There was absolutely no need for Runa to be where she was. In fact, it would probably be best for her to stay far away from the current battlefield. Her presence was most likely to draw unwanted attention away from what otherwise might be one of the best things to happen to the Little Alliance in a long time. That thing was nothing at all. It was the Unrelenting Thorn shing with the Western Mirage sect, far from their territory. Or at least far from their <em>new</em> territory.
The battles tread old ground that Runa had once been familiar with, the border worlds on which the Spirit Slicing Sect could never quite fully establish a stable sect. It had felt normal at the time, but she had seen how much better things could be. Nobody was expected to sacrifice themselves.
It would have been perfectly reasonable for the Scarlet Alliance to require them to reach the core worlds… but instead they supported them where they moved, not too far from their former homes. Yet far enough that they never got to see them.
Runa wasn’t there for nostalgia. No, she was there for something far more foolish. She wanted to advance to Domination. For that purpose she had sought out a battlefield that had other Domination cultivators- new ones, in the grand scheme of things. It was difficult to say precisely when Mitar of the Western Mirage Sect had taken his position. The sect was one of light and darkness, deception and deflection. However, he hade to greater prominence in thest century. Cnthe had been deep in core Chaotic Conglomeration territory, advancing significantly after the Little Alliance broke away, but she had at least two centuries of Domination progress.
Though the Spirit Slicing Sect wasn’t primarily focused on stealth, Runa had spent enough time around Velvet to learn more than a few tricks. She actually had a good one based entirely on the principles of her own style. It was simple, really. To stop anyone from feeling your energy, you simply had to cut it. In the most extreme circumstances it would be aplete severing of energy until she actively absorbed more, but Runa had to <em>survive</em> and she wasn’t going to actuallynd on the where the battle was happening.
Especially not when said had a chance of being destroyed.
“Cnthe. Your foolish sect dared to abduct one of my favorite disciples. For that, you will pay.”
A brilliant light radiated off of Mitar as he spoke. It was sufficient for most people to not notice that he was actually no longer there, but Runa was specialized in feeling the flow of energy. After all, she couldn’t properly cut it if she didn’t know where energy was, where it wasing from, and where it was going.
“If you bring up grievances of the past,” Cnthe retorted, “One must consider those that <em>missing</em> disciple killed.” At such a distance, Runa’s sense of their full body position was obfuscated by the sheer quantity of power they put off. However, she had to assume that Cnthe spun around with her shield to meet Mitar’s assault from behind, as their power shed.
It was going to hurt her eyes to watch, so she closed them. They were useless at such a distance anyway.
Mitar avoided several moves in return as she thrust her spear towards him. Then she threw it. Runa could feel the connection she retained to the weapon, and the way her powertched around wicked barbs in the spearhead. It was more of a harpoon, though without a physical tether. Of course, such a tether would have to be unfathomably long to function in high level cultivatorbat.
Runa could totally ruin Cnthe’s day. Because of that connection Mitar couldn’t take her weapon, and severing it was more difficult than it might seem for the amount of energy it carried. But Runa knew she could do it. She imagined herself making the motions.
But that wasn’t something she needed Domination for. She was here for proper inspiration. Mitar appeared behind Cnthe once more, while her weapon was out. Runa felt something was off, but that was the <em>assumption</em> with anyone from the Western Mirage Sect. His wickedly curved dagger sliced towards the back of her neck… and she blocked it on the other side. A forest was blown away from the counterforce as her shield blocked the <em>real</em> Mitar, driving him back towards Cnthe’s returning harpoon.
Runa was ashamed she’d missed that. It was only a small difference in distance, but she should at <em>least</em> have been able to keep track of what side Mitar was attacking from. It was obviously obfuscated intentionally, but she still had to be better. Maybe from up close she would have managed… or she would have been dead.
Mitar was pierced through by the harpoon. Obviously not, though. The small amount of energy he’d left in that position to take the hit splintered off in a million directions, and Runa felt some disciples fall. They thought they were far enough from the battlefield, but they simply weren’t. Nor did their barriers save them.
The battle continued for an hour, before the two finally separated over a cracked and melted. Mitar hade out slightly ahead. So slightly, Runa wasn’t sure that Cnthe hadn’t intended to retreat to begin with.
Runa was trying to figure out how she could have <em>permanently</em> severed some of Mitar’s energy. If she did it right, she would have probably scarred his illusory doubles- or triples or so on. The point was she could probably leave a mark on his illusions that filled them with a w. It would probably work for a few exchanges until he replicated that w on himself. Thus, she would need to take advantage of the opening to mark <em>him</em> and-
If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it.
Runa had to go. This wasn’t a good time to get into deep meditation. With fewer enemies to focus on, her traces might be noticed. She wasn’t confident in chasing them onto the next battlefield, whenever that sh might happen. It could be a week, a decade, or never.
She wondered what her anchor might be. A void ore mine would be both extremely appropriate and a terrible idea. She wasn’t going for Negation, unlike a certain swordmaster. She didn’t have the guts… and was already too far into Augmentation. But mostly the first thing.
-----
The one good thing about Swirling Swarms was that adding another ten or ten thousand people wouldn’t be noticed. They could just slip in and… well, not really be safe. Just equally at risk as anyone else, assuming they were decent at aura replication. There were countless eyes watching, and most of them didn’t care. It wasn’t their problem.
This, Velvet had noticed on prior missions. She still didn’t like it. Everything felt <em>wrong</em>.
She helped people slip onto shipsing in for anding. They were so packed full with people that didn’t really know each other that her infiltrators usually made a safending. The humans, of course, but also the void ant queens hidden among them. There were a million cultivators that could feel any one of the queens setting up their first colony, but mostly they <em>didn’t</em>.
The consequences of being caught was death. That was also the best one could hope for. In this particr case, being exposed and fleeing was eptable. What was the Swirling Swarm going to do upon finding a spy, send someone to whine at the Scarlet Alliance? Not likely. They might send a million people to assault some of theirs, but they were going to do that anyway.
It was true that the infiltrators had some knowledge that couldn’t be revealed, but there was little risk of that. The Swirling Swarm had no qualms about torture, but that didn’t mean they cared about getting answers. It was probably still better to die, but everyone was trained to resist torture if necessary. More relevantly, they had all consented to have a killswitch imnted in their brain. Activated by their own thoughts, and nothing else.
Dangerous, but not more than the rest of the mission. It was just a backup n. Fleeing was fine.
Velvet had one of the same imnts. She’d considered getting a custom one, just to be certain that she died when she needed to. Ultimately, a tiny explosive was good enough to blow up her brain unless she actually didn’t want it.
She didn’t n to <em>need</em> it. Nobody did. But Velvet had the luxury of being a Domination cultivator- stronger, faster, and stealthier than any other. Oh, and having a number of concerningly deadlypanions crawling on her at all times. Not just void ants. Royal guard. The Great Queen volunteered but they needed her somewhere essible, producing and raising more queens.
Humans and void ants were both at great risk of death. Thetter would simply be making <em>more</em> that would die when they were found. Except for some of those with Velvet, because she wasn’t yet certain where she was infiltrating. They were starting at the outer limits- three to five systems into the territory of the Swirling Swarm. They’d been further for the special asion where they blew up a city- the Swirling Swarm literally might not have cared- but their territory was vast. They didn’t have a clear view of where their core systems were, either.
It was madness. Velvet was annoyed they were so prominent, with theirck of emphasis on <em>anything</em> positive, except perhaps martial prowess. They didn’t support growing, crafting, or even group development. Just getting strong enough to take what you wanted. Velvet wasn’t certain how they maintained their poption. They were usually quite careless about pregnancy, as well as the children that came to full term.
They <em>did</em> recruit from outside their sect, which was perhaps the craziest thing. Apparently, being strong enough was a draw for those who wanted that power but didn’t have good sense. It shouldn’t be enough though.
There certainly weren’t cloning vats or anything like that. Their technology was… just barely enough to maintain interster travel. No, it was more like stone age and they happened to be able to steal ships and <em>somehow</em> operate them. Then they kept doing it.
Velvet’s search was for their core worlds. She expected poptions to grow along with the average cultivation of each individual. Somewhere among those core worlds, surely, was an anchor. Unless one of the fringe theories was true, but they had to believe there was <em>something</em>.
Too many people to wipe out, but they couldn''t just let them keep expanding. Even into Trigold Cluster territory. In the worst case, the void ants would try to inte their own numbers and try to wipe them out. At which point probably the rest of the Trigold Cluster would unite and wipe them out… and maybe the Scarlet Alliance. It wasn’t anywhere near the top of the list.
Velvet thought little of the gradually decreasing density of the poption. Pockets of greater or lesser density were expected within any gctic civilization. The Swirling Swarm certainly wasn’t organized enough to bnce things, and theirs weren’t all of the same quality regardless. As for terraforming, the closest Velvet had seen were massive quarries and felled forests.
The firstpletely devastated system she saw wasn’t a surprise. Their recklessness was obvious. They had taken everyone away, leaving behind little more than a husk. They didn’t have the industrial drive to do something consistently horrifying like the Imbued Fragments, though Velvet thought she saw the dissected remains of <em>one</em>.
The second system was surely a coincidence. The area was low in upper energy, so of course they wanted to move on.
The third system had far too many bodies. The only living things as far as Velvet could tell were bacteria, and even they were missing in some ces. There was an entire continent where the only decay came from sunlight, and abrasion from wind.
The fourth system made Velvet’s guts clench, not because of anything she saw. However, she finally had the bravery to extend her energy, trying to feel the surrounding systems to find a popted one. She didn’t. It most certainly was not a coincidence.