Chapter 491: A Future Written in Blood

Later that day, Adrian sat beside Hestia in the Crimson Spire's head chamber, watching a drinking cup pass slowly above the table. Its lid turned in the opposite direction, while multiple alchemical pills followed separate paths around them. Hestia was reading a report on the projection before her, occasionally moving an entry aside as another message arrived.

Adrian rested his hands on his knees. The cup rose as one pill passed beneath it, and another two pills stopped before reversing their paths. He kept the movements separate through willforce alone, making small changes without allowing any of the objects to touch.

The exercise had once demanded his full attention. Now he could maintain it while thinking about the two brothers and how little resistance they had offered him. All those years inside the training chambers had helped far more than he had realized before leaving headquarters.

"If I keep improving my control, perhaps I can reach Weave," he thought, turning the lid onto its edge without disturbing the cup beside it. He still had much to learn about that stage, but the difference between his earlier attempts and what he could do now gave him reason to continue.

His thoughts soon returned to another fight. "Could I defeat Orveth and his allies now? Their consciousness was stronger than the brothers', but the difference did not seem that large."

Adrian had not reached this conclusion simply because he defeated two Anchors earlier that day. The thirteen days outside Origin headquarters had given him one hundred and four headquarters years, while repeated stays inside its dedicated training chambers had added thousands of subjective years. He had spent much of that time practicing willforce with his Mana Sea sealed, improving his raw control and learning to maintain several complicated operations without allowing them to interfere with one another.

The growing number of Astrals within Crimson Vital had also created a need for a complete consciousness inheritance that its disciples could learn. Adrian had worked on that problem alongside his own training and eventually created two inheritances, one for Crimson Vital and another for Origin. Even the needle formation he used against Rethan and Oskel belonged to the Crimson Vital inheritance rather than directly reproducing Navira's technique.

The decision to rebuild those techniques came from Tenyz's memories, which contained many examples of how closely powerful sects guarded their consciousness inheritances. Divine Concepts and spells were valuable, but willforce techniques could be even harder to obtain. They passed through tightly controlled lineages, and their distinctive structures allowed knowledgeable observers to recognize them. Reproducing such methods without permission could attract attention Adrian had no reason to invite.

The Source had already made Navira's needles and Androxus's smoky willforce stronger and more efficient, but those improvements preserved enough of their original construction to reveal where they came from. That became a greater concern when entire groups of disciples might use them. Crimson Vital could draw unwanted attention by displaying techniques belonging to a Great Sect or Navira's lineage, while Origin needed methods it could use without exposing itself or its relationship with Crimson Vital.

Thousands of years of practice had given Adrian enough understanding to rebuild the techniques beyond those earlier improvements. He changed how intent was condensed, how defensive layers worked together, and how the parts supporting threads, needles, walls, and other formations were joined. Whenever a change introduced a flaw he could not identify, he entered Source Form and observed the Will of the Source correcting it. He then returned to his physical body and practiced until he could reproduce the new structure himself.

The completed inheritances shared broad functions, but their internal structures differed from each other and from the techniques that inspired them. Within the Metaphysical Plane, a needle could still look like a needle, and countless fine threads could still resemble smoke. However, an experienced observer examining their construction would no longer be able to trace them back to Navira or Androxus.

That work had greatly improved Adrian's control, although training alone had not shown him how he would fare against another Anchor. Exercises and corrections inside Source Form could prove that a technique was stable and efficient, but he still needed to test it against someone with millions of years of experience defending their consciousness. Rethan and Oskel had finally provided that comparison. Their defeat, together with everything he had learned, gave him reason to believe he could now handle the opponents who had forced him to retreat from Nerath.

Hestia moved her report aside and looked at him. "What are you thinking about? You have been staring past that cup for a while."

"Our last visit to Nerath," Adrian replied. He lowered the objects onto the table and turned toward her. "I think I could defeat Orveth and those two Sect Leaders now. Maybe we should visit again and deal with Ebon Meridian once and for all."

Hestia leaned back slightly. "You have grown stronger. I saw that myself. But defeating Orveth is only part of what you are suggesting. Ebon Meridian was already famous when I was growing up on Nerath. We do not know how many allies it has, or what else it can use if we threaten it."

"I know there could be others," Adrian said. "But we have two more Anchors now. We would not have to face everything ourselves."

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"And we still have an entire sect here to think about," she replied. "You won today, Adrian. That gives us more choices, but it does not tell us everything waiting in Valtheris."

Adrian considered that for a moment before nodding. "All right. We can leave the sect itself alone for now. But what about Nerath? We could return to the plan of moving the planet."

Hestia's gaze settled on him as he continued. "Your clan wants to remain on its homeworld. I understand that. We could bring the whole world here, with their cities and everything else still on it. Last time, I could not move an inhabited planet while Orveth and his allies were interfering. If Rethan and Oskel protect me, I should have enough time to finish."

"They would need to hold all three back," Hestia said. Her hand remained beside the projection, but she had stopped looking at it.

"Only for a few seconds. Orveth might not even reach us before I finish, but if he does, they can keep him occupied while I move Nerath." Adrian leaned closer. "Once your people are out of his reach, he cannot keep using them to pressure you. We can deal with the agreement afterward without wondering what he will do to the clan."

Hestia remained quiet as she considered it. The clan's cities would still stand around the same furnaces, and its people could continue living beside the gardens and graves they had refused to leave. Adrian watched her glance toward the report, where the arrangements for Ebon Meridian's office were still waiting for her attention.

"Their trade would suffer," she said eventually. "Some of their supplies come through the empire. We would have to replace those connections."

"We can help them do that. Crimson Vital has enough businesses to give them a start, and we can find a safe place for the planet where their cultivation will be better than it is now. We would need to prepare the move and speak with the clan first, but they would still have their home."

She considered his answer, then moved the report out of the space between them. "Before we do anything, use the Fate inheritance. See what it shows if you go with them."

Adrian nodded. Anything could happen once they entered Valtheris again, and the inheritance reconstructed from Tenyz's Fate-based divine concept provided a way to examine at least one possible course before committing themselves to it.

He raised one hand, drawing golden essence from his Source Seed. It spread above the table in narrow lines, forming layers of runes that joined into a circle. As he adjusted their connections, the center flattened into a smooth surface, reflecting the light from the chamber before that reflection faded.

The spell needed a connection to the fate it would examine. Blood could provide one, as could a memory or another link strong enough to guide the reading. Adrian had nothing as direct as Orveth's blood, and his memories of their battle were less useful for this question than his own fate. He wanted to know what might follow if he took the brothers to Nerath and attempted the move.

He held that intention as the golden surface began to change. The spell followed a possible course from the decision he was considering. What it showed could still change through their choices or events they had not accounted for.

A planet appeared within the circle, its curved surface partly hidden beneath clouds. Adrian recognized Nerath, then saw himself standing in the void above it. He wore Crimson Vital robes and made no attempt to hide his face. Rethan and Oskel stood on either side of him, watching the space around the planet.

Within the image, Adrian expanded his domain. Its reach spread across the world below, and the brothers moved farther apart to guard him as he began using his authority and direct command needed for the transfer. Before that process could even begin, a dark portal opened in the nearby void, and Orveth emerged with the two allied Sect Leaders.

"Already?" Adrian murmured. Beside him, Hestia leaned forward as the three opponents moved toward the brothers.

Orange light spread from Rethan and Oskel as they brought their domains together. For a moment, they held the approach, but one of the allied Sect Leaders disappeared from beside Orveth and reappeared beyond Oskel. The brothers turned to meet the separate attacks, and the space around the projected Adrian shook before he could complete the transfer.

The picture broke into streaks of gold. When it cleared, Nerath remained behind them, and Adrian had turned away from the planet to face Orveth himself. The brothers were still fighting, but they had failed to give him the uninterrupted time he needed.

Another gap passed through the display. Adrian saw a dark enclosure fold around the battlefield, followed by a brief glimpse of himself driving Orveth backward through its broken edge. The next image showed Rethan far from his earlier position, blood across his robes, while Oskel fought beside him. Between those moments, the circle showed only shifting light.

Adrian kept the spell steady. This divine concept could follow the course of the confrontation, but it could not show him every exchange in a battle involving several Anchors. Each time the image returned, their positions and injuries had changed, but it was clear that Adrian dominated the fight with his much stronger consciousness. The fighting had clearly continued through far more time than the few moments he and Hestia spent watching it.

Through the shifting light, one of the allied Sect Leaders fell backward with blood running from his mouth. Adrian turned toward the other two, but the exchange that followed was lost. By the time he could see clearly again, an allied leader lay against a broken slab of rock, trying and failing to gather his willforce.

Orveth remained standing for another brief sequence. Two of his arms hung at his sides while the others strained against the force holding him in place. Across from him, Adrian advanced, and the dark domain around them finally collapsed. Orveth fell beside the wreckage, unable to rise, while the brothers moved toward the other defeated Sect Leaders.

Adrian studied the result before looking at Hestia. "Even with their unexpectedly fast reaction and interrupting the move, it seems I could still defeat all three of them easily."

Hestia's eyes remained on the projection. She began to turn toward him when a sharp sound came from the image, and both looked back. The Adrian within it had taken out his node, opening an incoming call while Orveth was still struggling below him.

"Elder Adrian, please come back!" Lara's voice carried through the spell. Her face appeared only briefly in the smaller projection above his node. "Torvain and Maelis are dead… and Master—Master… is unconscious, and I cannot wake her!"

Adrian's hand froze above the table. Beside him, Hestia's eyes went wide, a tear slipping free before she could stop it.

Inside the vision, his other self brought the node closer. "WHAT??? What happened?"