Elder Cultivator

Daria, who claimed Divinity among the Holy Stars, flew straight towards Anton. He hadn't yet seen evidence of Nthanda in the battle, so he hoped he hadn't just disrupted her assault. The fact that he hadn't noticed her was likely a good sign, though.

Everything in the space around which Anton was standing was completely annihilated by a sweep of Daria's wings. Anton apologized to the random motes of dust and debris, but he had no intention to risk himself defending them. Obviously he dodged the attack, instantly accelerating away with Star Steps.

Ultimately he was now engaged in melee combat, and even though he could still successfully attack he had to focus more on defending himself. His arrows didn't easily pierce through Daria's defenses. Anton had the feeling that if he ever took a hit, she would crush him.

And yet, he didn't feel that he was losing. Everything was within expectations. Without her, the rest of the defenders were able to properly engage the rest of the invading fleet. The six remaining 'angels' she had were engaged with various foes, several of them occupied by small fleets rather than individuals since the Alliance hadn't sent quite that many Enrichment cultivators.

Perhaps they had underestimated their foes, but they had long enough to consider retreat and still decided to fight. That was because of trust in Anton's assessment.

Bear Hug was had already caught Aniello. "You killed me! And worse, you killed other things here!"

Aniello didn't respond, in part because Bear Hug wasn't actually vocalizing. They simply couldn't help but add flairs to their energy voicing their heart. Aniello seemed quite unconcerned about being caught- it was clear that as a newly advanced cultivators Bear Hug couldn't simply crush his significant defenses. Anton wondered how long it would take Bear Hug to twist him into knots.

Anton spread his voice throughout the system. "I will let you choose which of your people falls next. It can even be your least favorite of the bunch. Just pick one."

"You fool! You are fighting me now! You think you can harm them now?"

Anton shrugged. "You're right that I'm fully occupied. But they aren't. Since you won't pick… take down the one with all the burn scars and the bad makeup!" Anton gave the order to the fleet… while providing context more subtly. He wound a small strand of energy around to the important figures that could make things happen. Erin and Paradise were immediately on the move, and many Ascension-class battleships as well.

Just to make sure that Daria didn't try to stop anything, Anton doubled down on his pace of attack for a few moments. He was considering fighting her from within the broad domain of her wings, as that would make her look particularly bad… but he might really be in danger if he did that. As it was, he was ever-so-slowly dancing his was closer to the star. He could use his full power anywhere within a significant distance, unlike his early Starbinding journey, but there was a little bit extra he could do if the physical matter of a star was close enough.

Even if Daria and the Purified Wardens were focused on defense, she wasn't invincible. It would be dangerous for her to ignore Anton and go rushing back towards her people. At least, she should be wise enough to understand that Anton still had some things in reserve.

The Lower Realms Alliance fleets were coordinated enough to carry out Anton's directions, even if it put greater pressure on the rest of them for a short time. The man they targeted didn't stand alone, of course, but they were able to separate him from the other angels. He still had legions of weaker cultivators with him- including a significant number of Assimilation equivalents. Many of the weaker cultivators that the Holy Stars had brought were being overrun by some of the native beasts- and they were specialized in fighting in space. Some humans too, but generally cultivators tried to land on planets. The Alliance obviously wasn't going to allow that, though.

Whatever the man's name was, he was clearly from a different sect. That was why Anton had targeted him. He wanted to see how it would affect Daria.

Through everything that happened, Anton somewhere picked up that the man's sect was the Burning Hearts- which was quite a literal name. The man actually transformed his heart into fire.

Was it useful? Anton had no way to know. Because Paradise dunked him in an ocean. An ocean that happened to have a bunch of void ants that were rapidly pushed towards him as he struggled. Erin was also helping to suppress the man, and Anton didn't want to discount all of the others, but Paradise played the largest part. And the void ants played the smallest and deadliest one.

When the man died, nothing happened. Anton wondered if his conjecture was wrong. Then he told Paradise to pull back and reveal the dead body. For show, he also announced it. "Another death, as you deserve for invading our territory. And of course many of your lesser subordinates, but I'm certain you don't care about them."

Anton actually had to put a lot of effort into speaking, as Daria was constantly blasting away the aura he spread about to speak to people. Probably because she was aware of her own weaknesses. One wing faded. She still had dozens sticking out at every conceivable angle and some inconceivable angles, but Anton got the confirmation he needed.

He imagined the Holy Stars would probably call it something like faith, but regardless of what it was they seemed to make direct use of Devotion for power. Showing direct failures seemed quite advantageous.

"Don't think I don't see what you are doing," Daria commented to him directly. "Strike down that ship!"

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She gave the order, and her people followed. Anton would have been happy if he could say that the Alliance could protect each and every one of their Ascension-class battleships, especially with some warning, but they couldn't. Yet even so, Daria made one mistake that doubled into two.

"Now you have failed to protect your people as well!"

The first was that it was less impactful, because it wasn't one of their Enrichment cultivators- not an equivalent loss. The second came as she attacked.

Anton never liked to lose anyone. That feeling echoed through the system. Daria tried to encircle Anton with her wings, while at the same time others sought to crush him and still others sliced in between. Anton took the best direction to dodge, directly towards her. "I cultivate Unity," he declared. "My people know my imperfections, but they also know I care. And we know each other."

Anton felt his timing was perfect, but he didn't quite have the raw power. The arrow he empowered struck her forearm, barely puncturing the metal of her armor. He didn't even think he got through her skin.

And yet, it was good enough. Nthanda wasn't local to the current system, so it was partially coincidence that she was ready at that exact moment- but mainly her waiting for an opening.

Nthanda grabbed, tearing apart the vambraces from the tiny hole. Daria reacted instantly, blasting Nthanda away- quite successfully. She even killed many void ants in the same assault, overwhelming their resistance to energy. But her arm was still swarmed by far more than a few layers of ants, as Nthanda had carried many on her.

Anton had never seen anyone run away as fast as the strongest cultivators. To be fair to them, that was because they made decisive actions and had the capacity to flee quickly. Even so, he couldn't help but feel like there was more than a bit of cowardice as she fled. She did sweep up most of her allies with her as she went.

It was unfortunate that Anton couldn't take advantage of that opportunity, as he was quite busy making sure she didn't also wipe out any of their forces. He channeled his energy into a number of attacks that blasted apart some of her wings- even if it was only temporary, unlike when her people lost confidence. Anton did see her lose a few more as she left.

Oh, and he fully blasted apart the wing that was going to pick up Aniello. Bear Hug was focused and would not be interrupted.

"You called my friend a coward when you've been trying to run away this whole time and- oh, you can't understand me can you."

Aniello had technically managed to disentangle some portions of himself, but that came with dislocating some of his joints. Many of them, and Bear Hug wasn't providing any opportunity to put them back how they should be. Instead, they were reaching into the gaps in his armor, slipping single strands of algae through.

From there, they could directly kill him. Instead, Bear Hug ripped off his armor.

"Briar, you get three stabs! Spike, you too! Liberty… everyone gets to stab this guy! Oh but wait that sounds really mean and-" Briar pierced through Aniello's head. "-it's probably better to just kill him directly. We don't want to become the bad guys. Even if this guy did make you guys and Voidroot very sad."

-----

Anton didn't just let Daria go, obviously. Sadly, he didn't think he could kill her. He might not even be able to kill any more of her 'angels'. He had come to understand that their Assimilation level was called 'saints' which was both expected and just as inappropriate as the rest. There was nothing special about the Holy Stars. They were just kind of strong with a different core of advancement.

Since he couldn't kill anyone important, Anton put a lot of effort into not killing some people. One by one, he used his best shots of spectral energy to slightly wound each of the four remaining angels. Then he put less effort into attacking many of the saints… and Daria put in conversely less effort defending them.

Surely she had to notice. He didn't have to do more than cause a small scratch to each target to begin diminishing her position. Anton also had several more hours to do this- and Daria had used enough of her energy that she couldn't perfectly defend. Technically, Anton could have gone for far longer- he was just keeping his maximum range a secret.

Her arm was ruined. Anton was certain of that. Perhaps her body didn't matter- but if people noticed her arm didn't work, she would doubtless lose more strength. Perhaps enough that Anton could have directly killed her. It was a difficult thing to judge.

If Anton had killed every single person with her, Anton thought that she would actually lose only a small portion of her power. No, she might actually end up better off if that happened. If she returned alone she could speak of evil foes beyond number and shape perception that way. Returning with injured subordinates who had seen the loss, she would just be worse. No doubt she could recover both her arm- unless some of the void ants had done more than physical damage- as well as her energy, but these were not things that would be done swiftly.

Just before she was out of Anton's 'range', she cursed back at him. "You may have succeeded with tricks once, you coward! But you will not be able to stand against the might of more Divinities!"

Anton had noticed she transmitted her voice only to him. He had only managed to half spread the message among her people, but he did it before the 'coward' part. "Clearly you don't know the meaning of coward. Your dead angel said it because he didn't know where to find me. Then I face you in person and you run. Don't say that we can't lay traps in our own territory. It is your fault for being incapable of perceiving them."

She lost another wing there. Maybe she should have killed her subordinates. It would be hard to suppress them to the point that none of what was said got out.

Anton didn't like the idea of more like her. "How many do you need to beat me? A dozen?"

"Bah, we have no need of such excess. You would be honored to face two."

So, she was going to return with three. And they probably didn't have a dozen. At least, that was Anton's read. It wouldn't be much for a proper intelligence report, but insight was still useful.

The Great Queen would be disappointed she had missed the battle. But if this was going to turn into a war- which it sure seemed to be- Anton was glad that she in particular had been kept out of the public eye.