Elder Cultivator

Each cycle, the upper realms became less and less capable of causing serious damage to the Lower Realms Alliance, as well as the various independent groups that had survived through previous iterations. This time, they would suffer far more than before. They could leave with their tails between their legs with no accolades at all, or they could die. Those few that managed to touch down on planets, ripping up resources with their greedy hands, didn’t make it back to the border.

Anton and Devon were just two of the reasons why, though the contributions of Enrichment cultivators and Unity together were still not the majority of the reason. The common folk made all the difference. They were responsible for constructing formations, orbital stations, and defensive emplacements. Weapons and armor were made by the people and used by everyone.

Even the weakest cultivators had methods to contribute to the war directly by donating their energy, or joining up with a Confluence-style battleship. There was no lack of volunteers, with logistics being the greatest limiting factor bringing all of their people to bear.

As much as possible, they covered the breadth of the lower realms. Of course, they couldn’t truly cover a whole arm of the galaxy- just an ever expanding slice. Perhaps if their Alliance lasted another fifty times as long as they had so far… no, with an accelerating rate of growth and expansion it might not take that long. And instead of growing more distant, they were in some ways growing more connected.

Communication and travel speed brought people closer together while being further apart. Neighboring regions were already ready to help each other. Nobody was lacking the resources they needed for growth… or for defense.

The growth of the Scarlet Alliance in the upper realms had been restricted by more fortified positions and foes surrounding them. It was still great, but not unchecked. Most of the threats during this cycle still fell on them.

-----

Timothy’s response to the first fleets to probe the borders of the Scarlet Alliance was excessive, with good reason. Once they came, they couldn’t leave. That included the areas outside of the middle slice where they had completed their spatial distortions. The fleet from the Forest of Death crossed the border, performed a short raid, and moved to retreat.

Now Timothy was standing in their way. They would not leave. Even if they had infinite directions to run, he would block them all. Or rather, he already had. They were sealed inside a barrier with him. A barrier that was gradually shrinking around them. There was still plenty of space for fleets to fly around, for the moment. Half a system’s worth. In a few hours, they would have barely the space around a planet.

Timothy cut apart anyone who got anywhere close to him. His blade could cut apart planets… probably. He’d never had an occasion to test. He was, after all, naturally a defender. His movements weren’t actually restricted to the Scarlet Alliances domain, but someone had to remain vigilant. Despite the level of responsibility he held, he wasn’t frequently active. He was able to train and spend time with Catarina.

He cut a ship in two, cultivators spilling out. All of the wreckage would be gathered together later and salvaged. No point letting it go to waste.

From the perspective of these attackers, Timothy wasn’t supposed to be here. This place wasn’t important enough for his presence. They probably thought that even if their presence was anticipated that they would have minimal fleets waiting for them at most.

Previously, that might have been true. However, not because the Scarlet Alliance didn’t care about every part. It was merely that they couldn’t always get there. That was the secondary reason that this fleet would be completely wiped out, aside from them not deserving to live. Their death would be assumed, but mystery would remain.

Elsewhere, there were fleets gathered in force, placed along the borders- or in locations that could swiftly reach the borders. Normally, those were one and the same. Now, it could be close to halfway across the Scarlet Midfields, depending on the exact positioning of things. That was where Catarina was focused, first organizing logistics and now speeding them along. She could speed the transition process of the spatial distortions, or have them lead to new places entirely- though the Scarlet Alliance preferred to have all of their plans centered around the standard methods.

So far, Timothy thought he could have gone to join Ratna. It wouldn’t take all that long to reach her territory, even with him far to the west. Nothing close to the expected years long trip. But he wasn’t going to be publicly displaying said movement capabilities. He would have to trust those already there to handle the situation, such as Zazil bringing the fight to the Fearsome Menagerie and Chidi making a move to bring down Sudin and thus the Twin Soul Sect. Even more permanently than before.

-----

By the first couple of months, Zazil’s presence was expected throughout the Fearsome Menagerie. That didn’t mean they could do anything against her, but they knew she was coming… somewhere. Unfortunately for them, she had unlimited degrees of freedom. Normally, she could have been expected to travel a path of maximized destruction through their territory, and she did. But some of her movements were random.

At least, as random as the Scarlet Alliance could make things which was quite random. Not predictable or following a set pattern, at least. She would determine her movements that way for a few jumps, sometimes moving immediately back to a system she just hit instead of retreating, or bouncing back and forth between a few.

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Then she would return to a logical pattern of chosen targets along a route that took her to new areas.

She had been around for long enough that Yann would be hearing of her presence soon, if he hadn’t already. It really depended on how much the Fearsome Menagerie had managed to keep up with communication development.

If he came for her, she would be gone. Yann’s movements were being carefully tracked by Ratna, so a message would be sent ahead. Even the fastest Domination cultivator couldn’t outrun a modest transmission. At the very least, Yann wasn’t it- Zaur had only outpaced light in short bursts when not performing interstellar travel which involved spatial manipulation.

Zazil felt as secure in her safety as anyone should when going into enemy territory. There was danger, obviously, but at an acceptable level. Zazil had already killed several Augmentation cultivators and wounded others. These were forces necessary to keep the Fearsome Menagerie’s territory safe.

After all, the Trigold Cluster wasn’t an alliance except against outside threats. Internally, they were barely better than any other bickering cultivators. Thus, Zazil’s assault would have an outsized impact on their future prospects once it was known to outsiders- and it would be known.

Unless they were able to keep multiple kilometer long divots in their planets secret.

As Zazil continued on, it was important that her precise tactics not be predicted. She met the stealth ship that was carrying her at a chosen point around the system instead of returning to it. If they couldn’t meet up, they had another point outside the system chosen- finding that would require searching a vast volume of space.

The Fearsome Menagerie was learning, however. They had gained some glimpses at her anchor previously, and one system she came to actually sent half of their fleets to circumvent her and search for her anchor.

What was it? Another part of their system, of course. Ships full of cultivators scattered towards unimportant asteroids, vague clouds of space dust, and emptiness. Perhaps if they destroyed all the solid objects, it would be some kind of setback for Zazil.

She actually thought it would take far more than that. But she should still protect it.

Unfortunately for them, that didn’t mean she had to pull back from her target. Instead, she simply called upon her own energy within her anchor. There was no reason she couldn’t, as others could form their energy outside their anchors. With Zazil’s being a region of space, her Domination energy easily formed into ring blades of any size she wished, cutting through her foes.

If she did need to defend anything, it was asteroid several light-minutes away from the incoming fleets. In short, she diverted a portion of her energy into all out assault. The portion was reserved for her body for both offense and defense.

A cultivator splitting their energy effectively in half could be expected to be weaker, however that was only when considering normal cultivators. Domination energy wasn’t limitless, but it was certainly as close as anyone had gotten. It was almost but not quite the same as dividing the infinite in two. Both parts were still the power of a proper Domination cultivator regardless.

Ultimately, with the enemy split into two parts Zazil’s job was easier. Foes appeared before her, transformed into great beasts. Giant turtles, elephants, phoenixes, and of course dragons- who wouldn’t wish to copy the sect’s great Domination cultivator? All were cut down, starting from the strongest but also those that showed the most promise.

Yann would be furious. Zazil almost wanted to stay to witness his anger in person… but considering the untold centuries in between their tenures as Domination cultivators, she chose discretion.

-----

The Twin Soul Sect was getting bold, or perhaps they had always been bold and this particular war hadn’t seen much pushback against their forces. Either way, Chidi arrived on planet and ended up finding more… conversion formations. He wasn’t quite sure what to call them, or what he wanted to call them. He was still really hoping that souls were being kicked out, and that the Twin Soul Sect was just trying to skip the decades required to get an adult body that had passed through Body Tempering. That was still horrific, but it was worse if they were actually harming people’s souls more than tearing them out of their proper body would.

Chidi was in contact with his sniper team and ship, using pure tech communications that shouldn’t register in anything the Twin Soul Sect had access to. Sudin had quite quickly taken over several planets and built up his follower base, but he was quite a few centuries behind on tech. Actually, when he had died tech was only a burgeoning footnote in the Scarlet Alliance’s repertoire. None of the other sects had really tried to replicate much of it. Now they were doing more… but the Alliance was remaining ahead. After all, they had tech cultivators- especially experienced ones like Uzun.

It was quite clear that the formation facilities were important. Having some near the frontlines would speed up the time for them to gain new cultivators. Presumably, anyone with retained memories would grow quickly. Maybe even impossibly quickly, if they were meant to be of use in the current war. Either way, Chidi spent as much time observing them as possible… and that was where his efforts paid off.

Sudin himself arrived on planet and came to inspect the largest such facility. Chidi had hoped, but he thought maybe he might have had to planet hop a few more times. As he contacted his allies, he hoped that Sudin wouldn’t rush… and indeed he took his time in the facility.

No, more than that… Sudin directly pulled people through that came out feeling like Integration cultivators. Fully drained of energy, perhaps, but skipping several stages of cultivation. That was certainly something worthy of the personal attention of Domination. Chidi wondered how he did it. Did the soul retain actual cultivation, or was he inputting Domination energy? Obviously the formations themselves weren’t enough.

Of course, rather than get precise answers Chidi would much prefer to slaughter the man and study what remained. The man had imperiously strode into the facility, so Chidi was prepared to meet him on the way out. With some friends. And no eyes. He couldn’t afford even the slightest distraction for an important battle. Chidi was hoping it lasted less than a second from end to end.