The purple portal sealed shut behind them, cutting off the scent of the Providence Hub and replacing it with the fragrant, mana-rich air of the Elyrian Sanctuary.
Mariska and her team moved swiftly across the hidden micro-dimension, carrying the rescued Elyrian prisoners toward the grand castle's medical wings. As they laid the unconscious forms gently onto the beds, the horrifying extent of their suffering was laid bare beneath the bright ambient light.
Mariska stood frozen at the edge of the room, her majestic wings trembling with a barely contained fury. The prisoners were in a brutal state. They were thin, their skin stretched so tightly over their bones that they looked like living skeletons. Deep scars lined their arms and chests where the continuous blood-extraction arrays had siphoned their blood to forge the Ethereal Providence Sect's prized Life-Blood pills. Their eyes, sunken deep into hollow sockets, fluttered blindly in the light, their minds ravaged by decades of unending agony.
"This is what they do to us," Mariska thought, "They treat our blood as nothing more than fuel for their commerce. They strip us of our souls and leave us as empty husks."
Every shallow, rattling breath drawn by the rescued prisoners stoked the boiling rage in her chest. She forced herself to step back, allowing the healers to swarm the beds, their hands glowing with soothing, emerald life essence.
"We will make them pay, Princess," Levi whispered, appearing at her side. The hardened warrior's fists were clenched, his own eyes burning with the same murderous intent.
"We will," Mariska replied, her voice cold. "But not blindly."
For the next few days, Mariska and her strike team were forced to wait. The Providence Hub had been thrown into a state of high alert following their initial raid. The Ethereal Providence Sect's surveillance had increased drastically; armored patrols of High Rule Stage guards swept through the Outer Commercial Continents, and sweeping scanning arrays pulsed relentlessly across the skies, searching for any trace of spatial anomalies.
They could not easily slip in and out of their hidden sanctuary without risking exposure. They had to bide their time, meticulously tracking the patrol routes and the cyclic fluctuations of the Hub's defensive grids.
After five days of waiting, the perfect window finally presented itself.
Gathering her team in the sanctuary's central hall, Mariska activated the ancient stealth artifact once more. The translucent veil washed over them, bending the ambient light and masking their mana signatures. With Levi tearing the rift in space, they bypassed the outer defenses completely, moving like phantoms straight into another sector of the Inner Continents.
Their target was another factory. They didn't waste a single second. The moment they slipped through the factory's primary ventilation shafts and bypassed the internal security wards, Mariska dropped the stealth veil.
"Leave no one alive!" Mariska commanded.
She unleashed her Ultimate-tier divine concept, a fusion made by two High-Tier divine concepts, one having the aspects of Space and another of Life. Both of these combined together as her astral core created a powerful Ultimate-tier divine concept. The void inside the factory groaned as her domain erupted outward, radiating with the pressure of an Astral Stage sovereign. Wielding ninety percent authority, she had an upper hand.
The guards stationed inside, merely Rule Core cultivators who wielded High-tier divine concepts, didn't even have the chance to trigger the alarm arrays. Their eighty percent authority ceilings were rendered completely meaningless against Mariska's overwhelming surplus.
A squad of violet-armored guards charged her, their weapons blazing with heat and force concepts. Mariska didn't even draw a blade. She simply raised her hand and modified the rules of reality around them.
Space itself folded inward, violently compressing the guards into a singular, bloody point, while her Life concept inverted its natural properties, aggressively draining the vitality from their bodies until they crumbled into dust. Levi and the rest of the team moved through the remaining overseers, their blades silencing any resistance within minutes.
They shattered the extraction arrays, carefully releasing the chained Elyrians from the machinery.
Supporting the newly rescued, fragile prisoners, Mariska and her team walked out of the factory's main entrance, ready to activate the stealth artifact and retreat into the void.
But as they stepped through the shattered doorway, the ambient mana outside froze. The sky above the Inner Continent seemed to darken, and a suffocating pressure pressed down upon the streets.
Tenyz stood alone in the center of the avenue, blocking their path.
He hadn't brought a single elder or squad of guards with him. He stood with his hands clasped casually behind his back, his violet skin gleaming faintly under the artificial twilight. His eyes swept over the bloodied Elyrians with utter disgust, before settling on Mariska.
"I must admit, I am almost impressed," Tenyz began, "You filthy livestock actually learned how to bite. To think a little bird managed to ascend to the Astral Stage and flutter around my Hub... it is truly a tragic waste of premium alchemical material."
Mariska's wings flared aggressively, her ninety percent authority churning the space around her. "The only tragedy here is that you came alone to die."
Tenyz chuckled, a dry, humorless sound. Beneath his arrogant facade, his mind was racing, carefully analyzing the threads of fate around her. He needed to know if this rogue Elyrian was connected to the ancient monster.
"Tell me, little bird," Tenyz said, his tone shifting into a calculated, probing drawl. "Who gave you the courage to break your cage? A stray animal doesn't suddenly learn how to bypass my security grids without a shadow pulling the strings. Who is your new master? Tell me who opened the door for you, and I might just let these broken husks behind you live a few seconds longer."
Mariska sneered, her eyes burning with hatred. She had no idea what he was talking about, nor did she care.
"The only shadow here is the one falling over your corpse!" Mariska spat.
Refusing to entertain his arrogant babble for another second, she channeled her Astral Core to its limit. She modified the rules of reality, the space around Tenyz beginning to fracture and fold as she prepared to unleash an offensive authority technique that would crush him and buy her team enough time to retreat.
Tenyz sighed, shaking his head. "Ignorant."
Before Mariska's spatial fold could even manifest, Tenyz's eyes flashed with a blinding, golden light. He didn't bother matching her authority or contesting her control over space.
Instead, tens of small, virtually invisible needles forged from pure intent materialized in the air around him. It was a Willforce attack.
Aimed directly at the consciousness of Mariska and her team, the needles shot forward faster than physical speed could track. Mariska had not yet reached the Chime of Consciousness stage; she could not 'see' the intangible energy of willforce. But because she had ascended to the Astral Stage and her consciousness had fully awakened, she felt the terrifying, invisible weight of the attack bearing down on her mind.
"Scatter!" Mariska screamed, forcefully halting her authority technique to throw herself to the side.
Levi and the rest of the team desperately tried to evade. But consciousness attacks were not physical projectiles. They did not travel through space in a way that could be dodged, nor could they be blocked by spatial barriers or physical objects. They struck the mind directly.
The needles of pure intent slammed into their targets.
Instantly, Levi and the entire strike team dropped to their knees, their weapons clattering against the paved street. The rescued prisoners slumped into unconsciousness. The team gasped for air, their eyes rolling back as the sheer mental agony paralyzed their cognitive functions. They couldn't even form the basic thoughts required to summon their mana, access their divine concepts, or exert their authority.
Mariska fell to one knee, her wings drooping heavily as a blinding pain ripped through her skull. Her domain shattered like glass, completely neutralized because her mind could no longer maintain the focus required to sustain it.
She gritted her teeth, blood dripping from her nose as she forced herself to remain conscious. In that horrifying moment, Mariska felt the true, insurmountable difference between an Astral Stage being who had merely awakened their consciousness, and one who had reached the first stage of mastery, the Chime of Consciousness.
"If just the first stage of consciousness mastery can do this..." Mariska thought, her vision blurring as she stared at the boots of her enemy. "How terrifying must the second stage be? Is this why my father refused to fight?"
Tenyz stepped forward, a cold smirk playing on his lips. With the Elyrian suppressed, he raised his hand, gathering a swirling mass of golden fate essence. He intended to capture her and forcibly analyze the fate strings connected to her. It would give him the clear, undeniable proof he needed to determine if she was truly linked to the ancient entity.
"Let us see who holds your leash," Tenyz murmured, reaching out to touch her forehead.
As his hand descended, the ambient shadows cast by the surrounding buildings suddenly warped. From the very shadow cast by Mariska's kneeling form, a figure clad in pitch-black armor materialized without a single fluctuation of mana.
Xeolze stood between Mariska and Tenyz like an impenetrable wall of darkness.
Before Tenyz could react to the sudden intrusion, a sudden, explosive wave of willforce echoed from Xeolze's form. The invisible mental shockwave crashed into Tenyz, shoving him backward several paces and violently disrupting his fate essence. Simultaneously, the residual wave washed over Mariska and her team, acting as a stabilizing anchor that immediately soothed their fractured minds and cleared the paralyzing agony.
Tenyz staggered, his eyes widening in pure shock. He stared at the pitch-black armor, sensing the refined, dense intent radiating from the newcomer.
"An Elyrian in the Chime of Consciousness stage?!" Tenyz thought, his mind reeling. "Impossible. How could they hide someone like this from us?"
Xeolze turned his head slightly toward Mariska, his voice a low, steady whisper, "Princess, retreat with your team. I will deal with him."
Mariska stared at the dark figure, her mind spinning in bewildered shock. She had no idea who this warrior was. Till now, she had believed that she, her brother, and her father, King Elyras, were the only Astral Stage beings in their entire civilization. To suddenly discover another Astral Stage Elyrian, and one who had actually reached the first stage of consciousness mastery, shook the very foundations of her understanding.
But the urgency of the moment left no room for questions.
Mariska nodded sharply. Grabbing the nearest unconscious prisoner, she shouted to her recovering team. "Move! Now!"
With a synchronized burst of effort, the team hoisted the prisoners and leapt into the air. Mariska activated the ancient stealth artifact, the translucent veil washing over them, and in a heartbeat, they vanished from sight, fleeing into the upper atmosphere of the Hub.
Tenyz watched the space where they had disappeared, his frustration mounting. He turned his eyes back to the imposing shadow guard standing before him.
"So, this is how you have been sneaking within my Hub," Tenyz said, his voice dropping into a dangerous register. "Masking your presence with some kind of stealth artifact."
Xeolze didn't reply. His posture remained perfectly still, his intent completely focused on locking Tenyz in place. He had no intention of fighting a prolonged battle or exchanging banter; his sole directive from the King was to ensure the Princess's survival.
High above the sprawling cityscape, Mariska and her team flew at breakneck speed, the stealth artifact shielding their desperate escape.
But as the towering spires of the Inner Continent began to fade behind them, Mariska suddenly decelerated, coming to a dead halt in the air.
"Princess?" Levi asked, as he stopped and flew back to her side, his breathing still ragged from the mental strike. "Why are we stopping? The Hub's perimeter patrols will be converging on that sector any second!"
Mariska looked back over her shoulder, staring at the distant, glittering skyline where she had left the unknown warrior behind. Her chest tightened with guilt.
"I can't just leave him," Mariska said, her voice laced with stubborn resolve. "Levi, take the team and get everyone safely to our sanctuary. I am going to check upon the one who saved us and return with him."
Levi's eyes went wide, "But Princess, going back there is suicide. You felt the power of that Yiphraen bastard yourself. We don't even know who this shadow guard is, let alone if he can actually hold off the young master of the Ethereal Providence Sect."
Levi shifted the prisoner onto his back, freeing a hand to reach out toward her. "If you fall, our people lose their only hope. Your father will—"
Before Levi could even finish his desperate plea, Mariska's wings flared with a violent burst of spatial essence.
"A true sovereign does not abandon her people to die in her place, Levi!" she snapped, her eyes burning with an unyielding fire. "Get them home. That is an order."
Without waiting to hear his response, Mariska tore herself out of the stealth artifact's protective range. Leaving the safety of the veil, she banked sharply, her figure blurring into a streak of light as she flew directly back into the jaws of the enemy, racing toward the exact location they had just fled from.