Elder Cultivator

The Divine Meteor Sect used themselves as projectiles, crashing through the planetary barrier of one of Akrys' neighbors. It was closer to a mixed population of humans and local Akrysians than most places, but ultimately who was there mattered very little. What mattered was that they were in peril, and Three Squeaks couldn't save them. Someone else would have to.

The human-based meteor tore through the atmosphere, annihilating everything in front of it. A few satellites would have to be replaced. Clouds were pushed aside. The impact would doubtless be sufficient to level a city, but they ran into something they couldn't be prepared for first. A single leaf.

This leaf too was annihilated, but it was the trigger for something they had not anticipated. A tree over a hundred kilometers away reached out in the direction of the single leaf that had been dispersed on the breeze, long and flexible branches wrapping around the descending group. The heat that had built up on their energy did nothing to the grasping willow as it layered more and more limbs around them before swinging them around in a wide arc.

They were no longer in control of anything. Their momentum was redirected nearly a hundred and eighty degrees back up into the sky, with their new target being one of the other squads of the Divine Meteor Sect.

Elsewhere, Lev sat under the original Grandfather Willow. All his effort planting over the last centuries had not gone to waste. He couldn't display his full power through one of the trees, but it was sufficient. He would even dare to say he was more effective than Anton, in a smaller area. Unless someone was stupid enough to approach a star, at least.

Lev spread himself out through various grasping willows in the system, redirecting the Divine Meteor Sect. He couldn't always force an impact with their own people, but simply slowing their momentum was sufficient. He also had other tactics he was using, though it took some time to arrange.

The next time he caught a group descending, he slowed their momentum with the branches… and then left them to their fate. Their saints appeared eager to attack the planet below, but they wouldn't make it that far alive. Lev scooped up more void ants at the end of his branches, planting them on cultivators as his branches swayed and bent. He didn't even have to slow the momentum of all of the incoming cultivators- they would burn to ash once their defensive energy was negated.

Lev grinned. It was quite fun to play support for some of their most dangerous tiny allies. Void ants had long lived among the people of Akrys, ever since the days of Fearsome Mandibles and Crossed Antennae. Now the two queens spent a majority of their time in the upper realms, but their legacy hadn't faded. Void ants were already well integrated with humanity- and other sorts of people. They were also quite willing to go along with some of the most extreme methods of reaching their foes.

They also had their own ships and the like. Small ones that were bringing them towards the Sublime Branch, still fighting away from the planets. Three Squeaks, Contented Grunt, and Meep were all there though. They could handle the trouble… though the void ants could greatly shift the tide if they took down an angel. That was what they were best at- fighting the strong. More powerful cultivators were generally only slightly more risky for them to attack, whereas any void ant could suffer death at the hands of random low ranking cultivators. Some would die against more powerful foes, but not many.

They weren't being used as sacrifices, though. They were supposed to all survive. Lev absolutely did his best to distract the Divine Meteor Sect from their presence with his overwhelming aura of Unity until it was too late for them. Once they noticed the void ants, they had already been attacked. Their energy was compromised, often with their lives following soon after.

An attack on Akrys was quite a serious matter. It showed that the Holy Stars had significant intel, and were willing to target even the most out of the way locations if they thought they could manage. On the other hand, it was a good sign because it showed their intel wasn't perfect. Most likely, they learned about how much people loved the meerkats and thought they were weak.

Three Squeaks launched a tiny arrow straight through the cranium of a Sublime Branch cultivator. It was possible that she would have survived if Three Squeaks just let it pierce through. It was only a tiny portion of brain that would be destroyed, until his energy detonated. She wasn't able to shift her energy inside to stop him.

It was easily possible for Three Squeaks to make arrows the size of Anton's, the size fit for a human longbow. He could have made them twice that size, like ballista bolts. Or a hundred meters long. But why would he? If he took a vaguely similar amount of energy and condensed it into something a few centimeters long and the thickness of a needle, almost nobody could defend against it. They might not even realize how much power it had until it was too late.

Obviously people would figure it out throughout the course of the battle, but they might not be able to shift their defensive energy fast enough. And it was usually only the later people who would have a chance. If Three Squeaks got his target priority right, the best combatants died first.

This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.

The angel was still fighting, though. Three Squeaks had decided it was reasonable enough to leave that job to Meep and Contented Grunt. The angel had huge fuzzy growths surrounding their weapons- and themself. Puffy and a meter thick, the strange fungus hadn't properly infiltrated the weapons but they made the striking surfaces nearly irrelevant. Destroying the fungus with their energy didn't work, as Meep just formed it again and again.

The other warriors were having a hard time keeping their weapons intact against Contented Grunt even before Meep broke through their energy. The cultivators prioritized their own defense only slightly above their weapons, but that was enough for Meep to sow virulent fungus in the wood. It turned the enchanted hardness of the weapons into little more than balsa wood, which was far more difficult to reinforce with their energy. Some of their weapons had broken apart on Contented Grunt already, and now they were being shattered by Forceful Snort's attacks.

The warthog leader didn't have any human style techniques or finesse. His tusks were his weapons, and he wielded them with great fervor. He charged through open space, energy propelling him towards target after target. The Holy Stars invaders barely knew how to react- they could have pierced a wild boar, but a sapient individual in the form of a beast was more difficult. Even if he seemed reckless, Forceful Snort judged exactly how much damage he could take while also maneuvering around certain more dangerous attacks to eventually gore his foes.

The Holy Stars cultivators were numerous, and Akrys needed everything it had to defend- but its people gave everything they could, and those connected to the system through Unity gave as well. Lev was in dozens of places on the battlefield at once, protecting the planet while those who chose to be warriors kept the rest of the battle in space.

There wasn't much leeway to catch any of the invaders. It wasn't a small raid or a group of scouts. They were tough, but Akrys had learned to be tougher. The Holy Stars wouldn't be the end of them.

-----

The Lower Realms Alliance had to spread their surveillance beacons further and wider. Fortunately, their main facility had increased production efficiently recently. They were throwing them together as fast as possible- while still having them be functional, of course. If the Holy Stars were willing to circumvent everything, they needed to catch them on the longer routes. But they couldn't place their beacons too far out, as they only had minimal defenses.

They were destroyed every once in a while, even when they tried to remain hidden. The Holy Stars seemed to have developed methods to pick them out with surprising consistency. At least, that had been the pattern until recently. It seemed that there were flaws in some of the production lines… or perhaps it was that the main production line drew closer to perfection somehow.

Everything that was to their benefit they took in stride. The Lower Realms Alliance was at war… and they intended to win. With minimum losses on their side, whatever that looked like with the strength of their foes. The looming threat of further divinities still kept them on their toes, but they didn't let smaller groups slip past them either.

-----

It seemed that whatever goodwill the Scarlet Alliance gained with Yann by helping protect some of the Fearsome Menagerie's planets during the Swirling Swarm incident hadn't been sufficient to change his overall opinion of them. He had been content to ignore them for some time, but now that the Trigold Cluster was moving to war he and the Fearsome Menagerie were among them.

That meant that Ratna had to be prepared to face him again. He should be weaker than before, though he might have found methods to recover from his crippling injuries. Even so, he would have been less focused on his own growth and Ratna had improved her own strength. Even if it was only a few minor steps, she was constantly developing her own abilities… and those of her sects.

This time, she was going to have to bring the Distant Shadow Sect into things more. She had already ordered them to strike the Fearsome Menagerie from behind. It was a risk to them, of course, but if she never made use of them there was no point. If they helped free up Ratna and the extended systems siding with the Alliance beyond the Scarlet Midfields, the Guardians of the Veiled Brilliance could then join them against the inevitable counterattacks.

Ratna wasn't the only one who had the feeling that this war was going to be one of the big ones. The last one? Unlikely. Did war ever really end? Even if they could annihilate the Trigold Cluster or the Exalted Quadrant, they might not want to- and that was a big if. Even so, they were prepared to call upon the eastern systems beyond the Trigold Cluster. They had been expanding into the former area of the Swirling Swarm with the aid of the Alliance- through the lower realms mainly- and they would hopefully see the merit in taking the opportunity.

Or if they weren't willing to commit to a fight, if they would at least agree to take a threatening posture it would keep some of the eastern sects from committing their full forces to moving against the Scarlet Alliance. Which was good, because they also had to deal with the Exalted Quadrant.

And whatever foolishness Everheart got up to- beyond his virus. Ratna herself only occasionally made use of computers, but she understood how much the Alliance had come to rely on their infrastructure. Some might have said that technology had shown itself to be a weakness, but relying on traditional communications and the like against Everheart? They were entirely formations. There was no way he wouldn't have found a way to compromise whatever he wanted. In this case, he might have actually had less effect than intended. It was still making the Scarlet Alliance's job much harder than it needed to be, purging their systems and trying to patch the holes.

So far, they hadn't seen Everheart make an actually attack on their territory. Which was worrying, because he'd done so with the two great powers on either side of them- once again targeting sects he had old grudges with. But if he put in the effort to make a virus that would take down their systems at all and they didn't see what he did against them? They had to assume they missed something. So they almost hoped his actual attack was still to come. It was too bad they couldn't maintain neutrality forever, but Everheart wasn't exactly the sort. Even if his favorite niece and only family was part of the Alliance.