Back in the UNI-Residence, Adrian snapped his eyes open as the vision shattered and vanished.
A violent surge of rage flooded his mind. "Bastard!"
The emotion was overwhelming, sharp enough to make his mana stir uncontrollably. His hands clenched, white-grey essence flickering across his knuckles. But in the very next instant, another realization struck him, cutting through the anger within him.
This was not a fate vision. He could feel it clearly now. This was not a glimpse of what might happen, but what was happening at this very moment. His Source had somehow shown him what was happening right now, not a distant possibility, not a predestined thread.
"No… no, no!"
If this was unfolding in the present, then the moment that divine spell was released, everyone inside that sealed space would die, including his people.
His thoughts raced faster than ever before. He knew exactly where the formation token had been activated. He could rush there, shatter the formation, and pull everyone out, but even at his speed, that would still take more than a few seconds.
And he did not even have a few seconds right now!
He needed another solution.
Without hesitation, Adrian activated his Source Domain. He no longer cared about suppression, concealment, or restraint. The thirty-meter radius wielded absolute authority, complete one hundred percent authority over reality.
With that authority, Adrian issued a single command, forcing reality to obey. Take me there!
Space shuddered in response.
A violent drain tore through his mana reserves as reality bent to his will, and in the next instant, Adrian vanished from the UNI-Residence, leaving the room completely empty.
...
Adrian appeared inside the sealed space at a random location.
No one noticed his arrival.
Every gaze, every sense, every scrap of attention was locked onto Varkas, who hovered at the center of the sealed void, the divine spell nearly complete in his grasp. The condensed blue fire pulsed with lethal promise, and the pressure radiating from it made the void itself tremble.
Adrian's Source Domain immediately collided violently with the surrounding domains.
The Stellar Domains offered no resistance and were crushed instantly, but the Divine Domains of Varkas and Lyra pushed back fiercely. Authority clashed violently, grinding against one another, tearing pieces away.
Adrian felt it immediately, the perfect authority he had held was torn down as the divine domains resisted him simultaneously.
He didn't care about that and instantly switched to his source form, not merely for power, but for clarity.
Right now, the rage and fury boiling inside him were dangerous. Emotions like that led to mistakes, and a mistake here would mean death for his people trapped inside this space.
In less than a microsecond, Adrian's body dissolved into white-grey radiance.
The transformation shattered his domain limitations. The thirty-meter restriction vanished entirely, replaced by a powerful source influence that stretched without boundary. His presence alone distorted reality, overwhelming and absolute. The sealed space brightened as if a second sun had ignited within it.
Adrian's mind became calm, empty, and precise.
He analyzed the situation instantly. Varkas's spell was nearly complete. The destructive pressure radiating from it was enough to annihilate every Stellar present the moment it detonated.
What can he do in this situation? At this moment, even after transforming his source form, Adrian could still see that he did not hold full authority. The divine domains were able to even resist against his Source form, clawing at his influence. If he tried to seize control of the spell directly or clash with it using brute force, the backlash would still obliterate everyone around him. Fighting normally against it was useless now. There was only one solution.
Adrian invoked Absolute Source Order. "Erase."
At that instant, reality responded to him. Every thread of authority still held by both Varkas and Lyra's divine domains was seized violently, wrenched away, and unified under Adrian's will. For a fraction of time, his authority reached its absolute peak.
The rules of existence bent in unanimous obedience, and Varkas's divine spell dissolved without resistance, erased so completely that it was as though it had never existed at all. The condensed blue fire simply ceased without even an explosion.
Adrian staggered slightly. Nearly half of his mana reserves vanished in an instant, and his Source Form continued to drain what remained at an alarming rate.
If just erasing the spell cost him this much, what kind of being was he against now? Adrian could feel that the enemy's authority level was similar to the pirates', so that meant he was only in the Early Rule Stage.
So, to cost Adrian this much for erasing a single spell, how vast were the enemies' Mana reserves were? Adrian didn't know, and he realized he couldn't just erase this being entirely like he usually did. He didn't even know if he could in the first place, and even if he could do it, it would cost him everything. He can't risk it in this kind of situation.
...
Varkas was the first to react. "How…?"
His voice shook, trembling with disbelief and something close to terror. As the direct target of that erasure, he had felt it clearly, not just the loss of his spell, but the sensation of reality itself turning against him. Every rule he commanded had been stripped away, every thread of authority severed, and his divine spell had been annihilated without resistance.
In his entire life, Varkas had never experienced anything like this. His spell had not been broken, deflected, or overpowered. It had been denied existence.
The blue flames that should have consumed everything simply ceased, as though they had never been woven in the first place.
"Impossible," he whispered, eyes wide. "No one can wield such—"
Before he could finish, something struck his head with crushing force.
The impact folded his body backwards, snapping his neck to an unnatural angle. Varkas was sent flying through the sealed void, tumbling end over end, his divine domain flickering violently around him.
Adrian, still in Source Form, pursued relentlessly.
He closed the distance in an instant, his white-grey radiance burning through the darkness. His energy fist drove into Varkas's ribs, shattering bone. Another strike followed before Varkas could even speak, smashing into his shoulder and spinning him violently through the void.
"Wait—" Varkas choked out, but Adrian gave him no time.
Another blow crushed his sternum, and another shattered his jaw.
Varkas couldn't understand what was happening. His mind screamed at him to flee, to fight back, to do anything, but his body refused to obey. Every time he tried to activate an authority technique, twisting spatial rules to compress distance and escape, the technique collapsed before it could even form.
His authority that had dominated Lyra moments ago was being overwhelmed completely.
"How are you—" Varkas gasped, blood spraying from his mouth. "This is impossible! I'm—"
Adrian's palm slammed into his face, silencing him.
Varkas tumbled through the void again, his divine domain flickering weakly now. He felt it clearly, the enemy's divine concept was so much vastly higher in tier than his, and so it was crushing his own, grinding it down to nothing. Whatever percentage of reality he still commanded was being stripped away piece by piece.
"Ultimate-tier!" Varkas whispered in horror, his voice barely audible. "Only a legendary Ultimate-Tier being could—"
Adrian didn't let him finish.
He appeared behind Varkas, grabbing him by the throat and hurling him downward with enough force to crack the very fabric of the sealed space. Varkas crashed into this void's boundary, his body cratering the invisible surface.
Before Varkas could rise, Adrian was already there.
He stomped down on Varkas's chest, pinning him. The pressure alone crushed several ribs, and Varkas screamed, the sound raw and desperate.
"Please!" Varkas gasped, his four eyes wide with terror. "I didn't know—I wasn't—"
Adrian manifested his Source Blade.
The white-grey edge materialized in his hand, humming with absolute authority. Varkas's eyes locked onto it, and his struggling ceased entirely. He felt the blade's presence like a weight pressing against his soul.
"Wait—" Varkas whispered, his voice breaking. "We can—"
Adrian didn't give him any chance; he could feel his mana soon drying out, and he could feel the enemy still had more mana than he did. Adrian can't erase Varkas, but he can kill him in normal methods! He severed Varkas's head in one clean motion.
The blade passed through flesh, bone, and essence without resistance. Varkas's divine domain collapsed instantly, dissolving into nothing. His head separated from his body and drifted silently through the void, his four eyes still wide with shock and disbelief.
Varkas died without even understanding what had truly happened.
...
Silence engulfed the sealed space.
For a long moment, no one moved.
The Stellars who had been cowering at the edges of the void stared in stunned disbelief at the headless corpse floating before them. Some trembled, their faces pale. Others couldn't even process what they had just witnessed.
For them, everything had happened too quickly to comprehend. One moment, they had been facing annihilation beneath the pressure of a divine spell that would have erased them all. The next, the spell was simply gone, and flashes of white-grey light tore through the void in a violent blur.
Now Varkas's severed head floated silently before them, his expression frozen in terror.
At the center of it all stood a white-grey energy being, its form gradually solidifying, the radiance dimming as flesh and bone took shape once more.
Adrian emerged from his Source Form. His mana reserves had dropped dangerously low, barely ten percent remained, but he was still conscious, still standing. He won this battle only because of his source being able to suppress Varkas's divine concept, and he was able to negate any technique with the little mana he had, using that suppression as his advantage.
He dismissed his Source Blade and turned his gaze toward the trapped beings.
Most flinched under his attention.
Lyra stared in disbelief.
She alone had partially witnessed the clash. Her senses had been dulled as she had been midway through transforming her own body into energy when the white-grey being appeared, so she had not seen Adrian wielding one hundred percent authority to erase Varkas's spell or his divine concept being Ultimate-tier.
But she had watched as Varkas was utterly overwhelmed.
His techniques had been rendered meaningless. His divine domain, which had crushed her own moments before, had been suppressed so completely that it might as well have not existed. And then he had been killed with such ease that it looked effortless.
Her thoughts directly pointed towards Adrian being a powerful being.
"High Rule Stage?" Lyra whispered to herself, her voice trembling. "Or… Peak Rule Stage?"
This was not something an Early or Mid Rule Stage cultivator could do. This level of suppression is not possible even from a Mid Rule Stage being.
But in her current state, she couldn't sense properly. What she did know was that this being had saved everyone.
Lyra tried to steady herself, but the backlash from her aborted transformation tore through her weakened body. Her vision blurred, and her legs gave out beneath her. She drifted backwards, her consciousness fading rapidly.
"Thank… you…" she whispered, barely audible.
Darkness consumed her, and she collapsed unconscious through the void.
Adrian watched her fall, then turned his attention to the formation token that fell from Varkas.
He raised his hand and channeled his remaining mana and shattered it entirely.
The sealed space started to collapse. Then Adrian turned his attention.
He searched the crowd and saw Sentinel standing protectively in front of Aurelia, as Aurelia held Aerin tightly against her chest, shielding the child with her entire body. Both of them looked shaken but unharmed.
They were safe.
Relief washed over him, but it was accompanied by a deep and lingering unease.
Adrian's gaze remained fixed on Sentinel, Aurelia, and Aerin. They were safe, but that single truth did nothing to erase the cold weight settling into Adrian's chest.
This was the exact scenario Adrian had always feared and sought to avoid above all else: his people being cornered by cultivators far stronger than them, rendered helpless in the face of overwhelming power.
He had seen it clearly in that vision. The desperation, the absolute inability to resist. Sentinel and Aurelia were both Stellar Warlords, yet against a divine domain, they had been nothing more than insects waiting to be crushed.
And even that Lyra's sacrifice would have been meaningless if Adrian had not arrived.
That reality gnawed at him.
Avoiding this outcome, ensuring that such a possibility would never befall those he cared about, had been the true reason he stepped beyond his galaxy in the first place.
From the very beginning, this journey had never been a simple excursion born of curiosity. The universe was saturated with danger, layered with unseen threats, and governed by strength above all else. Adrian understood that truth better than anyone.
He had always known that the possibility existed, the possibility that one day, his people might suffer at the hands of cultivators vastly stronger than them, even if they merely stayed within their home galaxy. He knew he could not rely on the barrier deployed by the Void Sect to protect his galaxy forever.
Barriers could fall, protections could fail, and promises could be broken.
He understood that only supremacy, only overwhelming strength, could ensure survival. Only absolute supremacy could guarantee protection, not just for himself, but for everyone he cared about.
His people needed strength of their own, strength sufficient to stand, to fight, and to endure, no matter what dangers were cast upon them.
This was also a lesson he had already learned within his own galaxy.
It was why he entered the universe alongside his people, determined to grow stronger together and prepare for threats that might one day descend upon them.
And he had not pursued this goal carelessly.
From the moment they crossed the boundary of the Milky Way, he had acted with caution. Every step had been deliberate. Every decision had been weighed. His thoughts had been filled with calculations, contingency plans, and constant consideration of unseen dangers.
He had avoided revealing his true nature. He had even suppressed his Source Domain to appear weaker than he truly was.
Every action had been measured.
And yet, as he reflected now, a cold realization settled into his chest.
Somewhere along the way, he had grown dull.
Adrian's jaw tightened.
The UNI-Hub was labeled a "safe zone." The Void Sect's barrier around his galaxy had been described in the same way. Even though he had never fully trusted such claims, those illusions of protection had still influenced him, slowly softening his vigilance and blunting his edge.
He had allowed himself to believe, even subconsciously, that danger would not strike here. That his people could explore freely without consequence. That the rules governing this place would hold.
And the peace he had enjoyed over the years had played its part as well. Comfort had numbed him. Routine had lulled him.
Fifteen years of celebration, laughter, and ordinary days had worn away the sharpness he once carried. The same sharpness that had allowed him to survive the galaxy.
He had forgotten what it felt like to stand on the edge of annihilation.
And now, this battle, this sudden danger, and this moment of watching his people stand on the brink of death shattered that dullness completely.
The sealed space finally collapsed in its entirety, and everyone was returned to the street from which they had been taken.
Adrian exhaled slowly.
The transition was instantaneous. One moment, they floated in a dark void. The next, solid ground materialized beneath their feet, and the artificial sky of the UNI-Hub stretched overhead once more.
Varkas's headless corpse tumbled onto the street with a dull thud, drawing gasps from nearby beings who had not been trapped inside.
Adrian landed lightly beside it, his expression unreadable.
Around him, the surviving Stellars shouted in relief and joy, celebrating the fact that they had escaped with their lives.
"We're alive!"
"I thought we were dead—"
Their voices overlapped, trembling with disbelief and gratitude. Some collapsed to their knees, overwhelmed. Others embraced one another, tears streaming down their faces.
But none of them realized that something far more dangerous had just awakened.
Adrian lifted his gaze, his perception passing beyond the artificial sky of the UNI-Hub, beyond the stars, and toward the vastness of existence itself.
In that moment, his will surged violently.
His desire to grow stronger and to ensure that his people grew strong alongside him rose to a level he had not felt in a very long time.
It was the same instinct that had once driven him to step beyond his planet into the galaxy. The same hunger for survival. The same refusal to be crushed by fate.
That instinct had never truly vanished, but peace, comfort, and the illusion of safety had dulled it.
Now, that dullness had been completely shattered.
Adrian's fists clenched.
He would not allow this to happen again.
Never again would his people be trapped like this, helpless and waiting for death.
Never again would he rely on luck, or timing, or visions to save them.
He would make them strong. Strong enough to stand against divine domains. Strong enough to shatter formations. Strong enough to survive.
And if the universe refused to grant them that strength peacefully, then he would tear it from the hands of those who hoarded it.
A sleeping storm had been awakened, and soon, one day, the universe would be forced to face its raging waves.