Chapter 455: Ask the Living

Adrian opened his eyes as Hestia stepped into the chamber. The Ultimate-Level Willforce-Recovery Spell remained unfinished within his consciousness, several of its corrected rules still waiting to be joined into the structure he had reproduced without the Will's assistance. Rather than continue while his attention had already shifted, he stabilized the last successful arrangement, withdrew his willforce from the incomplete connections, and preserved the entire sequence so he could resume from the same point later.

Hestia stopped several steps inside. Her pale golden eyes usually possessed an unwavering sharpness even when her expression revealed nothing, but that light now appeared dull, while the perfect straightness of her posture looked maintained through discipline rather than ease.

Adrian could sense something deeper as well. Reaching the Anchor allowed him to perceive the intent of others with far greater clarity. Hestia had drawn her intent tightly inward, concealing a grief that anyone with weaker consciousness mastery might have mistaken for composure.

He rose and crossed the distance between them. "What happened? Your eyes look dull, and I can feel how tightly you are holding your intent. Is everything all right?"

"The clan I left behind survived," Hestia answered.

She explained the entire situation to Adrian. About the Ancestral Venture Covenant, the authorized delegation from the Ebon Meridian Sect arriving within several days, and also of Caldris and the conversation she had with him.

Adrian had known how Hestia's sanctuary began and what the escape had cost her, but this was the first time he heard Caldris's name or learned that her home galaxy was called Valtheris. The existence of living descendants surprised him even more. It had surprised Hestia as well. More than a million years had passed; every person who departed beside her had long since died, and until Caldris stood before her on Sanguis Prime, she had not known that the bloodlines of those who remained had endured beneath Ebon Meridian.

"Did I make a mistake?" Hestia asked. "Nearly half of them died before we completed the journey, and everyone who survived that road died during everything that followed within Andromeda. They trusted me enough to leave the only home they knew, and not one of them remains. Did I give them freedom, Adrian, or did I merely lead them toward another kind of death?"

Hestia had faced Caldris without yielding a single trace of uncertainty. But in front of Adrian, she let herself come undone.

Adrian took one of her hands between his own. He knew which memories stood behind that question, including her sister. His thumb moved slowly across Hestia's knuckles before he spoke.

"Did you force any of them onto those vessels?"

Hestia shook her head. "No. Everyone was given the choice to remain or come with me."

"Did you promise that no one would die?"

"I promised that I would find somewhere we could live without another power deciding every part of our existence." Her fingers tightened around his. "I believed I could."

"And you did," Adrian said. "That does not erase the people who died before you created that sanctuary, and it does not mean every decision you made along the road was perfect. Looking back across a million years, there will always be routes you would change and dangers you would prepare for differently. But you did not know what waited ahead, and you did not conceal how dangerous the journey would be. You offered them the possibility of freedom, not a guarantee of survival. They knew the condition of those vessels and still chose to leave with you."

Hestia lowered her eyes toward their joined hands. "But as Caldris said, maybe those who died on my road would have chosen differently if they had known what waited for them."

"Caldris cannot use the dead as witnesses for his own choice," Adrian replied. "Perhaps some would have remained if they had known the price. Perhaps others would have followed you despite knowing every death that waited ahead. Neither he nor you nor I have the right to decide that answer for them now. What we do know is that you gave them a choice, explained the danger, and they still stepped onto those vessels."

His fingers closed more firmly around hers as he continued. "Remaining might have kept some of them alive longer, or it might not have. It was never safety. It only meant Ebon Meridian would decide where they lived, what they became, and when their lives were spent. The people who followed you chose the danger of an uncertain road over surrendering every future choice to that sect. Their deaths cannot be used to pretend that choice meant nothing."

Hestia remained silent as the words settled between them. "That was why I left," she eventually said. "I could accept dying while trying to become free. I could not accept teaching my people that their lives belonged to someone else."

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Adrian drew her closer, and Hestia rested her forehead against his chest as his arm closed around her. "Grieving them does not make Caldris right. It means you have not allowed a million years to make their lives unimportant."

For once, Hestia did not need to maintain the certainty expected from the Sect Leader of Crimson Vital or the ruler of Andromeda. She remained against him until the pressure within her intent gradually eased, and when she finally lifted her head, the sorrow had not vanished from her pale golden eyes, but neither had the strength behind it. Adrian released her gently and allowed her to step back.

"What do you want to do now?" he asked. "Should we bring the surviving clan away from Valtheris and take care of Ebon Meridian?"

The faintest trace of Hestia's usual humor returned. "Stop thinking like this, Adrian."

"Like what?"

"As though every problem is merely a sect waiting for you to erase it." The sharpness in her eyes strengthened as she looked at him. "You cannot handle an authenticated covenant the way you handled Providence Hub. Whatever the Ethereal Providence Sect deserved, your actions there were not an example of legal restraint."

"They were effective."

"That is precisely what worries me." Hestia shook her head before continuing. "Ethereal Providence was largely a single-race sect whose meaningful strength was concentrated within a limited Yiphraen membership and one central Hub. Ebon Meridian is different. It is a far larger Lesser Major Sect whose influence extends throughout Valtheris, and it possesses political and commercial connections across the surrounding galaxies. Its Sect Leader has spent millions of years cultivating relationships with other sects. If you enter openly and destroy its leadership, we could find ourselves facing several sects at once before any of them care to learn what the covenant actually contained."

She paused, her expression turning colder. "The descendants would also be the first people Ebon Meridian could reach. Even if those other sects pose no threat to you, recklessness could still cost the clan lives before we protect them."

Adrian accepted the distinction. "Okay. We will not strike before we know where every danger lies. But the covenant and all the legal terms surrounding it are not laws of reality. Sects created those structures because they benefited from them, and strength is what allows them to keep enforcing their interpretation upon weaker people."

"I know."

Adrian met her gaze directly. "So tell me what you want, Hestia. If you decide that Ebon Meridian must be dealt with, then it will be. No matter how many sects answer its call, I will save your clan and bring them back safely."

A genuine smile spread across Hestia's face. Adrian had learned of Ebon Meridian only moments ago, yet even the possibility of facing several connected sects had not made him hesitate to stand beside her.

"I know you mean that," she said. "But let's not rush things. We don't know their situation and what they truly want now. If I remove those descendants from Valtheris because I believe freedom is better for them, then I would be making their choice for them."

Adrian remained silent and allowed her to continue.

"Ebon Meridian claims that it protected them, and Caldris believes his accommodation kept resources flowing toward the clan and allowed its bloodlines to survive. Until today, I did not even know those descendants existed. I have never met most of them, I do not know how they live, and I do not know whether they remember me as an ancestor, a traitor, or nothing more than a name from their ancient history."

Hestia looked toward the chamber wall as though she could see through Virelith and across the intergalactic distance separating her from Valtheris. "Before I answer the delegation, I need to know their condition and what they truly want. If they desire freedom, then I will provide it. If they do not, I will not drag them away to silence my own guilt."

"Then we ask them."

Adrian raised one hand before Hestia could respond. The chamber's air folded into a smooth vertical boundary, creating a passage that crossed the intergalactic distance without tearing the space between its two ends.

Continuity Gate opened before them.

Hestia gazed at the portal and asked, "Where does it lead?"

"Valtheris."

Hestia turned toward him so sharply that her crimson hair swept across one shoulder. "How do you possess the spatial coordinates of my home galaxy? Did you investigate it without telling me?"

"No. Tenyz visited Valtheris." Adrian indicated the Gate. "I did not consciously know the galaxy by that name until you spoke it. Hearing the name together with Ebon Meridian drew one of his absorbed memories forward. His route crossed an uninhabited system near the galaxy's outer region, and the memory retained both its coordinates and the spatial imprint clearly enough to serve as a verified anchor."

Hestia's eyes narrowed. "You searched through those memories again?"

"I did not attempt another assimilation or deliberately enter the memory ocean. That memory was already among the portions I absorbed, but your words gave it context." Adrian said.

He extended his hand toward her. "We can enter under different appearances and mana signatures, observe the clan before approaching anyone, and speak to them when we can do so safely. We do not attack Ebon Meridian, challenge its elders, or reveal why we came. Once we learn enough to answer the delegation, we return to Andromeda before it arrives."

Hestia studied him with unconcealed doubt. "You are promising not to do anything reckless?"

"I can be restrained."

"That has not been my experience."

"Then you should come and supervise me."

Hestia's expression finally relaxed. Without seeing the descendants who had survived beneath Ebon Meridian, she could not know whether intervention would liberate them or merely replace one imposed future with another. She placed her hand within Adrian's.

The Source Domain spread from Adrian, far enough to contain them, and its authority was held at a controlled 90%. Adrian issued a single direct command.

Their facial structures shifted first, followed by their height, bodily proportions, hair, and eyes, while their distinctive sect robes became the muted clothing of unaffiliated travelers. Their natural mana signatures were replaced by two unfamiliar patterns, and their Astral pressure folded inward beneath the convincing presence of ordinary Rule Stage cultivators.

Still holding hands, they stepped through Continuity Gate, and for the first time in more than a million years, Hestia returned to Valtheris, not to decide her clan's future, but to ask the living what future they wanted.