Adrian pierced through the vast currents of the edge void, the space around him warping and bending from the sheer velocity at which he moved. The Guardian Spirit followed closely behind, its golden energy form gliding like a thought made visible.
No one else accompanied them. Adrian had no intention of dragging anyone into this battle. After facing Arcton, he knew clearly what it meant to stand against someone wielding a divine concept. One misstep and even stellars would vanish without a trace.
The rulers had protested, of course. Lysandra had offered Lexarian fleets. Drazmir had volunteered his warlords, and Alice had spoken of coordinated strikes.
Adrian had refused them all with three words: "You would die."
They hadn't argued further.
The closer he drew to the demon sector, the heavier the void around him became. A crushing density of essence converged from a single point, thick enough that it felt as if the void itself was being pulled inward, devoured atom by atom.
The essence felt bottomless, ravenous, and familiar in a way that made Adrian's pulse tighten.
...
Far away, hidden within the deeper folds of the edge, the young girl and the old man watched the scene unfold.
They saw Adrian's silhouette streaking like a spear toward the demon sector, a white-grey trail burning behind him that lingered for seconds before dissolving.
The old man's expression shifted instantly, and he seized the girl's wrist without warning, "We should get far away."
The girl blinked, startled by the urgency in his grip, "Why, Grandpa?"
"The demon kid's essence has changed…" The old man's voice dropped to something grave, "It's stronger than mine now. I don't know what the Guardian Spirit intends by letting this play out, but that anomaly boy stands no chance against such a being. Staying here will only risk our own lives."
The girl froze. She had never heard such words from him before. Her grandfather had cultivated for over seventy thousand years. Even the other ancient cultivators avoided him.
And yet the demon emperor, a being who had once been beneath him, had now surpassed him?
It shook her to her core.
"But Grandpa, if he's that strong, shouldn't we—"
"No." The old man didn't elaborate; he seized her with a pull of essence and retreated into the deeper void. His instincts screamed a warning louder than any he had felt in millennia.
Something catastrophic was about to occur, and he had no intention of being caught in its wake.
The girl cast one last glance toward Adrian's distant figure before the void swallowed them both.
...
The moment Adrian entered the demon sector, a suffocating pressure washed over him.
The Demon Emperor's domain engulfed the entire sector like a black ocean, its tides made of writhing threads that looped around each other and pierced through the void.
Each thread devoured whatever it touched. Mana, essence, even the faint lingering dusts of demons who had already fallen. Adrian watched as a fleeing demon lord was caught mid-flight as black tendrils wrapped around his body and compressed. Within seconds, nothing remained.
Millions of demons were screaming, running, clawing at the void as they tried to escape, but the domain locked them inside like insects trapped in amber. Even the strongest demon lords could only flee, and the threads hunted them down one by one.
Adrian's face tightened as he felt the oppressive weight of the devour domain pressing against him. It was vast, heavier than Arcton's divine concept, more refined than anything he had encountered before. The threads didn't merely consume; they understood what they consumed, adapting and evolving with each meal.
But it wasn't the destruction that shook him.
It was familiarity.
The energy signature clawing through the void felt disturbingly familiar. The way the spatial essence bent and folded, the corrosive undertone that ate through reality itself, the precise control that spoke of millennia of refinement.
And then Adrian saw him.
At the centre of the domain, standing amidst a sea of dissolving corpses, was a figure wreathed in black and violet flames. Dark wings spread from his back, each feather edged with corrosive light. His face was angular, sharp, almost handsome if not for the madness burning in his eyes.
The Demon Emperor's face bore features Adrian had seen before.
Adrian's eyes narrowed, "…Azrael?"
A memory surfaced, sharp and sudden. Reports from the planet that Azrael once lived on, a warrior had mentioned Azrael vanishing mid-report, his essence signature simply winking out of existence without warning or explanation.
Adrian suspected why Azrael would leave his people like this, but it had seemed like Azrael had disappeared on his own, and Azrael was someone strong with much experience, so Adrian didn't mind it, taking care of his people. And the dark-winged cultivator had always been independent, aloof.
But now…
The face, the aura, the feeling, it all aligned.
"Is Azrael the demon emperor?" Adrian muttered again, this time more certain. His Source Eyes activated instinctively, tracing the essence patterns woven through the figure's core. The signature matched, but not perfectly.
Adrian was not entirely certain, but the resemblance was undeniable.
The Guardian Spirit hovered silently beside him. It offered no explanation and no interference.
The Demon Emperor eventually sensed the intrusion. His feast halted mid-motion, his gaze lifted, locking onto Adrian across the void, and disdain curled across his lips.
"Well, well." His voice echoed through the sector, amplified by the domain itself, "The anomaly delivers itself to me."
Then his gaze shifted to the golden figure beside Adrian, and his expression twisted into something darker, "And the guardian spirit as well. What an honour." His tone dripped with mockery, "What brings the jailer of this galaxy all the way here? Trying to stop me from ruining your grand illusion of divinity?"
His laughter was sharp, "Still playing god, are we?"
The Guardian Spirit's tone hardened, losing the neutrality it had maintained for so long, "I have never played god. What I do is preserve this galaxy."
"Oh yes, by trapping us." The Demon Emperor tilted his head, his wings flexing as threads of essence coiled around his form, "Do you think I cannot sense the barrier you built? Do you think I don't know your 'Great Nothing' is nothing but an illusion crafted to cage us?"
The Guardian Spirit's composure cracked for a fraction of a second. Its golden light flickered, dimming slightly before stabilising, so he could sense the barrier set by the Void Emperor.
That alone placed him far beyond ordinary ancient cultivators. Even those who had cultivated for tens of thousands of years remained blind to the galaxy's true boundaries, convinced the Great Nothing was a natural phenomenon.
But this being, this demon who had devoured his way to power, had pierced through the veil.
"Incredible," the Guardian Spirit murmured, genuine surprise colouring its voice, "You truly perceive the boundary…"
The Demon Emperor scoffed, "Of course I do. And soon, I'll tear your precious barrier apart and destroy you all!"
"You are mistaken," the Guardian Spirit answered coldly, "The barrier is what protects this galaxy. If it were gone, this galaxy would have been destroyed many times by intergalactic battles. And you speak of destroying us?" Its voice dropped to something colder, "You would be dead before you even understood why. The universe is not your playground; you have no understanding of its chaos."
The Demon Emperor chuckled darkly, "Then I suppose I'll see it for myself."
Adrian processed everything in silence. Barrier, the Great Nothing. These were truths hidden far above the galaxy's level, truths even ancient cultivators scarcely understood. The galaxy was evidently far more complex than he had ever been allowed to learn.
Then the Demon Emperor's attention shifted fully toward Adrian, "It has been a while, hasn't it, Adrian?"
Adrian lowered his gaze, "I don't recall ever meeting you."
The Demon Emperor's grin widened, "Oh, but you do. Look at my face."
Adrian's jaw tightened, and the name escaped his lips before he could stop it, "Azrael."
"But how…?" Adrian's voice trailed off.
The Demon Emperor chuckled, "Azrael is nothing more than a piece of me." He gestured lazily at his own chest, "Every replica I scattered across the galaxy was me. Seeds planted in soil I deemed fertile." His gaze locked onto Adrian, and hunger gleamed in those eyes, "And you… you were the anomaly I nurtured across thousands of years."
Adrian staggered internally; the words struck his understanding of reality. Azrael had been a replica. Not a separate being, not an ally who chose to leave, but a fragment of this monster standing before him. And what was this he nurtured him?
The Demon Emperor gave him no time to process, "I have waited long for this moment, let us skip the boring explanations. You are my perfect anomaly, the one I cultivated through war, destruction, pressure, destiny. And now…" His eyes sharpened with hunger, "I will devour you and complete my ascension."
Dark threads erupted from his body, thousands of them, and they pierced through space as they surged toward Adrian.
The Guardian Spirit drifted back, observing in silence. It could not intervene, not by the rules set by its master, the Void Emperor. But even more than that, it was studying.
In the universe, the strength of a cultivator was not defined solely by stage. Divine concepts, their tiers, their authority, their energy fuel, these determined life and death more than experience.
If two beings of Rule Stage fought, but one wielded a divine concept a tier higher and higher energy fuel, he could crush the other, regardless of battle experience.
And the Devour concept, a top-tier arcane concept, was one of the best roots for forging ultimate-tier divine concepts. The Demon Emperor had already pushed it to a level equal to Middle Rule Stage, a feat that should have taken millions of years compressed into mere millennia through endless consumption.
Yet the Guardian Spirit was not interested in the devour concept itself. It knew everything about devour, its mechanics, its limitations, its evolution paths. What interested it now was Adrian's concept.
Adrian's essence had already released Early Astral Stage-level energy during his clash with Arcton. The Guardian Spirit wanted to witness Adrian's concept with its own perception, so it could write a more detailed report to the Void Emperor.
As the black threads surged toward him, Adrian raised his hands. White-grey essence spiraled outward from his palms, forming countless threads of his own, threads woven from Source essence.
They pierced through space, spiraling to meet the incoming dark threads.
The moment they touched, the void trembled violently.
The devouring force that stripped essence clean, that consumed mana, matter, and memory with equal voracity, failed to consume even a single filament of Adrian's threads.
The black threads withered where they met white-grey, dissolving like smoke against wind.
Instead, Adrian's threads pushed deeper, faster, overriding the rules of the devour domain itself. They advanced as if the domain did not exist, as if the Demon Emperor's authority meant nothing.
Shock flashed across the Guardian Spirit's aura. Its golden light flickered erratically.
Inside the Demon Emperor's domain, devour should have commanded every rule. Any opposing force should have been overwhelmed instantly, consumed and integrated into the domain's hierarchy.
Even if Adrian's concept could be higher tier, Adrian wasn't even using his domain. Without manifesting a domain, even a high-tier concept could not act this freely inside another's domain unless its authority exceeded the domain's rule by a large margin.
Adrian's threads behaved as if the devour concept did not exist at all.
"What kind of arcane concept is that…" the Guardian Spirit whispered, "To surpass devour to such a degree."
The Demon Emperor's pupils constricted.
Adrian's threads split his devouring ones effortlessly, advancing like a tide that refused to acknowledge any hierarchy but its own.
The Demon Emperor felt something he had not tasted for thousands of years.
A threat.