Strategy meetings were not something Durff enjoyed being part of, but he was quite happy to get a summary from Velvet. “So basically, these Silver Fang guys are causing a lot of trouble and we want to stop them.”

“That’s right,” Velvet confirmed. “I figured you would be able to determine where you would be most effective, so you don’t have any official assignment.”

Durff nodded, “Alright. What’s the most important thing they own?”

“Tactically? It might be their main sect training grounds on Gniteria. Or some of their mines…”

“Okay. I’ll go break those.”

“... Which thing?” Velvet asked.

“Their main planet and the mines,” Durff said as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.

“We can’t just do that.”

“Why not?” Durff asked. “Are they not all bad guys? I can just smash certain buildings if necessary.”

“An assault on their main planet is insanely dangerous. It’s not like with the Citadel of Exalted Light.”

Durff frowned, pondering for a good ten seconds. “Because these guys are… weaker? I feel like that would make it easier.”

“We’re not desperate,” Velvet said. “I know you didn’t know her that well, but we lost Chikere there. We can’t afford something like that again.”

Durff thought for a few moments more. “I liked her. She tried to get me a good hammer. She was strong.”

“Exactly,” Velvet said.

“The Silver Fang is much weaker. So we don’t have to be as strong to beat them. And their stuff will be easier to break, so we can just break a few things and then leave.”

“Well, sure,” Velvet agreed. “Skirmish tactics can be quite effective. When we’re ready to move on from our defensive position perhaps-”

“We have to start with the good one,” Durff said. “Because if you know someone’s going to hit you in the face, you can be ready and it won’t hurt.”

“... And if we wait until we have everything under control, they’ll be expecting us to be ready,” Velvet said. “It… can’t be the solution every time, though.”

“It can, if you can get us somewhere secretly again. Almost everywhere besides the Citadel of Exalted Light will be easier to get to. They’re closer, and not surrounded by as many enemies.”

“It’s still risky. And unlike with Zaur, their actual danger doesn’t come from just one thing. So for it to really matter we’d have to be able to defeat a large number of their elders and-”

Durff was clearly strongly considering if they could do that. “Do you think their planet only has bad people? Because I could probably hit it into the sun.”

“I-” Velvet shook her head. “No, there are probably innocent servants. And slaves.”

For some reason, Durff pulled his hammer off his back and took a stance, looking at it fiercely. Finally, he replied, “I don’t think I can hit away just half a planet yet.” He returned the carved shell hammer to his back. “But we could still break a bunch of important things. And then they’d get angry,” Durff said. “And angry people are stupid.” He paused for a moment. “They might just get sad, but sad people aren’t very effective either.”

Velvet looked into Durff’s clear eyes. He was serious, as always. Which in turn made her have to think seriously about his plan. “It relies on us being stronger than the forces they have there.”

Durff nodded. “That’s fine. We’re strong. You’re very strong. I’m stronger than I used to be. We can bring some other people. They won’t even know to expect anything. And they don’t have a barrier encompassing their whole domain so they aren’t ready.” Durff pondered for a moment. “If they did, I think Koralo could get us through. Or Catarina, if she wasn’t busy. She’s usually very busy.”

It was such a simple and straightforward plan. It felt wrong to her, not forboding like her insight was trying to warn her away… but it just wasn’t standard. Instead, forces met each other in battle because… they wanted to wear down the other side’s power and train their own forces. There was something to be said about supply lines and reinforcements, but if it was just a quick assault…

Velvet had to get information about Gniteria and what there was ‘most important’. Maybe additional information would show that it was a terrible idea. But if they could get stealthed scouts to the planet to observe it, then she could definitely get a strike team there. And while she doubted they would get invited in by a disgruntled high ranking official, the Silver Fang really were less of a threat. Maybe they could just perform a direct assault. Some of the council might even volunteer.

-----

Cutting off applicants quickly was absolutely necessary, otherwise the whole of the Scarlet Alliance would have joined… which would just make it a direct assault on the enemy capital and not some sort of precision tactical strike.

“We’ll have to limit it to particular roles,” Velvet said. “Tauno will be responsible for fighting off enemies along with Prasad.”

“I’ll take the strong ones,” Tauno said. Before the other man could protest, he continued, “You’re better at taking down hordes of enemies.”

Prasad nodded. “One Thousand Palms shall reap a million lives.”

If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement.

“Right,” Velvet said. “Lelka…”

“I can perform long range support,” Lelka said. Velvet thought she just wanted to do something. It wasn’t bad to give her a chance to prove her loyalty, though. Though fighting against the Trigold Cluster wouldn’t actually mean much, it could influence public opinion.

Catarina would be best positioned with the Scarlet Alliance, in case there was any sort of attack on their core systems. She could help manage the formations. So Koralo would once again be assigned to the strike team.

“This time it should hopefully be easier,” he commented.

“I’ll be responsible for our stealthy arrival,” Velvet finished. “And Durff will be responsible for breaking things.”

“I’m better now,” he said. “I can break so many things.”

-----

“Grandmaster smith!” Durff enthusiastically greeted Sadiq as he approached the man. “Thank you for your work on my hammer. It’s very good.”

The man simple nodded. “Would have been a terrible shame to do anything less with materials like that. But you’re not here just to compliment me.”

“Nope,” Durff agreed easily. “I need you to make me something else.”

Sadiq looked over Durff from head to toe. “I don’t think I can replicate that armor. At most, I’d match it. And that hammer is my best work.”

“I need something else,” Durff said. “Something very special.” Durff described what he had in mind.

“I see. So a pick.”

“Not just any pick! A very sturdy one!” Durff explained. “It needs to be able to hold up to me using it.”

“... do you know how to swing a pick correctly?”

“I actually do,” Durff nodded. “I learned how to do it in a weird mine without energy. I didn’t break the last few at all. They just got worn down from normal use.”

Sadiq frowned. “Do you want something for those same circumstances? I can do it, I suppose. I made Chidi’s weapon, after all.”

“... I don’t think they’ll have any void ore mines. So the normal kind with fancy enchantments and stuff should be fine.”

“Alright. And who’s paying for it, you or the Alliance?”

“Me!” Durff grinned. “I got paid a lot for various things.”

“Great. I’ll have you test out some grips and give your preference or weighting. Just in case it’s different than for your hammer.”

-----

Various minor victories had been won against the Silver Fang, and the Scarlet Alliance was at least successful in minimizing continuing damage from raids. But it was still quite difficult for them to protect so many outlying systems at once. They were unable to corner any Augmentation cultivators just yet. The few times they encountered them, they had been able to boost their ship’s flight out of the system before the Scarlet Alliance could properly engage.

They made a proper show of building up forces at their border, signaling that they were going to attack soon. And they would… but their first strike was already halfway to its destination.

-----

Velvet monitored the ship’s cloaking systems, supplementing them with her own abilities. It was unfortunate that they’d had to throw the previous ship into a star, but it was better than letting the Citadel of Exalted Light capture one perfectly intact. They could learn far too much, even if they wouldn’t operate for just anyone.

This ship was of equal caliber, if not better. It wasn’t made for precisely this purpose, but instead its primary purpose was scouting deep into enemy territory. From there, it wasn’t a big stretch to have it carry a small strike team.

She had no intention to relax just because the scouts who had come before had been successful. It was possible that they had been detected and simply let go. Not likely, but it would be dangerous to underestimate their foes. On the other hand, overestimating them was also foolish. This mission had to be possible, because they had survived against the Citadel of Exalted Light. The Scarlet Alliance ending up in direct conflict with one of the most powerful sects that anyone knew about had skewed her perspective.

They really needed to make an impression on the Trigold Cluster. Perhaps this sect hadn’t heard or didn’t believe the events involving the Citadel. Great effort had certainly been made by the sect to cover up the incident… but that was why they had put in equal effort to spread rumors about it. And the Trigold Cluster was the best place for such things to spread, as they would latch onto negative information about their rivals easily.

So perhaps they heard it but assumed that it was not the result of the Scarlet Alliance. Or they wanted to gain some clout, and didn’t expect a serious response. As if raiding planets were simply a casual greeting by neighbors. Maybe for some it was, but the Scarlet Alliance didn’t intend to tolerate this.

Lelka leaned into Velvet’s peripheral vision. “Thinking about something?” she asked.

“Not really,” Velvet said, perhaps too defensively.

“You sure? It wasn’t about me saying we should start something with them so that they didn’t act up?”

“That strategy was rejected even by those more traditionally aggressive cultivators among us,” Velvet said.

“That’s because you guys haven’t been big for long enough. These little wolves want to try to swarm big prey just to say they can.”

“How foolish.”

“Welcome to the world I lived in for way too long,” Lelka said. “Can’t spend all your time peacefully cultivating and enjoying life. Someone’s always going to drag you into unpleasant circumstances..”

“It’s not like we expected eternal peace. It just seems like meaningless aggression.”

The ship didn’t really have any privacy- just like before. So Tauno felt free to interject his own thoughts. “They’re like scared animals. Which makes sense because from what I’ve seen they only farm pathetic wolves. Oh, they call it hunting and all that, bringing them down ‘in the wild’, but they never let them grow truly strong. So they end up with it just being aesthetic instead of practical.”

Lelka looked over Tauno. “I can’t say I know what you’ve hunted. But it’s easy enough to agree it’s better. And that’s why these guys need a taste of the real world.”

Tauno nodded. “I hope they have someone properly challenging to face.”

A bit off to the side, Durff was staring intently at a three dimensional image projected in front of him. Simple conversation wasn’t enough to distract Velvet, so she found herself sitting down with him. “Studying Gniteria? Are you having trouble finding anything? I know it’s not a terribly complete map, but it’s what we got.”

“... Do you think slaves work in their mines?”

“On Gniteria? No way,” Velvet said. “It’s too much work to enslave proper cultivators. And it’s way too inefficient to let lower tier cultivators work where you could get a Life Transformation cultivator or Integration cultivator to do the same work in seconds. So any of these active mines should be worked by their own sect members. Don’t forget those are secondary targets, though. We want to bring down their sect core first.”

He nodded. “I know. I’m gonna break their big fancy tower first. And the statue in front of it.”