Everyone saw Adrian fly forward, his trajectory directly toward the two combatants locked in battle at the center.
The instant he moved, the remaining three elders of the Everlasting Pill Sect reacted. Rhezan stepped forward first, as he assessed Adrian's approach with narrowed eyes.
"I'll take care of this small fry," he said with confidence.
From Rhezan's perspective, his earlier suspicion had only been confirmed. As Adrian drew closer, Rhezan could clearly sense the divine domain surrounding him. It was not overwhelming, nor was it mastered to a frightening degree. It was merely a low-tier divine concept at the early rule stage. That alone proved that this outsider was nothing more than a hired mercenary, someone brought along solely to deal with the chaotic environment rather than actual combat.
The dark crimson domain refined chaotic energy passively, showing no aggression, no killing intent. A support specialist. Useful for clearing paths, worthless in real battle.
Marivelle turned sharply toward him. "No."
Rhezan paused mid-step.
"I don't think he's a simple mercenary," she said. Her eyes tracked Adrian's steady flight, "I'll deal with him."
Rhezan frowned, "You're wasting your strength on someone like that."
Behind them, Velkor remained silent, arms crossed. He watched Adrian's approach with the same measured caution Marivelle displayed, though he offered no input.
Marivelle did not waver, "It's better to be cautious, Rhezan. Remember, our sect leader's life is on the line."
Rhezan grumbled under his breath but ultimately stepped back. He knew from experience that once Marivelle made a decision, no one could force her to change it. She had led their expeditions for decades, and her instincts had saved them more than once.
Still, he thought this was excessive.
Marivelle flew forward, her body already wrapped in her dark blue divine domain that pushed the chaotic energy aside as she advanced.
Kenric and Lara noticed the movement even as they continued their own battle. Both were fully engaged, neither able to disengage without exposing themselves.
"Your backup's moving," Kenric said between strikes.
"So is yours."
Lara deflected his follow-up strike, her sword sparking against his. She spared a glance toward Adrian, then returned her focus to Kenric entirely.
Kenric trusted Marivelle completely, knowing she was his equal in strength. Even if this mercenary had the possibility to wield a stronger divine concept, Kenric was sure the mercenary would fall quickly. Marivelle would handle it, then reinforce him if needed.
Lara, on the other hand, knew Adrian wielded seventy percent authority and was far stronger than herself. She had seen his ultimate-tier domain, felt its weight. Marivelle would not last long.
Each came to their own conclusion, and both continued fighting, believing the other combat would remain contained.
Adrian watched as the female elder that Lara had identified as one of the strongest approached him steadily. Her dark blue domain was compressed tightly around her body, refined and controlled.
Adrian immediately recognized the structure of her divine concept. It was the same one Kenric wielded. And from everything he had observed so far, he could already deduce its composition. Fire, ice, and poison formed the foundation of the Everlasting Pill Sect's primary divine concept.
Marivelle entered Adrian's dark crimson domain. Instantly, Adrian's domain attempted to refine and consume the essence around her. The dark crimson light pressed inward, seeking to separate and absorb the energies clinging to her.
However, Marivelle's domain was already actively using authority to repel any external essence. Her authority easily pushed Adrian's essence aside effortlessly, creating a stable bubble of controlled space around her body.
Adrian, meanwhile, was not even using authority at all. His domain operated purely through its inherent properties, requiring minimal mana to sustain. So his domain made no attempt to contest against hers.
She continued forward without difficulty and slowed to a halt roughly twenty meters from him.
She did not draw a weapon. Instead, she hovered calmly, her arms relaxed at her sides. Adrian stopped as well, maintaining the distance between them.
Marivelle studied him for a moment and asked, "You're not a Crimson Vital Sect disciple, right?"
"No," Adrian replied.
Marivelle nodded faintly, as if confirming her suspicion. She raised one hand and flicked her fingers. A ripple passed through the air as her spatial ring activated, and several items appeared, floating between them. High-grade mana crystals gleamed softly, refined pills rested within transparent containers, and at the center, a hologram displaying a contract bearing the Everlasting Pill Sect's markings hovered. Its surface glowed faintly, waiting for a signature.
"You should be the mercenary they hired to handle the environment," she said. Her tone was measured, professional. "We can offer you far more than they can. Think carefully. You don't need to risk yourself for a dying sect."
This was not the first time Marivelle had done something like this. She understood mercenaries well. Individuals like them chased profit above all else, and with enough resources, loyalty could always be bought.
She had turned enemy cultivators before. Sometimes with wealth, sometimes with threats, sometimes with both. It was simpler than fighting, more efficient than wasting energy on unnecessary battles.
The Crimson Vital Sect was desperate. They likely offered this mercenary everything they had, but desperation made poor currency. Empty promises and future rewards meant nothing if the sect collapsed before they could be fulfilled.
The Everlasting Pill Sect, by contrast, could pay immediately.
Adrian glanced briefly at the items, then he returned his gaze to her. "You misunderstand. I'm not here for employment, and even if I were, the combined wealth of your entire sect wouldn't be enough to hire me."
For a brief moment, Marivelle's composure cracked.
The items between them shattered instantly, crushed into motes of light by a violent surge of her dark blue divine domain. The domain flared uncontrollably for a heartbeat, pressure radiating outward in a visible wave. Crystals disintegrated, pills vaporized, and the contract hologram disappeared.
Then she reined it back in.
Her voice dropped, cold and sharp. "You should be careful with your words."
"You possess a rare variant of the divine concept using devour," she continued. "It allows you to refine chaos, which makes you useful in this environment. But do not mistake utility for strength."
She flew a meter closer, the pressure around her intensifying. "Usefulness can buy resources. It can buy favors. But it cannot buy the right to look down on a High Rule Stage cultivator. You are a craftsman mocking a general. You have confused your value with your power."
She paused only a fraction of a second before delivering her ultimatum. "I am giving you one final chance. Submit and serve us, or I will make you kneel and force you to refine this environment as my puppet."
At the word kneel, Adrian's Source Seed surged violently within him. He felt the will of the Source itself reject the idea outright, denying it with absolute certainty. His expression hardened as the pulse of defiance spread through his entire being.
He met her gaze directly, "You think you can make me kneel?"
Marivelle's patience snapped.
She did not draw a weapon. Against someone wielding a low-tier divine concept, she did not need one. Her domain expanded violently, surging outward and engulfing Adrian completely within it. She exerted her authority without hesitation, "Kneel."
The command was issued directly to reality within her domain. Gravity and pressure rules warped instantly, focusing entirely on Adrian, crushing downward with overwhelming force. It was a simple and brutal application of authority without even altering the rules themselves.
Adrian's dark crimson domain began to fracture under the pressure. Cracks spread rapidly across its surface. Adrian knew this domain could not withstand Marivelle's authority. He was not using authority with this concept for now, but even if he did, it would only reflect the strength of an Early Rule Stage cultivator. It could never contest a High Rule Stage being.
Yet Adrian did not care. His expression remained calm, "I don't have time for this," he murmured.
In the next fraction of a second, the dark crimson domain vanished completely.
Marivelle's eyes widened. For an instant, she wondered if he had dropped his defense entirely, if he was surrendering. The thought barely formed before instinct screamed at her that something was wrong.
A new light erupted from Adrian's body. It was not crimson. It was white-grey.
A new domain exploded outward with terrifying speed, expanding thirty meters in every direction and engulfing Marivelle within it.
Her authority collided head-on with this new domain. The command kneel dissolved into nothingness the moment the white-grey domain washed over her. Marivelle felt her own domain groan under the pressure of something overwhelmingly superior, as though a mountain had been dropped into a still lake.
"This…" she whispered.
The pressure was suffocating, not physically but conceptually. Her divine concept recognized something far above itself and recoiled instinctively.
She stared at Adrian, her thoughts unraveling. The low-tier divine concept was gone. In its place stood a divine concept she could not recognize, one whose tier eclipsed her own completely. The white-grey radiance carried a weight that her mid-tier concept could not match.
And the authority—
She could feel it pressing down on her domain. Her fifty-seven percent authority collapsed rapidly into a contested state, splitting just as it had between Kenric and Lara. She retained only around twenty-eight percent authority in the contest at the end.
But then she saw Adrian's authority did not stop there. It kept increasing, pushing beyond the split, claiming more and more of the authority from reality. Finally, Adrian was wielding forty-one percent authority.
The clash was now roughly 28% vs 41% vs 30%, the final part remaining under reality's control.
This was the true nature of divine authority clashes. When a cultivator with higher authority confronted one with lesser authority, their entire authority would not be dragged into that clash. Only the overlapping, equal portion would be dragged into the clash. This exact scenario was the best example to this.
Marivelle possessed fifty-seven percent authority, and that was the maximum she could contest. Adrian, even while suppressing himself, wielded seventy percent authority. When the clash between them happened, Marivelle contested for that fifty-seven percent authority of reality, and Adrian also only needed to contest for that same fifty-seven percent. The remaining thirteen percent of Adrian's authority remained free, untouched by the conflict. It would be his surplus.
Finally, in the clash, both divine concepts fought each other and ended up splitting it by twenty-eight percent. That portion split evenly between them.
And then, since Adrian still had the surplus authority that he didn't use in the contest, it was added on top of his twenty-eight percent, increasing it to forty-one percent.
The surplus was the true weapon. This was how authority clashes truly worked in the universe.
Marivelle's face drained of color. Her hands trembled at her sides.
"Seventy percent," she whispered, horror spreading through her eyes. She could not determine exact values without the UNI-OS detection system, but she had felt this exact situation before, so she didn't need the detection system to know what values are this. This had only happened when she faced her own sect leader. She knew what this meant.
The being before her was as strong as her sect leader.
And what terrified her even more was that even the twenty-eight percent authority she still controlled was struggling to resist. She could feel it eroding, bleeding away. With time, it would erode further. That could only mean one thing.
This divine concept was of a higher tier than hers.
This was why higher-tier divine concepts always dominated lower tiers. At first, authority seemed to split evenly. But over time, the lesser tier bled authority away, unable to sustain the contest. The superior concept chipped away at the inferior one relentlessly until nothing remained.
Adrian stood calmly at the center of the white-grey domain, hands relaxed at his sides.
"Now," he said, "tell me again who the craftsman is, and who the general."