Before returning to seclusion, Emery still had a few matters to attend to—and a few people he wanted to see.
The first stop was the Academy.
A teleportation gate carried him across the sector and deposited him upon the familiar floating grounds of the Magus Academy.
From there, he made his way toward Twin Hall.
He found his daughter exactly where he expected her to be.
In the middle of a plaint.
Shinta was well into her thirties now, a respected instructor in her own right, yet whenever Emery looked at her, he could still see the stubborn little girl she had once been.
Especially during moments like this.
She stood before him with her hands planted firmly on her hips, venting her frustrations with all the passion of a veteran educator who had been forced to repeat the same argument far too many times.
"It’s the same every single year," she huffed. "Heya, Father... are you even listening?"
Emery only smiled.
He had heard the same grievances a dozen times over by now, and somehow never tired of them. Because beneath the plaints was something that filled him with a quiet, steady pride. Shinta had been teaching at Twilight Hall for more than eight years — longer than he himself ever had — and in that time she had built a name entirely her own. Among all the Academy’s instructors, she had climbed steadily into the top twenty.
The Twin Halls had grown along with her. It remained one of Earth’s surest wellsprings of talent, its graduates filtering back into the faction year after year. More than that, its reputation had spread well beyond the Academy itself, drawing quiet goodwill — and no shortage of favors — from the many lower and middle factions who hoped to one day send their own promising youths through its doors.
His daughter had done well.
Far better than well.
Then his attention drifted elsewhere.
To the young man standing just a little too close beside her.
Vic.
The dual-master prodigy was leaning over a formation diagram with Shinta, the two of them discussing something in low voices. They stood close enough that their shoulders nearly touched, exchanging ideas with an ease and familiarity that Emery found himself not entirely fortable with.
He cleared his throat.
"Vic," he said pleasantly. "You’ve been spending a great deal of time at the Academy lately."
The young man immediately straightened.
"Ah—yes, Sir."
"The faction could use a talent like you." Emery’s smile did not waver in the slightest. "I think it would do you good to spend more of your time there."
Vic blinked.
For a moment, he genuinely seemed not to understand what Emery was implying.
Shinta, unfortunately, understood perfectly.
She shot her father a pletely flat look.
"...Heya."
Emery pretended not to notice.
He remained at the Academy for a while longer, speaking with instructors and students before making a short visit to Grand Magus Aurora. There, he personally thanked her for the years she had spent looking after Twin Hall and protecting both his daughter and the faction’s interests within the Academy.
Afterward, he traveled to meet another ally.
The Insectoid Queen.
Grand Magus Phylis had been gravely wounded during the battle against the Supreme-level threat, but recent reports suggested she had finally recovered. Emery had intended to express his belated gratitude for her timely arrival during the crisis, yet he quickly discovered the queen was even more grateful for the intelligence he had provided.
Thanks to her contributions during the war, the insectoid race had earned unprecedented recognition within the Magus Alliance. For the first time in their history, they had been invited to take a seat at Sector 13’s High Table alongside the region’s major powers.
"If you ever need help," Phylis said, "you need only ask."
Emery took the opportunity to update her on the developments in Dawnstar and the rapid growth of Neo Terra. He also extended an invitation for some of her people to settle within his territory.
After all, one of his original goals for Neo Terra had always been to create a city where bloodlines mattered less than ability—a place where half-bloods, outcasts, and races often looked down upon elsewhere could build lives without prejudice.
Now that Neo Terra had expanded into a true frontier power, the time felt right.
The Insectoid Queen weled the proposal without hesitation.
She agreed to dispatch a group of her people to establish a permanent presence within the city and even expressed interest in creating a formal branch house there, strengthening the relationship between the insectoid race and the Earth faction for years to e.
Before he returned at last to the cultivation chamber, he spent a few quiet nights with Klea.
Then, at last, he sealed the door behind him.
The cultivation chamber beneath Neo Terra Palace fell silent once more.
With the advancement of his soul power and the transformation of his Dao Heart, Emery could already feel the benefits rippling through every aspect of his cultivation. His spiritual perception was sharper than ever before, his thoughts clearer, his control more precise.
Naturally, one of his immediate goals was to continue refining his soul.
If he could push his soul Pagoda to the eighth layer, the improvement would be tremendous. Not only would his flying sword techniques bee vastly more powerful, but he would finally be able to wield the hidden Tier 8 spirit weapon that had remained sealed within his possession for years.
There was also the beast core his master had given to him. The next stage of the Star Beast Refinement Art—still awaited him, and advancing his physique along that path would likely elevate his bat strength to an entirely new level.
Yet after some consideration, Emery decided to leave both tasks to his two avatars.
The light avatar could continue nurturing his soul and the dark avatar could focus on refining the beast core and tempering his physique.
As for Emery himself...
His attention settled upon a far more unusual prize.
The box.
From within his inner domain, Emery drew out the small sealed container General Anderson had given among the spoils of Group Nine.
He turned it over in his hands.
The material inside appeared unremarkable at first glance. No larger than a fist, it resembled a shard of dark crystalline bone, its surface veined with faint frozen fractures like cracks in glass that had never quite finished shattering. Layer upon layer of restrictions had been wrapped around it, sealing whatever lay within from the outside world.
Carefully, Emery began to unwind the seals.
One after another, the restrictions fell away.
Then the final seal broke.
Emery had prepared himself for corruption. For the lingering rot of the parasite, for some vile residue of the scourge, or perhaps a poisonous miasma capable of infecting even a Grand Magus.
Instead, what emerged was something entirely different.
Spatial energy.
Pure.
Dense.
Ancient.
The chamber around him distorted ever so slightly as invisible ripples spread from the shard. Space itself seemed to bend toward the material, as though recognizing something of its own nature.
Emery’s eyes narrowed.
At its core, the shard was an extraordinarily refined spatial material.
In that instant, he understood why Anderson had secretly given it to him.
A material like this, placed in the hands of a cultivator who walked the path of space...
It was not merely a reward.
It was a treasure.
To analyze it took some effort. Emery activated his Fragmentation ability, summoned refining flames, and patiently guided strands of spirit energy through the shard, probing its structure layer by layer.
Only then did VIA finally manage to identify it.
It was an evolved core belonging to a rare spatial creature. According to the celestial database, the species itself was not particularly unmon within the Outer Realms, but every file concerning it had been marked with the highest priority classification.
As Emery read through the records, his expression slowly changed.
Every description matched Parasite X.
The ability to manipulate space.
The tendency to infest and assimilate living hosts.
All of it matched.
Yet there was one crucial difference.
The creature recorded within the database was not the same entity they had encountered.
Over the course of nearly two millennia, it had evolved into an entirely new form of sentient threat.
What Group Nine had destroyed in Baeldum was not merely a parasite.
It was the descendant of an ancient Outer Realm species that had undergone countless generations of mutation and adaptation until it had bee something far more dangerous than its ancestors had ever been.
As for the material itself was a Tier 8 spatial treasure.
Even among Tier 8 resources, it possessed an astonishing concentration of spatial energy. Such materials were extraordinarily rare, capable of serving as a primary ingredient in the forging of Tier 7 spatial artifacts or as a supplementary material for the creation of true Tier 8 treasures.
It was such a precious material indeed.
Drawn in, Emery extended his divine sense into the shard, probing the strange, folded energy coiled within—
And something stirred.
Deep beneath his spiritual sea, the Gate of Khaos trembled.
Shadow and space rippled outward from it, and once more Emery heard them. The whispers. Faint, formless, drifting up from the dark behind that ancient gate — the voice of the shadowed figure he still did not understand.
The Lord of Khaos.
This time, the whispers carried something almost like interest. As though the shard in his hands had drawn its attention.
Emery went quiet. Then he settled into a lotus position, the shard cradled in his palms, and muttered.
"Devour!"
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