Hestia's eyes widened at the sudden action, surprise flashing across her face, but she did not resist. For a moment, the corridor outside his private chamber became completely silent. The formations along the walls pulsed softly, the mana in the air settled, and Hestia's fingers instinctively tightened against his shoulders. Then, through that contact, she felt something vast begin to pour into her mind.
Memories.
It was intimate, precise, and overwhelming in its depth, as if Adrian had opened a door and allowed her to walk beside him through the history of his life. She was not merely seeing disconnected images. She was experiencing fragments of his journey through his own eyes, feeling his emotions, the pressure of his decisions, and the relentless burden that had slowly shaped him from a young man on a mortal planet into the ruler standing before her now.
She saw the blue-and-green marble of Earth, a mortal world utterly ignorant of the cosmic horrors lurking in the dark beyond its atmosphere. She felt the innocence of a civilization that did not yet understand cultivation, the fragile normalcy of people living their lives without knowing that the universe was filled with sects, empires, divine concepts, monsters, and beings who could crush planets with a passing command. She witnessed Adrian's awakening, where his unique affinity first manifested, and she felt the confusion, pressure, and instinctive caution that had followed him from the beginning.
She felt the despair of the Aranthor Fortress siege, the terror of standing before endless hordes of monsters, the desperate screams of defenders, and the sheer adrenaline of fighting when retreat was impossible. She saw the terrifying beauty of his first Starbreaker spell erasing the battlefield, a moment of power so far beyond what those around him understood that it had felt less like a spell and more like the universe briefly bending to his existence.
The memories shifted. She saw the creation of the Origin Clan, built upon the shattered remains of the oppressive Drakenholt legacy. She felt the suffocating pressure of the Aethelian Emperor's schemes, the constant danger of enemies who moved through politics, fleets, and hidden control rather than simple open battle.
She felt Adrian's burning fury when he dragged that very same Emperor by the leg across the galaxy, erasing an entire imperial blockade with a wave of his hand, not for glory or conquest, but because someone had threatened the people under his protection.
But amidst the battles and bloodshed, Hestia learned something that shook her understanding of the universe to its core.
She saw the invention of Blackwood Ink.
No, the Origin Ink.
Her mind reeled as she experienced the memory of Adrian creating an ink that could bridge the gap between pure mana and conceptual essence. It allowed runes that should have required specialized conceptual essence to function using pure mana instead.
It shattered the universe's fundamental law of essence dependency, bypassing one of the deepest restrictions that had shaped formations, inscription systems, artifact creation, and entire economic structures across countless galaxies.
Hestia had lived for more than a million years as an alchemist and sect leader. She understood monopolies. She understood resource dependencies. She understood how entire sects rose and fell because of access to rare essences, specialized materials, or concept-compatible catalysts. If Origin Ink were revealed to the wider universe, it would not merely create wealth. It would collapse the economic monopolies of every major power in existence.
Then she saw the trials Adrian went through in the Edge structure. She felt his resolve when he denied the Great Sect's offer to join them, refusing to abandon his people, refusing to walk alone into power while leaving everyone else behind. Instead of accepting the easiest path, he chose to forge his own way into the unforgiving Andromeda Galaxy, carrying with him not just ambition, but an entire civilization's future.
Finally, the memories transitioned into the most recent event.
Hestia saw the damp, fog-covered grass. She saw the simple wooden table, the steaming cups of nearly transparent tea, and the man seated across from Adrian with collapsing violet galaxies in his eyes.
She experienced the entire meeting that had just happened with the Void Emperor. She heard the ancient history of the Primal Beings, the despair of the unbreakable ceiling, the birth of the Primordial Mana Sect, the theories of mana and consciousness, the emergence of the Divine Stage, and the terrifying reality of beings who sat at the absolute apex of existence while still waiting for a key to transcendence.
When the flood of memories finally ceased, Adrian gently released her.
Hestia staggered slightly, her balance momentarily failing as the sheer volume of experiences settled into her consciousness. She reached up and held her head, her fingers digging into her crimson hair as she tried to organize the vast number of memories now coexisting beside her own million years of life.
It was overwhelming. She had experienced memories before through knowledge spheres, but this was different. These were not cleanly packaged pieces of information. They carried emotion, consequence, and pain. To see the universe through his eyes, to feel the impossible weight of the burdens he had carried, left her breathless.
And as she processed everything, she realized something was missing.
Her analytical mind quickly sifted through the timeline of Adrian's journey. The white-grey concept, the power she had always believed to be an ultimate-tier divine concept, had been wielded by Adrian from the very beginning. He had used it to erase the Demon Emperor back when he was still nothing more than a mortal by the standards of the wider universe. He had used it before he knew what the Rule Stage truly was, before he had gathered essence seeds, before he had formed a Rule Core, and long before he understood divine concepts or authority. That alone made one thing painfully clear.
It was not a divine concept.
But what it was exactly had not been revealed. The memories surrounding the true origin and nature of that white-grey mist were heavily obscured, carefully partitioned away from the rest of the transfer. It was not an accidental gap. Adrian had deliberately hidden it.
Hestia looked at him, her chest rising and falling slightly, her pale golden eyes searching his face for answers.
Adrian simply smiled back at her.
He had specifically hidden the details about the Source. Even now, he was still not sure if he could reveal the truth safely. The Source was the origin of all concepts, an anomaly that defied everything he and the wider universe understood.
Every time he thought of revealing it to someone, whether Hestia, the Celestials, or even his parents, he stopped at the end, unwilling to drag them into an unknown danger whose consequences he could not predict. He himself still did not fully know what he wielded, and he did not want others to worry over a mystery that carried such apocalyptic weight.
But Adrian had made sure Hestia knew almost everything else that mattered. He trusted her completely. Hestia now knew what the others from the Milky Way Galaxy knew about him, and far more in some places, binding her not only to his present, but to his entire history.
Hestia stared at him, her mind still vibrating from the aftershocks of revelation. When she finally spoke, her voice was barely a whisper. "Is this all real? The Origin Ink?"
Adrian nodded.
Hestia struggled to process how such a thing could exist. To bypass the fundamental requirement of conceptual essence, to allow pure mana to fuel specialized conceptual runes, to tear open an entirely new path for inscription, artifact creation, and sect development, it defied the basic architecture of reality as she understood it.
She wanted to ask more. She wanted to demand how he had managed to invent something that violated the universe's laws so cleanly. But sensing that there was a reason Adrian had hidden certain deeper details, she chose not to press him. She believed in him, and if he had chosen not to openly reveal something, then there had to be a reason.
Then her mind shifted to the meeting with the Void Emperor, and a strange smile appeared on her lips, "Of course, you rejected him."
Adrian raised a brow. "That is all you have to say after seeing the ruler of a Great Sect personally offering protection?"
Hestia looked at him with a mixture of exasperation and understanding. She understood his reasoning much better now. In truth, after seeing the life he had lived, the people he had protected, and the path he had chosen from the very beginning, she felt she might have done the same if placed in his position. "If anyone else heard about this rejection, they would think we are either brainless or arrogant."
Adrian replied calmly, "I do not care how others see it." Then, with a faint teasing smile, he continued, "And I always like to choose the most difficult path available."
Hestia pinched his arm immediately, her fingers tightening enough to make him glance down at her hand. "Do not joke around, idiot. Since you rejected the Void Emperor and chose the most difficult path, now we have to be ready to face the Major Sect envoys. And after seeing the kind of power wielded by the Void Emperor, these envoys cannot be treated as simple visitors."
Her mind was already turning over the Void Emperor's warning. Three Astral Stage envoys from different Major Sects were currently making their way toward Andromeda. They were coming for Adrian. Unlike the Void Emperor, who possessed the patience of a supreme being seeking the ultimate truth, these envoys would be driven by sect politics, greed, and the ruthless need to either control an anomaly or destroy it before another power could claim him.
Adrian nodded. "I agree. But do not forget, the Void Emperor is the ruler of a Great Sect and a Divine Stage being. Compared to him, the envoys coming here are not even remotely on the same level. And you do not need to worry, Hestia. I will take care of it. You can just rest."
Hestia raised an eyebrow, and the softness in her expression vanished beneath a sharper look. "Do not dare think you can just fight alone. If you are facing them, then I will stand beside you."
Adrian looked at Hestia, and for a moment, his thoughts no longer lingered on the completed war behind them. The Andromeda supremacy war had ended, Yselia had fallen, and the Crimson Vital Sect had claimed the galaxy. But beyond the borders of Andromeda, far greater powers were moving, their eyes drawn by the chime of his consciousness and the impossible value they had assigned to his existence.
The next battlefield would not be fought against minor sects.
It would be fought against the greed of the universe itself.