Elder Cultivator

Crossed Antennae had been worried about her own people being left behind on conquered planets. It was a problem if they weren’t ready to evacuate, and they couldn’t exactly ask the humans to wait for them. Not when they were supposed to be secret.

Now she was more concerned about everyone dying. War had begun in the Scarlet Midfields, but that had in no way stopped the wars on the western end of the Exalted Quadrant. In fact, they seemed to be even more eager.

Korin had made personal appearances on the battlefield, essentially guaranteeing their victory wherever she showed up. That was the difference a single Domination cultivator made. They weren’t immortal, of course. That had been shown recently more than once. However, their presence could turn an almost certain loss into a victory, and a modest victory into a slaughter.

The Chaotic Conglomeration didn’t have so many exceptional individuals as the Scarlet Alliance. Not in the opinion of Crossed Antennae, at least. The twins were on loan, and their combat prowess didn’t truly match the rest. Runa and Emrik were decent cultivators, and the Spirit Slicing Sect had grown stronger under them. However, Augmentation cultivators simply weren’t enough.

Everything before had been mere skirmishes, despite their scale. Now war had come.

At least it was easier to handle proper war. Crossed Antennae would have preferred that her sister take charge for such things, but Fearsome Mandibles was in the lower realms and she was here. She knew what to do. There was only one appropriate option.

The void ants would have to take an active role. Convincing the Spirit Slicing Sect and the few others that knew about them might be difficult, but there was no way they were going to remain passive- not that their previous actions had truly been that way.

Could their presence cause more trouble for the Chaotic Conglomeration? Perhaps. But with a Domination cultivator already involved, things couldn’t get much more extreme. They just needed proper human allies. Like Bryndis, who already knew they existed. Even if they managed to produce sufficient void ant scale interstellar travel technology, they needed to coordinate with humans.

When she explained the matter to Misi and Juli, they were less enthusiastic.

“What risk factors do you believe will be enhanced by this?” Crossed Antennae countered.

“The Conglomeration might just exterminate you,” Juli pointed out.

“That would be unfortunate. And foolish,” Crossed Antennae said. “But setting aside risks to void ants, what is the primary concern?”

“I don’t think we can just ignore the risk to you,” Misi said.

Humans were difficult. Crossed Antennae sometimes wished she were larger so they might take her more seriously. Even if their cognition understood her power, they wouldn’t always act like it. “Is it your intention to have the Scarlet Alliance withdraw from support of the Chaotic Conglomeration? If not, then we must fight alongside them- and you.”

The only concern that they could voice was the risk of drawing more attention, but that would only prove more beneficial for the Scarlet Midfields. Of course, they did have to convince their local allies that it would be worthwhile. It would be shameful to draw more danger when trying to mitigate it.

But Crossed Antennae was going to mention all the benefits. Like how void ants could probably kill a Domination cultivator. Some had failed against Sudin, but neither she nor her royal guard had been present. And they’d had no human helpers, either.

-----

Stealing a planet was hard work. Fortunately, as much as the momentum of the planet and the limitations of light speed made the process difficult, that also allowed some leeway for rest. Devon was currently on a long break from dragging the planet along. At this point, he couldn’t even shave off another year from the final travel time no matter how hard he worked.

As far as planets went, it had been a long time since Devon had been on one so… weak. However, that wasn’t because Bounty wasn’t a wonderful planet. It was just going through a difficult transition between energy types. Difficult for the people as well as the flora and fauna. Convincing people of the Lower Realms Alliance growth philosophies was fortunately not Devon’s job.

That was on Aerona. She was backed by large quantities of data- and video. Video was important, because pure tech stuff worked and was something that people found impressive. Mixed tech would work given the way that Anton was blanketing the planet in natural energy, but the depletion rate wasn’t worth the benefit.

As for where that tech came from, they did have some inter-realm ships. Those were currently being used to bring all sorts of necessary things to Bounty. Different crops that would grow abundantly in natural energy were chief among them. Transporting a few people back and forth wasn’t really worthwhile compared to the population of a planet, but they could make things better.

He was going to return to pulling the planet along soon enough, not because he needed to but because it would make the people feel better. He might manage a single percent increase in speed and nothing more, but since nobody could feel the speed without anything to relate to, they might feel trapped. And that was the thing the Lower Realms Alliance wanted least.

Everyone was going to be given the best opportunities available. That included, if they wished, returning to the upper realms. The preferred method they would be advocating was Ascension. Obviously it was a strange topic given that they had all been born in the upper realms, but the theory was still sound. If they recultivated with natural energy, ascension should be possible. They had many reliable methods.

If that didn’t work, they could be taken by inter-realm ship. More would be built over the coming decades, as that had always been the plan. Since they had already shown their abilities to some extent, the risk of getting caught with more wasn’t so severe.

But before any of that really mattered, they still had to wait something like twenty years. Unless someone was so quick with their cultivation that they could grow and ascend in that time, which would require someone near the peak of Life Transformation that was exceptionally quick with reforging their energy. On a populous enough planet that might be possible, but unlikely.

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People weren’t actually going to be encouraged to return to the upper realms anyway. That was just an option. If they were, the plan was to have them join up with the Scarlet Alliance, obviously. But once they saw how things were in the lower realms, many people might not be interested. Even if they wanted to strive for the peak of cultivation, seeing Assimilation and Enrichment cultivators would certainly sway some of their ideas on what that meant.

-----

The news that Cynbel was coming to the Scarlet Midfields was not widely advertised, but neither was it subtle. After all, the Domination cultivator came on a fairly large turtle. To anyone not part of the Scarlet Alliance, they would have probably said a massive turtle, or even the biggest. But they would have been wrong.

Velvet had seen Paradise. She didn’t know what Cynbel was feeding his own companion, but it clearly wasn’t as good for promoting growth as what Paradise was eating. Which was… mostly distortion beasts, if she recalled correctly. They might be the only things with enough calories for something Paradise’s size.

Her task had changed, unsurprisingly. She was now responsible exclusively for monitoring Cynbel. She was somewhat nervous about that, but she was far more experienced than when she had first encountered Zaur Beridze. And she didn’t need to get close. Neither the man nor the turtle hid their energy, prefering to display it openly. She could be in another system and know where they were. And she was.

If they could spot her using her utmost stealth skills from an adjacent system, she deserved to die. Velvet was fairly sure Anton couldn’t even do that. At least, not if he wasn’t expecting her. It wasn’t quite possible to test given she would be weaker in the lower realms and Anton would be weaker cross-realm, but maybe some cross realm hide-and-seek would be valuable training for her. Later.

Cynbel was approaching the system that had once held Bounty. It was a tense moment, because Velvet didn’t know if he would chase after them. The planet hadn’t even gone as far as one system over just yet- though it was more than a lightyear outside of the proper upper realms. Would he risk weakening himself to chase after them? Did he even want to?

Velvet assumed he cared about Paradise. There was pretty much no chance he didn’t. He wouldn’t even have to go into the lower realms to catch them.

But he didn’t. He spent about a month, presumably watching their progress. Then he turned north. Velvet was relieved. She was going to have to relocate herself, but that was easy enough. She could track his movements with either or both of them in subspace.

Cynbel did not stop on the frontlines of the war. He didn’t avoid them, either. Velvet followed his journey where he just annihilated his way through enemy fleets along the border of their battles. But he never stopped. It was like he was taking a stroll, or at least a long hike, and happened to be joining battle along the way.

He continued north, towards the Scarlet Alliance. Velvet continued to monitor him, but her reports would be only a small portion of what was being sent.

-----

“I’m going to meet him,” Timothy declared. “Across the border.”

Catarina nodded. “Do you want me to come with you?”

A few moments of silence. “You shouldn’t. It might make us appear weak,” Timothy finally decided. “If I go myself, even if I have to retreat, I don’t necessarily look weak. I’m still a new Domination cultivator, after all. Obviously I would prefer to negotiate with the force of the council but…” Timothy shook his head. “I doubt he would properly understand.”

“Do you think he means to attack?” Catarina asked.

“If he does, we’ll be ready. Frankly, a lone Domination cultivator… I’m not going to say it would be easy. But the portion of forces he has with him is relatively small. As long as the spatial distortions hold on the border, the Alliance should be fine. And as long as I don’t do anything stupid, I will be fine,” Timothy said.

“Hmm. I suppose laying a trap when we don’t know for certain if there is going to be conflict is a bit excessive,” Catarina admitted.

“Was that your plan?”

She shook her head. “No, just a whim. And traps are what I’m best at, now.”

“Not all formations are traps.”

“Tell that to people who foolishly get themselves inside one,” Catarina said. “If they can’t overpower it, it’s a trap.”

-----

Timothy had polite greetings prepared for Cynbel. Being respectful shouldn’t hurt. They were both Domination cultivators, but the other man was older and likely to have a larger ego. He wasn’t going to be overly polite, but he had plans for how to speak.

And then the man began yelling as soon as he got vaguely within the bounds of the system where Timothy was waiting.. “Bring me someone from the planet Ceretos!”

That was an excessive way to start things off. Waves of his voice flooded the system, causing earthquakes and twisting the atmosphere of the local planets. The wave of energy washed over Timothy as well but it didn’t move him. He told himself he would stand his ground, until such a point as people tried to surround him. A casual yell certainly couldn’t do anything.

“I ascended from Ceretos,” Timothy said. There was no reason to lie. That much information was probably already known, or at least easy enough to research. “What grievance do you bear?”

Timothy knew, but he wanted him to say it.

“You robbed our eggs.”

“Did we? I remember that your clan once lived peacefully on our world, but we never stole any of your eggs. Though I recall there was a particularly large turtle around when I ascended.”

The distance between them was vast. Timothy could make out the turtle, and just a hint of the man standing atop it. Paradise hadn’t been that big in the past, but he dwarfed it now.

“So you admit it!”

Timothy shook his head. The small movement was exaggerated through his energy, just as Timothy’s words. “I thought the head of an illustrious clan such as yours would be better informed. Everheart stole it. Then the turtle was roaming free, or perhaps under his orders.” Timothy wasn’t a good liar, but he didn’t mind pushing blame onto Everheart where it mostly fit. This wasn’t a minute negotiation, but a shouting match. On one side only. “I’m surprised you came all the way here because of something Everheart did, when one of the system’s he’s taken is a neighbor for you, isn’t it?”

“You should know better than to bring up that man’s name.” Cynbel not shouting was actually a little bit threatening. “Titan, crush him!”

Paradise was a better name. Only people who had complexes named their beast companions for how big or strong they were.

What seemed to be an entire planet’s worth of water formed in front of the turtle, flying halfway across the system towards Timothy. He held his shield firm, extending around him his powers. The sphere of water rippled… and rebounded.

Titan negated it, of course, but that meant he expended twice the energy for no effect.

“If you ever step foot on Scarlet Alliance territory without permission, you won’t be leaving,” Timothy said simply. “Since you don’t appear interested in talking, we’re done here.”

He turned his back. Thinking he spotted a moment of weakness, Cynbel attacked along with Titan, riding a stream of water and covering the distance in an instant. Timothy took the hit directly in his back.

He converted all of the power into instant momentum, springing forward without changing his posture. It was convenient to not have to use his own energy to speed up. Though it wasn’t actually more efficient, it was probably much more frustrating for the other Domination cultivator.

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