinted toward the throne room.
But the moment they stood before the massive black doors, all laughter vanished, and their expressions went blank.
The doors loomed before them, carved from a single piece of obsidian so dark it seemed to devour light.
Then, a voice, deep and distant, resonated from beyond, "Enter."
The doors swung open without sound.
The throne room was a cathedral of bone.
At the chamber's heart sat the Demon Emperor, a figure carved from darkness itself.
He reclined on a throne built from the fused bones of a hundred species, his form both humanoid and utterly alien. Shadows writhed around him like living things, never quite settling. A crown of writhing darkness adorned his head, tendrils of it occasionally reaching down to caress his face.
His eyes glowed faint red, like embers in the deep.
If Adrian looked at the Demon Emperor now, he would have been shocked. The face, though twisted by power and age, bore unmistakable similarity to Azrael's, the same bone structure, the same angular features.
Voren and Aren knelt instantly, foreheads pressed to the cold floor.
"My Lord," Voren said, "We've detected a massive surge of life essence in the northern edge. It looks like the empires have found a new treasure; they seem to be gathering there."
The Demon Emperor remained still, fingers drumming once against the armrest of his throne.
When he heard the word edge, his interest piqued, "Is it? Interesting…"
He raised one hand, and a basin of liquefied mana floated toward him from across the chamber.
The moment his fingers touched it, the liquid twisted. Threads of energy stretched from the basin, extending through the throne room, through the walls, through the void itself.
He reached deeper, tasting the energy in the void currents, stretching his awareness toward the northern edge.
There, he found the usual deployed life, scattered fleets, fortified sectors, the standard defensive arrangements, nothing remarkable.
But then, newly arrived, he detected a massive concentration of life.
The Demon Emperor's eyes widened slightly.
He didn't stop. He focused more, pouring essence into his search, and suddenly laughed.
The sound filled the throne room like rolling thunder, "Ah… lucky, aren't I? An old seed still lives there."
His laughter continued, genuine amusement coloring it. The twins remained frozen, not daring to react.
The Demon Emperor reached into the void, his essence stretching across impossible distances. Space folded around his will, searching, tasting, until he found exactly what he sought.
He whispered one word, "Gather."
...
Across the galaxy, inside the Origin Capital, Azrael froze mid-conversation.
He'd been speaking with one of his people who became an Origin warrior. The words died on his lips as darkness brushed against his essence.
Before he could even react, before he could summon his wings or fold space, reality twisted around him.
In the next instant, he appeared before the Demon Emperor's throne.
Azrael's wings flared instinctively, panic flooding his face, "Where— how—"
The Demon Emperor raised a hand.
Threads of black energy shot forward, faster than thought. They wrapped around Azrael like serpents, constricting, binding.
Azrael screamed as the threads pierced his chest, sinking into his body. Pain beyond description flooded through him, not physical, but existential, the sensation of being unmade.
And then… he unraveled.
His essence broke apart into streams of light and shadow, peeling away layer by layer. Memories flashed in the fragmenting energy, all of it dissolving.
The Demon Emperor inhaled slowly, devouring it all.
His body pulsed, the veins beneath his grey skin glowing with a mix of dark-blue and crimson light. Power flooded through him, not just raw strength but understanding, comprehension earned through another's life.
He exhaled in pleasure.
"Memories… comprehension… ah, the replica works beautifully."
The Demon Emperor was the first being in the galaxy to comprehend the advanced galactic concept of Replica.
The basic form of Replica merely allowed the creation of lesser copies, constructs, tools, and temporary duplicates. But it could never reproduce a living being, could never capture the essence that made something real.
This changed when the Demon Emperor touched the advanced concept; it opened a new pathway.
He discovered methods to replicate himself, though the results were hollow versions devoid of memory, will, or connection to the original. They lived as independent beings, growing, learning, evolving.
But soon he learned its true potential.
By devouring these Replicas, he could inherit everything they had experienced. Their growth became his, their comprehension merged with his own, and even their essence seeds were transferred intact.
From that day onward, it became his primary method of evolution.
Even now, countless Replicas of him lay scattered across the empires. Seeds without memory or trace, living independent lives, some rising to power, others dying in obscurity. And when the Demon Emperor willed it, he simply recalled them… devouring all they'd become, ascending further with each consumption.
As the last of Azrael's energy vanished into him, the Demon Emperor's grin widened.
"Adrian! Origin Clan! I remember him now. Damn… interesting specimen!"
Recently, Azrael had connected to the Galactic Net. Through it, he'd learned many things about Adrian, his rise, his reforms, his impossible growth. And living inside the Origin Capital, Azrael had witnessed even more. Some of his people had even joined the Origin Warriors.
From them, he'd learned about the Time Field, the tattoos, the Knowledge Spheres. But not about the ink itself, since that information remained carefully guarded, but enough to understand the scope of what Adrian had built.
The Demon Emperor laughed softly, sorting through the inherited memories.
"So it looks like he's the anomaly of the recent astral omen. How fascinating."
The pieces fell together easily. The omen's strength, the impossible growth rate, the disruption of established powers, all pointed to adrian.
With this, he knew there was no new treasure on the edge, but the being called Adrian piqued his interest.
Voren and Aren exchanged horrified looks. They knew about the astral omen; they'd been paying attention to it since the omen registered stronger than their Emperor's own.
The Demon Emperor rose from his throne, "How long has it been since I enjoyed true entertainment? Perhaps it's time… for me to walk the galaxy once more."
The twins bowed deeper, exhilarated and terrified in equal measure.
"Your will, my Lord," they whispered in unison.
And so, the action of Adrian moving his entire capital to the Edge, changing the course of what was destined, rippled out and transformed everything; the cause and effect.
By refusing the future he'd seen, Adrian had drawn forth a new danger, and now, he had to deal with both the Aethelian and the demon emperor.