Elder Cultivator

Though he couldn't react himself, Aveksen's awareness of the brainwashed assassin was sufficient for Ivo to take action. He was an Augmentation cultivator from the hivemind, a swift but powerful cultivator. He used no weapon, instead turning his aura directly into blunt force. No element, just concussive impact. A difficult path, but clearly one at which he was quite successful.

Ivo caught the assassin directly in the chest, knocking the man back two meters- enough that his attack didn't reach his target, merely the energy extension of his blade. But by that point, his target had raised defensive energy, just enough to block the portion that connected.

Ivo could have turned the assassin into paste, but then they would lose both a likely decent individual and any information that might be gleaned from him that they could exploit against the Heartbound Palace. The rest of the hivemind cultivators acted together, including Aveksen, restraining the assassin and suppressing his energy together. It was entirely possible that he would have been programmed to self detonate upon failure.

The rest of the afternoon was taken up by explaining what had happened and why it should not negatively impact the trade deal the two planets had been planning. It would, of course. Humans were still subject to bias, no matter how much they tried not to. But it shouldn't be too much.

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In an isolated network, Ace studied the programming of what they believed to be "Project Apocalypse". Actually getting access to it had taken some time, because of the nonstandard access protocols of the device. However, they did manage to brute force some of that with cultivation. He was the conduit between the device and their computers. He was cautious, of course. It was not impossible to infuse some sort of cultivation energy into programming that could harm actual people.

The Exalted Quadrant shouldn't know how to do it, of course. Not many people from the Alliance would be capable. A couple old Ruterrans. Engineer Uzun might not be the right specialization for it, though he probably could replicate the feat regardless. He was the most ancient of them, after all. He was personally responsible for things that should take entire teams- though when he did have a team the progress for the Alliance could be staggering.

The only reason they didn't have groundbreaking inventions every few years was because of how far both mixed and pure tech had already been taken. They were already capable of astounding feats- how could they advance an entire society rapidly?

Ace respected him greatly. Juli was one of the others, responsible for much of the miniaturization that humans had simply found unnecessary. Circuit Chewer and her team made great use of such things, securing the drive.

Looking at it, Ace found that Project Apocalypse was… terrible. It targeted first and foremost institutions like hospitals. Any repositories of knowledge, of course. Financial institutions. Distribution networks. A wide range of things, but the core was those things that kept a society going.

If the virus spread throughout their networks, they could bring huge portions of the Alliance to its knees in the time it took a signal to propagate between locations- which wasn't terribly long. If this hit them unprepared, the only thing they could have done was hope that their instant comms didn't have enough bandwidth to send it. Then they could have shut things down themselves.

But now, they had it. There were a few exploits that Ace thought had been patched, but it spread throughout the miniature network just fine. However, even if the Exalted Quadrant was clearly centuries behind on overall technological development, they still had clever people. They were unwise, violent, horrible people sometimes but actually stupid was rare. Even among the Hardened Crown Sect. They were only tangentially related to the current business, but they had loaned themselves as guards. Perhaps they saw the value in the destruction they could cause.

Ace studied what he had in front of him until the devices actually killed themselves, bypassing safety restrictions and melting. This couldn't get out into the general population. It was a shame that the Alliance had stolen it.

Not that Ace wanted the Exalted Quadrant to win. It was just that they would know that countermeasures would be taken. Circuit Chewer and her team couldn't get the results to him without taking the drive, but still.

It would have been nice to counter it in its current form and then have them try it anyway. It would probably be a great surprise that the Alliance wasn't in chaos.

He was still obviously going to alert the right people of all the flaws. They would fix it… and the Exalted Quadrant would improve their methods and maybe find other exploits they hadn't fully overcome. Though looking at their methodologies, the Alliance would probably be able to predict what they were capable of.

Copying the drive and transporting it securely should be doable. Others also had to look at it personally, but it would be marked and contained. Ace wasn't going to assume that he and his team would create the perfect counter. Others would have to be involved, but at least this version of Project Apocalypse would be neutralized.

After he resolved whatever he could with that project, he would return to work on the next version of the virus they were infecting the Exalted Quadrant with. The scenarios in which it would become active were the important point. If the Alliance launched an attack they could likely activate it, but that wouldn't cause as much chaos for the Exalted Quadrant who were less reliant on computers.

Ace's goal was to make it automatically shut down an entire connected network during some critical moment of war preparations. That could be anything from a slight annoyance to delaying an assault for several days- which would be enough time for the infiltrators to take note and pass information along to the Alliance. He wouldn't target hospitals, either. He was better than that. Though in his understanding, the Exalted Quadrant didn't use computers much in that area either. Their reliance would slowly grow throughout, however. They were too useful to ignore.

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As tensions escalated in the upper realms, so too was the case in the lower realms. The Holy Stars kept pushing at the lines that the Lower Realms Alliance had. They were a bit more cautious than sending actual raids… but flying around the edge of systems the Alliance occupied was one of the things they did. The Alliance wouldn't accept that. Nor outposts set up in neighboring systems.

A few systems away… and the Alliance let them remain for a time. However, the more the Holy Stars pushed the line, the more the Alliance wanted to push back. To surround them, flying arrogantly through their systems and surrounding their territory with outposts. Of the things they would actually do, they were preparing to surgically take down every established outpost at once to teach the Holy Stars a lesson.

People died. Both sides lost people in the skirmishes, but it was far from open war. The Alliance let people flee instead of annihilating them, not because they didn't believe that anyone who escaped could cause more trouble but because known failures might weaken the Holy Stars- and their top cultivators. Besides, they didn't want to fly into ambushes outside of their systems.

They were far more closely matched in total maneuverable forces than they would like to admit. Even if they were prepared to take on both great powers in the upper realms, that was with them only sending a portion of their forces and weakened significantly by having to adapt to natural energy. That also included having access to all of their orbital platforms and planetary militia, both of which still had to defend their planets.

Negotiations were underway to hire mercenaries from the Shining Cooperative and the other neighbors that weren't part of the Alliance. They were more or less shielded from any potential attack by the positioning relative to the Holy Stars- though it was possible that they would put in the effort to go another hundred or two hundred lightyears to circumvent Alliance territory. They went far enough for the initial attacks, so it wasn't impossible. It would just strain their supply lines even further.

The biggest threat was the groups that wouldn't need supply lines. If they could fly as a single fleet with a few 'deities', the threat was that they could wipe out most things they came in contact with. They needed to be intercepted.

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Reneden was supposed to be back home in the system of the same name. Everyone thought that was where Reneden was, including the Aretis Coalition. They, or some version of their ancestors, had been responsible for setting up the automated systems that eventually devolved into Reneden, the person. That made Reneden quite angry.

Then people arrived, and having people around made Renden quite happy. Then they had left- except for Bear Hug, sort of. Eventually people from both the 'Alliance' and Aretis came to see Reneden. People were there, and it was good. But despite having been mind numbingly bored and lonely for centuries, Reneden didn't have to be bored and it was kind of boring.

Accessing mixed tech was easy. All Reneden needed was something with remote access capabilities to sit within its system for a few years, and the deed was done. It did take significant concentration during that duration, but Bear Hug also took a while to make new bodies so it was probably normal.

They were the reason Reneden became interested in the war- or heard about it at all. Apparently, someone had hurt Bear Hug! The injustice could not be allowed to stand! Reneden resolved to do anything in its power to take down the Holy Stars!

The things that were within Reneden's power were mostly sitting and waiting. But nonetheless, they were willing to try. Right now, Reneden was making good use of that ability. The mixed tech surveillance beacons that the Alliance was deploying were perfect for Reneden to take over.

With just a little bit of this and a little of that, Reneden could amplify their efficiency by over ten percent.

So it wasn't much. It was still new tech, and thus Reneden hadn't been trapped in a slowly failing body that needed to improve its efficiency several times over the course of centuries. A little bit at a time was fine. Also, that ten percent increase was after running some of Reneden's processes so it was totally acceptable.

There was only one problem. Reneden wasn't as effective of a multividual as Bear Hug. Specifically, it weren't in perfect sync with all parts of it. Communication had to be achieved. Renden was in the process of fixing that by trying to get access to the instant comms tech that the Alliance had.

The only problem was that both the Alliance and Aretis were super cautious about Reneden for some reason. They seemed to think Renden might do crazy things that it would never do. Like secretly replicating itself into all of their systems and doing bad things.

Okay, well, Reneden would probably not do the second half of that. It hadn't really considered it along the way, it was just the only way to get access to this part of the galaxy. Asking to have its main body moved was a bit complicated and unlikely to work out.

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Someone killed Reneden. It was highly offended by the incoming snippets of information. Why, it was almost as rage inducing as people killing Bear Hug!

Reneden didn't feel pain or existential dread about its survival. Not anymore, at least. But it was still extremely unpleasant. Maybe it would have been worse if Reneden was fully connected, receiving every piece of the transmission. Even so, it was going to figure out how to integrate that stuff into itself, instead of just relying on other transmission methods.

Reneden passed along the appropriate alert messages, leaving out the bits of it that were sent along in the pre-death message. This wasn't the first time this had happened, and it wouldn't be the last. The Holy Stars really didn't like surveillance beacons when they found them, which wasn't as often as it should have been. They were already quite subtle, and a bit of active nudging allowed Reneden to hide when people were close. But nothing was perfect, and sometimes transmitting a message was more important than staying hidden.

The snooping people would probably be caught. Their trajectory had been clearly logged. In the worst case, they would be chased off. But that wouldn't be the last of them… not by a long shot.