Back in the Virelith Galaxy, within Azure Garden, the atmosphere inside the guest wing was quiet.
Adrian, Hestia, and Mariska were seated upon a plush sofa in the center of the hall, finishing a discussion of their impending moves against the Ethereal Providence Sect.
"Rest, Mariska," Adrian said, his voice calm as he rose from his seat. "We leave in a few days of external time. Until then, use every moment this place gives you. Stabilize your consciousness, and let your mind adjust to the Chime."
Mariska looked up at him, the lingering exhaustion in her eyes momentarily eclipsed by a sense of gratitude. She offered a respectful nod, inclining her head. "I will, Senior. Thank you."
Adrian and Hestia turned and left her chamber together, walking out into the quiet corridors of the guest wing. As they stepped beyond the arched doorway, they found Xeolze waiting outside.
As they approached, Xeolze's gaze immediately settled on Adrian. For a moment, the shadow guard's posture tensed slightly. The face before him was completely unfamiliar to him.
Noticing the guard's scrutiny, Adrian stopped before him.
"Aeon was the identity I used while traveling," Adrian explained, "Adrian is my true name, and this is my real appearance. Mariska already knows."
Xeolze's eyes remained fixed on Adrian's face. He studied for several seconds, finding the same underlying pressure he had felt back in the Providence Hub. The shadow guard relaxed his stance and inclined his head in a deep bow. His caution did not offend Adrian.
"Understood, Senior Adrian," Xeolze replied.
Adrian gave a brief nod and resumed walking beside Hestia, heading toward the central administrative sectors of the Azure Garden. The winding paths were bathed in the soft, green-gold light of the surrounding foliage.
But they had barely passed beyond the boundaries of the guest wing when Hestia's hand shot out. Her fingers caught the sleeve of his white-grey robe, her grip surprisingly tight, and she pulled him to an abrupt halt.
"Why the hell are you cultivating in your energy form?" Hestia demanded.
Adrian paused, glancing down at the slender fingers closed tightly around his sleeve, then back up to her face. He had expected this confrontation the moment he returned, knowing full well how the rest of the universe viewed the nature of energy body arts.
"I was just experimenting," Adrian answered, "Since I have accumulated a massive amount of mana and my willforce, I wanted to explore things which I couldn't safely do before."
"Experimenting?" Hestia's voice rose, "Then you should do it with something else! Why are you doing something every cultivator in existence treats as a final, suicidal gamble?"
Her eyes narrowed into dangerous slits, "I postponed dragging you out of the void because of the Chime of Consciousness resonating from Mariska. If not for that, I would have already been out there in the void, forcing you to stop before you burned your own foundation."
Adrian couldn't help but let a faint, amused smile. "So I was second on your list of priorities," he teased softly.
"Don't!" Hestia snapped, releasing his sleeve only to cross her arms beneath her chest.
"Relax, Hestia," Adrian said. "You have seen my memories. I have been using this Prime Arcane Concept for a very long time. I could enter this form before I ever even reached the Rule Stage, back when I didn't even know what an essence seed was. And I have invoked it repeatedly since those early days."
He held her gaze, "It has never burned, fractured, or damaged my essence seed in the way you are afraid of. My foundation is perfectly stable."
Hestia's expression remained unconvinced. The fundamental laws of the universe dictated that energy body arts carried a horrific backlash. To hear him dismiss that law so casually still grated against every instinct she had developed as a cultivator.
Seeing her lingering worry, Adrian raised a hand in a placating gesture. "If I even detect the slightest instability, or if my willforce begins to fray, I will stop immediately."
"Immediately?" Hestia challenged, her eyes narrowing further as she scrutinized his face. "Not after one final attempt to learn something useful? Not after pushing your limits just to see how far you can go?"
"Immediately," Adrian promised, holding her gaze until the rigid tension in Hestia's shoulders finally began to ease.
She let out a long exhale, giving a reluctant nod. "Good. Then answer me this, why are you doing this out in the deep void in ordinary time, when the time formation above us in the Azure Garden could give you years of uninterrupted cultivation?"
Adrian looked out toward the distant canopy of the garden. "To not disturb the others," he replied honestly. "Our inner-zone base doesn't have enough advanced formations or premium materials to hold on to the pressure my energy form exudes. The existential weight it carries is much higher than normally wielding my essence and my domain. If I transformed here, the ambient mana would collapse, and it would suffocate every disciple currently trying to cultivate."
Hestia's eyes narrowed thoughtfully. She had seen and felt his concept before. But most of the time, it had been in the form of his condensed energy sword or his expanding domain. While in that state, she had certainly felt her own rule core tremble, her arcane concepts forcing her divine concept to show a sense of instinctual reverence.
In a way, that suppression was why she had initially thought Adrian was wielding an ultimate-tier divine concept during their first encounters. And later, when she had experienced his memories and learned it was not a divine concept but rather a prime arcane concept, the overall meaning had still stayed the same to her. She just didn't ask exactly what specific concept it was, knowing that if Adrian was hiding the intricate details of his foundation, he had his reasons, and she trusted him enough not to pry.
But now, hearing him state that the mere presence of his energy form would shatter the environment of the Azure Garden, an undeniable curiosity flared within her.
"Show me," Hestia said, "I want to see it."
She was truly intrigued to witness the pressure that forced Adrian to speak and act with such overwhelming caution. Even though she had tried to respect his boundaries and not ask too many questions, she wanted to truly learn more about his prime arcane concept. She wanted to understand the power he had been hiding from everyone.
Adrian looked at her, seeing the genuine desire for understanding in her eyes.
With a slow nod, Adrian raised his right hand.
The space of the Azure Garden immediately obeyed, and a violet-threaded portal appeared. The rift anchored itself to an empty expanse of the Virelith Galaxy's void, hundreds of light-years away from the relic planet and any prying eyes.
"Come," Adrian said softly, stepping through the spatial tear.
Hestia followed, her crimson robes swirling as she crossed the threshold.
Pitch-black darkness stretched infinitely in every direction, dotted only by the faint, distant pinpricks of dead stars.
Adrian floated a short distance away from her.
"Brace your mind, Hestia," Adrian warned, his voice echoing in the void by his mana. "I am not going to hold it back."
Adrian closed his eyes.
In the next fraction of a second, Flesh, blood, and bone dissolved into a blinding white-grey radiance. His physical body was replaced by pure Source energy.
Hestia floated nearby, her eyes widening as she witnessed it in reality for the very first time. Before, she had only seen this energy form through the hazy lens of his shared memories, or heard the terrified, awe-struck reports from Lara and the transport fleet disciples.
But seeing a memory and standing directly in the presence were two entirely different realities. Floating in front of his energy form, Hestia witnessed the full power of Adrian. She could actually feel the Will of his concept merged with his existence. She felt a suffocating, ancient, boundless indifference that viewed all of reality as its personal domain. It was something she had never felt before in her entire millions of years of life.
The presence tore right through her defenses. Deep within her chest, her Astral Core began to tremble. It was not just her Astral Core reacting. She had comprehension of several other individual arcane concepts, which were in the form of essence seeds, also trembled.
Before Hestia could speak, Adrian's luminous hand abruptly extended and pressed against the center of her chest.
A violent disturbance rippled through Adrian's consciousness. "What the hell?" he thought, immediately realizing that he had not commanded his energy form to move.
His own intent surged in resistance as he directed his will toward the ancient presence merged with him. "What are you doing? Stop this immediately!"
The Will of the Source did not obey.
Before Adrian could regain control, white-grey Source essence seeped from his extended hand and entered Hestia's chest. The instant the connection formed, Adrian experienced an exponential drain of both mana and willforce, one so immense that it surpassed anything he had faced after the recent expansion of his reserves. His Mana Sea churned as vast quantities of power vanished, while his consciousness strained beneath the sudden demand.
Hestia did not know what was unfolding inside him. She believed Adrian had reached toward her deliberately and did not immediately pull away. Confusion entered her eyes, but her trust kept her from interpreting the contact as an attack.
Then pain erupted within her body.
It felt as though an invisible blade had begun cutting her apart from the inside, not slicing through flesh but severing something woven throughout the very structure of her existence. Hestia's back arched as an agonized scream tore from her throat and echoed through the void by means of the mana surrounding her.
Her Astral Core convulsed, her individual essence seeds flared wildly, and released a resonance that resembled both terror and celebration.
Adrian attempted to withdraw his hand, but the Source Form no longer answered him. The catastrophic drain intensified, swallowing his awareness beneath a pressure even his Anchor-stage consciousness could not withstand. In that instant, Adrian's consciousness faded completely.
The white-grey energy form remained floating before Hestia, but Adrian was no longer controlling it. The ancient will that had always remained silent inside him now held complete dominion over the manifestation. It could no longer be described merely as Adrian's Source Form. For those few impossible moments, it had become the manifestation of the Will of the Source itself.
Hestia's scream gradually subsided as the manifestation withdrew its hand from her chest. Her eyes closed, the strength leaving her body as she fell unconscious and floated motionlessly within the dark void. No visible wound marked the place where the white-grey hand had touched her, yet something deep inside her foundation had been irreversibly altered.
The manifestation regarded the unconscious crimson-robed woman in silence. Then the Will of the Source projected its voice outward into reality, "First General..."
In the next instant, the manifestation collapsed. Adrian's physical body reemerged as flesh, blood, and bone reconstructed themselves from the fading white-grey radiance. His eyes remained closed, his consciousness entirely absent, and his depleted body drifted helplessly through the void beside Hestia.
Within the empty darkness of the Virelith Galaxy, the two unconscious sovereigns floated side by side while the last echoes of the Source's spoken words faded into silence.