Chapter 483: The Power Behind Crimson Vital

The Ebon Meridian starship rose from its assigned platform beneath the Crimson Spire and passed through the clouds above Sanguis Prime. Once it reached the surrounding void, the envoy entered a private chamber and opened a communication channel to Valtheris. Sanguis Prime remained visible beyond the viewport as a projection formed before him.

Sect Leader Orveth sat upon the circular platform within his headquarters, dark-gold light flowing through the channels beyond him. Three of his hands rested against the platform while the fourth closed another projection. His single golden eye settled upon the elder.

"Did Hestia accept the agreement?" Orveth asked.

"She did, Sect Leader," the envoy replied. "She accepted our terms after I agreed to add protections for the Solvaren Clan. Those were her only additional demands. The completed agreement has been sent to you."

Orveth opened the document beside the communication panel and read the additions. The protection against collective punishment, the restrictions concerning the council, and the separate treatment of Narev's case were all within the authority he had given the envoy. One of his lowered hands relaxed against the platform as he reached the recorded acceptance.

Hestia still cared about the clan. More than a million years had separated her from its people, yet she had made their protection a condition of an agreement concerning the galaxy she now ruled.

That had been uncertain when Orveth first examined her history. He knew that the ancient patriarch had survived and built the Crimson Vital Sect, but he could not assume that descendants she had never met would still matter to her. Without that attachment, the covenant would remain a disputed claim against a ruler strong enough to refuse it.

The formal notice had allowed him to approach through a claim whose old signatures UNI had authenticated. Sending Caldris afterward had brought a familiar face before Hestia and reminded her that the clan still existed. Caldris had wanted to protect the descendants, and Orveth had expected that concern to make him useful during the meeting.

The modest terms offered by the envoy had completed that first test. Hestia's answer gave Orveth a clearer understanding of what could bring her to the negotiating table, while the agreed office would give his people a place within Andromeda.

He could build upon that access slowly. Trade would bring regular contact with merchants and officials, and those relationships would help his people learn how Crimson Vital had risen so quickly. Its businesses and resources were already valuable, but the means by which a Lesser Minor Sect had gained the strength of a Lesser Major Sect might be worth far more.

"Sect Leader, there is something else you need to hear before we decide how to proceed," the envoy said. His gaze remained fixed upon Orveth's projection. "What I found inside their headquarters was very different from our reports."

Orveth moved the agreement aside. "Tell me what you saw."

"An Astral cultivator received me at the landing platform. He was dressed as an ordinary disciple and carried out the duties of a guide. Inside the Spire, I passed more than a hundred cultivators without finding anyone below Peak Rule. I also counted at least ten unfamiliar Astrals apart from the man accompanying me."

The elder paused before continuing. "None of those Astrals matched the five senior elders in our records. Elder Lara met me near the head chamber, and she has reached the Astral Stage as well."

Orveth's hand stopped beside the agreement. The envoy had served long enough to know the difference between a report that needed checking and something he had personally confirmed. He was also an Astral himself, with an awakened Chime. Mistaking so many cultivators at close range was unlikely.

"Elder Adrian was inside the chamber with Sect Leader Hestia," the envoy continued. "When I entered the chamber, I could feel his consciousness throughout the meeting. I knew he had reached Anchor before I arrived. Even so, I was not prepared for what I felt."

His fingers tightened briefly against his knees before he spoke again. "Sect Leader, his consciousness felt far stronger than yours. I cannot judge his full strength from one meeting, but that is what I felt while standing before him."

Orveth remained silent. He did not dismiss the comparison, and the envoy made no attempt to soften it after seeing that he had been heard.

Only a few months had passed since the Andromeda war. According to the records available to him, Crimson Vital had entered that conflict with far fewer powerful cultivators than the envoy had just described. If this many Astrals had already belonged to the sect, the battles should have ended very differently.

Incomplete reports might explain unfamiliar faces. But they did not explain Lara, whose earlier cultivation was known, or the number of Peak Rule disciples now working throughout the headquarters. Too much had changed for Orveth to treat the report as a handful of breakthroughs his people had failed to notice.

Orveth closed his single eye and recollected everything he knew of Crimson Vital Sect.

For most of a million years, Hestia had struggled to preserve a Lesser Minor Sect. Within the last few years, it had defeated the powers around it and taken control of Andromeda. Now, only months after that war, its cultivators were advancing again at a pace that made even the reports from those battles seem far out of date.

When he planned to initiate the covenant, Orveth had considered several explanations for this. Perhaps Hestia had found an ancient inheritance or a cultivation relic capable of changing her sect's future. Adrian's claim that a powerful organization stood behind them might have been true, but it could also have been a lie meant to protect whatever they had discovered.

Adrian's Anchor-stage consciousness had given that lie weight. Without it, a claim of powerful supporters would never have made the surrounding sects so cautious. Yet one exceptional cultivator still did not prove the existence of an organization capable of supporting everything Crimson Vital had achieved.

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That uncertainty was one reason Orveth had continued with the covenant. UNI had recognized his right to present the claim, and his demands could be settled through an agreement. He expected even a real supporter to consider that difference before treating Ebon Meridian's approach as an attack.

And according to all his plans, when he first sent a notice, no organization had openly answered it. Until now, he had been able to consider that silence alongside the possibility that the claimed supporter did not exist.

But now, the envoy's report made that explanation much harder to accept. "Do they possess Time Formations capable of producing this kind of growth?" Orveth wondered. Beyond the existence of a hidden organization, it was the only immediate explanation he could think of.

He shook his head. "No. Even if they somehow possess powerful Time Formations, time alone cannot make cultivators ascend this quickly."

Many cultivators trained for immense periods without ever completing the understanding needed to move beyond the stage they already held.

The universe had existed for billions of years. If time alone could produce such results, cultivators at the highest stages would have been far more common. Even within Upper Major Sects, only a small share of those who trained could continue advancing through every barrier before them.

A gifted disciple could make excellent use of additional years. Others needed better resources, suitable inheritances, and teachers who understood the problems holding them back.

What the envoy described required many of those advantages to be available together, across a large number of people. Even among the Upper Major Sects Orveth knew about, he could not readily explain how so many cultivators could advance within a few months.

His earlier idea of a single discovery no longer seemed enough. Someone was providing Crimson Vital with far more than additional cultivation time, and Elder Adrian appeared to be its connection to them. By the time Orveth considered the full course of the sect's rise again, he no longer doubted that a powerful organization stood behind it.

That conclusion brought him back to Nerath. Two unknown cultivators had appeared there, killed his elders, and demanded control over the very holdings that supported his claim upon Andromeda. Had they belonged to the same organization?

He had already instructed the envoy to look for a connection between those strangers and Crimson Vital's leadership. Now the possibility seemed far more serious. Their actions on Nerath might already have been the organization's response to his claim.

There was still too much he did not know. He could not name the organization, judge its full strength, or explain how closely it watched Hestia's affairs. The envoy's comparison also meant that even a confrontation limited to Crimson Vital itself might be more dangerous than his earlier reports suggested.

Yet none of that made Andromeda less valuable. Its industries, cultivation growth, and expanding influence were the reasons he had taken an interest in the first place. He had obtained an accepted agreement without a battle, and abandoning it now would mean giving up access before learning what it could offer.

Orveth looked toward the waiting envoy again. "Remain in Andromeda. Begin setting up the office with Elder Lara. We will carry out the business Hestia agreed to."

"What about the investigation, Sect Leader?" the elder asked. "I did not manage to ask about the strangers during the meeting. Under Elder Adrian's attention, I could barely focus on the agreement."

"Continue carefully," Orveth replied. "Our work will bring you into contact with their disciples. Build relationships with them and learn what you can through ordinary conversation. Watch their activities and compare what you hear with what our people already know."

He brought the accepted agreement back before him. "Do not use the covenant to demand more access, and do not press anyone who refuses to answer. We need to understand what we are dealing with before we ask for anything beyond these terms."

The envoy inclined his head. "I understand. I will keep our work within the agreement."

"Kethren has recovered enough to travel. I will send him to oversee the office with you," Orveth continued. "Report anything that may help us understand who supports Crimson Vital. If you want to do anything beyond the agreed terms, bring it to me first."

The envoy acknowledged the instructions, and Orveth closed the connection. The agreement remained open beside him, its terms unchanged. He read them again, considering how much his people could learn while remaining within the limits he had just set.

…

Upon Nerath, Caldris received a message from Hestia while reviewing the latest reports from the Solvaren Clan. He had returned during the days following their second meeting, keeping watch over the preparations she had told him to maintain. Each new report had brought the same concern over whether Ebon Meridian had finally decided what would happen to them.

This message contained the completed agreement. Hestia's accompanying note confirmed that the negotiation was finished and the clan's protections had been accepted. Caldris opened the document immediately and moved to the sections she had marked.

The clan would not face collective punishment for the strangers' actions. No civilian could be taken as payment for the elders killed above Nerath, and the council's attempt to restrain Narev could not be used as proof that it had supported him. No irreversible punishment could be carried out against the council before its part in the incident had been established.

Hestia had also made certain those protections would continue after the negotiation. Caldris checked that both sides had accepted the terms, then returned to the same clauses and read them more slowly. Only when he reached the end did he lean back and release a breath.

He had spent the intervening days using his position to seek information and discourage officials from treating the whole clan as guilty. He had kept the people prepared without making their preparations appear like rebellion. None of those efforts had given him an answer he could place before the families waiting to learn whether they would be punished for events beyond their control.

Now Hestia had secured one. Ebon Meridian had accepted written limits upon what it could do to them because of the incident, and the descendants would not have to abandon Nerath simply to escape an immediate threat of collective punishment.

He still remembered asking how far she would go for descendants who had never followed her. She had answered that the people upon Nerath and those within Andromeda were both her people. The agreement before him gave those words a meaning he could carry back to the clan.

Their inherited obligations remained, and Narev would still have to answer for his own actions. The larger problem surrounding the covenant remained unresolved. Caldris therefore left the disaster preparations active as he forwarded the agreement to the Clan Leader.

For now, however, he could finally send the Solvaren descendants news that would allow them to feel some relief.

…

Elsewhere, reports of Crimson Vital's growth were beginning to spread through Andromeda. Visitors to its headquarters and merchants dealing with its businesses had noticed cultivators whose strength no longer matched the older records, and accounts of multiple Astrals soon appeared on the galaxy's local forum.

The reports travelled beyond Andromeda as well, reaching observers from Starlight Sanctum, Cerulean Spear, and Veiled Horizon, whose attention had never fully left the galaxy.

As the number of sightings continued growing, more people began watching Crimson Vital's disciples and asking the same question Orveth had already begun trying to answer.

How were they advancing so quickly?