Lyra opened her eyes slowly.
A dull, crushing pain pulsed through her head, and for a moment she remained still, letting her senses return. Her willforce had not fully recovered, she could tell that immediately, but it had stabilized enough for her to regain consciousness. Even so, every thought felt heavy, as if it had to push through resistance.
The first clear thought that surfaced sent a jolt through her body. The key.
She tried to sit up immediately, only to wince as pain rippled through her head. She did not have the luxury to lie here. The key needed to be taken back to her sect as quickly as possible. Every second wasted was another second her enemies—
Then memory crashed back into her.
The sealed space. Varkas and the white-grey being who had killed him.
Lyra's eyes darted around the room, instinctively searching for restraints or enforcement formations. She had expected to wake up under UNI Enforcement custody, interrogated and bound, but instead she found herself lying on a bed inside a UNI-Residence room. The surroundings were calm, and more surprisingly, there were even mortals present.
Several of them stood near the walls, and their auras revealed nothing beyond the Stellar Stage. That alone was strange. Why would mortals be here?
"You're awake." The voice came from her side.
Lyra turned her head and saw a woman standing nearby, her posture relaxed but attentive.
"Who are you?" Lyra asked immediately. "Where am I?"
"You're in a UNI-Residence," Selena replied evenly. "And you're not under arrest."
The words made Lyra freeze.
UNI Enforcement never released someone like her without scrutiny. She had been the center of the incident, the cause of a sealed-space activation inside the UNI-Hub. Even if she was not a criminal, they would never simply let her go.
So why was she here?
Her thoughts returned to the being who had killed Varkas.
Even though her willforce had been nearly depleted at the time, even though her perception had been dulled, she had still seen enough. Varkas had been killed with terrifying ease. Someone capable of that was at least High Rule Stage, if not Peak Rule Stage. If such a being had taken responsibility for her, even UNI Enforcement would show deference.
But that only raised another question. Why would such a being take her? Was it because of the key?
Lyra immediately checked her spatial ring, channeling a thread of mana despite the headache it triggered. The familiar weight of the key pressed against her consciousness, still secure within the dimensional storage.
That realization confused her deeply. If the being wanted the key, he could have taken it effortlessly. Not only had he refrained from doing so, he had even ensured she survived.
There was only one way to understand this.
"Can I see him?" Lyra asked. "The one who killed Varkas."
Selena smiled faintly and contacted Adrian through her node. After receiving a response, she gestured toward a nearby door.
"He's inside. You can go in."
Lyra rose carefully, testing her balance. Her body responded sluggishly, but she managed to stand without swaying. She crossed the room, aware of the mortals watching her with expressions that held no fear, only quiet observation.
That was strange too.
She pushed the door open and entered the room.
Inside, she immediately recognized him.
The same person who had killed Varkas was sitting calmly on a sofa, his posture relaxed, his expression composed. What startled her most was not his appearance, but what she didn't sense. There was no overwhelming divine concept aura, no pressure that suggested a High or Peak Rule Stage cultivator.
To her perception, he felt no different from herself, an Early Rule Stage cultivator.
That made no sense. Was he hiding his power?
She did not know, but instinct told her this was not someone she could treat casually. Lyra bowed deeply.
"Senior," she said respectfully, "you saved my life and the lives of everyone trapped there. I do not know your reasons, but I will remember this debt."
Adrian studied her silently for a moment.
"You don't owe me anything," he said at last. "Sit. You're still recovering."
Lyra hesitated, but that single sentence told her more than any display of power could have. He knew the state of her willforce, and he was not interested in asserting dominance. She nodded and sat down opposite him, lowering herself carefully onto the cushioned chair.
"I didn't bring you here for the key," Adrian continued. "If that's what you're thinking, you can stop."
Lyra's pupils contracted slightly.
He knew about the key. Of course he did. He could have searched her spatial ring at any point whilst she was unconscious.
"…Then why?" she asked carefully.
"Because you didn't run," Adrian replied.
She frowned, confusion crossing her pale blue features, "I ran for days."
"You ran to survive," he corrected, "But when it mattered, you didn't abandon the others."
Her fingers tightened against her knees.
Adrian leaned back slightly, "Now tell me why an Early Rule Stage cultivator was willing to tear open a sealed space inside the UNI-Hub just to drag you out."
Lyra was silent for several seconds.
Her gaze dropped to her hands, then lifted again. She seemed to be weighing something, calculating risk against necessity. Adrian waited. He had learned long ago that silence often revealed more than questions.
From the question alone, Lyra could tell he was unfamiliar with Andromeda's internal conflicts. He clearly did not recognize her sect or the conflicts surrounding it. And she still did not know about this person's motives, but this information was not a secret, and could be learned by interacting with any minor sect disciple, so she felt there was no reason to hide it.
She retrieved a purple token from her spatial ring and held it out.
The object was small, no larger than Adrian's thumb. Intricate runes covered its surface, glowing faintly with violet light. Adrian's Source Eyes flickered instinctively, tracing the pattern of symbols. It was a Portal Divine formation.
"It's because of this key," Lyra said. "I've been hunted for nine days so they could take it from me."
Adrian's gaze sharpened slightly. "Explain."
"I am from the Crimson Vital Sect," Lyra said. "We are a lesser minor sect that specializes in the alchemy field."
Adrian immediately understood what a lesser minor sect implied.
Even among minor sects, there were distinctions. A lesser minor sect usually possessed a mid-tier or even low-tier Divine Concept, with at most one powerhouse who had reached the High Rule Stage. An upper minor sect, on the other hand, often had a Peak Rule Stage cultivator anchoring it.
These were the pieces of information he got from the report Selena sent him some time ago.
Lyra continued, "Our sect's ideal is to pursue transcendence through alchemy. We never involved ourselves deeply with other sects and lived independently. But everything changed when our sect leader ascended to the Peak Rule Stage."
"The upper minor sects learned of this, especially the Everlasting Pill Sect, which viewed us as a direct competitor. They did not want us to rise to the level of an upper minor sect, so they waged war on us."
Her hands tightened slightly.
"We lost most of our disciples in the war, and our sect was nearly destroyed. Even our sect leader was forced into a fierce battle with their leader. In the end, our sect leader used the Energy Body Art as a final move and severely damaged the enemy sect leader's Rule Core."
Adrian listened closely and felt Lyra's sect leader was not a simple figure. Just reaching the Peak Rule Stage was hard for these lesser minor sects. Because in most cases, the divine concept that these sects use would be something created by the sect leaders themselves. So they wouldn't have anyone to guide them further and would have to ascend by their own research.
And such a newly ascended cultivator, even damaging another Peak Rule Stage cultivator's Rule Core, especially one who had been at that level for far longer, was not something an ordinary cultivator could accomplish.
The sect leader had likely spent thousands of years alone, refining their divine concept. That kind of dedication reminded Adrian of Selena, of Dorian, of everyone in the Origin Empire who refused to accept limits.
Lyra continued, her voice lowering slightly. "We believed we had won. But the backlash from the Energy Body Art was far greater than expected. Our sect leader's Rule Core was also damaged severely in this."
Adrian understood immediately. The Energy Body Art was something he had seen quite a few times in the forums, and since it had resembled his Source Form, he had checked about it.
Energy Body Art was not simple. It was a desperate technique that transformed a cultivator's entire existence into pure conceptual energy, granting overwhelming power at catastrophic cost. In rare cases, one survived with only willforce exhaustion. In extreme cases, the backlash damaged the Rule Core itself, a punishment said to come directly from the Heavenly Order.
Recovery was not impossible, but the alchemical plants required were unimaginably rare, rare enough that the minor sects in Andromeda could go their entire existence without seeing them.
Lyra continued, "After that, the enemy sect retreated. From that day onward, both sects began searching desperately for ways to heal our leaders, but neither side found any success. As hope began to fade, a relic key was announced for auction within the Nine-Vault Commerce Network."
Her grip tightened around the purple token, "That was when everything began again."
Adrian's gaze settled on the relic key, and in that moment, things became clear.