Chapter 493: When the Universe Looked Back

A notification sounded from Hestia's node while her arms were still around Adrian. Another followed before she reached for it, and several reports appeared together when she opened the projection. They came from different parts of Andromeda, describing objects trembling without cause and people feeling as though someone was watching them. The disturbance had lasted only a short time before disappearing, leaving those who felt it unable to find its source.

Hestia read the first few accounts and glanced toward Adrian. She had been beside him when his consciousness stirred, feeling it rise with his emotions before the cup began shaking. She knew where the disturbance had begun, though she had not realized how far it had reached. Even now, the memory of that presence remained clear enough to make her fingers tighten around the node.

Adrian had loosened his hold and turned toward the broad window beyond the table. The white-grey light had faded from his eyes, and he stood looking past the sect grounds toward the sky, showing no interest in the reports. Hestia watched him for a moment before putting the projection aside. She moved to his side and slipped her hand into his, and his fingers closed around hers as they looked out together.

…

Several hours passed without another disturbance in Andromeda. Hestia set aside the work waiting on her desk and instructed Lara to bring any urgent reports directly to the head chamber. Requests for an audience could still be submitted through the usual arrangements. They did not know how the danger would reach them, and someone asking for a meeting could be as important as news of an attack.

The vision had shown Adrian taking Rethan and Oskel to Nerath, but it had never shown when they left. The brothers needed time to recover, and moving Hestia's homeworld would have required preparations. Their departure might have been hours away in that possible future, or it might have taken days. Watching the chamber's clock gave them no way to tell.

Two standard UNI-days passed.

Throughout those two days, Adrian remained at Crimson Spire. He could have spent years inside Origin headquarters in Virelith while little time passed here, but he never went back. Sometimes he stood beside the window; at other times, he sat near Hestia with his hands resting upon his knees. He said little, and the objects he had been moving through the air before the vision remained untouched on the table.

Hestia had seen him angry before. She had watched him lose himself in a difficult situation and spend hours thinking through a problem, but she had never felt this same stillness around him for so long. When she checked an incoming report, his eyes would move toward her until she lowered the projection again. She stayed beside him, occasionally resting her hand over his, while Rethan and Oskel continued recovering within the Spire.

…

Along a shipping route elsewhere in Andromeda, a line of starships passed between the navigation formations surrounding an outer moon. Cargo vessels followed the marked lanes, while smaller ships turned toward separate routes leading deeper into the system. Beyond them, scattered asteroids drifted above the moon's bare, grey surface.

The space between two approaching vessels suddenly twisted. One ship lurched sideways, its defensive barrier flashing as it slipped out of its lane. The vessel behind it tried to turn, only to be pushed in the opposite direction. A dark crack stretched through the space they had occupied, widening as the surrounding formations flickered.

Before the nearest ships could move clear, the crack tore open into a ragged spatial passage. A figure shot out of it and struck the side of a cargo vessel hard enough to throw the entire ship off course. Its barrier broke around the impact, and the hull folded inward beneath him, scattering pieces of alloy into the void.

The man caught the edge of the broken hull with one hand and tried to stop himself from turning. Crimson blood spread over his sky-blue skin, running from a wound across his chest before breaking into droplets around him. One sleeve had been torn away, exposing a deeply cut arm. He raised his head, revealing irises the same sky-blue as his skin, and watched two more figures emerge from the passage.

"Hahahaha! You should have seen how far you flew!"

A grin spread across the speaker's dark-red face, revealing sharp teeth beneath two horns rising from his forehead. Beside him, another man laughed as he looked toward the damaged ship, showing the same pointed teeth. He had dark-red skin but no horns, and a long tail moved behind him as he stopped outside the passage.

"Where are you going to run now, Nerion?" the horned man asked. "You can barely move. You are going to die here."

Nerion pushed himself away from the dented hull. Pain crossed his face as he tried to straighten his injured arm, and he kept his other hand near the wound in his chest. His gaze moved past the two pursuers, searching the open space between the ships, but the horned man was already following the movement of his eyes.

A hatch opened farther along the cargo vessel, and a disciple wearing the insignia of a minor sect came outside. He looked from the crushed section of his ship to the three strangers. The cargo vessel had been following its assigned lane, and now its barrier was gone, its hull was damaged, and pieces of it were drifting past his face.

"Who the hell—"

His head separated from his neck before he could finish. It turned slowly beside the open hatch as his body drifted away from the ship, one arm still raised toward the strangers. A thin trail of crimson essence faded near the horned man's fingers, though he had scarcely looked away from Nerion.

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"Insects should keep their mouths shut," he said, lowering his hand. His grin widened as Nerion turned to flee, and he disappeared from beside his companion.

Nerion had barely cleared the cargo vessel when a hand closed around his ankle. The horned man pulled him backward, swung him through the void, and released him toward the ships still trying to leave the damaged lane.

BOOM!

Nerion struck the first vessel near its prow, passed through its barrier and hull, and burst out through the other side in a spray of broken metal.

BOOM!

He hit a second ship before its crew could turn it away. Light flashed through the hull as the formations inside broke, and a section of the vessel tore apart around his body. The wreckage struck a third ship along its flank, forcing it into a sharp turn that carried it across the path of another fleeing vessel.

Two figures emerged from the newly damaged ships, their Peak Rule auras spreading as they looked for whoever was responsible. Neither had seen what happened beside the first cargo vessel. One pointed toward the horned man, whose laughter continued while broken panels drifted between them. "What do you think you are doing? There are people inside these ships!"

The man beside him opened his mouth to add something, but a crimson line passed across both their necks. Their heads drifted apart, and the auras they had released scattered before either body could turn toward the attack. The horned man lowered two fingers and looked past them toward the wreckage hiding Nerion.

The nearest ships immediately changed direction. A woman who had been coming through an open hatch pulled herself back inside and sealed it, while cultivators abandoning a broken vessel fled toward the opposite side of the route. No one else approached the two strangers. Those still able to move their ships pushed their formations harder, leaving the marked lanes to put more distance between themselves and the killings.

Reports began leaving the fleeing vessels. Recordings of the passage and the attacks accompanied urgent requests for help, along with warnings to keep other ships away. Within moments, the orderly traffic had scattered, leaving damaged vessels and drifting bodies around the two men.

…

Hestia's node sounded again, and she opened the report while Adrian sat beside her. An urgent message marked the location of a violent incident along one of Andromeda's shipping routes. Three unknown cultivators were involved, all suspected to be Astrals, and two Peak Rule travelers were among those already killed.

She opened the attached recording. It showed the broken passage, the wounded man's arrival, and the killings that followed. "Could this be what we were waiting for?" Hestia asked, turning toward Adrian.

His Source Seed pulsed as he watched. The Will of Fate stirred within it, passing him an impression he recognized from its earlier guidance. The danger they had seen was connected to this incident. Adrian looked at the location attached to the recording and rose from his seat, his gaze passing once over Hestia before he disappeared from the chamber.

…

As the recording reached Crimson Spire, Nerion forced a bent panel away from his body and pushed out of the wreckage. His left arm hung close to his side, and blood trailed behind him as he gathered essence and flew toward the open void. The ships ahead were moving away quickly, leaving gaps he tried to follow.

The horned man appeared beside him before he could pass the nearest vessel. Nerion turned and raised his good arm, gathering a layer of essence across it, but the fist struck through his defense and drove into his side. His body bent around the blow before he was thrown toward the scattered asteroids beyond the route.

BOOM!

He struck a broad slab of rock and broke through it. Fragments spread around him, striking a nearby navigation formation and tearing several of its outer rings apart. The lights marking that part of the route blinked out as he rolled through the debris, struggling to bring his body under control.

Nerion caught himself beyond the broken formation and changed direction. Both men were still behind him. He drew more essence from within his body and forced himself toward the moon, hoping to get its bulk between himself and the pair long enough to open some distance.

"Hahahaha! You still have more?"

The horned man overtook him again. Nerion twisted away from his reaching hand, but the man caught his shoulder with the other and pulled him into the next punch. The blow sent him toward the moon's surface, his body cutting through a low ridge before vanishing into the rock beyond it.

BOOM!

A crater spread across the grey ground, throwing dust and broken stone above the ridge. Cracks ran through the surrounding surface while larger pieces of rock tumbled back toward the opening. Far above it, the horned man stopped beside his companion and watched the dust rise.

Something moved beneath the broken stone. Nerion pushed a slab off his shoulder and pulled himself clear, his injured arm dragging across the edge of the crater. He gathered enough essence to lift away from the surface, then turned toward the darkness beyond the moon. The two men watched as he struggled to climb back into the void.

He kept trying to gather more essence, yet the glow around him thinned each time he pushed harder, and the wound across his chest opened further. The moon's surface drew away much more slowly than before. Behind him, the horned man's laughter returned as the gap slowly widened.

"That's enough. I'll finish this," the tailed man said, looking toward Nerion. He raised an empty hand and swept it across the space before him, releasing a dark-crimson blade of essence from his fingers.

The slash crossed the distance far faster than Nerion could fly. He felt it approaching and looked back, his eyes widening as the crimson edge filled more of his vision. He tried to turn aside, but his body had barely begun moving when the attack reached him.

A figure materialized between him and the attack. Nerion saw crimson robes and an arm rising toward the approaching blade, followed by fingers closing around its edge. Dark-crimson light spread across the stranger's bare hand as the slash stopped before him. Nerion drifted farther behind his rescuer, staring past his shoulder at the attack held motionless in his grip.

"Tch. How dare you interfere in our fight?"

The tailed man lowered his arm, irritation tightening his face as he looked at the stranger. His companion's grin faded slightly beside him, but neither moved away. The man in crimson robes still held the slash in one hand, and as they watched, he raised his eyes toward them.

HUMMMM!

At that instant, goosebumps spread across the tailed man's dark-red skin. The next words caught in his throat, and he swallowed before he could understand why. Beside him, the horned man's mouth slowly closed. The amusement had left his face, and the hand hanging at his side had become rigid.

The tailed man stared into the stranger's eyes and felt a sudden fear rise from somewhere deeper than conscious thought.

The crimson-robed stranger remained silent before them, the dark-crimson slash resting motionless in his bare hand. Beneath that gaze, the tailed man felt as though the countless stars around them and the darkness stretching between those stars had somehow become aware of his existence.

For one impossible moment, it felt as though the entire universe had turned to look directly at him.