Behind them, Adrian and Kaelith observed everything calmly.
They knew everyone watching believed the Origin and Duskbane warriors had multiple essence seeds, but it was not the truth.
Every warrior looked like a multi-affinity cultivator, but in truth, they were wielding the tattoos crafted with the Blackwood ink. Their "multiple seeds" were just illusions.
They did not correct this assumption.
Let the empires think what they wished. Let them scramble to explain the impossible. The longer they remained confused, the safer his people would be.
For now, Adrian simply watched his people fight.
Mira coordinated resonance networks from the rear, her voice calm and precise through the Origin Net as she redirected mana flows.
Pride swelled in him for a heartbeat, but he did not allow himself to grow careless.
This moment was more than a battle; it was an opportunity.
Hundreds of concepts were being used throughout the battlefield. Some were obscure, some familiar, many he had never seen before at the galactic stage. Even from the Lexarian archives he'd received, it only had some rare concepts.
But now in front of him, he saw so many concepts, most at the basic galactic level and some at the advanced galactic level, that Stellars displayed.
Lightning concept that bent magnetism, Corrosion that ate through domains. Metal concept that shaped alloys mid-flight, Blood concept that drained life force across distances. Sound concept that shattered essence structures, Poison concept that invaded mana channels.
Each one revealed itself in combat, stripped of theory, pure and functional.
In all the battles before, he could not focus on comprehending all these; he had to focus on the battle itself, protecting his people, countering threats, maintaining formations. But now his people were strong, and they had grown to a point where they could handle themselves, which allowed Adrian this opportunity.
Adrian quietly activated his Source Eyes.
The battlefield transformed.
Essence threads became visible, weaving through the void like luminous veins. Every spell cast, every technique unleashed, every essence, each revealed its structure, its logic, its underlying concept. Demon commanders' domains appeared as geometric lattices of interlocking principles. Allied Stellars' attacks traced pathways of condensed truth through space.
His Source instantly deciphered each truth, feeding it into him like pages being read from an infinite book.
A demon commander unleashed a corrosion wave that dissolved steel and stone alike. Adrian's eyes traced the essence flow, isolating the concept of decay, the principle of entropy accelerated, the framework that allowed corrosion to bypass material resistance. The knowledge settled into his Source Seed like a drop of water absorbed by parched earth.
"Corrosion, Advanced galactic comprehension achieved."
An allied Stellar manifested weapons from raw metal essence, shaping blades that reformed even when shattered. Adrian watched the metal concept bend, twist, compress. He saw the underlying principle, metal as malleable truth, not fixed form.
"Metal, Advanced galactic comprehension achieved."
Some spells carried fragments of knowledge. Others held the complete truth of a concept.
A Voidrender Stellar manipulated void essence, creating pockets of absolute emptiness that crushed demons through absence rather than force. Adrian absorbed the principle, understanding void as emptiness.
"Void, Advanced galactic comprehension achieved."
The battlefield became a library, and Adrian absorbed everything.
Blood, Poison, Sound, Magnetism, Light, Metal, Corrosion, Void…
Concept after concept flooded into him, each one decoded, understood, integrated. His Source processed galactic truths at a rate that should have been impossible. What took cultivators centuries to glimpse, he comprehended in heartbeats.
His comprehension deepened. His Source Seed tightened, condensed, and refined. His mana swelled like a rising sea.
The pressure radiating from his body intensified without him noticing, distorting the void around him in subtle ripples.
And then he felt it.
The same sensation he had experienced once inside the Edge structure, when his Source Domain flickered into existence for an instant, a moment of perfect clarity where all essence within his domain bowed to his will, where reality itself acknowledged him.
He could feel it again, and he realized something.
If he comprehended even the basic galactic knowledge of enough concepts, he could call forth his domain without waiting to master them all, without needing to comprehend every concept to advanced galactic comprehension.
The realization struck like lightning.
A domain formed when a stellar achieved deep mastery of one's concept, comprehending advanced galactic knowledge. But Adrian's Source was different; it was the origin point. If he comprehended enough concepts at even basic levels, the sheer breadth of his concepts would form his domain.
Quality through quantity.
This meant Adrian could get his Source Domain faster.
But for now, he couldn't push more because even combined with all the concepts shown in the battlefield, he still felt he needed a little more. The threshold remained just out of reach, tantalizingly close but not quite there.
So he could not manifest the Source Domain for now, but he was near.
His Source Domain could form at any time.
For now, he could sense fifteen concepts which he comprehended to advanced galactic level, which meant he could wield fifteen domains if he willed it.
Fire, Ice, Space, Shadow, Gravity, Lightning, Water, Blood, Poison, Sound, Magnetism, Light, Metal, Corrosion, Void.
Fifteen separate domains, each one a truth he'd mastered beyond basic comprehension, each one a pillar strong enough to support a Stellar's entire cultivation path.
In the entire galaxy, the highest a warlord had was five domains.
But now Adrian had more than fifteen.
He allowed no arrogance to take root.
Power meant nothing until he understood what lay beyond it, what the Astral Stage truly was, and what threat the Aethelian Emperor sent his way in his future vision.
The Emperor had allied with someone capable of stopping him; even if the siege on his vision didn't grant him this many concepts, he still had his source form.
Someone who could hold him even while he used his source form was dangerous.
Adrian needed to be ready.
He withdrew his Source Eyes.
The battlefield returned to normal vision, though the knowledge remained, permanently etched into his Source Seed.
Thalren, Seraphis, and even Kaelith flinched when Adrian turned toward them.
Seraphis took an involuntary step back. Thalren's hand moved toward his weapon before he stopped himself, realizing the futility of such a gesture.
They felt a presence emanating from him that was tens of times denser than a moment ago.
The pressure didn't crush or threaten. It simply was, like standing before an ocean and recognizing its depth, its vastness, its complete indifference to whether you acknowledged it or not.
Kaelith broke the silence first.
"What did you do, Adrian?" Her voice carried genuine concern beneath the question. "Your presence… it feels completely different, like it could crush a warlord."
Adrian blinked, pulled from his thoughts. He glanced down at his hands, then back at them. Had his presence really changed that much?
He hadn't even noticed.
Thalren and Seraphis both nodded silently, unable to articulate what they felt.
They had been preparing to ask Adrian about the Origin warriors, but that question died instantly the moment they sensed him now.
Whatever Adrian had done in these few minutes, whatever transformation had occurred, it dwarfed their concerns about multi-affinity techniques.
Just what was Adrian becoming?
What was happening inside the Origin Clan?
"I'm not sure." Adrian finally replied, but he didn't give a proper answer.
Thalren opened his mouth, closed it, then tried again, "The Origin warriors—"
"I can't reveal it for now, I hope you understand." Adrian interrupted gently.
Thalren nodded slowly. He didn't like it, but he understood. Every clan guarded their core secrets. The Origin Clan's secret simply happened to overturn galactic cultivation.
"The demons are retreating," one of Thalren's officers announced.
All four of them turned to the projection.
Indeed, the remaining demon commanders were pulling back, their forces scattering into the void. The central line had eliminated twenty-eight commanders in total, with zero casualties.
...
Moments ago, when Adrian was comprehending the concepts on the battlefield...
The Demon Emperor tracked every movement across the Nyseren battlefield.
He saw one after another; the Origin warriors violated logic. He knew of the tattoos, but still, using that needs proper training, and fighting at this level is not something anyone can do.
"So, it's not just Adrian," the Emperor whispered, "Everyone in the Origin Clan is an anomaly!"
The more he saw, the more exhilaration twisted through his chest.
"A clan of anomalies." The words dripped from his tongue like venom, "A field of walking paradoxes."
Then he laughed.
It was not a laugh of joy or pride. It was the unrestrained laughter of a predator discovering that the forest around him was filled not with prey, but with delicacies that grew richer the longer they lived.
Outside the chamber, demon warlords flinched.
And then, he stood. "Enough."
His voice slithered through the void, reaching the demon warlords waiting outside the chamber.
"Retreat."
The massive doors groaned open. Four warlords stood beyond, their expressions frozen in disbelief. Voren, the elder twin, stepped forward first.
"Your Majesty," Voren rasped, bowing low but unable to hide his confusion. "The lesser demons are insignificant. Even if those warriors are unnatural, we can end this battle the moment we descend. There is no need—"
Aren nodded sharply, "We could crush them in minutes. The central line would collapse. Why withdraw when victory—"
The Emperor's gaze turned toward him, and the warlord fell silent.
"Retreat," the Emperor repeated, voice deepening. "Not just from Nyseren. From every frontline, every border. I want every demon, every commander, every warlord gathered here."
The chamber seemed to darken, Voren's mouth opened, closed. "My lord, you mean—"
"Yes," the Emperor whispered, "We will show them… what a real war looks like."
The warlords exchanged glances. Their emperor rarely unleashed the empire's true might. What they had waged so far were skirmishes, entire sectors burned, trillions died, yet these were merely... exercises.
This, however… this was the call for annihilation.
And the demons lived for annihilation.
Aren's lips curled into a savage grin. The other warlords straightened, trembling not with fear but anticipation.
The warlords bowed. The lesser demons were already turning in the distance, retreating from the void in swirling storms of black essence. Soon, everywhere across the galaxy, demon forces halted mid-battle, mid-siege, mid-slaughter… and withdrew.
A retreat not out of fear, but preparation.
As the warlords dispersed, the Emperor stepped away from his throne, walking through the chamber with contemplative grace.
Initially, he had come here for Adrian. He expected a single outlier, a single creature whose growth defied the expected sequence of cultivation… an anomaly he could devour to augment his own power, which would increase his chance to break the Great Nothing.
But the galaxy had delivered something else entirely.
Not one anomaly, not a handful, but an entire clan of them.
He recalled the Stellars from the central line, each young, far too young to have reached that level… all had progressed impossibly within the constraints of time.
Their life essence shone so brightly, so densely, that it contradicted every pattern the Emperor had consumed across eons.
Yet none had ever grown like this.
Not just Stellars, the same phenomenon echoed across the entire Origin force. Every one of them was evolving at an impossible rate. SSS-ranks who should have been fragile, barely capable of manifesting basic techniques, fought with the coordination and power of veterans.
They were growing faster than any being should. They were breaking the boundaries of natural progression. They were violating the growth rate that the galaxy itself imposed, as if some fundamental law simply... did not apply to them.
They were not merely prodigies.
They were aberrations.
He paused before a viewport, gazing out into the demon sector's endless void. His hand rose, fingers splayed against the cold surface.
"These children… they have the potential to surpass the galaxy's boundaries."
He chuckled, deep and dark.
"And it would be such a waste to devour them before they ripen."
His mind ticked forward, piecing together patterns the way other beings breathed.
Now he wanted to devour them all.
Not just Adrian, but every single Origin warrior…
The Stellars would grant him immediate power. The SSS-ranks, if allowed to ascend, would offer even more. The younger ones, those still climbing through the ranks, if nurtured properly, if given the right pressure, could become treasures beyond measure.
His war ignited their growth… If he intensified this war… If Adrian and his clan continued to grow at this rate… if they matured…
War forged warriors, pressure refined essence, desperation birthed breakthroughs. He had seen it countless times across the eons. The greatest cultivators always emerged from the fiercest crucibles.
And he would build that crucible.
Then devouring them would not merely advance the Emperor's strength.
It might grant him the impossible.
The power to shatter the Great Nothing itself.
The Emperor's eyes glittered with something that no demon had ever possessed, not bloodlust, but ambition so vast it dwarfed empires.
"Let the ancient cultivators mock me," he whispered. "Let them cling to those structures and wait for the guardian spirits' path. When the time comes, they will kneel before the truth."
Those fools. Sitting in their hidden sanctuaries, trusting promises made by beings from other galaxies, believing that patience and meditation would eventually reveal a path through the Great Nothing.
They were cowards.
He would not wait for salvation; he would forge it himself.
He looked once more toward the battlefield, "Grow, Origin Clan," he murmured. "Grow faster, grow brighter."
"The final war is coming soon… and when it does, I will feast on all of you."
He extended a hand, and the void trembled in response. Essence coiled around his fingers, the Devour concept, the principle that consumed everything and transformed it into power.
"The anomaly of the Astral Omen and his clan… I will devour every one of you, and the Great Nothing will break beneath my evolution."
His hand clenched into a fist.
The Demon Emperor returned to his throne, settling into the shadows with the patience of something that had waited many millennia and could wait more.
But his patience had limits.
And those limits were approaching fast.