Elder Cultivator

Tempers flared, and Crossed Antennae wished that some of the people present were the sort who ate negative feelings like void ants did energy. Or perhaps they didn’t quite do that, but the tearing away of anger would be quite useful at the moment. Humans who were good at things besides fighting were very important. But even the twins with their many areas of expertise were not social experts. It took a large investment of cultivation time to become relevantly proficient.

Nobody was foolish enough to launch additional attacks, verbal assaults excluded. If they had, they would have found the humans protected by more void ants than they realized- and the void ants protected by humans, should it be necessary.

Human bickering reminded her of family matters. The current circumstances were not quite as friendly as her conflicts with Fearsome Mandibles, but though there was much blame being levied at the Scarlet Alliance and quite a significant number of uses of the word ‘monsters’, it was mainly a discussion of inflamed passions. Humans also called strong human cultivators monsters on occasion, though they might not realize the comparison consciously.

Eventually, there was a lull in the conversation. “Are we ready to kill a Domination cultivator now?” Crossed Antennae asked. She had to draw Runa’s attention to remind her to translate it. The tiniest snip on the outer edge of her energy.

The humans weren’t, but they said they were and as long as a decent proportion of them were going to act, Crossed Antennae knew her people should be able to take care of the rest. They had to be able to. Though if she was wrong, at least she probably wouldn’t be around to feel shame.

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With each step that Bounty drew closer to Anton, the easier his task became. However, he didn’t think he could truly relax until it had been five or ten years. He had been worried by Cynbel’s presence at the border, but he would have been able to provide a proper reason to leave. He was quite certain he could replicate his constellation archery, and while he wouldn’t necessarily kill a Domination cultivator he wouldn’t expect one to be brave enough to leave their cozy blanket of ascension energy after he attacked.

As much as Anton liked providing sunlight, he was primarily an archer. His proficiency as a power source was much less trained. So even if he was somewhat tired, he could be a serious threat.

Hearing about how things had gone, Anton was content enough. Even if people had their suspicions about connections between the upper and lower realms, they were not yet ready to act.

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Erin didn’t want people to think that she was above them, despite being literally above them in a sky turtle. She had people come to her at first because she wanted the new locals of Bounty to get used to interacting with her. Even if Aerona had instilled some level of friendliness and everyone had been picked to maximize unity, it was better to avoid any incidents.

Obviously Erin couldn’t manage a whole planet herself, but the Island Tenders could hit every major population center. With the help of a steady stream of ships from the lower realms a few times per year, they were managing to keep up with the demand for the most popular cultivation techniques.

Unsurprisingly, the Island Tenders were popular. The same was true of the Order of One Hundred Stars and the Shattered Chains. People could feel that power. People were a bit less impressed by Anishka’s fire, and she didn’t have any reason to use ice powers. Things would get cold naturally without her input. So the Palace of Fire and Ice was a less common choice.

There were also a great number of more generic cultivation techniques made available to people, which were quite helpful for the transition from ascension energy to lower energy. Some people were hesitant to try, afraid of making themselves weaker. But as they could no longer replenish ascension energy, they would inevitably grow weaker regardless.

The lack of trust was reasonable, though. Aerona used her power to align people’s thoughts with her own, and though it wasn’t a forceful process people might still be potentially put off by any form of mental manipulation. Though from Erin’s understanding, it wasn’t different from having a long and deep conversation. Humans always tried to get others to think how they wanted them to, the important part was the motivations behind it.

The whole planet was still in the midst of a transitional period, but Erin thought that despite the no doubt distressing circumstances, people as a whole were feeling fairly positive. How did she know that? It was simple. People were having children- on purpose. Cultivators could easily prevent pregnancies if they wished, and those who hadn’t been cultivators had taken the opportunity to at least begin Body Tempering. Those with talent had already reached Spirit Building, as it took just a few years.

For a planet full of people whose lives had been uprooted, she thought things were going quite well. But something like twenty years of interstellar travel would doubtless be difficult for a society- and then they would have more change to get used to on the other end.

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If someone had a clan that revolved around giant turtles, Everheart would have thought that maybe their anchor would be something like a hatchery. That made sense to him, and he… knew many things about the lower realms version of the Ponderous Turtle Clan.

But Everheart had enough eggs to make an omelet that would cover a planet, and there was no sign of an anchor. That really lowered the number of remaining candidates.

Everheart grinned, imagining Cynbel running back from the battlefield, desperate to save the clan. What did he think was going to happen? Maybe he’d gotten too used to the 17th Everheart System. Too relaxed with an enemy at their doorstep. This was a perfect time to remind people that he was still important, and that they should never relax.

Lots of people had fled from the Ponderous Turtle Clan’s territory. Everheart let them. Even most of those who cleaned out vaults as they fled. He had goals to accomplish, and he couldn’t let himself get distracted by chasing down stray treasure.

Despite his plans and backup plans, none of them actually involved an actual tomb. Besides, it was more difficult to take a little trapped tomb break with all of these subordinates and territory he had to manage. It was worth it, though. Usually Everheart could only terrorize parts of a planet at a single time, but they’d gone through several systems.

Now then, the next best candidate for anchor should be at the edge of this system- quite far out. That would make it seem less well defended, but an anchor didn’t necessarily need anyone but the Domination cultivator. And though Everheart was one himself, he wasn’t going to guarantee he could smash one. Not fast enough that help wouldn’t come from the neighbors. The Exalted Quadrant might have its infighting, but they wouldn’t hold back against him.

So Everheart was just going to do a little confirmation and then withdraw. The Ponderous Turtle Clan had already taken a significant enough blow with the loss of several Augmentation cultivators and their hatchery. Everheart didn’t have to do everything at once. He was going to live forever, after all. And he had a planet to steal somewhere in the Trigold Cluster.

-----

Everheart knew that the graveyard was the right spot before a pair of kilometer-wide shells tried to smash him. He hadn’t been able to sense it from afar, but up close the anchor couldn’t hide its true colors. Deep Domination energy ran through everything.

As a master of faking his own death, Everheart was pretty good with morbid stuff. One time he’d had a full tomb full of corpses that looked like him. Or at least one of him. If they actually looked like his true self people would have found it easier to track him down.

But there was that sort of morbidity, and then there was tying your very essence to a planet full of turtle bones. That seemed antithetical to a happy turtle clan, but maybe that was why something had always felt off with them.

Massive jaws tried to snap closed around Everheart, but he countered by holding up a shield, expanding his energy such that the jaws never got the momentum they needed to snap down. They strained against his energy as he pulled back. When the turtle jaws snapped closed, he cracked the face with a hammer.

He was somewhat surprised that he had actually damaged it, but Everheart surmised that was because this turtle skeleton wasn’t really the anchor. The anchor was the conglomeration of all of them. Or perhaps Cynbel wasn’t very good at fighting through his anchor.

No, that wasn’t it. It was probably because he had the choice between Rahayu cutting through half of everything or Everheart making one tiny crack. Rahayu wasn’t quite a Domination cultivator yet, but the fanatic sword cultivator had an amazing offense. That offense usually doubled as a defensive technique, because people couldn’t hurt him when they were dead. Unfortunately, it wasn’t quite as good against someone on a higher tier. The step from Augmentation to Domination was the biggest one.

“We’ve learned enough!” Everheart called. “We’re moving out!” He flicked a bow into his hands, taking shots at a few shells, forcing them off course. The bow wasn’t as good as the one he’d given up, but he hadn’t been able to use that one to its full potential anyway. Getting it out of the upper realms wasn’t that bad anyway, and when Sudin had died it had all been worth it. If anyone asked, he would tell them he predicted that the whole time.

Everheart could already feel some leftover light lackeys approaching the system. And more neighbors approaching the 17th Everheart system. Since he’d put all that effort into establishing the system, he figured he shouldn’t let it get assaulted so easily.n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

He just had one last thing to test. He let the spindly bones of a turtle fin slap him further up as he dumped storage bag after storage bag around him, seemingly randomly. Formation flags fluttered about as a surge of bones launched towards the concentrated ranks of Everheart and his allies.

With a flick of his wrist, Everheart adjusted a few flags. The bones tried to crash into the barrier, but they suddenly stopped. Everheart grabbed onto one of the outer chambers of Adhti’s ship. “Let’s go!”

“Should I take a shot?” she asked

“Depends. Do you like being vaporized?”

She didn’t even hesitate to push the ship into subspace- without even bothering to get fully out of the system’s gravity well. Maybe because Everheart would be responsible for the repairs… but it was a good instinct.

Everheart counted the seconds. When he got to ten, he felt a shockwave rippling over them. He’d have liked to say that shockwave was going to damage Cynbel’s anchor, but mainly it was meant to remove all traces of his formation flags. Hopefully without destroying the hidden probes he’d placed around the battlefield. Everheart really liked energy tech. If he’d known Rutera existed, he would have visited before he ascended. He could have been so much further ahead.

Instead, he’d had to steal bits and pieces of tech from the Scarlet Alliance. Other people were starting to get tech too, but they were missing most of the infrastructure. The 14th Everheart System was devoted to tech production. It was probably inefficient, but kidnapping someone like Uzun would be a real pain. Besides, he liked trying to puzzle through the missing links himself.

He hoped the recordings of the time freeze showed something interesting. If not, he could at least hope the subsequent explosion could show flaws in Cynbel’s energy. Everheart wasn’t the sort of person who fought people head on and overwhelmed them… even if he tried to make things look like that as often as possible.