The void shuddered as cerulean and crimson light clashed in a blinding frenzy.
The battle between Adrian and Voss continued for several minutes without a victor.
Adrian's crimson energy blade met the cerulean spear again and again, the impacts sending violent ripples through the vacuum of space. To Malakor and Tyberius, who watched in stunned silence from their floating wooden chairs, it appeared as though Adrian was matching Voss blow for blow. In fact, there were fleeting moments where Adrian looked even faster than Voss himself.
But only Adrian knew the truth. His physical body was not truly that fast.
Despite the flawless energy circulation and refinement granted by his Source veins, his muscles and physical reactions were still lagging behind the impossible speed of Voss's million-year-old bodily refinement. What was bridging that terrifying gap was his mind.
Deep within his consciousness, the mysterious golden dot pulsed steadily, enhancing his perception to an almost frightening degree. The blinding velocity of Voss's spear was slowed to a crawl in his vision, and he was not reacting to the strikes; he was predicting them, moving his body and placing his crimson blade in the exact trajectory of the spear long before the attack actually arrived.
He was fighting a physical battle entirely through the overwhelming superiority of his consciousness.
But to others watching, this distinction was invisible. To them, this newly ascended junior was trading physical blows with a titan of the Cerulean Spear Sect and pushing him back.
BOOM!
Another thunderous collision tore through the void. Voss's spear hammered against the flat of Adrian's blade, and the recoil sent both men sliding backward through the emptiness.
Voss anchored himself against the invisible fabric of space, his chest heaving as the cerulean runes across his armor flared with blistering heat. His battle-lust had peaked, but the frustration in his scarred face was undeniable. He glared at Adrian, his grip tightening around the haft of his spear until the metal groaned.
"What kind of ancient relic did you rob to forge a body like this, boy?" Voss roared, his voice echoing like rolling thunder across the dark expanse. "Physical refinement of this caliber doesn't just sprout from a pathetic alchemy sect! Tell me, what relic did you plunder to steal this speed?"
Adrian lowered his crimson blade slightly as he wiped a stray drop of crystallized blood from his jaw.
"Do you honestly believe I would hand over my secrets simply because you asked?" Adrian replied, his voice carrying a faint, mocking edge, "Whatever secrets I hold, you lack the qualifications to demand them."
Voss's eyes widened, a feral, bloodthirsty snarl twisting his features. "You arrogant little—"
"Enough of this pointless brawl, Voss."
The voice cut through the void, cold and dripping with disdain.
Malakor had risen from his wooden chair. The Elder of the Starlight Sanctum floated forward, his robes shimmering. He had completely lost his patience. Watching Voss fail to immediately crush a junior was an insult to the inherent superiority of the Major Sects, and Malakor refused to indulge this physical theater any longer.
"You are humiliating yourself by fighting him on his terms," Malakor said, his gaze shifting from Voss to Adrian.
Malakor raised his chin, looking down at Adrian as if observing a fascinating but ultimately insignificant insect. "You have acquired a commendable physical vessel. Perhaps you truly did unearth some lost treasure from an ancient relic, or perhaps you consumed a miraculous resource that artificially elevated your bodily speed to match an elder. I will admit, your tricks are impressive for someone of your standing."
Malakor floated a slow step forward through the void, the starlight radiating from his body growing denser. "But that alone will not save you. I can see why you act the way you are. You are arrogant because of your flesh, and prime arcane concept. But you do not understand the fundamental difference between the Rule Stage and the Astral Stage."
Tyberius, still seated in the shadows, chuckled softly, "He thinks swinging a sword fast makes him a sovereign."
"Indeed," Malakor agreed, his eyes narrowing into cold slits. "The true weapon of an Astral Stage being is not physical speed, nor is it the simple manipulation of reality through authority. It is the dominance of the mind. Let me show you, boy, that a sturdy shell means nothing when the consciousness within it is shattered."
As Malakor spoke the final word, he simply narrowed his eyes and unleashed a Willforce technique.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
To a Rule Stage cultivator, this attack would have been completely undetectable until the moment it destroyed their mind. It was a concentrated lance of pure intent, forged from millions of years of meditation and mental refinement, aimed directly at Adrian's consciousness to force him to his knees in agonizing subjugation.
But Adrian was not a normal cultivator.
As Malakor unleashed the attack, Adrian's perception, already heightened by the pulsing golden dot within his mind, sharpened to a degree he had never experienced before. His Source Eyes activated automatically, and for the very first time since he had begun his cultivation journey, the invisible became visible.
Until this exact moment, willforce had always appeared as an intangible, invisible ripple of energy. Adrian could not physically "see" it with his eyes; he could only feel its oppressive weight pressing against his mind, or sense the subtle distortion it caused in the environment.
But now, he saw it.
Through his white-grey eyes, Malakor's willforce took on a physical shape. It looked like a shimmering, translucent spear of concentrated starlight, folding the space around it as it shot across the void directly toward Adrian's forehead. It was beautiful, sharp, and undeniably lethal.
Adrian did not dodge. He did not even attempt to raise his crimson sword to block it. There is no use doing those things against a willforce technique.
The starlight spear of willforce struck Adrian directly between the eyes, piercing into his consciousness.
Malakor's lips curved into a smirk, fully expecting the boy's eyes to roll back into his head, for his body to go limp, and for his arrogant facade to crumble into screaming agony as his mind fractured.
Instead, Adrian merely blinked.
Inside Adrian's mind, the reality of the attack unfolded far differently than Malakor had intended. The concentrated lance of willforce entered Adrian's consciousness, intending to shatter his mental defenses. But the moment it crossed the threshold, it did not encounter the fragile, newly formed mind of a junior Astral cultivator.
It collided with an ocean.
Through the [Crown of the Source], Adrian's willforce had grown into a boundless, unfathomable sea. It sat within the mysterious golden dot of energy that anchored his mind.
Malakor's terrifying, million-year-old willforce attack sank into the golden dot... and vanished.
It was exactly like a single drop of water hitting a boundless, infinite sea.
Adrian stood perfectly still in the void, his expression completely blank as he processed what had just happened. The attack hadn't hurt him. It hadn't even caused a mild headache.
Across the void, Malakor's smug smile slowly melted off his face, replaced by a look of creeping confusion. "What...?" he muttered, his aura flickering in disbelief. "Why are you still standing?"
Adrian tilted his head slightly, his white-grey eyes staring at Malakor with genuine curiosity.
"So this is a willforce technique," Adrian thought, analyzing the structure of what he had just seen. "It is not a complex manipulation of rules. It is simply taking the raw weight of your consciousness, shaping it with intent, and projecting it outward as a wave."
If it was truly that simple... then Adrian wanted to try it.
"Is that what you call the true weapon of an Astral sovereign?" Adrian asked softly, his voice carrying a chilling calmness that echoed across the silent void.
Malakor took a subconscious step backward. Voss lowered his spear, his instincts screaming at him that something was terribly wrong. Tyberius gripped the armrests of his wooden chair, the shadows around him shrinking.
"If that is the case," Adrian continued, his white-grey eyes glowing with an ethereal, blinding light, "then let me show you mine."
Adrian focused on the golden dot resting within his mind. With a single, deliberate thought, Adrian formed his intent.
"Kneel."
He released it.
He didn't shape it into a lance like Malakor had. He didn't have the millions of years of technical refinement to do so. Instead, he simply opened the floodgates and allowed the raw, unadulterated mass of his consciousness to explode outward in every direction.
The intangible wave of willforce erupted from Adrian's body like a cosmic detonation.
It was so dense, so terrifyingly heavy, that the vacuum of space visibly warped and buckled as the invisible wave washed over the battlefield.
It hit Voss first.
The massive Cerulean Spear Sect elder, who was already preparing to lunge forward again, froze completely mid-motion. His eyes widened to impossible proportions, the pupils shrinking to pinpricks. His spear halted dead in the void. It wasn't that his body was physically paralyzed by gravity or spatial locks; it was that his very consciousness had been slammed by a force so overwhelming that his brain momentarily forgot how to send signals to his muscles. The battle-crazed elder simply stopped moving, his mind drowning in sheer, paralyzing terror.
A microsecond later, the wave washed over Malakor and Tyberius.
The aristocratic elegance of the Starlight Sanctum elder shattered instantly. Malakor gasped, a wet, choking sound escaping his throat as the suffocating pressure crushed his mind. It felt as though an entire galaxy had been dropped directly onto his mind.
This was not the willforce of a junior or even a peer.
To Malakor, Voss, and Tyberius, the sensation striking their minds was agonizingly familiar, yet utterly impossible to comprehend in this context. The sheer density, the ancient, boundless weight of the intent pressing down upon them... it felt exactly like they were standing before their own Major Sect Leaders, who were at the second stage of mastery of consciousness.
"Argh—!" Tyberius shrieked, the shadows completely blowing away from his gaunt frame as he clutched his head with both hands, tumbling out of his wooden chair and thrashing in the void.
Malakor's knees buckled. The elder who had demanded Adrian's submission only moments ago crashed down onto the invisible floor of space, landing hard on both knees. He pressed his hands against his temples, his starlight aura completely extinguished as he tried to keep his consciousness from fragmenting into a million pieces.
"What... what are you?!" Malakor screamed, staring up at Adrian through bloodshot eyes, the aristocratic pride entirely wiped from his face.
Adrian floated calmly amidst the devastation, his crimson robes swaying gently in the aftermath of the mental shockwave. He looked down at the three ancient titans: one paralyzed mid-strike, one thrashing in agony, and one kneeling in terror.
"I told you," Adrian said, his voice quiet, cold, and echoing with the unquestionable authority of a true sovereign. "I am the one conducting the interview."
