As the spatial ripples began to form around Androxus, Adrian's white-grey eyes locked onto him.
"You aren't leaving," Adrian said, his eyes turning cold.
Adrian's consciousness plunged inward, diving deep into the infinite expanse of his Source Seed. His intent bypassed the chambers holding his familiar concepts, moving directly toward the newly formed sanctuary that housed the Prime Arcane Concept of Severance.
He tapped into the rules within it. Instantly, the Source blade in his right hand dissolved into mist. In its place, a thin energy sword materialized, forged from the pure essence of Severance. The blade existing just in his hands actively cut the light around it, separating the visual spectrum from reality.
Adrian swung his arm and slashed toward Androxus.
A narrow arc of silver-white Severance essence crossed the void without producing any explosion or disturbance. It travelled through the exposed remains of the golden spire, cutting through the relationships connecting one point of reality to another.
For Androxus, the transition into the spatial tunnel was already halfway complete. The physical world of the Providence Hub had begun to blur, while his destination emerged at the opposite end of the forming passage. But the moment the silver-white arc struck, the spatial tunnel was disconnected from reality. The coordinates linking his current location to his destination were abruptly severed, leaving the spell with no cause and no effect.
"How is he doing this?!" Androxus's mind screamed as the spatial rift unraveled around him. "This is... the Prime Arcane Concept of Severance!"
Before he could restructure the escape spell or gather his willforce into a defensive technique, the silver-white arc reached him.
The arc of Severance bit deeply into his shoulder and dragged diagonally across his chest. His half-transparent silver-skinned body was meant to render him immune to conventional physical attacks, but Severance did not care about physical properties. It severed the physical properties maintaining his illusory state.
A spray of silver blood erupted into the air. Androxus let out a choked gasp as the rules binding his physical form temporarily fractured. The pain was unlike anything he had experienced before; the wound refused to close, as the concept of 'healing' had been actively severed from the injured flesh.
His concentration shattered completely. The collapsing teleportation spell detonated around him, and the spatial backlash expelled his body from the ruined tunnel. Like a meteor stripped of its trajectory, Androxus was thrown through the shattered exterior of the golden spire and hurled toward the Inner Continent.
Adrian blinked, space folding beneath his command, and appeared instantly near the crash site, floating in the sky just above the settling dust.
Across the sprawling expanse of the Providence hub, millions of cultivators watched this. The destruction of the Ethereal Providence Sect had already left them struggling to comprehend what they had witnessed, yet the battle now unfolding between Adrian and the unknown silver cultivator appeared even more mysterious.
Among the reporters gathered, Chris and Daisy stared at their recording artifact with disbelieving eyes.
"He struck him down," Daisy whispered, her voice trembling as she adjusted the magnification of the projection and focused upon the crater. "Chris, he also uses the Prime Arcane Concept of Severance!"
"Keep recording," Chris replied immediately, several of his hands moving across the artifact's controls. "Do not miss a single frame. Master would want to examine every fraction of this encounter."
Within the crater, the dust gradually began to settle. Androxus pushed himself upright from beneath the broken stone, his movements strained and uneven. One hand remained pressed against the diagonal wound crossing his chest, but silver blood continued spilling between his fingers. The Severance essence embedded within the cut rejected every attempt his body made to restore the damaged flesh.
He raised his head and stared at the white-grey-robed figure floating above him. "Just who are you?" Androxus demanded as he ascended from the crater.
Adrian looked down at him without lowering the silver-white sword. "You can answer my question first. Who are you?"
The two cultivators remained suspended within the artificial sky, staring at one another. Throughout the Providence Hub, millions of spectators watched in silence, while countless recording artifacts focused upon every movement and fluctuation surrounding them.
The silence stretched for several moments.
Androxus offered no answer. He had already revealed too much through his techniques and presence, and speaking openly about his origin would violate the restrictions of his Great Sect. More importantly, he had no intention of providing Adrian with information that might allow the anomaly to trace him back.
Seeing that the silver-skinned alien remained unwilling to reveal his origin or explain why he had been hiding inside the central spire, Adrian's patience finally reached its limit.
"Since you refuse to speak, the answer no longer matters," Adrian said, breaking the silence. "I will defeat you and devour what remains of you. I can learn the truth directly from you."
A booming laugh suddenly erupted from Androxus. Despite the wound carved across his chest, his expression hardened, and a faint trace of confidence returned to his silver eyes.
"I admit that you are strong," Androxus replied, his voice echoing across, "but do you truly believe you can kill me so easily? You still do not understand whom you have cornered."
A strange pressure emerged from his body, and a golden light appeared around him.
Adrian's expression sharpened. He quickly expanded his Source Domain, preparing for an unfamiliar attack. Until now, their confrontation had been fought almost entirely through willforce techniques. Adrian had no understanding of Androxus's divine concept, spells, authority techniques, hidden artifacts, or the other methods he might possess.
The golden light erupted.
It spread across the Providence Hub in a blinding wave, and Adrian, standing at the center of the release, was struck directly by the descending pressure. His Source Domain shattered instantly, the white-grey essence covering the sky fragmented into countless particles, and Adrian's body hurled backward through the air.
An ancient and powerful will descended into the artificial sky.
Adrian felt as if his entire existence froze beneath its pressure. His physical body refused to move, and the suppression extended far beyond his flesh. His consciousness was pierced by an overwhelming mental weight, as though countless invisible blades had been driven into every thought and connection supporting his mind.
He could not gather his willforce into a defense. He could not command his mana, activate his concepts, or construct the intent required to even call upon the Source. Even the act of thinking became painfully difficult. Every attempt to form a coherent decision was crushed before it could become complete, leaving Adrian trapped beneath an ocean of consciousness vastly greater than his own Anchor-stage mind.
Across the Providence Hub, it affected everyone.
The Elyrians who had been confronting the surviving Yiphraen elders collapsed alongside their enemies. King Elyras, Mariska, Xeolze, Tenyz, and the remaining Astral Stage cultivators were all driven to the ground as their minds failed beneath the oppressive gravity of the golden light.
The same wave swept through the Outer Commercial Continents, causing countless wanderers, merchants, spectators, and reporters to collapse in the streets.
Chris recognized the technique the moment the golden light appeared.
"Damn it! That idiot used his master's willforce!" he shouted. "Protect your mind, Daisy!"
He immediately constructed a layered Willforce Wall around them. Daisy added her own mental defenses a moment later, and the two barriers overlapped just as the golden pressure reached their position.
The invisible wall shimmered violently beneath the impact. Cracks spread throughout its metaphysical structure while Chris and Daisy staggered, blood leaking from their eyes and noses as they struggled to remain conscious. Even with the techniques inherited from the Heaven-Weaving Pavilion, their minds trembled on the verge of fracturing under the weight of the distant presence.
In a mere second, the golden light disappeared, and Androxus disappeared with it.
Adrian gradually steadied himself within the artificial sky. His body continued drifting backward for several moments before he forced enough mana through his channels to halt his movement. He slowly lowered the silver-white Severance sword, his hand feeling unnaturally heavy, while a dull throbbing pain pulsed behind his eyes.
Defending against only a few seconds of that descending will had consumed more than half of his recovered willforce.
"Who is he?" Adrian wondered, staring toward the empty space where Androxus had vanished. "He cannot simply be a mercenary hired by Navira."
The assumptions Adrian had formed upon first discovering the silver alien no longer fit the situation. He had initially believed he might be a powerful wanderer hired through the wealth of the Ethereal Providence Sect, or perhaps a hidden ancestor who had remained detached from the public hierarchy of the Hub. But the scale of the intervention he had just witnessed shattered both explanations.
The golden light had carried the will of an existence so powerful that it completely suppressed Adrian's ability to think. It was a consciousness that dwarfed his own foundation, a presence belonging to someone who stood far beyond his current realm of understanding.
A cultivator backed by such an existence would have no reason to work as a simple mercenary. Beings of that caliber did not hide inside intergalactic commercial hubs to defend minor alchemists, protect illicit slave markets, or serve as secret guards for a Lesser Major Sect.
"Something is wrong," Adrian thought as his instincts warned him that the pieces did not fit together naturally. "There are stronger powers moving behind this conflict, but why?"
If the alien belonged to an Upper Major Sect or even one of the Great Sects spoken of throughout the wider universe, then why had he been concealed inside the Providence Hub? Why had he been watching Navira's battle from the shadows, and why had a cultivator backed by such an overwhelming sovereign been waiting to ambush Adrian from the central spire?
Adrian's gaze turned down towards the central plaza and looked upon the unconscious Tenyz, "He should have the answer."