Arrow after arrow sought targets from the so-called Holy Stars. Some circled far around from behind them, nearly doubling the distance they traveled. Others shot directly from Anton’s location. Which ones arrived first weren’t always those that would be expected.
His fingers pinched the soulstring that carried his spirit arrows before he formed another. A form that had been practiced countless times. Hundreds of millions, certainly. Perhaps a billion. Anton didn’t bother keeping track of how many times at a certain point, but three thousand per day was well within expectations. He’d likely already done at least as many in this ‘battle’ over the course of a few hours.
He flew forward with his arrows, his perception splitting along different routes. Inevitably, giant wings would flood his senses with excessive grandeur. The fleet could be protected by something easily a single percentage of that size. Surely it would take less energy to maintain. Was the devotion of those individuals sufficient for their leader to maintain her energy indefinitely? It seemed unlikely. Anton suspected he was using far less energy and he would get tired at his current rate in a few days.
Perhaps the wings were serving a double purpose. He considered that as he tried to slip past the wings, taking advantage of subspace. But they extended beyond the physical realm, even into deeper subspaceyers. Yet Anton didn’t think it was evenly. He would find ws eventually. He had time.
The second purpose could be shielding the fleet not from attacks but from space itself, as they were moving more quickly than before. Anton had thought he might have at least half a day of bombarding them, but they seemed as if they would reach r within the next two hours, several times faster than first anticipated.
That was fine. He wasn’t ever nning to win the battle alone. If they were too weak, he would have- but once he felt the cultivation of this <em>leader</em> he abandoned the prospect of an easy victory. But he could startying the foundation. If he was, as he believed, exhausting this woman more than himself, then he could likely break through her defenses shortly after she actually arrived. At least within the duration of a proper battle.
If she insisted on defending her entire fleet once they engaged properly, Anton would have to make it faster, because he didn’t want his <em>own</em> allies to exhaust themselves before fighting appropriate foes among the ‘Angels’ and whatever else they had among them.
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Nthanda was waiting away from the others, covered in void ants and ayer of air that shouldst long enough. They would conceal what little energy she had and allow her to nk the iing fleet. Of course, she wasn’t the only one that would be taking advantage of a different position, she was just the only one ‘alone’. But even by void ant standards, she really wasn’t. There were plenty of older void ants that were actually people. Corporals and sergeants and majors and the like. No royal guard with her.
Nthanda’s job was to get void ants to their foes. She had several ways she was going to aplish that. First, she would be getting as close as she could with her physical body. She would be throwing herself towards the iing fleet when the time was right. If she could get to that <em>divinity</em> she would happily risk life and limb to get a few million void ants onto her. However, she would also be quite happy getting to a few of the others.
Plenty of void ants could fit onto one of her arrows, and relevantly she could actually fire them without the void ants either flying off or being crushed. It was something she had to be able to do to function, just like how she was holding the air around her. Technically her body could probably go a few hours without drawing in oxygen, but it wasn’t <em>optimal</em>.
Nthanda had to break a lot of rules. She didn’t move herself through space with her energy, precisely. It was also generally impossible to elerate arrows to a speed that would harm relevant foes- without energy, of course. Upper or lower, ascension or natural, they were all required. But of course, <em>generally</em> impossible wasn’t absolute.
It was time. Nthanda began elerating. It was much easier to do it over a longer period than all at once. She was well aware that she might actually impact the wings of the leader,ing to a sudden stop… but her body could handle that even at rather ludicrous speeds. She suspected the wings couldn’t. Of course, Nthanda did have to think about herpanions, but she could absorb the impact if necessary.
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Voidroot wasn’t one of the first generation people of r. Instead, they hade into existenceter after things were more <em>established</em>. Not that they were aware of that at first given their location among the starbeasts.
r had all sorts of unique features. One of those were asional nts that lived in the void of space. Voidroot was of course one of them. From the beginning, Voidroot had been frequently a target of all the beasts that wanted to eat something that couldn’t fight back. But it turned out that Voidroot <em>could</em> fight back, and also that most of the beasts were pretty dumb.
They had taken control of one pack, leading them to victories. That was how they had been noticed and taught proper cultivation. Now, some of the beautiful space creatures of r had been ughtered and Voidroot was not happy about it.
Even if Voidroot wasn’t the strongest, even if they could only teach some of the beasts to be a bit better and more focused, they were going to protect home. Darting beasts with piercing jaws. Wide engulfers that would sweep up life from small torge. Mysterious sorts of de and bone, reminiscent of small distortion beasts without any relevant subspace abilities. Voidroot would lead them all into battle to protect home. And Bear Hug, not because they were one of the first but because Bear Hug was one of the <em>best</em>. Maybe they didn’t even remember saving Voidroot, but that didn’t matter.
This tale has been pilfered from NovelFire. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
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Paradise had brought his own ocean- if they were fighting in an enemy system it might have been appropriate to use their water, but if Paradise did that <em>here</em> he might just wipe out all life. Having actual water to work with vastly increased the efficiency of his attacks, so it was important to have it.
It was rather impossible to hide Paradise. He was just as obvious as Anton- when thetter wasn’t making any attempt to conceal himself, of course. Thus, Paradise stood on the frontlines, leading the first assault.
Part of an ocean was condensed into a tight sphere. Paradise and Erin worked together to maximize the amount of energy they shoved into their initial attack, because they had time. Waters spun andpressed, ready to tear apart whatever they encountered. Of course, they were facing a foe above their grade- but it was important to take down the wings as soon as possible.
Anton’s arrows joined them, as well as many ships flying forward. From another angle came Anishka, a swirl of fire and ice. Bear Hug led the assault of the local cultivators… including a number of the wild beasts, it seemed. Erin knew that somewhere in the rear arc was Nthanda.
The ocean struck, along with a great many weapons from Ascension-ss battleships and cultivators. Anton’s arrows too. And yet, the great wings held. No, they even grew in power and brilliance. Erin found herself taken aback, yet she could not show her hesitation in front of her sect.
A counterattack from behind the sheltering wings. The woman who called herself Daria- with some arrogant title tacked on- joined with the other cultivators around her. Their counterattack was strong, certainly, but the Lower Realms Alliance was not so fragile that they would fall. Their vessels rapidly adapted to the iing energy, even during the first assault.
Erin stood strong atop Paradise’s head as a rain of feathers came from Daria herself. Her energy shook and trembled. She even felt a mouthful of blood rise up… but she stood. Even if she wasn’t the sole target, withstanding an attack from a cultivator of that level was good enough.
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Anton didn’t like how things were going. He had to shift the battlefield some. “The child who fled from my presence can’t even stand before me. His cowering grandmother of no reputation does not even dare approach me. Who, then, is a coward?” Anton didn’t <em>fully</em> believe his insults. However, it didn’t matter. He just wanted to provoke a reaction, and he was quite aware of the pride his foes had.
“Pathetic words,” Dariamented in turn. “From one that cannot even scratch me. I have no need to approach whatever trap you haveid.”
“Which one is your favorite disciple, among these? If it happens to be that one fellow, tell me your second so I can kill them. What’s-his-name is reserved for my other friends to destroy.” Anton paused for a single moment. Daria was likely about to respond. “Unless you’re scared that I actually <em>can</em> pierce your defenses…?”
Sadly, Daria didn’t get so into the conversation that she stopped attacking. Then again, Anton never had either. But she did respond. “Te is the pride of my eye. I doubt you could harm her even at your level of false Divinity."
Perfect. Anton had a target now. All he had to do was not screw it up. “I’ll give you a minute to say goodbye.”
“How pathetic. I’m not going to stop ughtering your people merely because you threaten.”
Anton’s attacks slowed. Then they rapidly increased in pace, as if he were trying to break down the barriers of her wings- many wings, now. Her first two had nearly covered the entire space. Now there were more, though it was difficult to distinguish them. The first assault by the Alliance had forced her to increase her intensity to a maximum level. Her defenses were actually almost broken through.
Even now, Anton could probably force it, at least for a moment. But he stopped, his flurry ended. Then, heunched a single arrow. It didn’t even appear to have overly much natural energy with it- because it didn’t.
Nor did it carry Ascension energy. Raw power wasn’t what Anton needed. He needed death.
The Purified Wardens were a hardy sort. Powerful defensive energyyered with armor. Death wasn’t in their sights… and yet that was precisely why they would be most afraid of it. At least, that was what Anton postted. Some became unkible not because they were afraid of death but because they weren’t. He didn’t see that here.
Spectral energy. For Anton, it was proof that his current life was hisst. At least, if he were going to be anything resembling himself. His friend Prospero Vandale had managed to sessfully reincarnate, with at least a small portion of his memories. The Alliance now had others that did so intentionally.
Countless wings blocked Anton’s arrow, but he never even tried to fight it. The sheath of natural energy shattered while his spectral energy directly pierced through. Good, Anton would have been quite embarrassed if he put all that technique into a single shot and it didn’t work.
The time it took to reach his target was negligible. His arrow had already passed through the ws in Daria’s barrier, so doing so to a far lesser cultivator was almost trivial. Anton didn’t let his concentrationpse until he pierced through the one known as Te. His spectral energy caught onto her soul, bypassing her body and natural energy to kill <em>her</em> directly. Though Anton certainly could have done so with pure force, if his attack reached her.
“Hmm. I expected better,” Anton said. He hadn’t. “Timothy would have stopped that.” He would have. And he would have also covered a much smaller area. “Not much of a guardian, are you?”
Daria snapped. The immediate consequences fell upon those around her- not her own allies, but those of the Lower Realms Alliance. But her anger wasn’t focused, merely knocking them back as she focused on Anton, leaving behind her charges.
But the secondary effect was quite interesting. Anton wondered if Daria even noticed that one pair of her wings faded away. The death of her apprentice shouldn’t have been the reason… but Anton had a better theory. He might try to test it further, while Daria tried to kill him up close.
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