Elder Cultivator

The interactions with other Domination cultivators within Everheart’s domain were kept entirely civil. Even though Timothy thought he had little reason, Cynbel looked distinctly annoyed with him. Was it just because he’d fought on even footing with him for a few moments? Timothy absolutely didn’t believe that showing weakness would have been better.

Koronis wasn’t exactly friendly- they were still from rival factions- but she was effectively the same generation as Timothy and Catarina and thus hadn’t had too long to grow a big head about being a Domination cultivator. They shared a sort of mutual respect.

The main thing that kept conflicts away was Everheart, though. Disregarding his demonstration of power against far weaker foes, the addition of another Domination cultivator to any side of a conflict would be massive. Nobody could count on him supporting them against another, and they had to keep on guard for treachery from him. Just showing up was a slight risk, but learning more about his operations had been too tempting to ignore.

After the Imbued Fragments had their ships ‘thrown into a black hole’ which Catarina was certain was just a short range teleport into a local star, Everheart displayed the star he’d stolen. Not that people hadn’t been looking at it already.

It didn’t do anything. Catarina did take the opportunity to take a closer look at some of the formation markings. The materials in question were also interesting, since creating a structure that could absorb so much energy was an impressive result regardless of whether it was reasonable.

Everheart emphasized the natural energy the star emitted, and how he would use it to grow his own faction. Catarina thought that some people might actually be swayed to follow him- though it wasn’t likely to tempt members of the Alliance. If it did, it would be the weaker ones who had not yet reached Integration, so they wouldn’t have access to any truly secret information. It was still something they had to think about for Alliance security.

-----

Velvet was surprised they left without further incident. Then again, it would be somewhat wasteful to give her a message if Everheart intended to entrap the Alliance members. They still had to check for missing pieces, but most likely the best he could have gotten were scans of their ships. That was the sort of risk they had to take, and she thought it was acceptable. She didn’t mention anything about the message until they were on approach to Xankeshan, however.

Velvet pulled aside Catarina and TImothy. She had Catarina activate the best privacy wards they had available. “Before we finish our approach,” Velvet began, “I have some information to pass on.” She held up the tome passed to her. “One of Everheart’s projections approached the ship. He provided more information about Shelach. He said he might have pushed us towards the wrong approach.”

“What does that mean?” Timothy asked. “Certainly, not provoking someone we have no motivations for didn’t turn out to be an easy task.”

Velvet thought for a few moments. “I think he wants us to kill Shelach for him.”

“If it was that easy,” Catarina said. “He should do it himself. Or work together with us, somehow.”

Timothy shrugged, “There are risks to that. More on our side than his. What made him think we could accomplish it?”

“From what I understood… it’s likely that Shelach only cultivates devotion from Domination cultivators,” Velvet explained. “The implication was that he would be stronger against said cultivators.”

“We’re still in Domination,” Catarina pointed out. “Unless he specified something about Chidi?”

Velvet shook her head. “No. But your history with him is nonexistent. And you don’t fear him.” Velvet knew that, because she didn’t. Was she cautious about his danger? Absolutely. She doubted she would survive an encounter. But she wasn’t afraid. “That part seems to be the most important.”

“I would say that we have no obligation to do Everheart’s dirty work,” Timothy began. “But… we’ve been getting bombarded by the Great Queen about killing this guy. For Anton.”

Catarina nodded. “Exactly. It might be best for the Alliance. So if we have any opportunity, we have to consider it. What does it say?”

“It’s mostly barely founded rumors,” Velvet admitted. “But we might learn something from them. Habits. Maybe an actual location of some sort- or a way to draw him out. Additional speculation might add together with our own to make something useful.”

------

With access to the best doctors in the whole of the lower realms- and probably most of the best in the upper realms if he really needed them- Anton was told to sit and rest. He was taking a series of long term recovery medicines, but in carefully measured doses to not cause worse side effects than the damage that had already been done.

He was more than aware that things would have been far worse had it not been for the aid of others. The poisons had attacked his body and his cultivation, and with his consciousness out just a few moments would have been sufficient to completely finish him off.

It had been a long time since Anton felt so vulnerable. He understood he could die, of course, but he’d thought it would be more difficult. In turn, he hadn’t actually expected his counterattack to drive off Shelach so easily. It was a shame to reveal any amount of that just to drive someone away instead of kill them, but when considering Domination cultivators, that was excellent. There were perhaps a few dozen throughout the known upper realms. Anton could almost count their numbers on his hands, a miniscule proportion of the total population of trillions throughout the realms.

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Anton couldn’t do anything big. That included acting as a star, unfortunately. His two strongest apprentices seemed able to handle it to some extent, but Anton didn’t expect to have recovered fully before Bounty arrived at its new home in ten years or so. He would recover, though he might have to rebuild some of his cultivation. His body might be weaker as well.

An acceptable tradeoff. Though he very much wished that Shelach hadn’t chosen to attack to begin with. The planet really wasn’t important, and they weren’t causing actual harm to the great powers. But perhaps the Trigold Cluster couldn’t stand anything that disrespected them in any way.

Anton was going to go take a nap. And then visit Bear Hug.

-----

Crossed Antennae had grown impatient, waiting for her human companions to call proper reinforcements. It seemed risky, to wait even further months after they had found the location of Korin. They should have attacked immediately, but even if she could have snatched a human ship to carry all of her people she needed real coordination with humans. 𝐫áŊ𝐎฿ËŞ

It should have been a quick trip back to the border planets, but that had turned into a wait so long that Crossed Antennae felt she was going to be abandoned. After everyone had worked so hard and sacrificed so much on the ambush, she didn’t like it.

But eventually, Juli showed up with a declaration. “They’re here. Sorry it took so long, but it was a long trip for some of the reinforcements.”

Crossed Antennae was going to ask who it was, but then she was tackled out of nowhere by a figure she had not anticipated. She tossed them aside, preparing to bite. Then she recognized a familiar scent.

She still absolutely chomped on her target, but she at least knew how hard she wanted to be with her assault. Fearsome Mandibles caught her attack directly and the two sisters wrestled for a time. There was no space for words- all their limbs were occupied with battle, and they didn’t have a voice in any other way. They certainly didn’t have an opportunity to neatly lay down pheromones, not that those were any good for expressing the emotions they had.

Eventually, they broke apart. “How did you get here?” Crossed Antennae asked.

“The same way as you, obviously. A long trip on an interstellar ship,” Fearsome Mandibles signed. “It’s a good thing that they kept one near the Chaotic Conglomeration, or I’d never have the chance. But enough of that, how did you get so good at fighting? You used to be terrible.”

“I was never terrible,” Crossed Antennae countered. “Just worse than you.”

“Fine. So what was it?”

“Actual experience.”

“Makes sense. I haven’t had any since the Tides, and you got more there.”

Crossed Antennae twirled her forelimbs in thought for a few moments. “I bit at the cultivation of Korin through a false body. It was an imperfect technique, but I am certain I caused damage.”

“I heard. Very impressive. I want to try that too. Though if I can just get to her neck I’ll bypass the fancy stuff.”

Juli interrupted them. “Not that this isn’t touching, but you’ll have a few days of spaceflight together to catch up. And delaying any longer might actually be risky.”

-----

The Chaotic Conglomeration- or at least the subfactions most interested with a particular section of the border- was not willing to accept the intrusion of a Domination cultivator. Or rather, they couldn’t afford to not commit to a counterattack. Since Korin had chosen to cause trouble once, it was even more likely that she would do so again after suffering a loss.

Waiting for her to prepare simply wouldn’t do, and thus the counterattack was launched. On the timescales of powerful cultivators, it was put together fairly quickly. It only involved a few hundred humans- the strongest ones that they could pack into the stealthiest ships available. Even if they’d had the manpower to fight their way through the Exalted Quadrant, it would tip off Korin they knew about her location as they approached through seemingly unimportant systems.

So it was a stealthy strike. Some hundreds of humans… and some number of millions of void ants. Their goal was to kill Korin, though they would settle for maiming her if they had to. Discovering her anchor was another possibility, but with void ants killing her directly was best.

It was likely they would have anti void ant measures in place, but the humans would be focused on dealing with those. Formations couldn’t directly affect void ants, but Misi had studied how to counter those that were most common and liable to be used against them.

Void ants were vulnerable to many environmental dangers that humans could easily remove with their energy. Korin would know that they were working together, but she would have never experienced it aside from exactly once. She didn’t have access to the lower realms’ centuries of void ant and human coexistence. She’d only be able to draw upon old methods to annihilate them on their own.

Their fleets approached nowhere as they prepared to drop out of subspace. They were in a place between systems, but their target should be immediately apparent once they were in real space.

The ships moved all at once.

“She’s there!” Crossed Antennae and Fearsome Mandibles declared together.

“Presence confirmed,” Juli said to the rest of the fleet.

The appearance of any unexpected energy would raise some alarms. They had managed to get within a million kilometers which was practically on top of the station as such things went, but their enemies would still have a chance to react.

“Hidden barriers ahead!” Misi warned, forced to use his energy to reveal a location. That would absolutely reveal them, but they were seconds from impact.

The previously hesitant Tessouat leapt from his ship- coated in void ants. Sometimes, all it took was one encounter to change a person, and fighting side by side on a battlefield was one of those big events.

He stopped himself just short of the barrier. The void ants hanging onto him swung forward in a large sheet, chewing at the barrier. Once they made a small hole, he tore it open wider with his spear. The assault was about to begin. Korin’s energy flickered below, her power as a Domination cultivator evident.