The two scouts exined everything to the others waiting aboard the stealth ship. Catarina and Velvet both had different details to add, but ultimately the process was rather quick. It was agreed by everyone that destruction of the corpse anchor was necessary.
“This is what we came for,” Zazil dered. “An anchor for their Domination cultivators. The only unfortunate thing is that we cannot confirm that it is the only one.”
“Why does that matter?” Durff asked. “We want to break it, and it’s here.”
Velvet knew how to best exin to him. “Because if they have more than one, they’ll protect the other ones better.”
“But we can’t find the other ones until we break this one, right? Once it’s gone we can track the others.”
“I suppose so,” Velvet agreed. Then she quickly moved to the task at hand. “We’ll have to slightly modify our intended attack ns. Zazil, you should attack with Durff and Half Oink. The rest of us will watch for problems. Catarina, is it safe for you to set up formation gs?”
She nodded. “Anything more than that might give some forewarning, but I can certainly manage something. We don’t know how well it will be able to defend itself. Though… even if it is the full power of a single Swirling Swarm Domination cultivator I’m not concerned. Maybe if it’s several put together, but without allies around them…”
-----
The group prepared their strategy and began their assault. The same moment that Catarina began to toss out formation gs to fill the space around them, Zazil attacked with her rings- at a perfectly reasonable size instead of mountain cutting. That was the size of the target, after all.
Durff was a few moments behind. He was more vulnerable as an Augmentation cultivator, so he held back to prepare for the immediate reaction. Half Oink didn’t have tomit to heavy attacks in the same way, and dashed past the corpse with her energy shing to the side.
Velvet was fully focused on potential counterattacks. She was also prepared to take advantage of any opportunity that came up from those efforts. Destroying their foe would protect their allies.
The auxiliary Augmentation cultivators, including Aconite in the current circumstances, all kept their defensive energy ready. They could protect allies if necessary or provide energy to Catarina’s formations if she called for it.
Half Oink’s sh made the tiniest cut atop the desated skin of the corpse. Only a small amount of damage, but tangible. Zazil’s attacks were somewhat more impactful, but cumtive effort was what mattered.
The corpse reached out for Half Oink, ring with Domination energy. She jerked away but she couldn’t be fast enough… except the whole thing began to lurch towards Zazil who was at a different angle. She was still sent flying, but not overwhelmed by the sudden surge of energy like she could have been.
Catarina locked in the formation, suppressing the Swirling Swarm energy emanating from the corpse while bolstering her allies. Durff charged forward, taking advantage of the corpse’s focus on Zazil.
A legshed out at a strange angle, spinning the corpse away from its counterattack on Zazil but not quite striking Durff as the energy moved rtive to the limb’s position. He struck the back of the knee, keeping the leg from twisting towards him. Zazil’s des continued to spin around the corpse, cutting through the defensive energy.
Velvet shed through, cutting first with her void de. She couldn’t risk touching the corpse itself- voidsteel was fragile, and anchors were incredibly durable. The desated corpse appeared much the same. Her second dagger followed behind in the same instant, using her energy not just for speed like the first dagger but for power, cutting through the brief opening.
She didn’t expect to cut all the way through several ribs, through the front and back. Then again, a <em>living</em> cultivator would have put more effort into defending their internal organs. That wasn’t all, though.
The Domination energy from the corpse was… chaotic. It wasn’t trying to do one thing- it was trying to do <em>everything</em>. Each limb was trying to attack a different person. Some tried to defend against the same attack, ovepping their efforts, while some attacks were leftpletely open.
Then, a momentter, Zazil’s ring des pierced into the body of the corpse, two of them back to back. They cut in opposite directions up the midsection of the corpse. That wasn’t the end of things, but it <em>was</em> the beginning of the end.
Half of the damage to the corpse came not from the attackers, but the very Domination energy emanating from it and whoever was controlling it. More than one cultivator at the same time… and they certainly weren’t in sync.
Little by little, the Domination aura began to fade as the corpse was crushed and cut, the connection the Domination cultivators had to the anchor fading. The corpse went from whole, to sliced in half, to quarters, to nothing. Little chunks, crushed by the Domination energy of multiple cultivators. At that point there was none to protect it, so it was merely unattended organic bits that turned into dust.
-----
One minute Madiha was training Taj and Horst- thetter was doing well to rehabilitate himself ording to a new style. The next minute, Xiopia was in chaos. The aura of the Swirling Swarm that covered the whole was chaotic. It bent and twisted. Madiha noticed some people being torn apart. Others went along with the flow, protecting themselves but not the surrounding buildings as energy spiralled out of control.
There was a sudden pressure. Then it receded, shrinking away to nothing. Then raw Domination energy began to crush the.
Madiha was already sheltering her students by that point. Everything was happening so fast she didn’t know what to make of it, but she followed her instincts- and the instincts of her allies. Specifically the smallest ones. She ran, though she did not know why. She reached the nest just about the time that her body became light.
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Madiha stretched out her energy towards the nest. Horst didn’t seem to understand what was happening, and was currently the weakest of those involved. Taj, however, reacted brilliantly. They bent down, letting the first void ants grab onto them and their energy.
When gravity suddenly reversed, they managed to pull arge number of void ants with them. But they didn’t alle, which meant it wasn’t really gravity. Devours Viins held onto Madiha’s wrist, the familiar weightforting. They couldn’t speak- the world was trembling so much that they couldn’t see void ant sign, and their energy was subjected to too much chaos to make any precise motions.
They were flung out into space. Had they been caught by a Domination cultivator?
No, that couldn’t be it. <em>Everyone</em> was flung into space. Then, there was a voice. Several voices, maybe. “We raid!”
Then, every single voice from the joined in. Madiha too, though she just <em>shouted</em>. She didn’t feel the samepulsion she knew they did. However, the energy carrying them along and <em>sort of</em> shielding them from the harshness of space was clearly influencing… everything.
The most important thing was to continue feeling like they were part of the Swirling Swarm. Madiha knew they could adapt to anything after that. First, she made certain void ants were all able to find purchase inside her sleeves and those of her disciples. They hadn’t gotten all of them- and there were certainly more nests. But they could only do so much with rapid chaos ensuing.
Madiha kept her energy steady, carefully prompting Devours Viins to reveal herself. She whispered her question, doing her best to conceal all of her actions. “... How many Domination cultivators do you sense?”
The void ant queen didn’t respond for a while. “Eight,” she signed. The movement of the entire full of people had steadied as they were hurtled through space.
Madiha had sensed nine. Neither number was reassuring. Both were <em>wrong</em>.
Could the Swirling Swarm have nine Domination cultivators? Potentially, in the worst and most extreme scenarios. Were there eight or nine of them on Xiopia <em>right now</em>? Or flying away from it? Absolutely not. No chance at all.
Yet she sensed them.
“It will be alright,” Madiha said, taking one hand of each Taj and Horst. Taj was barely an adult now, with Horst a few years older, but they were still kids as far as cultivation was concerned.
That was thest thing Madiha managed to say before they were pulled into subspace. Fortunately, the void ants came along.
“We must conserve energy,” Madiha said. “Be patient. Be ready.”
She wasn’t sure what was going on. The Swirling Swarm was certainly impulsive, but this? It made no sense at all. It was far too extreme. They often sent out raiding parties in the forms of entire neighborhoods. Cities, sometimes.
But they <em>always took ships</em>. And presumably let people get their weapons if they didn’t have them.
-----
Several tense minutes became days of uninteresting travel. Madiha did her best to keep herself and her disciples in the ‘entirely uninteresting’ bucket. This was still the Swirling Swarm, after all. Even if they were heading out on a mission, there was still a decent chance that friction among their members would result in deaths.
Technically this was probably the coziest they’d ever been- spread out kind of randomly instead of packed into tight holds of ships- but as cultivators shifted their rtive positions there was still sometimes trouble. Madiha didn’t avoid it- she made it avoid her. Avoiding trouble looked weak and invited trouble. At least, when you were surrounded by people like <em>this</em>.
Two very concerning incidents happened during the journey. First, another Domination cultivator appeared. It was difficult to confirm with Devours Viins because subspace wasn’t good for normal vision and senses- at least not without a ship dampening the effects- but Madiha was confident enough in her own assessment.
Then two Domination cultivators died one after another. While theoretically beneficial, it was <em>still</em> concerning. Domination cultivators weren’t like bamboo nts. They didn’t just shoot up overnight or get chopped down casually. The crazy thing was they weren’t even fighting as far as she could tell- though their deaths <em>did</em> explode some untold number of millions around them. Well, there was <em>that</em> concern. She didn’t want to be around <em>that</em>.
The that they crashed into- because Madiha was <em>not</em> willing to be generous enough to call it a nding’- held the aura of the Fearsome Menagerie. While Madiha wished them no good things, she also didn’t wish <em>this</em> on them. Whatever it was.
Madiha didn’t quite know what to do as they ended up out in the countryside. Domination auras were all around them. Were they still being observed?
It was Taj who broke the silence. “So… we’re altering our mission objectives right?”
That snapped Madiha out of it. “New goals… survival.”
“And saving innocents!”
Madiha was going to say there wouldn’t be many here. That might be true, butpared to Xiopia…
“... Why do I feel so light?” Horst asked.
“Never got swept up in a raid?” Madiha asked. “This is a more typical gravity.” She gestured. “That way.”
“People to save?” Taj asked.
“And food.” She used her energy to keep their words to themselves, as there were still Swirling Swarm cultivators raining down around them. “You two will need the food. But we’ll start with taking down that guy.”
The target was an Augmentation cultivator. Risky, normally. Half covered in void ants? Not so much. All they had to do was get close enough to let the void ants take their shot. And Madiha had the expertise to blend in. Horst wasn’t great, but she could make up for his errors. Hopefully.
They ran across the farnds towards their target. The locals here were actually doing something to survive- they weren’t just sect cultivators. Besides, the Fearsome Menagerie wasn’t <em>all</em> bad despite how Yann led them. Certainly not friends with the Alliance though. Navigating things after this was over would be… difficult.
Madiha couldn’t help but flinch every time she felt a shift in the Domination energy. It was still too much, and it being unstable didn’t make her any morefortable about the near future.
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