Chương 426: The Patriarch

When we stepped through the Spire gate into the private domain of the Patriarch of Opal, I was prepared for an absolute warzone. Based on the memory-packets we had extracted from the Blood-Slate Void-specialist, four Tier 10 Ascendant Warlords and two entire mercenary legions had been deployed to this exact coordinate. I expected to emerge into a burning landscape of shattered mountains, smoking dreadnought wreckage, and screaming spatial rifts.

Instead, we stepped out onto a pristine, white-gold quartz terrace surrounded by utter, pristine silence. There were no burning ships in the sky. There were no blood-red energy lances hammering the atmosphere, and not a single blade of grass in the surrounding gardens was singed. The air was crisp, cool, and tasted faintly of crushed mint and sweet fruit. I paused, my [Omnipresence Perception] scanning the horizon in complete confusion.

"Where is the invasion force?"

"Did we somehow get teleported to the wrong place?" Anna asked, her hand resting on the grip of her bow, her silver eyes scanning the empty, shimmering clouds.

"No," Syntheia said softly, her voice carrying that same heavy, guarded tone from earlier.

"These are the correct coordinates. This is my father's private sanctuary." We walked through the grand archways leading into the inner palace, and the sheer, overwhelming scale of the architecture became immediately apparent. The palace was carved from a single, gargantuan block of opalescent quartz that spanned an entire mountain range.

The walls were wreathed in ancient, pre-System runic arrays that hummed with a passive, subterranean power so dense that even my [Primordial Shell] felt a faint, sympathetic vibration. Liquid-gravity fountains flowed upward along the grand staircases, and the air itself was so thick with refined, serene essence that every breath felt like drinking liquid mana. This was not just a residence; it was a fortress built by an ancient entity who had watched empires rise and fall for eons.

We crossed the threshold into the central cultivation hall — a massive, vaulted chamber of polished dark slate. Sitting casually at a low, carved wooden tea table in the center of the vast hall was an old man. He wore simple, unadorned white linen robes, his long silver hair tied back loosely with a string of dark leather. He looked like an ordinary, retired scholar enjoying a quiet afternoon, casually pouring boiling water into a clay teapot.

Lying in a neat, orderly row on the stone floor twenty yards behind his table were four bodies. My [Lattice Perception] snapped to the corpses instantly. They were the four Tier 10 Ascendant Warlords of the Mercenary Arch-House of Blood-Slate. Their heavy obsidian armor was completely untouched, without a single scratch, dent, or burn mark on their plate. Yet their eyes were wide, glassy, and completely lifeless, their central star-cores shattered into dry glass.

The Patriarch had killed four Tier 10 Ascendants inside his own living room without even disturbing his tea set.

"Ah, my little Syntheia!" The man looked up, his face breaking into a wide, boisterous grin as he set the teapot down.

"You finally decided to visit your old father! And you brought guests! Excellent, excellent!" Syntheia stiffened visibly beside me, her posture turning unnaturally formal as she bowed her head.

"Father. We received intelligence that a mercenary strike force was deployed to your coordinates. We came to offer assistance."

"Assistance?" The Patriarch let out a loud, thunderous laugh that echoed off the quartz ceiling, slapping his knee in genuine amusement.

"Assistance for what? Those four iron-plated insects?" He gestured casually to the four dead Tier 10s behind him.

"The High Courts actually thought four standard Tier 10s were enough to put old Aurelius in a grave! They completely missed that I broke through my secondary bottleneck three centuries ago! Idiots, the lot of them!" Crys stepped forward, her eyes wide with shock as she stared at the four dead gods on the floor, then at her grandfather.

"Grandfather... you killed them all by yourself?"

"Of course I did, little Crys!" Aurelius beamed, his demeanor shifting into that of a doting, overly enthusiastic grandfather.

"Although I must admit, they ruined my morning nap. I had to get up, snap their soul gates, and drag them inside so they wouldn't clutter the garden." Suddenly, Aurelius' smiling face dropped. His boisterous, eccentric warmth vanished in a fraction of a millisecond, replaced by an absolute, suffocating pressure that made the air in the hall turn into solid iron. His eyes, which had looked warm a second ago, turned into two bottomless abysses of starless black as he turned his gaze directly onto me.

"And you," Aurelius said, his voice dropping into a low, subterranean rumble that vibrated inside my brain.

"You are Eren Kai. The Editor. The little monster who brought all this chaos and trouble directly to my house's doorstep." The atmosphere in the room turned lethal. My star-cores spun up instantly, my [Crown of Pride] pulsing on my brow as my body locked into a defensive stance, ready to activate [Syntropy] at the first sign of a strike. Anna's hand twitched slightly toward her bow, and Rexxar shifted his weight, his gold scales flaring. Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent.

Report sightings. For three agonizing seconds, the ancient Patriarch stared me down, his gaze heavy enough to crush a mountain. And then, he burst into a roaring, uncontrollable fit of laughter.

"Ha! Look at your face!" Aurelius cackled, slapping the tea table so hard the clay cups rattled.

"You thought I was actually mad at you! Relax, kid! I'm just messing with you!" The suffocating pressure vanished as quickly as it had arrived. I stood there, my hand still ready to summon a sabre, completely speechless. I looked at Syntheia, who merely let out a tired, long-suffering sigh, pinching the bridge of her nose.

"Come, come, sit down!" Aurelius waved his hand, pulling several wooden stools from the surrounding air with a flick of his wrist.

"We have much to discuss. Care for some tea?" I slowly relaxed my stance, adjusting my cloak as I walked over to the table and sat down across from him. Crys, Syntheia, and Anna joined us, while Rexxar and Nyx stood guard near the archway. Aurelius poured a cup of dark, fragrant tea and slid it across the table to me. I raised the clay cup, taking a small, cautious sip. The flavor hit my tongue instantly.

It carried a reminiscent resonance — a sweet, celestial warmth that tasted distinctly of stardust, crushed cinnamon, and cold mountain rain. My eyebrows raised slightly as I looked down at the liquid. I knew this flavor. Aurelius instantly caught my reaction, his bright eyes twinkling with sharp, ancient amusement.

"Ah! You've had this blend before, haven't you? Old Thoth must have made quite an impression on you during your rift training." I set the cup down, my tone turning serious and respectful.

"You know Thoth, the Scribe of the Seventh Key?"

"Know him? We used to share drinks back before the Court of Primes compiled the universal Lattice," Aurelius chuckled.

"He's a stubborn old bird, but he knows his history."

"Then tell me what is happening," I asked, leaning forward, my analytical mind hungry for clarity.

"I have questions about the High Courts. Why are they using these absurd, wave-based attacks? Why send mercenary legions and minor assassination squads to target our students and satellite houses just to 'send a message'? If the Court of the Six Sunless Primes is a godlike, universal conglomerate, why are they acting like a cheap, theatrical villain giving us time to prepare between strikes?" Aurelius took a slow sip of his own tea, a quiet, knowing smirk playing on his lips.

"I knew you were a smart one," Aurelius chuckled softly, setting his cup down. But instead of answering directly, he simply shook his head.

"The universe is a broad chessboard, kid. The Courts have rules they must abide by — rules written into the very foundation of the Laws, Laws that are part of the Foundation established long before any silly System, Laws that even their Six Architects cannot openly violate without unraveling their own authority." He didn't elaborate further, instead leaning back on his stool with a mischievous glint in his eye.

"You want answers, Eren Kai?" Aurelius asked, his tone suddenly shifting from jovial host to an ancient, unyielding martial master.

"Then you're going to have to earn them." Before I could process his words, Aurelius dropped his Domain. He didn't manifest a grand spectacle of iron mountains or marble galleries. He simply released a microscopic, hyper-concentrated wave of his ancient Inner World directly onto my physical body. The slate floor beneath my stool instantly shattered into fine dust. An astronomical, planetary weight slammed down onto my shoulders, so dense and sudden that my collarbones groaned under the pressure.

The air around my body was instantly compressed into a solid, impenetrable block of spatial lead.

"Grandfather, stop!" Crys shouted in alarm, stepping forward to draw her weapon.

"Stay back, Crys," Syntheia commanded, catching her daughter's arm and holding her in place.

"Your grandfather is just testing his foundation. He won't really hurt him. Besides, if Eren cannot survive this, he has no business standing against the High Courts." I sat cross-legged on my stool, my jaw clenched so hard my teeth ground together. The pressure was brutal — a multi-millennia, unbending authority that tried to flatten my soul gate and force my central star-core to a complete standstill.

My [Primordial Shell] was working at maximum capacity, my dense muscle fibers and bone structure groaning as I struggled to maintain my posture. I barely held on. The weight was so colossal that my vision flickered, dark blood leaking from the corner of my mouth as my star-cores shuddered under his domain. Do not let this old fool crush our Crown! Pride roared in my mind. Eat it! Gluttony barked. We can eat his domain! I activated my [The Void-Star's Hunger] in conjunction with my [Domain of the Ashen].

I wove a microscopic, high-frequency layer of my black-red [Voidflame] along the outer boundary of my skin. I didn't release the flame outward; I used it to begin systematically consuming the edges of Aurelius' domain. My Voidflame devoured the semantic permission of his gravity fields, converting his crushing, ancient pressure into clean, uncompiled quintessence that fed directly into my internal [Void-Battery]. Slowly, agonizingly, the pressure on my shoulders began to lighten.

I raised my head, my bottomless black eyes burning with a starless, arterial crimson fire as my own Domain expanded outward, inch by inch, slowly devouring his authority and pushing his crushing weight off my coordinates. I let out a long, raspy breath, adjusting my posture on the stool as the localized gravity settled. Aurelius stared at me, his eyes wide with genuine, unadulterated shock.

A second later, the crushing pressure vanished completely, replaced by a loud, boisterous roar of laughter that shook the entire cultivation hall.

"BWAHAHAHA!" Aurelius slapped his knee, his face beaming with delight.

"He actually tried to Consume my domain! He even converted some of my authority into raw fuel! Magnificent! Absolutely magnificent!" He leaned forward over the tea table, resting his chin on his hands, looking at me with deep, fiery respect.

"I like you, kid," Aurelius grinned broadly.

"You've got real crystal. You survived my test, so I'll make you a deal." He held up a single finger.

"You get one question. Ask me anything about the Courts, the Architects, or the war to come... and I will give you the absolute, unvarnished truth." Aurelius leaned back, his eyes twinkling with ancient wisdom as he gestured to my tea cup.

"Ask your question, Eren Kai."