Whether he was shing, leaping, or twirling one thing Gerhard was <em>not</em> doing was finding a Domination cultivator. Of course, while that was practically true the most important part was convincing his target of that.
Technically, he didn’t have to be the one to do something, but <em>someone </em>did. Strike after strike, the first ring was crumpling under the force of attacks. The first ring was actually sturdy enough to rival a traditional, even though it wasn’t a sphere but a ring it was thinner, but intentionally constructed. Unfortunately a Domination cultivator was beyond the level of threat they thought they would have to face- not that they could have created a more durable superstructure to begin with.
While the void ants could lock their senses on the Domination cultivator, they never remained in one position long. Human cultivators couldn’t track them easily as they blended in among the aura of the rest of the Swirling Swarm.
With the assault so heavily stunted, Temine should have been fine. They were proud of the ce they had secured in the world, standing alone against the might of the upper realms. But perhaps they had been arrogant. The Lower Realms Alliance had begun as a supportwork between three systems, but they had never stopped their individual growth or the spread of their influence since that point.
One system wasn’t enough, even with them striking down foes.
Something bit Gerhard’s side. That drew his attention back to the battle. He’s let despaire over him, and they hadn’t even lost yet. Was it an intentional effect of the Swirling Swarm… or his own weakness?
It hardly mattered. Clearly, others were feeling overwhelmed. Even if the Swirling Swarm had ‘only’ millions of assants, they were still attacking the first ring. And then… a giant crack. A hole through the ring, sending debris flying. Two more strikes severed either side, breaking out an entire section.
Too many questions passed through Gerhard’s head as the Swirling Swarm suddenly surged away- towards a far section of the ring. Whether anyone could survive would depend on the citizens, now- and the nning of the engineers before them. The fact that the ring itself was holding… no, it couldn’t have crumbled so swiftly regardless. The copse might be inevitable.
If that was the case, Gerhard was taking everyone with it. He couldn''t keep up with the Domination cultivator, but he <em>could</em> fight his way through the central mass of the swarm. He didn’t pick a direction, just judging a likely spot for an attack… then he followed the desperate urgings of themander and void ants on him. He shed his de while stretching out his other hand. He grasped onto something. Blunt force struck his arm… yet it still severed it at the elbow. The power behind the blow was irresistible. A simple club, a figure of no real standout features stood in front of him. A young woman, perhaps. Time stretched as the club smashed down towards his head. He blocked with his sword, the weapon shattering- but absorbing enough force that he was knocked backwards instead of pulverized.
Gerhard stood. His right arm now broken along with his sword, he could only slice the foes around him with his energy, shaping it into des. They kepting endlessly. He would be overwhelmed… and the Domination cultivator he had eyes on was just going to watch.
Until her body was filled with holes, from standard emcements. The kind of thing even a half-dead Integration cultivator could trivially defend against. An illusion? No. The energy was still clearly contained in the area. It tried to escape, but it was being devoured.
Gerhard wondered if Domination energy would make void ants sick. He didn’t know, but he was quite certain they didn’t care. If themander survived, she might outss the queens. What an odd thought.
He sank to his knees. At least he would die knowing they did something. Except… the area around his was clearing out. He saw the stars peek through the swarm. He wondered if any of those belonged to <em>him</em>.
No. Stars didn’t belong to Anton. Not anymore than he belonged to them. Or at least, that was something like what he’d heard. Gerhard looked around. Bodies were piled waist high. There were wide craters and gouges on the surface of the ring… but so far, it was holding. Hopefully, that wouldst. Maybe they could devote more energy to structural integrity instead of offense… as they were running out of enemies.
How nice.
Gerhard was just going to take a little nap.
-----
He hadn’t really expected to wake up, but Gerhard supposed that if nobody was going to kill him, a severed arm wouldn’t be enough to take down a proper cultivator. At least, if someone came to his aid within a decent time frame, which apparently they had.
The local energy was all messed up. Traces of Ascension energy were still fluttering about… though that was being handled. More notably, all of the cultivators of the first ring were focusing their energy on the ring itself. So, it wasn’t precisely holding together on its own.
Gerhard’s eyes focused on something like a void ant. No, it <em>was</em> a void ants. It was just missing a few key pieces. One mandible. The opposite antenna. A couple legs. Gerhard chuckled. “Look at that,mander. We match.”
She nodded in solidarity.
“Did you eat that Domination cultivator?”
Normally, he should have received a moreplicated response, but she simply nodded again. Maybe being down a mandible restricted her ability to eat energy.
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Gerhard slid himself out of the bed. One stump bandaged up, the other sealed in a cast and slung to his chest. His legs still worked, though. He leaned down to let themander climb onto his sling, shakily. “How long do you think people can hold?” he mused. “This would be a great time to have that Unity thing. Do you think it’s toote to ask?”
Of course it was. Even with the Alliance’s technology, a message would take days to arrive. Any visitor, months. Including Anton.
But they shouldn’t need him to save them. No, in the kindest way possible Anton also didn’t want to save them. Their conversations during his stay and the information Gerhard had heard afterwards all indicated that he would want them to save themselves.
Was anyone coordinating things?
The answer was both yes and no. Section by section, people were takingmand and cing cultivators in shifts to hold onto the integrity of the ring. Gerhard could feel the cracks from when the structure’s support was gone. A sudden removal wouldn’t even had been as bad as intentional damage filled with malice. And then some damage to another section about an eighth of the ring away.
“Someone needs to bridge that gap,” Gerhardmented. Void ants dangled down in front of his eyes, reminding him of their capabilities. “I think you guys are a bit too small.” Even if they took every single one of the… however many trillions or quadrillions of void ants they had, they probably couldn’t significantly affect the area. “You think humans can do it?” Humans weren’t made for that. But Temine had a lot of ships. Someone had to try.
The only thing Gerhard could do was make some suggestions to people in power- and ept the results if they had better ideas- but it would be foolish not to try. And the void ants could really help them put things together. It would only need to be a temporary fix.
Gerhard half limped out of the hospital, bypassing doctors to busy to stop him. He was d there hadn’t been even another few thousand Swirling Swarm cultivators. They might not have made it. Certainly, <em>he</em> probably wouldn’t have.
-----
“Time to make a tactical retreat,” Aconite informed the Starstriker.
“Isn’t that what we’re already doing?” Ylvali asked.
“Faster. But… not <em>too</em> much faster.”
Ylvali gave the order, before she asked, “Care to exin?”
“This one is simple,” Aconite said. “A little bit of bombardier fungus. Slow-acting, of course.”
“For theyperson?” Ylvali prompted.
Ads had the answer for her. “They’re going to explode. Maybe.”
“Definitely,” Aconite said. “I weakened their systems with various poisons. Once it got used to their energy signatures, it won’t be easily noticed by any of them.”
“And the Domination cultivator?”
“If they want toe face us alone,” Aconite said. “I’ve got some things prepared.” She opened her mouth wide, revealing disturbingly colored teeth. Presumably, coated in all sorts of different poisons. “Otherwise, I’m hoping they’ll die in the explosions.”
Ylvali frowned. “They negated your other spreading thing, though.”
“It was new. And I think it was quite effective. I got enough of them. A little slower.”
“I’d really rather they not catch up,” Ylvali looked over her shoulder.
“They need to think they can,” Aconite said. “So that we can open fire on whatever remains. Concentrated efforts on a vulnerable individual as we record their death in detail.”
It was a bit of a morbid thought, but they <em>really</em> needed more information on the Swirling Swarm’s Domination cultivators. It was possible for them to believe that the Swirling Swarm really just had five or ten Domination cultivators in their midst ready to step up, but in that case it was more likely that they would have used them all at once for anyrge move. Yet quickly recing them was… outside the bounds of even the most generous projections for how things should work.
So they had a trick. Reincarnation- or something like clones. Power transfer. Fusion. There were all sorts of theories, and few had been conclusively determined to be false- and the truth was even less properly known.
Ylvali prepared the fleet for a rear assault. Fortunately, Aconite had a pretty good handle on the timing. Then they opened fire on the highest mass of energy outside of their fleets- regardless of whether it was Domination or anything else.
The explosions chained through the ranks as the bombardier fungus hit some sort of critical mass. The fleet opened fire on what remained… and soon they were witnessing a small group flee- with a trace of Domination hidden within them. And if Ylvali wasn’t wrong, a few stray bits that also had traces of Domination energy, presumably formerly part of that cultivator’s body.
“Should we give chase?” Ylvali asked, specifically focused on her primary crew.
“We can’t keep pace,” the engineers responded. “Not without risking a system copse.”
“Then we’ll stop to pick up some suspicious traces,” Ylvali said. “If it’s… safe…” she turned to Aconite.
“I’ll retrieve it,” Aconite said. “I can ce them in a stasis container.”
Ylvali nodded. “Good. But I didn’t expect you to use… some sort of fungus.”
“Why not?”
“... Isn’t that how your father almost died?”
“Before he met Catarina? Yes,” Aconite agreed. “But he survived. Besides, I didn’t even name myself until I nearly died to a field of poison. Clearly, that didn’t stop me. Active biological ‘poisons’ are just one of my more prominent methods as ofte.” Most poisons were just <em>dead</em> biologicalpounds. Pretty much everything poisonous came from nts or animals- or fungi and other weird forms of life- except what humans hadter synthesized. Some of those were pretty nasty, though.
Aconite left the ship to begin the gathering process.
For the moment, the Swirling Swarm’s advance was halted. Now the Guardians of the Veiled Brilliance only had to deal with the Twin Soul Sect and Sudin, plus of course the Fearsome Menagerie and Yann.
Aconite was a little disappointed she hadn’t gotten to face off against himst time. Obviously she was d she’d helped Chidi take down Shch, but if she’d managed to hit Yann with any of her favorite stuff, even if it hadn’t killed him in that battle, it would have guaranteed his death in the next. She was really hoping some of the random things she’d thrown out had gotten on… literally any part of the Swirling Swarm’s Domination cultivator. In the lungs? Permanent scarring. Touch a mucous membrane? Cellr breakdown. On the skin? Angry pores. Which was much worse than e.
Ooh, was that a whole toe? That could tell them so much! Aconite used her energy to carefully sweep it into a sealed container, d she continued to spend centuries immunizing herself to every new poison she came across. It was always sad for a poisoner to die to their own craft.