Days drifted quietly through the Origin Capital.
While the galaxy outside debated, mocked, and speculated about the Origin Path, Adrian himself was far from idle.
He first spent days comprehending every scrap of knowledge Lexaria had sent, rare and even obscure concepts that most clans hoarded for millennia.
Adrian descended into the Origin Construct's core, where the formation's heart beat with compressed essence.
He thought, "It's time to rebuild it."
Adrian expanded it further, inscribing the truths of his five advanced galactic concepts interlaced with many other basic concepts like Life, Time, Creation, and Destruction, even if it did less help.
Then he began reworking the very structure of its mind. Now he had more experience in using the concepts, so he could make the logic of the formation mind better and much smarter than before.
The formation began to think.
Not with sentience, but with logic so refined it mimicked intelligence. It could assess threats, prioritize targets, allocate resources, and adapt strategies mid-battle.
When he finished, Adrian stepped back and observed the whole.
He could barely measure its strength now.
But he understood one truth.
If the demons returned with another siege, even a Demon Lord would fall before it.
This was the security he needed, for the clan, for the Blackwood Ink inside the capital, and for everything he had built.
...
While Adrian worked in isolation, the Origin Clan thrived.
The Knowledge Forges handled the endless production of spheres, freeing most of the workforce. At first, panic spread among those who feared losing their purpose.
Varik found himself mediating disputes in the production district, where hundreds of workers gathered outside the now-automated factories.
"What are we supposed to do now?" a woman demanded, "We came here to work, to earn our place. Now you're replacing us with formations?"
Others murmured agreement, uncertainty rippling through the crowd.
"The core clan members and Lord Adrian have already planned for this," Varik said, "Every person here will be offered a new path."
"Doing what?" someone shouted from the back.
"Whatever you choose."
The crowd fell silent.
Varik gestured toward the display behind him, where holographic lists appeared, dozens of new divisions, positions, opportunities.
"The Origin Warriors need recruits. The Inscriber Wings are expanding. Planetary development teams are forming to help rebuild our worlds. Research divisions want assistants. If you want to fight, you can fight. If you want to learn, you can learn. If you want a quiet life with better pay and better homes, we have that too."
He met their eyes, one by one.
"The Origin Clan doesn't throw people away. We lift them up."
The woman stepped forward, suspicion still etched into her face.
"And if we fail the training?"
"Then you try something else," Varik said simply. "Or you don't. No one will force you into anything. But everyone will have a place."
Slowly, the crowd began to disperse, some still uncertain but others nodding.
...
Within weeks, the transformation became visible.
Former production workers filled training grounds, sparring under Draven, Thomas, Elliot, and Kael's instruction. Others sat in inscription halls, learning runes from Selena and Septimus. Research teams assembled under Gary and Orin, studying the Knowledge Spheres themselves, seeking ways to improve distribution.
Planetary development became the largest division.
Millions of refugees who'd fled from demon-destroyed worlds or escaped tyrannical clans needed homes, infrastructure, and purpose. The Origin Clan gave them all three.
On Thessar's Reach, factories started production on agricultural enhancement, creating tools that let farmers cultivate twice the yield with half the effort.
On Korvan Prime, new cities rose, built with inscribed materials that regulated temperature and resisted natural disasters.
On the former Serpent worlds, teams worked alongside Adrian's formations, planting forests where wastelands once stretched.
The economy flourished.
Trade routes were improved between the seventy planets, goods flowing freely without tariffs or exploitation. Knowledge Sphere sales tripled again, then quadrupled, flooding the Origin Clan's treasury with wealth that was immediately reinvested into expansion, education, and defense.
And from across the galaxy, beings watched.
Minor clans, struggling under the weight of imperial taxes and demonic raids, saw what the Origin Clan offered.
Protection, knowledge, and equality.
Some sent envoys.
Others came themselves.
The first minor clan to disband entirely was the Sizzle Collective, a group of ice-affinity warriors from a frozen moon near the Duranthian border. Their patriarch, Jorath, arrived at the Origin Construct with his entire clan, three hundred souls.
Varik met him at the docking platform.
"We want to join," Jorath said simply, "As members."
Varik studied him.
"You understand what that means? You'll no longer be a patriarch and will have to follow Lord Adrian's vision. "
"We know." Jorath's weathered face cracked into a faint smile. "That's why we're here."
Within days, the Sizzle Collective integrated seamlessly, their ice-affinity warriors joining the Origin warriors, their inscribers learning new runes, their children enrolling in Origin academies.
They were the first.
But not the last.
The Thornveil Enclave came next, plant-affinity cultivators who'd been forced to supply the Lexarian Empire with medicinal herbs for centuries. They arrived with soil samples and seeds, asking only for land and freedom.
Then the Ember Coalition, fire warriors who'd lost their homeworld to demons.
Then the Tidecaller Assembly, water manipulators who'd served the Aethelian Navy as conscripts.
One by one, minor clans dissolved their old identities and became part of origin clan.
Out in the galaxy, where one needed to struggle to survive, where power was everything, the Origin Clan felt like heaven.
And Adrian, standing on the observation deck, overlooked ninety worlds now filling the origin capital, with minor clans joining them; their home planets were also brought here.
...
One day, Adrian stood in the vast training arena within the Origin Construct, teaching a group of young Origin Warriors.
White frost shimmered in the void as he demonstrated ice essence manipulation.
His hand moved slowly, fingers curling as pale blue mist condensed around his palm.
"Don't force the freeze," he instructed calmly. "Ice is patience. It teaches stillness before control."
One warrior, a young woman with fire affinity struggling to grasp the opposite essence, bit her lip in concentration. Her own attempt at just the planetary concept produced jagged shards that clattered to the ground.
"Again," Adrian said.
She nodded.
Another warrior raised his hand. "Lord Adrian, how do you keep the structure stable?"
"Feel the water first. Ice is just water convinced to sleep." Adrian let the frost dissolve back into mist. "You're trying to command it. Instead, guide it."
The warriors nodded eagerly, mimicking his gestures, clumsy but earnest. Some succeeded in forming small crystals. Others failed.
Adrian smiled faintly.
These were already SSS-ranks, but they reminded many defenders back on earth he had seen.
It was then that his Node pulsed.
A sharp vibration, distinct from the usual notifications.
He frowned, opening it.
The holographic display materialized before him. The imperial seal blazed at the top. Beneath it, crisp text in the formal script of the Aethelian War Council.
A notice of deployment rotation.
Adrian's eyes narrowed slightly as he scanned the header. "...expected one," he murmured.
He had known this day would come.
Every clan in the empire was obligated to send forces to the frontlines to fight the endless war against the demons. Origin had been exempt thus far due to their recent establishment, but exemptions never lasted.
He opened the details.
Then his calm expression faltered.
"What…?"
The words didn't make sense at first. He reread them, slower this time, hoping he'd misunderstood.
Deployment Zone: Edge Sector, Drakthor.
Deployment Time: 20 Days.
His brows furrowed. "An edge sector?"
Around him, the warriors continued their exercises, unaware of the shift in his demeanor.
Adrian barely heard them.
He had expected border deployment, a standard defensive post along the main warfront. Those were manageable and within reason.
He had studied the frontlines after returning from the Edge.
The regular frontlines, where the six empires met the Demon Empire's borders. There, the war was constant, but contained. Demon Commanders were the greatest threats, occasionally a Lord if the siege intensified. Clans rotated through, held positions, and coordinated with imperial forces. Losses were expected but not catastrophic.
But the Edge Sectors… That was another reality entirely.
Thousands of years ago, When demons destroyed two large empires, they claimed their ruins and half the sectors on the edge, cutting the galaxy into two halves.
Even till today, the demon empire holds those conquered sectors on the edge, their armies vast beyond imagination.
Every few years, they launched sieges upon the edge sectors under the control of the empires, millions of demons led by multiple Demon Lords and sometimes, even Demon Warlords, beings who wielded three essences.
Adrian had read the casualty reports once. The numbers were incomprehensible. Trillions dead across millennia. Entire clans erased in single campaigns.
It was slaughter on a scale no one could comprehend.
So the clans in the rotation to maintain the edge sectors have to join hands with other clans from different edge sectors to even hold against the siege. Millions of warriors always died on those kinds of sieges.
And the clans also have to do research deep into the edge, the same mission that the celestials participated.
Exploration teams sent into the edge, to find ruins or anything that might tip the balance.
When it comes to edge sector deployment, a clan had too many things to handle; they needed to handle the demon siege, work with other clans, and do research into the edge...
Logistics alone could cripple an unprepared force. Coordinating with rival clans who might sabotage you for advantage. Managing supply lines across hostile void. Maintaining morale when death was the only certainty.
It was not merely like the normal frontlines.
And yet, the Aethelian Empire had assigned Origin Clan there, a clan barely months old.
Adrian scrolled through the orders again, his expression darkening.
The official reason was simple, "Patriarch Adrian Blackwood, being capable of easily slaying a Demon Lord, qualifies as a Stellar Warlord. Thus, the Origin Clan shall be deployed to the Edge for coordination, defense, and research."
Bureaucratic language. Reasonable on the surface.
But Adrian saw through it immediately.
A Stellar Warlord classification meant they expected him to hold an entire sector alone if necessary. To face multiple Lords, possibly Warlords, and survive. To lead research teams into the unknown while simultaneously commanding millions in battle.
They were treating Origin like an ancient, established clan with millennia of experience and bottomless reserves.
Not a fledgling force still finding its footing.
Adrian's hand tightened around the node.
The holographic display flickered slightly under the pressure of his essence leaking through his control.
He looked at the young warriors training in the hall, some recently ascended to SSS-rank, their faces bright, determined, naive.
They'd come from broken clans, refugee camps, conscript battalions. They'd found hope here. Purpose and safety.
And now he was supposed to lead them into the Edge.
Into sieges where millions died as a matter of routine.
"Damn that emperor…" he muttered.
The words came out quiet, but the ice around him sharpened, frost spreading across the floor in jagged lines.
A few warriors noticed, pausing mid-technique. One opened his mouth to ask if something was wrong.
Adrian waved him off absently, his mind already racing.
The Aethelian Emperor had already crossed every line.
First, he had claimed Origin as part of his empire, even wanting Adrian to bend to him.
When that didn't happen, he had sent Veythar, a trap meant to crush Adrian early, to eliminate him before he grew too powerful.
Those were only focused on Adrian, but this was a move against his clan.
A deployment designed to bleed them dry.
Even if Adrian survived, his people wouldn't. Not all of them.
His people didn't deserve this.
Even if he fought with all his power, he couldn't protect everyone in an edge siege. There would be millions of demons, dozens of stellar-level threats, and even demon warlords!
He could erase armies, collapse fleets, and kill Lords.
But he couldn't be everywhere at once. Couldn't shield every warrior, every support team, every research expedition.
The Emperor knew that.
That was the point.
For the first time since rising to power, fury boiled beneath his calm.
Not the cold rage he'd felt when facing Veythar or Kraxis.
This was something deeper. Personal.
These were his people. The people who'd trusted him when he abolished tributes. The refugees who'd found homes on his worlds. The warriors training before him right now, struggling to grasp ice essence because they believed in his vision.
And the Emperor wanted to bury them in the void.
He looked toward the void beyond the glass dome of the training arena. The stars glittered there, vast and waiting.
Adrian's reflection stared back at him in the glass, calm eyes over a storm he no longer bothered to hide.
His white-grey essence flickered faintly around his silhouette, barely visible but present. The warriors couldn't see it. Didn't know what it meant.
But he did.
The Emperor could command a deployment.
But he could not command the outcome.
"You want to bury us in the edge," he whispered, "but you forget what roots do when buried."
His hand unclenched slowly, the Node display still hovering in his vision.
Twenty days.
Not much time.
He turned away from the glass, dismissing the Node with a thought. "They grow deeper."
The young warriors looked up as he moved toward the center of the arena, his expression unreadable once more.
"Continue your exercises," he said evenly. "I'll return shortly."
They bowed as he passed, unaware that everything had just changed.
Adrian strode toward the exit, his mind already forming plans.
If the Emperor wanted to test the Origin Clan in the Edge, so be it.
But when the siege comes, when the demons descend in their millions, they would learn what it meant to face a clan forged in struggle.
And the Emperor would learn what happens when you push someone too much, and his patience finally runs out.