Thousands of Origin and Duskbane warriors lowered their hands as they finally stopped their barrage of attacks. The demon commanders' overlapping domains swallowed their attacks effortlessly; continuing the bombardment now would only waste mana, even if the resonance network and the tattoo made it remarkably efficient.
The demons continued their advance, and across the three defensive lines, warriors braced themselves.
At the center line, twelve figures floated together. Twelve who had once been humanity's final line of defense on Earth, twelve who carried scars of millennia…
Gary looked at the oncoming storm, "It's been thousands of years since we all fought side by side."
The others glanced at him, and a faint smile touched several faces. Memories flickered in their expressions, of ruined cities, of the ancient war that was caused by a single SSS-rank lesser demon, and the quiet, stubborn hope that had once carried humanity through extinction. Time had changed them beyond recognition, but the old familiarity still lingered.
Draven cracked his knuckles with a grin, "Save the nostalgia for after we're done. Come on, you all remember the plan."
Everyone nodded.
Ilyas moved slowly, frost gathering around his fingertips. "Just like old times."
"Except we're not desperate anymore," Selric murmured, his hands flexing.
Max drifted forward before anyone, "Let's see who gets to them first."
"Max! You—damn it!" Draven shot after him, complaining loudly as he tried to overtake him.
The rest followed, their pace accelerating until they were streaks of light cutting across the void toward the demon horde. Elliot laughed as he surged ahead, Orin cursing behind him, Gary shaking his head but grinning all the same.
The entire sector watched as the sight of twelve beings from the center line breaking formation and charging alone left them stunned in confusion.
From the command hall, Thalren stared, "These twelve… they're Stellars from the origin's registry." He leaned forward, "Why are they advancing alone?"
Seraphis frowned as well, unable to decipher the tactic. Even the best Stellar warriors would never take this risk. Rushing so deep into the ranks of demon commanders was suicide, unless the Origin Clan had some other plans.
Yet Adrian and Kaelith watched without alarm.
Thalren hesitated; he had already seen enough from the Origin Clan to know they operated with a logic far outside tradition, and intervening now could do more harm than good. Still, even he felt a faint pinch of dread; If the Origin Stellars fell here, the central line would collapse.
The Celestials streaked across the void, racing one another, shoving one another, laughing like this was a contest and not a march toward death.
Draven deliberately bumped Elliot aside, "Out of my way, old man!"
"Old? I'm younger than you by three decades!" Elliot shot back, elbowing him.
In seconds, they were upon the enemy.
The demon horde noticed them.
A horned commander bared his fangs, "Look at that, a little feast coming straight to us."
Another laughed, "Seems like they think highly of themselves. Come, let's show them who we are!"
Eighteen demon commanders broke formation, rushing forward to meet the twelve. Their domains ignited, all swelling outward as they collided with the celestials' domains.
A shockwave rippled through the battlefield as the two forces clashed.
The demons' combined eighteen domains overwhelmed the celestials' twelve, suppressing them instantly.
The entire battlefield watched as they waited for the first one to move; they waited for the first spell.
Instead… the twelve blinked.
One moment, they were being crushed by the demon's domains. The next moment, they vanished.
Space folded.
Even demon commanders hesitated, just a fraction of a second, just long enough.
The Celestials reappeared behind each of their targets.
Each celestial stood precisely in the blind spot of their target, their palms raised. In their hands, a thread-thin sphere shimmered into existence, so small it seemed like a minuscule drop of shadow, so faint it was almost invisible.
Then they pushed it directly inside the demon commanders' heads. The spell bypassed all the external defenses by slipping between spatial layers, and the moment it entered the target's body, fire and gravity detonated inside, collapsing a marble-sized point inside their body.
In one decisive instant, twelve stellar demons were crushed inward, their forms collapsing into nothingness as if they had never existed.
This Spell was Infernal Singularity, a multi-concept spell Adrian created and added to their tattoos.
What Adrian truly wanted was to give them an extremely strong trump card, and his initial plan was to give them his source spell Starbreaker. Technically, the source ink could convert the normal mana into anything, so converting it into source would also work, but the issue was with the spell itself.
StarBreaker was a spell created with all of Adrian's comprehended concepts; even time was included in that. With just the little time they had, even if it was just basic planetary comprehension, the celestials could not comprehend everything.
So he could only push this idea for later, and create the Infernal Singularity spell. It used Fire, Space, and Gravity concepts, and its power was equal to a warlord's spell, which could kill a stellar if it landed on them.
A stunned silence swept the entire battlefield.
And before anyone could process the scene, before the nearby six left-out demon commanders could react, the celestials blinked again, space warping as they flickered several times in rapid succession, retreating all the way back to the central defensive line.
Their mana reserves felt like hollowed wells; a warlord-level spell was not something simple. To use it, one had to pay a price; Infernal Singularity demanded more than sixty percent of their reserves.
Even so, this was fine; they killed twelve demon commanders!
For a heartbeat, the battlefield froze.
Then a spiral of murmurs began rising among the frontlines.
"What happened?"
A Runithian officer leaned forward, four silver eyes narrowing as he replayed the footage, tracing the movement frame by frame, "Did they… kill the commanders?"
"Twelve commanders gone just like that." Another warrior's voice cracked slightly, disbelief threading through him.
"How did all twelve blink?"
The question hung in the void like a curse no one could break. Warriors turned to one another, seeking answers that didn't exist.
"They don't even have space domains!"
A scarred veteran from the Voidrender Clan shook his head, "I watched their domains manifest, only two had space, the rest—"
"Then how?" someone interrupted.
They all clearly saw that all twelve beings from Origin didn't have space domains. Only two were using space domains, and others were using gravity, ice, shadow, and even multiple used fire domains.
Then how did everyone blink? How did everyone use the space concept?
To blink in the void, at the bare minimum, one had to comprehend basic galactic concept of space and have the essence seed for it.
And suddenly someone said, "These stellars are on the path of becoming stellar lords!"
The words rippled outward, carried by a thousand voices across the comm channels. Warriors who had been preparing spells froze mid-gesture, "Who are they?"
These warriors were veterans; they had participated in many battles and sieges, but they had never even seen these stellars before, and now they found out these unknown new stellars were already on their path to becoming stellar lords!
Most couldn't believe how a clan not even a year old could have beings like these!
...
Thalren and Seraphis stood silently in the command hall, the projection reflecting in their stunned eyes.
They had seen more than the frontline warriors.
They had sensed the spell.
The precision, the weight, the destructive force they sensed, these were traits of a warlord-level spell!
Thalren's fingers tightened on the edge of the console, "No… their aura isn't at warlord-level…" he whispered. "But the spell was."
Seraphis nodded, "To manifest a spell like that, one would normally need three concepts to the advanced galactic level, but none of them displayed a second domain, that means—"
She could not finish the sentence; the implication sent a cold shiver down her spine.
Thalren had his gaze fixed on the twelve figures now standing calmly among the central line, "Are they hiding their domains? Are all twelve of them warlords already?"
When the SSS-ranks used a stellar-level spell, they said to themselves, "It's a skill scroll," but what happened now couldn't even be justified like that.
If all twelve were warlords… If the Origin Clan possessed this many in secret… If they were raising more…
The consequences would surpass anything the empires were prepared for.
Thalren turned sharply toward Adrian, "Are all twelve of them warlords? Why did you hide it?"
Adrian didn't flinch, didn't hesitate, didn't offer an explanation beyond what he wished to give, "I have my own reasons."
Adrian knew they were not warlords and were just using the tattoos, but he didn't reveal anything about the tattoos or even say that the celestials only had one essence seed other than Gary.
When all the Origin warriors starts to use multiple affinities with the tattoo, everyone would surely get more doubts, and things would get more complicated…
But Adrian had no other way; he and his clan were already pushed too much by the Aethelian Emperor. Without this, his people would die here, so it was better not to keep hiding since this granted them a chance to fight!
He thought, "Before the empires eventually discover the truth,I need to get much stronger, far above them, so that even the ink would no longer matter!"
This was the only solution that he could think of.
Thalren and Seraphis exchanged a look, half awe, half dread.
Seraphis glanced at the projection again, watching as the twelve celestials reformed into the central lines.
The Origin Clan was less than a year old.
And yet… this was the power standing at its front lines?
Seraphis lowered her gaze, "If this pace continues… even the empires will feel uneasy." She whispered to herself, though Thalren heard every word, "No wonder the Aethelian Emperor forced them into the Edge."
Thalren said nothing as he turned back to the projection, watching the demons regroup.
He had fought for millennia, he had seen clans rise and fall, seen empires crush clans beneath their weight.
But this… this was something else entirely.