Virelith Galaxy, Origin Sect Headquarters.
Adrian and Hestia stood upon one of the terraces extending from the upper levels of the Central Origin Construct. The immense structure rose above the surrounding headquarters, giving them an unobstructed view of the worlds arranged throughout the folded spatial layers beyond it and the golden-white streams of energy connecting those worlds to the construct.
Neither of them still carried the appearances they had worn upon Nerath. The altered faces, bodies, and unfamiliar mana signatures created through Adrian's Direct Command had already been dismissed, leaving Hestia in her true appearance beside him while Adrian's own presence had returned to normal.
Since their arrival, Adrian had already explained everything that occurred during the period when Hestia was occupied with stabilizing her newly awakened Chime.
He told her why he had remained above Nerath, how the first confrontation had drawn additional Ebon Meridian elders toward the planet, and how he had deliberately continued escalating the situation after realizing that every Astral cultivator removed there would be one fewer threat capable of being directed toward Andromeda.
He had also explained the demand he placed before Orveth, the battle that followed when the Sect Leader refused to surrender Ebon Meridian's holdings throughout Keldovan, and the eventual arrival of the two allied Anchor sovereigns that forced him to abandon the attempt and retreat.
Hestia listened until there was nothing left for Adrian to add. For several moments afterward, she remained facing the distant worlds rather than immediately responding, her newly awakened consciousness far calmer now that the instability of the breakthrough had completely settled. When she finally turned toward Adrian, there was no anger in her eyes, although the expression she gave him carried a mixture of frustration and self-reproach.
"Every time something like this happens, I am the one lecturing you to use your brain before your emotions decide what you are going to do," Hestia said. "I keep telling you that having enough strength to solve a problem does not mean the first solution should always be to confront whoever caused it. But this time, I cannot put all of that on you, because both of us made the same mistake."
Adrian remained silent and allowed her to continue.
"We went to Nerath for reconnaissance," Hestia said. "Nothing more complicated than that. We wanted to see what had actually happened to the Solvaren Clan, understand how my descendants were living, learn what they wanted, and only after we possessed those answers were we supposed to return here and decide what should be done about Ebon Meridian."
Her gaze shifted briefly toward the distant worlds surrounding the Central Origin Construct before returning to Adrian. "Instead, the situation kept escalating a little at a time until neither of us was acting according to the reason we went there in the first place. When that enforcement elder arrived, I could have remained outside the conflict. The Clan Leader had already explained that Narev acted independently, and the council was prepared to surrender him for judgment. Even after the elder struck the Clan Leader, there were other ways the situation might have developed if I had not stepped between them."
Hestia's expression tightened slightly as she remembered the confrontation above Avaris. "I stood against him because I could not watch an Ebon Meridian cultivator treat the Solvaren Clan as though their only purpose was to obey. At that moment, I was thinking about everything I had learned on Nerath, everything Caldris had said, and everything the covenant had taken from people across generations. I wanted to face him myself, and when you tried to intervene, I even told you to remain behind me."
Her breakthrough had ultimately come from that decision, but Hestia did not use the Chime as an excuse for what followed.
"If I had not done that, events might have gone very differently," she continued. "Perhaps Narev would still have been taken. Perhaps the council would have been investigated and punished. Perhaps Ebon Meridian would have tightened its control over Nerath afterward. None of those outcomes would have been pleasant, but they would have remained within the kind of situation the clan had survived before."
Hestia released a quiet breath. "Now that is no longer true. Because of what I did, an Ebon Meridian enforcement elder attacked me, you killed him, more elders came, more of them died, and eventually Orveth himself entered the conflict. The Solvaren Clan is now standing beneath far more attention than it was before we arrived. Whatever Ebon Meridian decides after this, Nerath will be examined far more closely because the entire confrontation began there."
She looked away for a moment before continuing. "So I cannot stand here and tell you that you alone allowed your emotions to make the situation worse. My own choices helped create the conditions that allowed everything afterward to happen."
Adrian watched her without interrupting. Hestia had spent more than a million years carrying the consequences of her first decision to leave the Solvaren Clan, and he could recognize how easily she might have placed the entire burden of Nerath's new danger upon herself if he allowed her thoughts to continue in that direction unchecked. Before he could respond, however, she turned fully toward him again.
"And I understand why you acted the way you did after my breakthrough," Hestia said. "You did not keep fighting those elders simply out of anger over the attempt on my life, did you? You probably thought that if you weakened Ebon Meridian enough, I would no longer have to worry about my clan, isn't it?"
Adrian gave a small nod. "Yes. At first, I thought killing several of their important elders would weaken the sect enough that they would have fewer people available to threaten Andromeda or pressure the clan. When Orveth came personally, that changed the opportunity."
He did not attempt to soften the reasoning now that they were safely back within Virelith.
"If I could kill him there, many of the dangers you had been considering since the covenant resurfaced would disappear with him," Adrian continued. "Ebon Meridian would still exist, and its allies would still exist, but Orveth was the one directing the structure around the sect. Removing him would leave them dealing with succession, their existing territories, their dependent powers, and every enemy that might take advantage of the weakness. They would have far less freedom to focus upon Nerath or Andromeda."
Hestia nodded slowly. That was almost exactly the conclusion she had reached while watching the battle through the observation arrays.
She stepped closer until only a short distance remained between them. "Both our emotions pushed us farther than they should have this time. I saw my descendants being treated the same way I remembered from more than a million years ago, and I forgot that we had gone there to understand their situation before deciding what I should do. You saw someone try to kill me, then saw an opportunity to remove the power responsible for threatening my clan, and you kept pushing until you were fighting its Sect Leader."
Hestia shook her head. "Somewhere along the way, both of us forgot why we went to Nerath in the first place."
"What is done is already done," Adrian said. "We should focus on what we are going to do from here."
Hestia nodded. "This is a difficult problem to solve. The descendants consider Nerath their home, and even those who hate the covenant do not want to leave the planet. What they consider freedom is not escaping Nerath. They want to remain there while possessing the right to make their own decisions without someone above them approving every important choice. I understood that clearly after speaking with the clan elders."
Adrian considered her words and found himself reaching the same conclusion.
The problem was considerably more complicated than simply relocating the entire Solvaren Clan or Nerath into Andromeda or Virelith. Adrian had physically moved the Elyrian micro-dimension before, so accomplishing something equally extreme was not beyond what he could imagine attempting. Nerath itself could potentially be removed from the political structure surrounding it if he possessed enough control over the circumstances.
The difficulty was everything that would happen while he tried.
At the Providence Hub, Adrian had already dealt with Navira, the Anchor sovereign controlling that region, before attempting anything that required prolonged concentration. Nerath was different. Orveth could directly interfere while Adrian attempted to relocate the planet, and the battle they had just fought proved that removing the Sect Leader was not something Adrian could currently accomplish quickly enough to guarantee the safety of millions of people below.
Even defeating Orveth alone would not necessarily be sufficient.
If Adrian intended to move Nerath without risking the population living upon it, he would need enough overwhelming strength to suppress the Sect Leader even if Orveth's two allied Anchors joined him again, along with whatever additional reinforcements Ebon Meridian could gather before the relocation was complete.
Hestia continued before Adrian could voice the thought. "There is no immediate solution to this. Caldris has requested another audience with me. The Clan Leader has probably already informed him about what happened, so he is most likely coming to ask for help."
The message had arrived shortly after Adrian and Hestia returned. Caldris had begun travelling from a nearby Andromedan transit station while they were still upon Nerath. Their journey from the Valtheris Gate anchor to the planet had required fewer than six hours, and even after their investigation and the battle, the entire expedition had consumed less than one standard day.
Inside the accelerated Origin headquarters, however, years had passed during that same external interval. Even the conversation Adrian and Hestia were having upon the terrace consumed only seconds from Caldris's journey.
"For now, we prevent the immediate retaliation through Caldris and the arriving delegation," Hestia said. "That will give us more time to think about how we can actually solve the larger problem."
"I will come with you," Adrian replied.
Hestia shook her head. "You just came out of a battle against three Anchors. Take some rest. I will handle this part."
She studied Adrian more carefully before adding, "I also have several questions about the divine concept you used against Orveth, but those can wait until I return."
Adrian looked at her for a moment before accepting the decision. "Contact me if you need anything."
"I will."
Hestia turned toward the entrance leading back into the Central Origin Construct and walked away from the terrace.
Adrian remained beside the railing after she left. His gaze returned to the worlds arranged throughout the folded spatial layers and the vast darkness surrounding the hidden Origin headquarters, but his thoughts remained upon Nerath, Ebon Meridian, and the battle he had just abandoned.
Hestia wanted time to search for a solution to the entire problem, but Adrian increasingly felt that the true solution was much simpler to identify, even if achieving it was considerably harder.
He needed to become stronger. Crimson Vital needed to become stronger. Origin needed to become stronger.
If Adrian had possessed enough strength to handle all three Anchors who confronted him today without difficulty, the situation above Nerath would have ended very differently.
The same truth applied beyond Adrian himself.
If the Crimson Vital Sect had already possessed enough power that Ebon Meridian considered Andromeda untouchable, would Orveth ever have dared to revive an ancient covenant and use it as a path into Hestia's territory?
Adrian had created the illusion that Crimson Vital possessed a mysterious power standing behind it, an organization significant enough that even Lesser Major Sect envoys hesitated after encountering him. That hidden power was supposed to be Origin.
Yet Origin itself was still developing.
It was not publicly known throughout the universe. Its strongest structure remained concentrated around Adrian, Hestia, and the handful of exceptional cultivators surrounding them. Billions could already benefit from the foundation he had created, the Origin Net, the manufacturing worlds, and the systems hidden throughout Virelith, but none of that yet translated into the kind of strength that made a Lesser Major Sect look toward Andromeda and decide that even testing its boundaries was too dangerous.
If everything Adrian intended to build had already been in place, Ebon Meridian might never have moved at all. The thought remained with him as golden-white streams continued crossing the darkness beyond the terrace.
Ebon Meridian had forced Hestia to worry constantly about descendants she had only just rediscovered, had tried to use an ancient covenant to reach everything she built in Andromeda, and had nearly turned Nerath into a battlefield because it believed its accumulated strength and influence gave it the right to decide the future of everyone beneath it.
"You made her worry. Sooner or later, you will learn the price of that." Adrian thought.