Elder Cultivator

Leaving the matter of diagnosing sensing formations to try to account for special techniques to Catarina, Velvet was ready to move on. Ratna, in the guise of Ambassador Vlasta, was still a threat to the Scarlet Alliance in some sense, but not in the same way she had been worried about. She was a thousand times more relaxed upon coming to that ultimate conclusion of her investigations.

Just in time for her to move on. Ratna might take note of her absence, or she might simply assume that Velvet was avoiding her after having confirmed her presence. Most likely, Velvet hadn’t been hidden from her half as often as she believed, and the occasional instances of ‘spotting her’ might have been to throw her off. She’d have to work on that… from a great distance.

Starting with a whole realm away, then going technically further back into the same realm. The twins would be returning with her, armed with stores of knowledge- specifically meant to be both useful to the Chaotic Conglomeration and not too damaging if it fell into the hands of the Exalted Quadrant. Along with them would be a number of others willing to take a long term assignment far from home. They would be the nominal enforcers of the Scarlet Alliance’s rules.

But of course, the actual enforcers would be much smaller.

The journey to the lower realms was undertaken almost entirely on ‘normal’ ships. It wouldn’t do to have strange and unique ships going through populated systems frequently, and they wanted to keep the technology secret for as long as possible. Fortunately, even in the worst case where it was captured the vessels weren’t really useful for either of the great powers. What were they going to do, send a couple hundred people to attack the lower realms alone?

-----

Rather than adapting to lower energy, Velvet intended to avoid any sort of changes. After all, she wasn’t planning to stay in the lower realms for long. Returning to the upper realms shortly thereafter would then involve adapting back, and she wasn’t certain that was entirely safe. Nobody else really needed to do it either, since they would be safe among allies.

Even so, the twins chose to try it- because they had never used exclusively lower energy before. They were born in the upper realms, so their only exposure to lower energy had been from materials obtained from the lower realms.

Their first stop was Akrys, where they were meant to pick up Crossed Antennae and her colonies. Or at least, a portion of them. Even though ants were quite compact, a single ship could not cover multiple planets worth of them.

Misi and Juli were quite excited about Akrys. They were the sort who would never lose their youthful exuberance even after centuries. Though they were excited, the two of them knew how to act properly. The residents of Akrys were still people, after all- just ones with very different bodies.

Even though they had been expecting only a short visit, the twins had both learned the language of Akrys, and made good use of it for the few days they were readying themselves for the longest leg of their journey. It would be quite boring, completely devoid of occupied planets. Boring, but safe. At least in the lower realms.

-----

“This is amazing!” Misi said, his arms crawling with ants. “I really can’t sense any of them!” He watched the response of Crossed Antennae. Unlike the language of Akrys, learning void ant sign was important since they were going to be working with them. “Well, yeah, obviously I can feel them. But if they weren’t on bare skin I’m not sure I’d even notice them.”

“What about their weight?” Juli asked.

“I mean, you can try,” he held out his arms.

Juli nodded. “If you would, I would like to see if I can sense your weight.” She stretched out her own arms, and the void ants attached to each other, peeling off of Misi in two flexible structures and swinging around onto Juli. “That’s so amazing.” She pondered for a moment. “Hmm, I can slightly feel the weight. But I was waiting for the change.”

“We are well aware of what triggers human sensory responses,” Crossed Antennae signed. “In a combat scenario, if we are able to approach unseen then there will be no response until pain occurs. At which point we do our best to be optimally placed to avoid crushing.”

Misi stroked his chin. “Do people actually try to crush you first?”

“It is a split between slapping their arms or side and trying to annihilate us with energy. Usually, they figure out the latter doesn’t work within one and a half seconds.”

“That’s not a lot of time,” Misi admitted. “Since you’re not exactly instantly deadly.”

“We are not,” Crossed Antennae admitted. “Though these four are closer,” she gestured to her top royal guard, the ones who had trained with Chidi and Aconite. Two learned the ‘sword’, and two used poison. “But the number of void ants who can directly attack with insights is extremely minimal.”

Snips added her own thoughts, signing, “Even a sliced vein or artery won’t instantly kill a human. That’s as deep as I can go. Though remaining around to prevent blood stopping techniques can be highly effective.”

Fire twirled her antennae in the equivalent of a shrug. “It is better to no longer be around when they feel pain. Most humans aren’t ready to purge their blood. Though I will admit the most subtle poisons also take much longer.”

It was unnecessary for the twins to know the details of how the void ants fought, but it also wasn’t necessary to keep them in the dark. They wanted to learn, and had been proven to be trustworthy- otherwise they wouldn’t have been introduced to them to begin with.

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But even if it was unnecessary, they had several months of travel to deal with- and this part was the safest one for them to regularly interact with the void ants. Once they were back in the upper realms, they would be among the Chaotic Conglomeration soon enough. Only a select few would be trusted with knowledge of the void ants.

Misi and Juli were quite happy to let the void ants nibble on their ‘extraneous’ upper energy. It would naturally fade on its own with time, but purging themselves would help them try to adapt to lower energy. They would be hampered by not staying in a system with high energy, but that was actually a more accurate experience of the ‘normal’ method of entering the lower realms. Though the Tides of the World did carry with them some lower energy as well.

-----

Anton was there to meet them at their final stop in the lower realms.

“I’m working with a couple planets to hopefully set up something to connect you guys,” he said, entrusting Velvet with the secret of the nearby system. All that was publicly known was that he was generally exploring the western region. “I’m not sure about introducing them to void ants anytime soon, though.”

“Shame,” Velvet said. “This would be the best opportunity. Though everyone has been promised a return to the upper realms and the energy there, so they might not appreciate it. Any particular problems?”

“Oh, you know how it is. Tension between neighbors and all that. I’ll have them agree to host ambassadors within the year, I think, and hopefully they’ll send some in exchange. The words of their own people will be much more effective than me bragging about how many systems we have or how many of our cultivators are high rank.”

“I wish you luck with that,” Velvet replied. As the best grandfather she was aware of, Velvet would have liked to hang around Anton longer… but duty called. And she could take her time in the lower realms on the way back, whenever that was.

-----

Anton watched the ship pass over the border between realms. It was a relatively slow process, due to the limitations of ship design, but he waited until they were out of range to head back. He didn’t expect any dangers to be waiting for them just across the border… but he would rather be prepared to respond than not. Sadly, most of their journey to the main body of the Chaotic Conglomeration would require them to take care of themselves.

Not that anyone would mess with an Augmentation cultivator on purpose. But people were known to attack before they used their senses. And while the people could take it, the ship wouldn’t do well under fire. It had one purpose, and that was not combat.

-----

Velvet sent a message to Runa, the reply coming in a relatively timely fashion. It was still a matter of weeks given the distance, but they were able to set up a location to meet where they would be escorted the rest of the way. In theory they had sufficient supplies to fly all the way to Renov, stopping only to replenish energy in convenient systems… but actively avoiding interacting with people was suspicious. And another feature that was missing on the inter realm ships was close range stealth capabilities. They might not be noticed from afar, but within the same system what remaining capacity they had was focused on not appearing terribly weird.

Whether that worked or not Velvet didn’t know. But a short few days waiting outside a system to ensure that messages of their arrival would go ahead of them, they approached a quaint little planet away from the front lines. They were still looking for enemy ships, of course. The Exalted Quadrant was quite capable of causing trouble with a few ships that slipped past the border planets.

-----

“I didn’t even say we would be safe waiting here for a few days,” Juli complained. “Why are there people attacking the planet?”

“Does it matter?” Misi raised an eyebrow. “We still need to deal with them.”

“Bring us along,” Crossed Antennae said. “We will be a great boon.”

“Well…” Misi made a face.

“Just myself and my royal guard. I am aware of the logistical issues of bringing the rest of my kin without being revealed. Besides, they must remain to guard the ship against intruders.”

Juli knew the actual danger to the ship was someone trying to blow it up from afar. Though with all the void ants on it, they might actually be able to stop that. She was certain they had better plans for how to defend it than she could conjure up in the next few minutes.

The main reason that Juli was upset was not the mere issue of being attacked, but rather that she could not make use of some of her favored tools. She was growing ever fonder of high technology, and they had no intention of revealing too much of that while among the Chaotic Conglomeration if at all possible.

Even so, together the twins were a force to be reckoned with. The two had their own tactical language to describe certain patterns. They flew off to engage with incoming enemy ships, planning to take down attackers before they landed. There was nothing particularly special about their avoidance techniques, but when it came to taking down enemy barriers they were more than efficient.

The two of them moved along paths Misi designated, being the one with greater expertise on formations. The weapons they held changed according to the situation, and at the moment they carried long polearms that trailed behind them, dragging along the surface of the barriers.

With precise timing, they struck together to not only collapse the barrier, but force the energy to recoil inward, damaging the ship. Of course, the inhabitants of said ship attempted to stop them- but they had not stopped until the barrier was down and the hull of the first ship cracked.

From there, the invaders tried to surround them… but mysterious wounds began to appear on the strongest among them. The battle would have been rather unbalanced against Misi and Juli, as they were merely Integration cultivators- and the enemy had a small handful on the ship.

But two fell almost immediately, and the twins together took down a third, seeing through the enemy’s style in just a few moves. Of course, it helped that they had studied the many styles of the Exalted Quadrant beforehand.

Velvet’s own contributions to the battlefield weren’t as visible, but much like the void ants, enemies fell without truly knowing what had come for them. Furthermore, some of their attacks scattered into nothingness as their connection to the controlled energy was severed. Velvet might not be as good as the actual Spirit Slicing Sect at such things, but she was more than competent enough to replicate it to some extent.

Most likely, the planet would have won without them- but the victory would not have been nearly so complete. Personally, Velvet thought that was some good leverage to convince Runa to let horrifying monsters live in her sect. Because they hadn’t actually had a chance to speak about that, since there was no way she was going to send messages about void ants through Exalted Quadrant territory.

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