On the fourth year after the fall of the Demon Emperor, on a perfectly ordinary afternoon, Adrian was in his room, lounging comfortably while playing a game. His guard was down, his mood relaxed, until Elara's voice tore through the entire mansion.
"ADRIAN!"
The sheer force behind that single word vibrated through the walls.
He blinked instantly, abandoning his game and teleporting to the courtyard to assess the situation. What he found made him shut his eyes for a brief moment in resignation.
A long table, which his mother used for preparing dishes for their monthly gathering, was overturned. Plates shattered, mana-rich ingredients scattered, and every carefully crafted dish she had spent hours working on was now an unrecognizable mess on the floor.
Adrian didn't need precognition to know his mother was seconds away from unleashing planetary extinction.
He raised both hands in immediate surrender, "Mother, I swear I didn't do it! I didn't even leave my room today!"
Elara stared at him with a seriousness that could terrify stellar lords, her eyes burned with barely restrained fury. After a few seconds, she finally said, "If it wasn't you… then there is only one other person. Where is Thomas?"
Adrian immediately shook his head, "How would I know?"
Elara kept staring. Her expression didn't change, but everything about it said, 'Adrian, stop lying.'
Adrian squirmed under that gaze, feeling like he was being interrogated by a divine judge, "Okay, okay, fine! Father is hiding… there."
He pointed at an empty space and snapped his fingers.
A spatial tear cracked open. From within it, Kael and Thomas tumbled out awkwardly, Thomas holding a dripping ladle, Kael holding a pot lid like a shield.
Thomas's soul left his body when he saw that Adrian had betrayed him, "Really? You sold me out that fast?"
Adrian looked anywhere except at him, whistling as he slowly walked away, pretending to admire the clouds while abandoning his father and Kael to their inevitable doom.
"Don't look at me like that," Adrian muttered, "You know how she gets."
"Traitor," Thomas hissed.
Elara folded her arms, fire essence flickering dangerously around her shoulders, "Do you two know how long I prepared this? Do you understand how much effort goes into the broth? Do you?"
Kael raised both hands defensively, "It was an accident!"
"An accident?" Elara's voice dropped to something cold and precise. "You both claim to be powerful now."
Thomas scratched the back of his head sheepishly, "Well—"
"And yet," Elara continued, her aura flaring, "you cannot stop a table from falling?"
Thomas scoffed, trying to salvage some dignity, "Hey, accidents can happen even to gods!"
Elara's eyebrow twitched, "THOMAS! DO NOT BRING THAT 'GODHOOD' INTO THIS COURTYARD AGAIN!"
A fireball shot forward, blazing with concentrated essence.
Kael and Thomas immediately fled, screaming dramatically as Elara chased them through the courtyard, hurling spell after spell.
"I'm sorry!" Thomas yelled, ducking behind a pillar.
"You will be!" Elara shouted back.
Adrian watched from afar, sipping a drink calmly. Just another normal morning in the Origin Empire.
...
Later that day, the monthly gathering began.
It was never formal or grand, just the core members eating together, laughing together, and sharing the rare peace they had earned with their blood.
The courtyard had been cleaned up, mostly. A few scorch marks remained on the pillars, testament to Elara's earlier fury, but nobody mentioned them.
Long tables stretched beneath floating lanterns that glowed with soft mana light. Dishes covered every surface: roasted meats infused with fire essence, delicate pastries that shimmered faintly, soups that radiated warmth without burning.
Everyone gathered. The Twelve Celestials, Adrian's parents, Kaelith, Selena, Kael, Mira, Liora, and dozens of others…
After dinner, while everyone lounged on cushions or floated lazily in the courtyard's gentle mana breeze, Sentinel stood up abruptly.
Aurelia joined him, rising gracefully to her feet. Her usual composure remained intact, but the faint blush colouring her cheeks betrayed her.
Sentinel cleared his throat, "We… have an announcement."
Aurelia glanced at him, and for just a moment, the ancient warrior who had survived millennia looked almost nervous.
"We're getting married."
For a moment, everyone was silent.
Then the entire courtyard burst into cheers, laughter, and teasing applause.
Draven leapt up first, "Finally! I thought you two would wait until the next era."
Max jerked awake, "What? Who's getting married?"
"Pay attention!" Ilyas laughed, shoving him.
Cassian clapped Sentinel on the shoulder hard enough to stagger him, "About time, brother."
Elara beamed, pulling Aurelia into an embrace, "I'm so happy for you."
Septimus raised his glass, "To the first wedding in the Origin Empire!"
"The first of many!" Orin added.
It wasn't really a surprise. Sentinel and Aurelia had shared a bond that stretched across millennia, but Earth had always been in danger during their earlier lives, and afterward, the constant struggle for survival in the galaxy kept them from thinking about something as peaceful as marriage.
But now the war was over. Now they finally had time, and their love had only grown deeper during the four years of quiet peace, where they wandered the galaxy and lived without fear.
And theirs would be the first marriage of the Twelve Celestials, the first among Origin's founders, the first great celebration in the history of the Origin Empire.
Naturally, preparations exploded into motion. The Origin Empire had never held an event of this scale before, and everyone jumped in with enthusiasm.
"We need to invite the entire earth!" Mira said immediately.
"All of them," Selena agreed.
"For that, we'll need an extremely large venue," Kael mused, already calculating spatial formations.
The courtyard exploded into a storm of ideas, voices overlapping as everyone contributed suggestions. Venue designs, guest lists, ceremonial traditions from across the galaxy, food preparations that wouldn't accidentally kill anyone.
Adrian smiled, watching them all argue and laugh and plan with genuine joy.
It felt good to see everyone like this.
He caught Aurelia's eye across the courtyard. She smiled at him, radiant and grateful, and he nodded back.
This was what they had fought for. Not just survival, but the chance to live. To love. To build something that mattered beyond war and death.
...
While the Origin Empire prepared for its greatest celebration, far beyond the Milky Way, in a distant region of the universe, in a galaxy known as the Void Galaxy, a secluded chamber lay hidden within the Void Emperor's palace.
The chamber itself existed outside conventional space, suspended in a pocket of absolute stillness where time flowed differently. Only pure void essence saturated the chamber, so dense it would crush any being below Rule Stage into nothingness.
After years of deep cultivation, the Void Emperor's eyes finally opened.
They were violet, like twin galaxies collapsing inward, and when they focused, void itself seemed to sharpen around him.
In the universe, spending decades or even centuries in meditation was perfectly normal, so he stretched slightly, as if waking from a long but refreshing nap.
His appearance was humanoid, but his skin held faint streaks of violet, as if nebulae passed beneath it. His hair was pure white, cascading past his shoulders, and his gaze carried the weight of countless eras.
He exhaled slowly, void essence rippling outward in concentric rings.
The Void Emperor rose from his meditation platform, bare feet touching the floor without sound. He spoke softly, his voice resonant yet gentle, "Lyria, did anything happen while I was cultivating?"
A blue energy sphere flickered into existence beside him, "Nothing significant, Master. The Void Sect continues to expand under your guidance; no conflicts have escalated beyond the Elders' ability to manage."
The Void Emperor nodded, walking toward a window that overlooked the endless expanse of his galaxy. Billions of stars glittered in the distance, their light swallowed by vast rivers of pure mana that flowed between them. The void here was not empty; rather held mana.
Then the sphere paused, as if remembering something, "Ah. There was a report from Sylas. He said it was confidential and that only you should see it."
That caught the Void Emperor's attention.
He turned from the window, facing the sphere directly. Sylas rarely sent reports beyond the standard confirmations. The Guardian Spirit was meticulous and utterly reliable, but he understood the value of silence. If Sylas deemed something confidential, it meant the information carried weight beyond routine observation.
And it was not the usual time to open the path for the Milky Way galaxy.
The barrier only opened once every hundred thousand years. They were still thousands of years away from the next scheduled opening.
So what could possibly warrant a confidential report now?
"Show me the report," the Void Emperor commanded.
"At once, Master."
A shimmering projection unfolded before him, threads of blue light weaving together into text and images.
And thus, after years of silence, he finally looked upon the information that Sylas had sent…
The report about the Origin Empire, about Adrian Blackwood, about an anomaly who wielded an arcane concept which granted him 100% authority!