Adrian descended slowly toward the city gates. The massive doors had collapsed inward long ago, leaving behind a gaping entrance that led straight into the ruins beyond. As his domain flowed through the opening, he immediately felt resistance shift. Dense pockets of chaotic energy were concentrated within the city itself, far heavier than the surrounding terrain. This confirmed his suspicion that something inside the city was actively causing the instability in this region.
The group landed just outside the gates. Up close, the devastation became unmistakable. Scorch marks scarred the walls, traces of overwhelming attacks that had once torn through powerful divine barriers. There were no intact bodies left behind, only dust scattered across the streets, but weapons remained as silent witnesses. Corroded spears were embedded deep within stone, shattered swords lay half-buried beneath collapsed structures, and fragments of armor were fused into the rubble.
"This isn't natural decay," Maelis said, running her hand across a fractured wall. "This sect was destroyed."
Lara studied the damage patterns carefully before replying, "Most likely sect warfare."
Torvain kicked aside a piece of debris, revealing more scorched stone beneath. His jaw tightened.
The realization mirrored their own situation too closely. They had barely survived an attack from the Everlasting Pill Sect, and the war they faced was far from over. Everything still hinged on who would claim the Core-Reforging Lotus first.
One of the disciples from Lara's group, a young man with silver markings across his arms, stared at the ruins with visible unease.
"Elder Lara," he began, voice uncertain, "if this sect fell despite their strength—"
"Focus on the mission," Lara cut him off. "Their fate isn't ours."
Adrian stepped through the ruined gates, his crimson domain spreading through the streets ahead of them. The city unfolded into a vast maze of collapsed buildings and overgrown courtyards. Despite the ruin, its structure was still recognizable. Residential districts, training grounds, administrative zones, and cultivation halls were arranged according to traditional sect layouts. The city stretched endlessly into the distance, easily spanning hundreds of kilometers from the entry gate alone. Its full scale could only be determined by searching it in its entirety.
Maelis peered down a wide avenue lined with toppled pillars. Vegetation had forced its way through cracks in the pavement, twisted and grey from the chaotic energies saturating the air.
"Split into groups and search," Lara decided after a moment. "Torvain and Maelis, take the disciples and cover the eastern and western districts. I'll handle the central area with Adrian."
Torvain's expression darkened immediately, "You're pairing yourself with him?"
Lara turned, meeting his gaze, "I'm the only one here strong enough to respond if something goes wrong. Move out. We regroup here in two hours."
Before Torvain could speak, Adrian spoke.
"There's no need to waste time splitting up," he said calmly. "This city is massive, and there will be more cities like it. If we spend hours searching every city we encounter, we'll lose too much time. More importantly, once the disciples leave my domain, they'll be forced to use authority again just to move. That alone will drain them unnecessarily."
The disciples exchanged glances. Several nodded slightly, though they kept silent.
He continued, "Let me use my domain to assess the city first."
Lara frowned. It wasn't that she didn't understand the logic. Within a domain, everything fell under the cultivator's control and perception. Even the movement of the smallest particle could be sensed. However, her hesitation was rooted in two concerns. First, she still did not fully trust Adrian. Second, until now, Adrian had only expanded his domain a few kilometers at most. She had assumed that was his limit within this hostile environment. The idea that he could sweep an entire city with his domain had never crossed her mind.
Yet now that he said it aloud, the logic was undeniable. Even without complete trust, this was clearly the fastest and most efficient option.
Maelis stepped closer to Lara, lowering her voice, "If he can actually do this, we can save hours with this."
"I know," Lara murmured.
Before Lara could decide, Adrian acted. His domain expanded outward effortlessly, refining chaotic energy as it spread through the city. The crimson field surged outward until it encompassed the entire city. Adrian felt the whole scale of the city settle in his perception. The city spanned well over a thousand kilometers.
And almost immediately, something stood out. A region within his domain strained too much, it sucked his mana much faster than other regions to refine and consume, and Adrian could also feel that the energy was extremely dense here. If the source were something too powerful for him, he would have suffered a backlash, but it was within his limits to control it. He tracked it, and it was from the city's central district.
"The source of the energy leak is the central tower," Adrian said. "That's where the divine formation causing the instability is located. The rest of the city is completely ruined. Searching those areas will yield nothing. We should head straight to the central tower instead of wasting time elsewhere."
Lara nodded. There was no reason not to verify the most promising location first.
Adrian compressed his divine domain back to several kilometers. The central area was so dense that even he would need more time to refine it, so it was better to see what it was first.
The group followed Adrian deeper into the city, moving toward the central district. His domain continued refining the chaotic energy around them, carving out a stable pocket in an otherwise hostile environment.
Soon, they reached what appeared to be the city's central plaza. A massive tower rose from its center, towering over the surrounding ruins. Intricate formation patterns were etched across its surface, though most of them had gone dark long ago. At the base of the tower, a pair of ornate doors stood sealed, their surfaces engraved with symbols Adrian recognized as warding formations, designed to keep intruders out, though time had rendered them useless.
Torvain approached first, placing both hands against the doors. He channeled divine essence into the seams, and the metal groaned in protest before the seal fractured. The doors swung inward with a heavy scrape, and everyone entered inside.
The interior revealed a grand structure with modern architectural elements, but nothing inside was functioning anymore. Dust coated the floors, and the walls bore cracks that spiderwebbed outward from impact points. The hall stretched ahead, lined with alcoves that once held statues or treasures, now empty save for the pedestals themselves.
Adrian moved upward through the tower, guided by the concentration of dense essence. He walked past collapsed staircases and forced open doors that had warped in their frames. The further they climbed, the heavier the air became, saturated with leaking energy that pressed against his domain. Eventually, they reached a chamber radiating intense energy.
At its center lay a massive formation embedded into the floor, its core packed with clusters of divine crystals. The crystals glowed faintly, pulsing in irregular rhythms. Essence leaked from hairline fractures in the formation's structure, pooling outward in visible streams that dissipated into the surrounding chaos.
"This is a server formation used for data storage," Lara said instantly, her voice carrying a mix of recognition and disbelief.
Maelis stepped closer, crouching near the edge of the formation. She traced one of the inactive runes with her finger.
"I've only seen these in the upper minor sects," she said quietly.
This was something Lara and others had long dreamed of acquiring for the sect. Server formations were normally integrated with galactic net formations. The top upper minor sects within their galaxy possessed their own private galactic networks, and they had always hoped that one day the Crimson Vital Sect would establish its own. But the sect had never reached a point where such ambitions were feasible. Still, they had seen formations like this many times during their travels, so they could instantly recognize that this was a Server formation, one of the important parts needed to function a galactic net formation properly.
Adrian activated his Source Eyes, reading the formation instantly. To him, the structure itself was nothing unfamiliar. It was a sophisticated inscription framework designed to simulate data flow, with functions for memory storage and internal data transfer. He had built similar systems back when working with the Origin Net. The architecture here was more refined, yes, but the underlying logic remained identical.
What caught his attention was the power source. Normally, such formations could not be powered by pure mana alone. They required carefully matched conceptual essence crystals, and a formation like this would use many different concepts. Adrian remembered Lysandra once explaining that entire departments existed solely to convert pure mana into specific conceptual essences just to keep such systems running, and that only became easier after the introduction of origin ink.
And here, at the center of the formation, he saw a cluster of crystals that didn't carry arcane essence, but divine essence. He watched carefully as faint streams of that essence leaked outward. By reading the embedded rules within it, he quickly understood the design.
Instead of converting multiple arcane concepts into matching essence crystals, those arcane concepts had been merged into a single divine concept, creating a concept specifically designed for this usecase. And to power this formation, that concept's divine essence was used.
It didn't surprise him. Divine concepts were always more efficient when applied to specialized tasks. The elegance of the solution impressed him, though he noted several inefficiencies in the rule structure that he could improve upon if given time.
Torvain spoke up, "The essence is leaking. If we store these divine crystals in our spatial rings, that should stop it."
"Yes," Lara replied, "but what we need most is the information inside. This server should contain data, but parts of the formation seem to be damaged. This is a UNI-Sect server formation. We don't have enough knowledge about this divine concept to repair it."
She knelt beside the formation, examining the fractures more closely. Several disciples gathered around her, peering at the damaged sections with visible frustration.
"Can't we just extract what's left?" Maelis asked.
Lara shook her head, "If we try to access it without repairing the structure, we'll corrupt whatever data remains. We'd lose everything."
Disappointment spread across the group. They had finally found something meaningful, only to be stopped by a broken formation that no one knew how to fix. The divine concept used here was exclusive to the UNI-Sect and never taught publicly. Without understanding the divine concept itself, repairing the formation was impossible.
One of the younger disciples kicked at the floor, "We came all this way for nothing."
"Quiet," Torvain snapped.
For Adrian, however, this revelation gave him new insights. The UNI-Sect server formation. So this formation wasn't unique to this ancient sect. The UNI-Sect openly sold such systems. Any sufficiently wealthy sect could purchase one and establish its own galactic net, provided they could afford the formation itself and the divine essence crystals used as power sources.
Adrian could see just how deeply the UNI-Sect had embedded itself into the foundations of intergalactic civilization. They controlled not just communication through UNI-OS, but also the very infrastructure that allowed sects to operate independently. It was brilliant, really, offer a product that granted autonomy whilst simultaneously ensuring dependence on their technology.
He stepped forward, "I can fix this."
Lara turned to him sharply, disbelief flashing across her face, "Really?"
The entire chamber went silent. Even the disciples who had been muttering amongst themselves stopped.
Torvain narrowed his eyes, "You're saying you understand a UNI-Sect divine concept?"
"I'm saying I can repair the formation," Adrian replied evenly.
At this moment, only one thought came to Lara's mind. She had heard that some cultivators could reverse-engineer divine formations if they just understood the underlying arcane concepts well enough. But that required comprehension across countless concepts and deep analytical ability.
She had already seen Adrian wield three different divine concepts. The sheer number of arcane foundations required for that alone was staggering. And now Adrian was claiming he could repair a UNI-Sect server formation.
What kind of existence stood before her? How could one have comprehended this many arcane concepts in the first place?
Was he even telling the truth?