Chapter 81The air crackled with tension inside the reinforced barrier that surrounded the Parker estate. Adrian stood alone on the mansion's highest balcony, his cloak fluttering in the unnatural wind that howled from nowhere. Below, the city shimmered with threads of corruption veins of black and red magic crawling through the streets like a disease.His eyes, once a soft gold, now flickered between shadow and flame. The longer he stood there, the more distant he felt from himself.From them.Seraphina, Betty, Luna.And even the Parkers.The Ancient Hunger master had done more than wound reality.It had reached into Adrian’s soul and something inside had answered.Ruthless CalculationsEarlier that day, they’d managed to contain a corruption node before it reached the city’s water supply. Adrian had arrived just in time, but instead of cleansing it with Seraphina’s help, he had destroyed the entire block around it civilians still trapped inside.The team had watched in horror as the

Chapter 83The battlefield stretched between dimensions now half tethered to the skies above the Parker estate, half spiraling into the unraveling threads of reality.Adrian hovered midair, surrounded by shimmering strands of memory and fate. The Ancient Hunger master, no longer a mere monster, had taken a more insidious form a shape that mimicked Adrian himself, cloaked in dark elegance, eyes like twin eclipses.“You’ve learned nothing,” the entity sneered. “Even now, you cling to them. To your Seraphina. To your Luna. To the corrupted Adrian. To mortals who will age, falter, and forget.”Adrian didn’t respond.The battle wasn’t just fists and fire anymore. It was words, ideals, and conviction.The Ancient Hunger stepped closer.“You think love makes you strong. It doesn’t. It makes you predictable. Vulnerable. Every decision you’ve made, every sacrifice has been for someone else. That’s not strength. That’s selfishness wrapped in sentiment.”The Trial of HeartsA circle of ethereal

Chapter 85The liminal realm pulsed with silence after Adrian asked the impossible question:“What happens if I break the cycle?”The cosmic loom that spun reincarnation’s web faltered mid-weave. Threads of memory, fate, and soul shimmered in stasis. The world no, the multiverse held its breath.Before him stood the Architects. Neither gods nor demons, but forces sentient patterns older than language. They shimmered like mirrors reflecting every possible version of reality, standing outside time, untouched by love or war. Their voices didn’t echo through space; they echoed through meaning.One Architect stepped forward, its form a cascade of shifting faces human, inhuman, radiant.“You are the fulcrum,” it said, voice like the hum of a dying star.“The variable. The anomaly. The one forged not by fate... but by choice.”Adrian’s throat tightened. “You mean… I was created for this? Like some kind of cosmic fail-safe?”Another Architect, taller than thought and clad in constellations, r

Chapter 87The rift above the Guardian compound shimmered like a wound in time.From within it, ambassadors from across the multiverse stepped forward each cloaked in the symbols and philosophies of worlds Adrian had never visited, but somehow recognized. Some wore crowns forged from dying stars. Others floated, featureless, their thoughts transmitted directly through layered telepathy. A few came armed, veiled in arrogance, cloaked in divine mandate.And all of them came for one thing:Adrian’s dangerous idea.To teach mortals to wield cosmic power…without becoming monsters.The Council of ContentionThe Parker estate’s grand ballroom once host to banquets and noble balls had been retrofitted into a diplomatic neutral zone. Magical runes pulsed gently along the marble walls, enforcing nonviolence while amplifying psychic translation.Adrian stood at the center, flanked by Seraphina, Betty, Luna, and the Parker family. The newest graduates of the Guardian program lined the perimeter,

Chapter 89Lightning fractured across the astral sky as Adrian landed in the heart of the Rifted Expanse, where space thinned between dimensions like overstretched cloth. The corrupted guardian Kael hovered in the air, cloaked in flickering threads of cosmic light, eyes glowing with stolen wisdom.His voice carried across the broken field.“You said we'd choose our paths, Adrian.I chose truth. Not your truth. Theirs.”He gestured skyward.Behind him, distant shadows stirred in the constellations subtle echoes of architect interference.Adrian exhaled slowly, feeling the weight of the moment. This wasn't just a battle. It was a reckoning.When Compassion Fights PowerKael struck first.The air buckled as reality twisted memories, fears, and regrets flaring around Adrian in a barrage of psychic warfare. Kael wove Adrian’s own teachings into weapons: the doctrine of emotional resonance became a feedback loop of pain; the soul-link method was perverted into a tether to drain strength.“Y