A few days passed.
Adrian kept flying through the endless expanse of the intergalactic void. With his currently improved body and cultivation stage, his speed was extremely high. He had already traveled a distance equivalent to traversing from the Milky Way to the Andromeda Galaxy.
When Adrian was merely a mortal, bridging this kind of distance required months of continuous travel aboard the most advanced starships his home galaxy could produce. But now, with his body moving in perfect synchronization with the spatial rules around him, he had crossed that same unfathomable distance in a mere matter of days.
This kind of effortless travel underscored the terrifying reality of the universe's true powerhouses. It made Adrian realize just how powerful those at the Astral Stage, and especially the Divine Stage, truly were compared to ordinary beings.
"If I can cross this distance in days simply by pushing my physical speed and spatial comprehension," Adrian thought, his eyes observing the blurred starlight passing him by, "then for beings who have spent millions of years refining their bodies, consciousness, and mana to the extreme, traveling this same distance might take only a single day. Perhaps even mere seconds."
Shaking the humbling thoughts from his mind, Adrian kept flying.
The intergalactic void was mostly an empty, silent canvas, save for occasional clusters of drifting asteroids or the faint, distant glow of rogue celestial bodies.
As Adrian flew, diligently following the subtle, golden threads of his Fate and Causality concepts, he noticed a massive starship approaching from the far distance.
Its hull was sleek and ornate, bearing the insignias of an unknown mercantile alliance. Adrian ignored it, maintaining his trajectory. The intergalactic void naturally served as the grand highway for merchant vessels, sect transport ships, and wanderers. He had neither the interest nor the time to investigate whoever was aboard.
However, as their paths intersected, the massive starship suddenly decelerated, matching his pace. A gentle but clear mana transmission bloomed out from the vessel, projecting directly into the void around him.
Adrian stopped in his tracks, his robes drifting weightlessly in the void. His perception briefly swept over the vessel. He heard the transmission, but it was completely gibberish for him.
He had his UNI-OS disabled, and because of that, Adrian had no way to understand what the alien beings were saying. After a brief pause, he retrieved a UNI-OS node and activated it.
The device activated and displayed:
› UNI-OS Booting…
› Fresh Activation Detected
› Bind Mana Signature To Proceed…
Adrian sent a stream of his mana into the node, but this mana was different from his usual mana. Just as living beings had their own biometrics, every cultivator's mana also carried a distinct signature, and that was how the UNI-OS device's unique accounts worked. In the vast universe, identity was not maintained only through names, faces, or documents. Mana signatures served as one of the deepest forms of personal verification, especially for cultivators whose bodies could change, whose appearances could be altered, and whose lifespans stretched far beyond ordinary records.
But even though a person's mana signature was usually stable, one could use a direct command to change it, and Adrian had already done so to himself before activating the device.
Usually, the cost of replicating someone else's mana signature with a direct command would vary depending on the target person, their cultivation stage, and the complexity of their internal energy structure. This kind of identity manipulation was already known within the universe, and even the UNI-Sect was still working on a permanent solution against such methods. But Adrian had no need to copy anyone specific. He only needed a new, clean signature that did not connect to Adrian Blackwood of the Crimson Vital Sect.
› Device Bound…
› New User Detected...
The account activated, and immediately the translator began to work. The previously incomprehensible transmission resolved into meaning.
"Forgive the intrusion, Senior," a polite voice echoed through the vacuum. "Navigating these cosmic currents alone can be treacherous, even for one of higher cultivation. If your path aligns with ours, our vessel would be deeply honored to provide you safe and comfortable passage to your destination."
Adrian didn't feel any ill intentions or hidden malice from the crew; it was simply a gesture of respect offered to a lone cultivator capable of travelling this fast. However, their help was not needed.
"I appreciate the courtesy," Adrian replied, sending his own mana transmission back to the ship's command deck. "But my path is different. Safe travels to you."
Politely declining the offer, Adrian resumed his flight, leaving the merchant crew behind.
As his journey continued, he came across several other starships. Some were sect ships adorned with layered defensive formations and carefully displayed insignias meant to warn away casual threats, while others were rugged, heavily modified pirate vessels lurking near dense asteroid fields.
The void might have looked empty from afar, but the routes between galaxies were filled with opportunists who survived by preying on careless travelers, isolated merchants, and weaker sect transports.
Whenever he encountered a pirate starship attempting to deploy spatial snares or ambush him, Adrian did not even bother to slow down. With his current power, a single, casual cast of his Starbreaker spell was enough to instantly erase their vessels, reducing reinforced hulls, weapon arrays, and concealed boarding teams into silent clouds of cosmic dust.
The pirates never even understood who they had targeted.
But dealing with these interruptions, however briefly, was still a waste of time. Adrian had no interest in becoming involved in petty void piracy or minor transport disputes while pursuing his own goals.
He only wanted to travel faster and undisturbed, so he tapped into his arcane concepts. Weaving the rules of Shadow and Concealment around his body, he masked his presence entirely. The white-grey light of his movement dimmed, his aura folded inward, and the subtle disturbances he created in space softened until even advanced scanning formations would interpret his passage as meaningless background fluctuation.
He became a phantom, a non-entity slipping through the fabric of space. From that moment on, his journey became much smoother, with no other starships detecting his presence to interrupt his flight.
Soon, Adrian felt he was nearing the location he had been sensing for days.
As he moved closer and closer, he saw the magnetic pull was actually originating from within a starship. It was a massive, jagged vessel moving through the darkness, emitting faint pulses of dark violet energy.
At first, Adrian had assumed the concepts were guiding him toward a galaxy, a forgotten ancient relic, or perhaps a concealed spatial pocket holding the knowledge he needed. Instead, the pull came from within this vessel.
Watching the starship from a distance, Adrian had no idea why Fate and Causality were leading him here, but since the threads were anchored to this specific ship, he knew there had to be a reason.
Sometimes, the most important causes began in places that seemed insignificant or even ugly.
Without removing his concealments, Adrian accelerated, easily catching up to the flying starship. He glided silently alongside its massive hull. Peering through one of the reinforced viewports, he observed the crew inside.
They were alien humanoid beings with skin of a deep, striking violet shade. They possessed broad, muscular frames and rows of jagged, razor-sharp teeth that gave them an inherently savage appearance.
Adrian didn't make any judgments based on their appearances alone. He had seen enough of the universe to know that beauty could hide cruelty, and savage features could belong to honorable people.
He kept looking around the starship's interior, still feeling that invisible, magnetic pull attracting him toward its depths.
From just watching from outside, Adrian couldn't know exactly what power level the beings within possessed, and if he tried to actively probe them, it would undoubtedly trigger their defensive arrays and break his concealment.
So for now, Adrian chose to act carefully.
Floating silently outside a particular viewport, Adrian watched as metallic doors slid open within the corridor beyond. A squad of violet-skinned guards emerged, aggressively dragging out several different kinds of alien beings.
The captives stumbled under rough hands, their movements weakened by the heavy suppression of runes carved into the restraints binding them. Some tried to resist, but every attempt was met with brutal shoves, snarled commands, or flashes of punishing energy from the guards' weapons.
These captives were also humanoid, but they stood in stark contrast to their captors. They had pale skin, refined features, and the most striking feature was the pair of large, pure white wings folded tightly behind their backs.
Even through the viewport and the cold distance of the void, their wings looked luminous, each feather carrying a faint natural radiance that reminded Adrian of old religious paintings and mythological records from Earth. They looked exactly like the species of angels he had read about and heard of in Earth's ancient mythologies.
But these beings were treated like common prisoners. Heavy, rune-etched cuffs bound their wrists and necks, suppressing their mana and likely interfering with whatever natural abilities their species possessed.
Adrian watched the scene intently as the guards violently shoved the winged captives into a holding room. The doors locked shut behind them, and through the transparent barrier, Adrian could see several of the angels desperately trying to break their cuffs, only to collapse in failure as the suppression runes flared with punishing lightning essence.
"Are they slaves?" Adrian thought, his eyes narrowing slightly. "Are they taking these winged beings to some intergalactic slave market?"
Adrian couldn't directly come to a conclusion. He had read extensively on the premium forums about slave markets and the ruthless pirate factions that orchestrated such trades across the universe. But for now, just seeing them kept as prisoners couldn't definitively confirm if they were being treated as slaves, or if they were actually criminals, or perhaps even wronged prisoners caught in a political sect war.
Without any options for now, Adrian floated above the starship and landed on top of its exterior hull. He sat down cross-legged on the cold metal. The ship's advanced sensors didn't even register a blip; his concealment was absolute.
Adrian chose to remain hidden and observe the situation for now. The resonance of Fate and Causality still pulsed warmly within his mind, so he could only wait patiently to see what exactly the universe was leading him toward.