Elder Cultivator

Chapter 1164

Blood dripped down Tauno’s left shoulder onto what he was generously calling his arm. It was undeniably his, but whether it was an arm was certainly in question. He’d had one not long before, now he had carved pieces of bone held together with straps of leather.

Tauno was quite aware that he would be able to get a much better replacement if he returned to the Alliance’s territory, but he felt like he was finally making progress. Apparently, after fighting enough beasts the size of a small planet you would eventually see some improvement.

Or maybe that was the blood loss talking and he was going to die soon. Perhaps even in this very battle. The untamed territories of the Trigold Cluster were vast, and had provided a great number of enemies to train against. Size wasn’t everything, but Tauno thought that he might have overestimated himself stepping up from small planet sized to large planet sized foes.

He should have left it for later. It wasn’t like someone else was going to come along and take this prey from him. Nobody even really knew it was there, since he’d only intuited its presence from how ships seemed to disappear in a certain region of space.

Tauno literally couldn’t see all of the beast he’d been fighting, and not because it was mostly in subspace like distortion beasts. Instead, it was kind of the opposite. It was mostly in normal space- but not entirely. It had appeared from a distance to be a large blob, but he supposed any beast large enough to generate its own gravity might relax into such a position.

Various parts of it unfurled into long appendages covered with spikes, and they were by no means slow. Many parts split into smaller branches, though they didn’t necessarily need to. The vast amounts of energy coming off of the thing meant it didn’t actually have to hit Tauno directly. The blood dripping down his shoulder was not a product of a direct hit, or he would be mush. As for damage to the beast…

He’d managed to injure the beast enough for a lake of blood to pour out. Unfortunately, Tauno would need a whole planet’s worth of oceans to even begin to win. This was the sort of thing he’d need to be Domination to defeat. He should run to fight again later.

His grip clenched on a spine taken from the very creature he was fighting. Even if he could escape, he knew he’d never come back. Once he acted on his fear in that manner, he could collapse. He remembered acting on his fear long in the past, and he never wanted to return. Death would be better.

-----

Whatever dominion the Scarlet Alliance had simply didn’t seem to matter as fighting broke out in the southern end of the Scarlet Midfields. It seemed their agreement was only good as long as it was convenient for them.

On the surface, this seemed like a perfect occurrence for the Scarlet Alliance. They were still a bit too weak to stand against either of the great powers, but the fighting was occurring outside their direct territory and it would weaken their enemies. As long as they kept out of the fighting, it seemed that everything should be fine.

Except nothing was that easy. Their active interaction with the lower realms nearly got caught in the crossfire, and while not all of the Scarlet Midfields was their territory, they did have some association with the whole area. Just like it had before, the greatest damage would come to the local residents and not the great powers using their territory for battle.

The Council had hoped that the first clashes would be all of it, but every sign pointed to a continuing gathering of forces in the area. Thus, they had to choose how to react.

“The boldest but perhaps riskiest move,” Timothy began, “Would be for me to go and declare our interests in the region. They might respect my position as a Domination cultivator.”

“And if they don’t,” Prasad finished the thought for them. “Then our position is much weakened, and we might be drawn into conflict.”

“I didn’t say it was the best idea,” Timothy admitted. “I just wished I was well enough established for it to work.”

“We can’t afford to join such a war,” Zazil said. “We have two Domination cultivators, but we could easily turn all their wrath towards the core of the Scarlet Alliance. Then they could freely fight over our remnants once we were wiped out by a handful of Domination cultivators.”

Catarina frowned. “It would be a bit more difficult for them to push into our territory, but it would certainly be infeasible to face odds on that scale. We can continue to send ships to the lower realms the long way, routing far around the fighting, but we still have to consider the people of the Scarlet Midfields. Uzun?”

“Thank you,” he said, activating a display in the center of the chamber, showing both a star chart and a ship. “This is a standard shipping vessel. If modified to carry passengers, it can fit ten thousand people. And sufficient resources for them to survive a journey of half a year. They wouldn’t be comfortable, but it would be possible.”

“Great, then we just need a million of those and we can clear out the conflict region in, oh, a century,” Prasad said sarcastically.

“We do actually have that many,” Uzun said. “Though most are in use for other tasks. Still, we could redirect a sufficient portion to go with everything else.”

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“Ambitious,” Sly said. “But I don’t see how bankrupting ourselves and diluting our other resources is worthwhile. I’d rather just fight.”

“That’s fine,” Uzun said. “It’s not like anyone would have any use for planets full of eternally grateful people anyway.”

“... Wouldn’t that be where devotion comes from?” Durff asked. “I’m pretty far from Domination so it’s not that important, but I’d like to help people.”

That was indeed the point of bringing it up. The altruism of some of the council members only stretched so far, but perhaps that was critical to keep the Scarlet Alliance functional. But if they could do something good for others and for themselves at the same time, it would be worth it.

“Where would we even put them?” Prasad said. “It’s not like Xankeshan could hold a flood of trillions.”

“That’s simple,” Catarina said. “Our expansion plans already included twenty suitable worlds on the border. The ships could settle them there. We can create modular habitats rapidly, and organizing people into a functional planet isn’t that difficult with our experience.”

“That might work,” Zazil admitted. “But leaving them vulnerable beyond our borders would be problematic. And if we expand our borders… wouldn’t it actually take longer for them to reach those systems?”

“We don’t have to always have the spatial distortion active,” Catarina said. Before anyone could react. “I know, we rely on that for outside trade, spreading out from Xankeshan as a center. But I’ve actually been thinking about that for a while. I’ve done a few tests, and if we expand the border… I can just let through which ships I select without actually deactivating the spatial distortion. Everything else would have to face Xankeshan.”

“It’s still a vast number of people,” Prasad said. “Even if you take just the narrow slice we’re seeing become active warzones.”n/ô/vel/b//jn dot c//om

“That’s why we need to get started,” Timothy said. “Before it spreads far enough that we get caught in the crossfire.”

-----

The Exalted Quadrant wasn’t limited to fighting wars on just one front. The Chaotic Conglomeration had been constantly at war with them in living memory, and while it wasn’t always at maximum intensity, the war seemed to be ramping up there as well.

Several other planets fell after Crossed Antennae, Misi, Juli, and the others got back from Temoria. That was in the course of just a few months, signalling the start of a big push. The Chaotic Conglomeration had a recent surge of growth, but they weren’t suddenly invincible. They had to fall back and protect some better secured planets, especially where they came up against the Soul Piercer’s territory. Fortunately with proper warning of future attacks they were at least able to withdraw some of their forces.

Crossed Antennae was relieved that most of the void ants were able to sneak onto ships as they left, arriving back in safe territory, but she still had to delegate further rescue missions. She couldn’t possibly attend to all locations herself… but she did have some displaced queens that had shown initiative.

The one whose nest had saved Bryndis took on the name Covering Mesh- for herself and her colony. She would be an excellent candidate for active missions. The risk of discovery was still important to consider, but Crossed Antennae wasn’t willing to simply let her people die.

-----

Anton was completely covered in algae. Bear Hug was way bigger now at their lake, so Anton was more being held in slimy hands than actually hugged- but the smallest bits still wrapped around Anton warmly. In heart if not in physical temperature.

“You are going to a place with many battles to fight?” Bear Hug prompted once more. “You could… not do that.”

“If I’m lucky,” Anton said. “I’ll go and not have to fight.”

It was difficult for him to explain the situation to someone with little concept of things beyond one planet or maybe a system. Bear Hug hadn’t seen Anton shoot anything in a different system, for example.

“If I do end up in battle,” Anton said. “I will be alright.”

“Make a promise you will not be hurt.”

“I can’t quite do that,” Anton said. “It’s always a possibility, but I intend to be safe.”

“... Take me with you.”

“Don’t you have things to do here?”

“I do. But I am ready to go with you again.”

“I’m sorry,” Anton shook his head. “But I doubt you can go that far. And I don’t think you’d do well in space.”

“You cannot forget me.”

“I won’t. And Lev is still coming, at least for a little while. He will be able to tell you how things are going.”

Lev had begun to expand his domain some time before, but he hadn’t gotten anywhere close to the border. Even if he had, he couldn’t really do anything.

Anton might not be able to do much either, but he did have range. And the Lower Realms Alliance was just as concerned about the people getting wrapped up in the war as their upper realms counterparts. Anton didn’t want to reveal his abilities too early, but if he did nothing while so many people were at risk, it might be too late. Though the plan was not to need him.

There were only so many inter-realm ships like the Far Horizon, but they were going to try to do something. And technically, it was possible for other ships to make the trip. They just tended to become non-functional part way over the border, which really brought things from a screeching halt. The difference between lightyears and lightdays would do that.

People had thrown around all sorts of ideas like cryo-freezing people for what could be something like a twenty or thirty year trip. Anton thought that would be better than nothing, but he was hoping they could do better. And maybe now that technology was improved, convert a few larger ships to inter-realm functionality.

All of that depended on anyone being willing to come with them, but as it turned out people tended to prefer to live no matter what.

There were still risks to consider, and they weren’t guaranteed to actually bring anyone to the lower realms… but if there was any chance of it, Anton wanted to be ready, watching over them. And his bound stars simply weren’t enough for that.