Adrian examined the being who had appeared between him and Kethren. The dark-gold lines beneath Orveth's translucent black flesh moved through all four of his arms, dividing around the numerous joints before joining again within his chest. His solitary golden eye followed Adrian without blinking, and although this was the first time Adrian had encountered a species quite like his, the novelty of Orveth's appearance held his attention for only a moment before the willforce pressing steadily against his own became far more important.
Behind the Sect Leader, Kethren was already withdrawing toward the dark-gold Ebon Meridian vessel with one arm held against his chest. The surrounding Keldovan ships continued increasing the distance between themselves and the two sovereigns, abandoning the region around the broken asteroid and the bodies of the dead elders until an increasingly empty stretch of space separated the confrontation from every other vessel.
"Ebon Meridian will transfer every covenant, administrative office, enforcement privilege, and dependent holding it possesses throughout the Keldovan Empire to my wife," Adrian answered. "Every obligation established beneath those rights will become hers to preserve or extinguish as she chooses, and your sect will withdraw every disciple within Keldovan."
He repeated the demand without reducing a single part of it. Kethren had lacked the authority to grant those terms, but Orveth possessed it, and Adrian waited for the Sect Leader's answer while their opposing wills continued pressing against one another through the void.
When Adrian had first chosen to remain beyond Nerath instead of returning immediately to Hestia, his intention had been much simpler. He wanted to draw more of Ebon Meridian's important elders toward him. Every Astral cultivator he removed here would be one fewer available to threaten Andromeda later, and keeping the sect's attention fixed upon himself would also give Hestia the freedom to deal with the Solvaren Clan below without having Ebon Meridian interfere with whatever decision she reached.
Three Astral elders were already dead because of that choice, yet the arrival of the man who directed the entire sect had created a far greater opportunity than Adrian originally expected.
Hestia had warned him about the extent of Ebon Meridian's influence before they ever entered Valtheris. Its Sect Leader had spent millions of years weaving relationships through neighboring galaxies, building covenants, dependencies, political agreements, and commercial interests that would make a direct war against the sect far more complicated than simply defeating the cultivators living within its headquarters.
That was why Adrian had agreed to accompany Hestia quietly, observe the clan, and return without challenging Ebon Meridian. But now, their visit had moved beyond that agreement the moment the enforcement elder attempted to kill her.
Adrian had already gone considerably farther than simply dealing with that one man, and he knew Hestia would later scold him for what he was doing now. But this was simply the kind of person Adrian had always been.
Erasing an opponent like this was always cleaner than managing him through negotiation.
Across from him, Orveth's vertical golden eye narrowed as he heard the stranger's words. The terms this stranger wanted would remove Ebon Meridian from an empire it had spent generations bringing beneath its control. With every disciple withdrawn and its offices surrendered, the sect would lose even the local institutions through which it might attempt to recover its position.
The dark-gold meridians beneath his upper arms tightened before returning to their measured circulation. Three elders had died over an interference that should have ended with a few questions; his personal disciple had nearly followed them, and the man responsible now expected the foundation of an empire as compensation.
Orveth calmed himself down and thought through this. He had examined the available records before coming. The unknown woman had intervened in the council's battle, resisted the enforcement elder, and awakened her Chime beneath his pressure. Her companion had revealed his strength only when the elder attempted to kill her. The account Kethren received afterward was consistent with those events, including the companion's willingness to kill anyone who attempted to justify what had happened.
More importantly, the man's behavior suggested another possibility Orveth could not ignore. Someone willing to stand inside Ebon Meridian territory, kill several Astral elders, threaten its Sect Leader, and demand an empire's worth of accumulated wealth without even revealing his identity might possess a greater power behind him.
Under ordinary circumstances, Orveth would have been willing to pay.
An empire's worth of accumulated rights represented an enormous loss, but he had never built Ebon Meridian upon the belief that every possession needed to be defended regardless of cost. Territories, offices, and commercial arrangements could be rebuilt over time. But experienced Astral cultivators could not be replaced nearly as easily. A conflict that consumed important elders faster than the sect could produce successors might leave Ebon Meridian weakened for far longer than surrendering one regional holding ever would.
But now, the situation was completely different. The stranger was demanding Keldovan itself, and the Solvaren Clan existed within Keldovan territory.
Orveth could afford to surrender profitable holdings elsewhere, but the Keldovan Empire possessed a value that had very little to do with its current resources.
The Solvaren Clan's covenant was part of the very collection of rights Adrian demanded. Through that covenant, Ebon Meridian had established its claim against Hestia. Her reappearance had transformed an ancient patriarchal obligation once attached to a single alchemical clan into a possible path toward an entire galaxy. If Orveth transferred every right within Keldovan to this unknown woman, he would not merely lose an empire. He would surrender the mechanism through which he intended to enter Andromeda.
Orveth regarded the sovereign waiting across from him. From the manner in which the man had phrased his demand, he seemed to regard the entire empire almost like an extravagant gift he intended to place into his wife's hands after one of Orveth's elders offended her.
"I cannot concede Keldovan," Orveth said. "I can offer your wife holdings elsewhere, or compensation in resources if she prefers. There is no reason this dispute needs to cost either side more than it already has."
Adrian's expression hardened at the first refusal. The answer gave him exactly the opening he had been waiting for.
A current of excitement rose beneath the anger he still carried toward Ebon Meridian. If Orveth died here, many of the dangers Hestia had been considering since the covenant resurfaced would disappear with him. The sect would not cease existing, and its accumulated relationships would not vanish in a moment, but removing the being who had spent millions of years building and directing that structure would cripple much of the pressure currently gathering around Andromeda.
There was another reason Adrian was excited to fight. Since entering the wider universe, nearly every serious opponent he had confronted had possessed advantages he needed to overcome through observation and adaptation. He had repeatedly entered battles from the weaker position, studying unfamiliar divine spells, authority techniques, domains, or willforce techniques while fighting simply to understand what his enemies could do before he could begin dismantling them.
That was no longer true. Adrian now possessed the foundational divine concept he had spent centuries constructing within the nested time formation. He had developed its spells, raised his mastery over it, created authority techniques from that foundation, and refined willforce techniques capable of being used in a genuine battle.
For the first time since stepping into the greater universe, Adrian felt he was entering a fight completely prepared. Even if using these abilities exposed him as Aeon, the result might still be worth it. Killing Orveth here could solve far more problems than preserving another layer of secrecy.
"How dare you!" Adrian's voice rose across the distance separating them as he stared directly into Orveth's solitary golden eye. "Your elder tried to kill my wife, and now you refuse even this much compensation? Do you actually think I would hesitate to kill you as well?"
Dark-violet radiance gathered close around Adrian's body. Golden threads passed through it, carrying faint traces of silver-blue and emerald as they drew inward along his limbs and beneath the dull fabric of his traveling robes. The surrounding void remained undisturbed, and his gaze never left the sovereign standing before him as the divine essence entered circulation.
"Temporal Continuum."
Adrian vanished from Orveth's perception entirely, reappearing in the same breath with his fist already driving toward the sovereign's skull.
BOOM!