The demons, who had come expecting an easy feast, finally understood that the battlefield had changed.
The remaining six commanders hovered in place, their domains flickering with uncertainty. One of them, a towering figure wreathed in shadow, snarled into the void.
"What are we waiting for? They're just twelve!"
But none of the others moved.
They had seen the spell. They had felt the weight of it, and they knew instinctively that charging forward meant death.
Far behind the demon lines, deep within the heart of the demon sector, the Demon Emperor watched the battlefield.
His eyes gleamed with interest.
With Azrael's devoured memories, he already knew of the tattoos, knew that the Origin warriors could blink, could share mana, could use multiple affinities. If he had issued a single warning, the death of those demon commanders could have been prevented.
But he didn't, he didn't even flinch as twelve Stellar demons were erased from existence. What intrigued him was something else, a warlord-level spell unleashed by mere Stellars.
"So," he murmured, a faint smile touching the edges of his lips, "there are more secrets."
"Good! Very good,"
The faint smile grew wider, "Seems like this is the anomaly I've been waiting for… all this time."
From the moment he learned about Adrian, he had a hunch that Adrian was the one he had been searching for so long.
His presence here was no idle amusement, no trivial diversion like he let others believe.
There was a deeper purpose behind the Demon Emperor's interest…
A reason only a handful of ancient cultivators in the deep Edge would ever understand.
...
In the deepest void of the galaxy's edge, beyond even the places explored by the empires, a lone figure drifted through the void.
She looked like a young humanoid girl, though she appeared youthful; her presence bent the void around her, and her slightest movement rippled currents of essence that would rupture the minds of stellar beings. Her eyes held depths that spoke of ages witnessed, civilizations risen and fallen, wars fought and forgotten.
Ahead of her, an old man floated cross-legged in meditation, his beard long and flowing, and his eyes remained closed. The void itself seemed to acknowledge his presence, bending slightly, creating a pocket of stillness in the chaos of the edge.
She flew toward the old man with the enthusiasm of a child greeting a parent after a long day.
"Grandpa! I went to the galaxy again today. It looks like they're about to start a final war!"
Her voice carried through the void without sound, a transmission of pure essence that bypassed the need for a medium.
The old man opened his eyes slightly, gave a brief nod, but said nothing. His gaze remained distant, unfocused, as though he watched events unfolding light-years away.
She hovered beside him, settling into a similar cross-legged position, though her posture lacked his perfect stillness; her fingers drummed against her knee.
"Why is that kid calling himself the Demon Emperor making such a mess again? Didn't he already comprehend a divine spell like us? If he wanted to, he could wipe out every empire in the galaxy. So why bother with war? He keeps saying it's for entertainment, but what kind of entertainment is that? Watching tiny beings run around? I don't get it."
She sounded genuinely confused, incapable of understanding why a being of such standing still interacted with lesser realms for reasons that seemed… trivial.
The old man exhaled a soft sigh of essence that made the nearby void vibrate, "You're thinking too small, child. He isn't doing this for war… and he certainly isn't doing it for entertainment."
He raised his hand, gesturing toward the endless gulf where the galaxy's edge ended and the Great Nothing began.
"That kid has long transcended the demons' inherited bloodlust; he isn't a demon anymore. War, slaughter, and conquest are meaningless to him."
The girl blinked, her expression shifting from confusion to genuine curiosity, "Then why is he waging a war?"
"Because he is searching for something."
She was puzzled, "Searching?"
"Yes. He is searching for a way out of our galaxy."
The girl's eyes widened slightly, her playful demeanor fading as the implications sank in, "A way out…? You mean—"
He nodded, his gaze never leaving the Great Nothing.
"Our galaxy is wrapped by that." His fingers pointed toward the looming curtain of the Great Nothing, "We can see beyond it, we can see other galaxies from here… but we cannot reach them. The Great Nothing binds us like a prison wall."
"Some say the civilizations outside trapped us here; others say this is just the universe's nature, but no one truly knows."
The girl fell silent, her usual brightness dimmed by the gravity of his words.
She nodded slowly; she may look like in her twenties, but she was far older than the empires.
"But Grandpa," she said, her voice quieter now, more thoughtful, "isn't there already a way? Those structures we find at the edge that come from other galaxies, the guardian spirit inside said the path will open soon."
The old man allowed himself a faint, weary smile, "That is exactly why he refuses to believe in them. He does not trust the paths laid out in the structures; he thinks they were left by the very entity that trapped us here. So he seeks another path… one that belongs only to him."
She frowned, her fingers stilling against her knee, "But how is waging a war supposed to help him find a way out?"
The old man folded his hands, "From what I observed of him, he seems to be searching for an anomaly. A being who grows faster than the galactic logic permits, someone who defies the rate of evolution. War is the only thing that exposes talent under pressure; only war pushes life to evolve beyond its limits."
The girl's eyes widened as realization dawned, "So he's doing all of this just to find that one anomaly… and devour it? If he absorbs someone who can defy the limits of the galaxy, he thinks he'll gain enough strength to break through the Great Nothing?"
"Exactly."
She gasped, her hand flying to her mouth, "Then that means he already found the anomaly! Otherwise, he wouldn't be getting involved directly."
"It seems so."
Her expression shifted again, excitement replacing shock. She grabbed the old man's arm excitedly, shaking it with childlike insistence.
"Then let's go! You're stronger than that kid anyway. If you kill him and take the anomaly, we could be the ones to break free of this galaxy!"
The old man chuckled softly, the sound warm despite the void's emptiness.
"Child, I do not comprehend the Devour Concept; it would be useless for us."
"But Grandpa—" She insisted, tightening her grip on his sleeve, "If that kid succeeds, what happens to us? What if he finds a way out and leaves everyone else trapped? We can't just sit here."
The old man shook his head, though the corners of his lips softened. His free hand rose, patting her head gently as if she were still a little girl, "No one knows whether the path he pursues is real or just a fantasy. Perhaps no one trapped us here; perhaps the Great Nothing is simply part of this universe's nature. And perhaps the structures are indeed the true path."
He paused, his gaze drifting towards the void, sensing multiple beings like him scattered across the edge. Ancient cultivators who had reached the limits of galactic comprehension, each waiting in their own way.
"That is why many of us choose to wait. We trust the guardian spirit more than the ambitions of a child chasing illusions."
The girl shook her head vigorously, "No, Grandpa. We shouldn't wait blindly, even if he's wrong, even if he's chasing an illusion, we need to see it ourselves. This is too big to ignore."
The old man sighed, though affection warmed his voice.
"You never listen, do you?"
She grinned, bright and irrepressible. "Nope!"
She grabbed his sleeve again and pulled him forward, an action meaningless in the void but symbolic in its own way.
The old man allowed himself to be dragged, and together they drifted through the silent dark, leaving the unmapped depths behind.
Stars grew brighter ahead as they moved toward the galaxy's interior, toward the siege that was happening in the Nyseren sector.