Elder Cultivator

Even with the enemy fleets defeated, they still approached the planet with caution. Too much was concealed behind formations, but the enemy wasn’t going to give them the luxury of time to try to peer through carefully. Devon had his World Encompassing Chains, but that wasn’t particularly great if people were coming to attack him. Instead, he needed his presence to be unknown.

They still approached with caution, their large ships beginning their bombardments of the planet below. The combined energy of thousands of cultivators struck repeatedly, giving them a better picture of how to break through the barrier. They could just wear it down, but seeing how it reacted to assault and adapting was more efficient.

Devon was waiting for further trouble. Perhaps fleets from the other planets would be the greatest risk factor. However, soon it was revealed that there was more they hadn’t anticipated. So far, they hadn’t seen any cultivators beyond Life Transformation… but a sudden surge of energy appeared.

Not natural energy, though. Ascension energy, from the upper realms. Even as Devon was making that connection, a vast beam of light shot towards their fleet. Dozens of smaller ships were caught up in the blast, but most critically the Wayfarer was the main target. Gabriela and her crew reacted instantly, not only fortifying their forward barriers but also jumping the ship a quarter of its width out of the line of fire. Even with that, their barriers were shattered and a portion of the ship disintegrated. The casualties wouldn’t be as great as a ship carrying a Confluence cultivator, but the loss of life and material cost were still not trivially ignored.

Devon felt the energy begin to build up again, but he could tell it wasn’t from a cultivator. The planetary barrier hadn’t recovered from their own assault, leaving him free to extend his chains down towards the planet- and towards the great cannon angled up towards them. Did they have more of them? Most likely, as a planet wouldn’t be well covered with just one. But how did they store so much ascension energy and even create a device that could release it in the lower realms?

Rather than directly battling the energy, Devon’s chains merely sealed parts of the formations. He didn’t quite know which ones to target, but he figured that every part was necessary for such a thing- and he was right. He’d intended to capture the cannon so they could study it, but instead it exploded. One moment it was charging up… and the next thing he knew, one side of the planet was disintegrating.

The explosion also rose towards the fleets, but the cannon was not placed directly beneath them. They caught only the edge of the blast, with enough time for the fleet to form a single larger barrier, anchored around Wayfarer, a second Ascension-class battleship known as the Stellar Redoubt, and the Resolute Heart captained by Byron the Confluence cultivator. Together, their energy deflected the blast.

As Devon saw that one face of the planet was rapidly turning into a crater, the fleet called for a retreat. No matter how much the damage was to their enemy, the Scarlet Alliance couldn’t afford to casually remain where such absurd quantities of energy were being stored.

Devon wondered if it would have been better or worse to have his grandfather present, given how ascension energy felt about him. Well, Anton would have been fine as he wouldn’t have been within range of the attacks or the accidental blast. But whether or not he would be particularly good or particularly bad against such a thing, he was involved in another war on the far side of known territory.

As Devon was more mobile than the larger ships, he watched their rear as the fleet began to retreat. However, the planet below didn’t seem to have any additional ships, or if they did they weren’t willing to scramble from the far sides. Nor would they want to be anywhere close to the still ongoing explosion.

His instincts of danger had certainly been right. Should he have warned anyone? Devon decided not to doubt himself. Everyone was ready for danger, and since he hadn’t known a precise trajectory things went as well as could be expected. He was still troubled by what happened, though. It was known that the Trigold Cluster had been preparing devastating weapons on a similar scale in the eastern war, but now the Exalted Quadrant? And both great powers were attacking at the same time.

Devon didn’t know if it was worse for them to be working together or to have independently come up with superweapons. Neither idea was much good.

Soon the fleet reached Aerona. “Sorry your plan got disrupted,” Devon said.

Aerona shrugged. “Sometimes that’s how things go. I’d actually try again right now but the energy is… a bit unsettled.”

Devon found that an understatement, considering that the mushroom cloud from the explosion was still growing. He wondered if the planet would still have an atmosphere when all was said and done. If the local inhabitants weren’t cultivators, they certainly wouldn’t survive the event.

-----

Gabriela sighed. The Wayfarer had extra parts, but not so many that they could fix almost a quarter of the hull being gone. And here they were, dozens of lightyears away from their nearest proper base. They had established lines of supply this far out, but nobody expected an Ascension-class battleship to sustain so much damage- and hold together.

The beam had almost gone straight through them. If they hadn’t managed their side hop, that would have been it. Maybe she would have survived, but without the ship and her crew she wouldn’t be much of anything. Of the two… crew was more important.

“Bad luck.” Gabriela turned to see Byron. She’d missed his approach because he didn’t feel like much. Mostly like a Life Transformation cultivator, of which she had plenty on her crew. “Our ship might have done better.”

Gabriela raised an eyebrow. “Against that magnitude of energy? No offense, but I don’t think you could take it directly, and with your ship packed to the gill with crew…” she grimaced.

“The ship is modular for a reason. The Compact made their vessels too rigid, but current models are flexible.” Byron held up his hands, placing his palms flat against each other then folding them into a circle. “We might have fit around it.”

“Interesting. But can you teleport into position?”

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

“No, but our reflexes are more streamlined,” Byron said. “You are nearly a Confluence cultivator yourself. I think your main difference is you aren’t willing to call upon your crew for everything. You rely on yourself and your ship.”

“That’s not true. I value my crew the most.”

“How should I say this…” Byron frowned. “It’s not bad to value your crew. But overvaluing them to the point that you aren’t willing to let them give as much of themselves as you would give is a weakness. It might sound like the opposite of what you intend, but you have to trust them to know their limits. Ask for everything, and they will give what they can.” He shook his head. “Of course, nothing guarantees that we would have done any better against such a surprise. And you yourself are further along in your cultivation journey, so perhaps my words are pointless.”

“Your words ring true. Thank you,” Gabriela said. “As for that cannon… we clearly need to reveal them. I can’t imagine that we simply didn’t notice. It couldn’t have just been the planetary formation dulling our senses, either. How do you counter that, a ground assault?”

“Infiltration,” Byron said. “And I hear we have just the right folks. Well, perhaps the second best. No void ants along, since we were focused on ship-to-ship combat.”

-----

Leaf of Common Oak in Early Spring was a stealthy ninja. Nobody would spot her, and even if they did, she was just another leaf. Her energy was undetectable by these foolish humans.

Well, she’d better stop herself there. Arrogance was how bugs got squished. Unlike the Great Queen she did have her own stores of energy… but also unlike the Great Queen, her body had kind of plateaued at the can’t-get-squished-by-children level. In short, she needed her energy to defend… but if she was actively doing that, she would be easily picked out by cultivators.

Common Oak was a stealthy leaf that wasn’t going to get caught moving. Or be seen in anything but outer hallways still. Because she did not want to be squished or slashed or burned or blasted by beams of light.

She wasn’t the only one infiltrating the planet, but each of them had their work cut out for them. Planets were big and no matter how fast they went it was kind of hard to explore all the potential secret facilities hiding gigantic weapons with Ascension energy. So they were doing their best and looking for any weird energy fluctuations.

There was an area Common Oak had tracked some weird fluctuations to. She sensed members of the Golden Huntsmen- which she hadn’t even known had a presence in the lower realms. No, none of them thought there were still any Exalted Quadrant sects hanging out in this odd place or the entire Alliance would have already dealt with them. Aside from the Golden Huntsmen who were probably still mourning their best and brightest from the upper realms, there were a number of other animal-focused factions based out of this same facility.

She had already seen some overly muscular horses, a den of wolves- wolves which didn’t look particularly bright or happy- and some birds which actually looked quite content and wouldn’t have minded trying to snack on a bug, if they knew she was one. And if she wouldn’t have annihilated them with a flick of her leg.

But what they were keeping on the outside of the facility was frankly the least interesting. There was way too much security further in for there to not be juicy stuff. And juicy they were. Though some were goopy and slimy.

Clearly a number of creatures had been inexpertly smashed together, and whatever survived were contained in various cages. Slipping her way past formations wasn’t that difficult, because even if she didn’t have the abilities of the Great Queen she’d still learned a few things from her friend about energy disruption. Even if it wasn’t natural to her, it was valuable to pick up.

Though it was rather horrid to look at the beasts, Common Oak reminded herself that they didn’t have the spark of sapience inside of them. That made it slightly less awful, but they were still suffering creatures.

She didn’t like these people. That said, that was kind of assumed going in before she even knew there were Golden Huntsmen present. Upper realms sects in general had not received favorable reviews.

Eventually Common Oak came to a particular set of doors that she just had to sneak behind. She tried to slip under them like many of the others, but these doors seemed to be extremely precise. She couldn’t see even the slightest gap. So she climbed above the door and waited.

And waited. But everyone knew that secret facilities needed daily maintenance. She presumed. Common Oak waited more. Okay, maybe there was nothing living inside? Or the people here were worried about that whole atmospheric scouring happening and slacking off.

But eventually her patience paid off, and she was glad that her leafy body didn’t get stiff like those with weird internal skeletons. Someone went into the room, and she slipped in the top of the door. What she saw inside were a series of large glass chambers filled with crawling black forms, and she didn’t like it at all. She hadn’t had plans to cause any trouble. But when she found colonies of void ants stuffed in prisons? She couldn’t help herself. She could tell that they weren’t just normal ants because once the door was open the energy anomaly created by their colonies was obvious. A single ant sized hole in her energy senses? Ignorable. But when it was an entire column, she didn’t even need a special technique.

She waited for the person who came in to leave. Apparently he was just dropping some sort of slop into some tubes, which then found their way to the void ants’ chambers.

Once the place was empty, Common Oak made her way to the base of one of the glass chambers. She began to sign to those inside. “I’m here to rescue you! Stand back from the glass!”

They just looked at her, stopping and staring. Well, whatever. She just had to use careful control. Or hope that these workers weren’t people yet. They looked young enough.

As for breaking the glass, she couldn’t expect it to be that difficult. It had to be stronger than standard glass, but it wasn’t enchanted. Actually, that would have made it easier for the void ants to break out. Even then, Common Oak would have expected them to find their way free somehow. But maybe they hadn’t been here long.

With a single flick of her wing- infused with natural energy, of course- she cracked the glass. Then she pulled out the shards, letting dirt and void ants spill free. Some were probably buried, and they would doubtless dig each other out, but she flapped her wings to blow the dirt away regardless.

The saved ants came forward to thank her. Though they were really unexpressive. Except for their pheromones. They were clearly on edge from their captivity, radiating aggression and hunger and-

Common Oak leapt back as they lunged for her, crashing against another structure indelicately. “What the heck guys!” she signed down at them. “This isn’t the time for playing around!”

And they didn’t sign back. Common Oak realized that their pheromones also didn’t smell quite right. As if… these weren’t even descendents of the Great Queen. She looked at the cracked glass she was standing on, and the ants pushing their way out. She was suddenly quite glad she could fly.

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