Elder Cultivator

The timing that Zazil initially thought was a perfect moment for Velvet to strike was indeed optimal. However, the location was not. Velvet was swallowed up by Yann at the same time as Zazil, though entirely on purpose. She only barely managed to keep a hold of Yann as he moved, as his movement technique was not meant to bring anyone along with him. Doing so stealthily was aided by his focus on Zazil.

After slipping inside his mouth- though it was about as easy as walking into an unwalled city- Velvet immediately assessed possible attack points. Zazil would only determine it later, but Velvet immediately clocked that his upper palate was too durable for her to strike. She had to her advantage the Spirit Slicing Sect's techniques as well as a voidsteel blade, but she would only have one perfect moment to strike. She wasn't wasting it on an attack she could already see was flawed.

Unfortunately, that meant going deeper. Velvet was quite glad that Yann didn't perfectly replicate the proper internal workings of a dragon. Passing through its stomach that was a pit of fire was rather unpleasant, but Yann's focus wasn't on the area- he couldn't possibly create flames that would passively destroy another Domination cultivator while at the same time trying to kill Zazil. Velvet's main issue was not causing unnecessary disturbance. Flowing energy around her so that it ended up where it should be expected took a lot of finesse and a bit of illusion.

Velvet had no idea where the dantian would be located on a dragon, if they should even have one. However, she could bet that Yann needed a central repository from which his energy flowed. Even if his actual energy came from his true body, temporarily overwritten, she could still cause serious damage. And the draconic form wasn't simply a projection, but a transformation. That was why Rahayu cutting off a leg had been such a lasting injury.

Muscle and bone twisted around Velvet, but the ribcage and vague representations of organs kept her relatively safe. She just needed to get a little bit further. She could feel Yann ramping up his attacks- Zazil was in trouble. But if Velvet screwed up her chance they might both die.

A dagger barely the length of her forearm couldn't cause any relevant physical damage to something the size of a mountain range. However, she didn't have to cut his body. Just his energy. Velvet found the central thread and gathered herself. Sometimes, she didn't even feel like she was real- a side effect of her Domination. But where the light of distant stars overlapped, there she was.

Yann didn't react to her attack. If he had, she would have already lost. Velvet drew her blade through a wide section of him, severing energy. Some would leave his control, while the rest would simply not flow through the area. It wouldn't last more than a moment either way… but that was all that was needed. Velvet held her blade steady as Yann's transformation was undone. She stood with her arm extended and her weapon in his gut.

His gaze fell on her. His arm swiped out for her, nails like claws. Velvet instinctively pulled away, leaving behind her weapon. It was a mistake. Or at least, unintentional.

Velvet took a defensive stance, a dozen meters away. She was prepared to dodge his follow up attacks, and to fight with her remaining daggers- she would have to contend with his energy.

If he had any.

Velvet did not realize her voidsteel dagger was broken once more. This time, however, it was severed cleanly where Yann's armor protected his body. As his physicality came back, the voidsteel lost the battle against metal plate- it was weak and brittle. But still victorious against flesh. The handle fell away, but the majority of the weapon was still inside him.

Yann reached down towards his own guts, but he could barely access any of his own energy. Manipulating voidsteel, even as a Domination cultivator, was a near impossibility. With it piercing his dantian, his energy was rapidly fading and he had but a trickle coming from devotion. His nails scraped against his armor. Velvet thought they would have made a horrible noise- but she couldn't hear it. Nor his gasping chokes as he struggled to breathe without the ability to refresh the air in his lungs.

Then his head was sliced into pieces by Zazil. "Almost late on that," she commented, one arm dangling limply at her side. "But you managed it."

A shockwave rippled out over the system. Surprisingly, Yann's anchor was nearby- though well enough concealed that they hadn't noticed. Perhaps he had been moving it specifically for its new hiding location, or he intended to include the skeleton in the assault. Either way, with his death it crumbled apart. And so did the morale of the surrounding Fearsome Menagerie cultivators.

There was no way for them to deny that their leader had perished. They all knew. Even those outside the system would experience it, to the furthest corners of their territory and beyond.

The future battles would be a bit easier for the Scarlet Alliance. Though they might have precipitated the swift arrival of a big one. Other Domination cultivators wouldn't be dragging their feet anymore.

-----

In the lower realms, someone was being sneaky. A group of someones, in fact. A full vessel, moving precisely between systems in such a way as to maximize the distance to any one. It was always riding the line between at least a few, sometimes momentarily maneuvering around a greater number.

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Reneden had to assume they were up to no good. Even worse than most of what the Holy Stars cultivators were doing, specifically. They were well outside of the detection range of any of the surveillance beacons- no doubt they would remain so until their final destination, where they would swiftly enter a system and enact their mission.

Probably assassination. It was a single ship.

Reneden had several options. It considered simply sending a message regardless of the impossibility of detection. Ignoring it was technically a possibility. Finally, moving to stop them. The surveillance beacons weren't equipped with engines- just small stabilizers.

That didn't matter, of course. Reneden was a cultivator. It would move if it wanted to. And it did. The choice had been made in a matter of moments. The only issue was that Reneden wasn't extraordinarily fast while maintaining any level of plausible deniability. It had picked several beacons from further ahead in the expected route. It would be faking normal time delays for messages until they were returned to proper orbits.

Reneden knew that it wasn't really that strong. However, it detected no 'angels'. Thus, it should only be fighting others at its level or below. Had Reneden fought anything? Questions like that were insulting. Reneden had been connected to numerous partially functioning weapons during its entire life. It knew what it was doing.

But no. It hadn't really fought much. Maybe if it counted the incident that forced it to awaken to the next level, advancing to be a proper multividual instead of an individual with time lag between some parts of its body.

Reneden might die. That would be… unpleasant. Not quite as complete as when humans died- even the reincarnating ones- but still pretty bad. Still, it was deemed to have the highest likelihood of success.

One of the beacons cut off the path of the intruders. They didn't know. The beacons were meant to be stealthy to begin with.

If everything was operating on pure physics, Reneden could have just sat in their path and then they would have been mutually annihilated by a collision. With barriers and natural energy involved, that wasn't a high enough certainty. Reneden might be crushed for nothing.

So it attacked. First, it tried to get as close as possible while matching velocity. Beams of energy, replicating the functions of the still defunct weapons platforms in its original system. Physical components would have improved it, but instead Reneden rerouted energy from as many parts as possible to augment its effectiveness. Not just the local beacon, but all of them.

The response was immediate. Even as he was barely puncturing the outer barrier, waves of energy poured over Reneden- carrying some sort of particles. Then, cultivators leapt outward, bearing blades.

Surveillance beacons were small, not sharp, and only modestly durable. Reneden tried to at least take advantage of some angular momentum as it spun to get a bit more power behind its blows with random antennae.

A few were cut off. Reneden was stabbed. It was… not dead.

Were these cultivators particularly weak? They had to be. Where were their special techniques? Certainly, there was something odd on their blades and that cloud of dust might eventually clog some fans but… Reneden was winning. A Life Transformation cultivator fell. A spinning beam sliced open the back of one of the 'saints'.

Poison. That was it. Everything was poisoned. Assassins used poison. They stabbed for vital organs, shutting down the body's systems.

Reneden had none of those things. So assassins had to hack away at physical components instead of doing anything else. Reneden wasn't really doing anything hard. But also… wouldn't they be more effective against humans or other organics? Reneden was saving people a lot of trouble.

At some point, the cultivators realized they weren't going to win. They rushed back towards their ship. It was a small ship, but theoretically capable of swift movements. Surveillance beacons were even smaller, and quite capable of sticking to a slightly broken ship as it tried to accelerate.

The Holy Stars cultivators wouldn't be making it out alive. But humans needed to know they were there, or they couldn't be prepared in case some got past. Their energy signatures needed to be recorded. But Reneden couldn't admit to having done any of this. Maybe… leave a couple people incapacitated and make sure the ship drifted into the nearest occupied system?

After taking what Reneden needed for repairs. The materials were mostly no good, but some of their storage bags had various bits of metal. And Reneden could probably catch the other bits floating around. From there it would be a simple matter of… somehow fusing things together. Reneden was only just starting to get good at that, because before it simply existed on hardware that was non-functional.

Reneden settled on that plan. And it worked. Mostly.

-----

A ship drifted into a small, low population system of the Lower Realms Alliance. At any other time, there would have been no reaction. During a time of war such as this? The reaction was actually quite subdued. Because there were only a couple people left alive, and it was barely functional.

Some inquiries were sent out to see if there had been a battle nearby, and an investigation was begun… but nobody was making a big deal out of it. Everyone had jobs to do, and they fulfilled them.

Obviously there had been a battle. The inspection crew was quite glad that they had followed protocols, because the whole ship was a biohazard zone- the immunity the few living cultivators had built up to their own poisons only went so far, and they had been the first sign to tip people off.

Energy samples were taken, both of the cultivators and whatever had caused the damage. Strangely, nothing immediately showed up in the database- but that was assumed to be because they had limited access. They didn't carry complete energy replications of everything that the Alliance had ever seen.

But one of the inspectors found bits of metal embedded in the ship. Machine components, clearly. She recognized a few of the pieces, but they were mostly standard. The Scarlet Alliance liked standard parts, as it made repairs far easier. Others were unclear. She happened to send requests for a few of the bits and pieces to figure out what they went in originally. Though everyone believed they would probably get back an answer within the week of the battle squad that took down the ship, they still had to work. Just not in a hurry.