A scraping sound filled Chidi’s ears as he carved apart a boulder. A sword was by no means the correct tool to use for the job, but it was what he was most comfortable with. Away went a slice up top, and a chunk down bottom. Then another in the other direction, forming four protrusions on the bottom. Pieces were carved off the front and the rear of the oblong object to form two more.
Chidi nodded. “Alright, it’s ready.”
“... what is that?” Aconite asked, pacing around the figure.
“What are you talking about? It’s you.”
“... In what way is this me?”
Chidi frowned. “Good point, hold on.” He carved out sharp teeth in the mouth. “There.”
“Only the teeth are even close,” Aconite said. “The rest of this is…” the wolf sighed.
“It’s close enough,” Chidi crossed his arms. “I’m not going to just start carving you up.”
“I believe it began with shaving away fur.”
“Still better to not mess that up,” Chidi said. “Let me just…”
A few quick swishes of his blade and he had a good outline of what he had been thinking about. Just a faint flow of power. A few more and it was really coming together. And then… the whole thing shattered.
“Ahh, dammit,” Chidi shook his head. “The dampening runes weren’t enough. It probably wouldn’t happen on your body, but… it could actually amplify your own energy to be worse, if I did it wrong.”
“Is there a reason you were so quick?”
“Well… habit, I guess?” Chidi tilted his head. “If I’m fast enough I don’t have to think about where things link up so much, and how. But obviously… I’ve been focusing a bit too much on the lethal aspects of formations.”
“I don’t mind, as long as those lethal aspects affect my enemies.”
“That’s why I’m practicing,” Chidi said. Now he had to find something else to carve another Aconite out of. The second round would be better, no doubt.
-----
Especially during times of war, infiltrating a sect like the Harmonious Citadel wasn’t trivial. It wasn’t like Velvet could just spend a few days or a month getting closer to her target and then slipping inside to grab something. Years before she’d come out of their territory with piles of secret information, but the magnitude of what it suggested required her to infiltrate them once more. Over a decade of work, and all she came back with fit within a single folder. But it should be sufficient to confirm or refute what she’d found before.
Even though her task was important, she barely managed to get time with Catarina and some of the other leadership. The war was really ramping up, borders pushing back and forth. Oddly enough, the nearly useless planet of Yaitis had become a focal point around which the borders pushed back and forth, the stalemate there preventing anyone from pushing too far past it, unless they wished to leave themselves open to flanking maneuvers. Of course, space was three dimensional so it wasn’t the only critical planet, but it had become one of a handful in the region that had to be held on to maintain control of the systems. And the very fact that the Harmonious Citadel refused to give it up was enough to want to keep their hands on it as well.
“I look it over,” Velvet said, placing the papers in front of Catarina, Timothy, Enes, a number of leaders from the Dark Ring, and Tauno. The latter was only present by coincidence, though his opinions were valued above many simply because of his strength. “Unfortunately, it seems the information holds true.”
“Is that a problem?” Tauno asked. “This sort of controversy… it could make the Harmonious Citadel crumble.”
Zazil shook her head, “Perhaps that would happen, but consider this. If word spreads that the Exalted Quadrant established a mole, no, the current leader of the Harmonious Citadel… what happens to the ‘peace’ between them and the Trigold Cluster? And what happens to all of us that live in between?”
That was the problem. All of them looked over the documents in question once more, but it was difficult to come to any conclusion except that the origin of the ‘light’ path, and thus Hans Sigismund, was the Exalted Quadrant. Obviously this was not information that was recorded directly, but along with information from elsewhere the picture fit together. The information was accurate, regardless of the details. For example, it was unclear if Sigismund was still beholden to the Exalted Quadrant- and it might not matter. For the purposes of rattling the Harmonious Citadel, one of ‘their’ techniques coming from outsiders was enough. And the same was enough for the Trigold Cluster to enter the area should the information be proliferated.
Fajra was one thing- Everheart’s Tomb had been something of a neutral ground, an exception to the rule. But for the most part, neither side was supposed to have people even pass through the area. After all, there was no need to do so, since the Scarlet Midfields were located directly between the two territories.
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“We should not make use of this,” Catarina said. “Unfortunately, the consequences will likely outweigh the benefits.”
“I don’t trust their pact will hold, given an excuse,” Timothy agreed.
“Prasad has recently been pressuring them from the east,” Tauno added. “It is not critical to our participation in the war. Perhaps the status quo suits us best. If we can truly birth more Augmentation cultivators within a century…”
“Half that,” Catarina said confidently.
Tauno shrugged, “There isn’t much difference. Our forces strain, but we are holding up against the Citadel. The difference in time will not be so important.”
“Then we are agreed,” Zazil said. “Information on this does not leave this room. Not until the Scarlet Alliance agrees it would provide more benefit than harm.”
-----
Juicy. So juicy. It was totally worth all of the effort infiltrating Xankeshan himself to hear that news. And with his system practically ready, Everheart was tired of waiting. The gentle stirring of war was simply so inefficient. Someone needed to knock over the pot and burn down the house.
Of course, Everheart wanted to make certain he caused the most damage possible to the intended targets. This Scarlet Alliance… well, they did have his niece Vari after all. Sure, they did take his planet but that couldn’t have happened without the Trigold Cluster’s interference. And the Exalted Quadrant were no better. No doubt they would raise the bounty on his head even further if they were aware he was alive.
In truth, Xankeshan was in a better position than they let on. Those kids from Ceretos were doing great, and their friends from Rutera? Fascinating machines they had. Unfortunately, the facilities run by Engineer Uzun relied more on technology for its security than proper formations. Not that it was easy to get through any of Xankeshan’s formations. That Catarina girl had learned some techniques from him, and she’d developed her own counters to him from that.
But over the course of a few years he’d still managed to infiltrate the planet. After all, she didn’t know they were still in competition. Probably figured he’d crawled in a hole and died somewhere. Not that Everheart really felt like he’d won. He managed to sneak about and listen to some information, but there were places even he couldn’t go. And he imagined if he actually activated his cultivation to any extend the whole planet would come down on him like a pile of mountains. And Everheart didn’t want to bet on surviving another planet attempting to kill him.
This juicy information. He would certainly make use of it. It wasn’t just the spear saint that was responsible for his grudge with the Harmonious Citadel. He had simply been at the top of the list. This saint of light could eat it too, and he would. But if that was going to happen, he wanted the Citadel to collapse as quickly as possible. For that, there were a few plans the Scarlet Alliance had in place that should be coming to fruition soon. If they took out one more saint, then even with their hidden Augmentation members Everheart wouldn’t feel threatened by them.
If the Citadel collapsed quickly enough, then the Scarlet Alliance could use what resources they scavenged from them to withstand the fallout of the revelation. Everheart was confident they would manage. Or maybe not. If they weren't good enough, that was their own problem. It’s not like they were allies. He didn’t have any of those. Not that anyone would agree to ally with him to begin with. Except maybe other crazy men, but Anton didn’t count. It’s not like they were even on good terms anymore.
-----
Anton frowned. He had a bad feeling, suddenly. Like a bug crawling up the back of his neck, or a spider dangling from its web. But the feeling passed. Maybe it had been a sudden fluctuation in devotion. Even though he wasn’t around the Trifold Alliance, he had a steady flow of devotion from that direction, including what Anton thought was a small trickle from Ekict and the twin planets. The latter had a fairly small population, but they were favorably inclined towards Anton as a whole. If nothing else, simply ending a war instead of being related to the cause was taken better. But Ekict didn’t seem to hate him, either.
Then there was a small amount from the upper realms, and a growing quantity from his current location of In’istra. He didn’t intentionally develop devotion in people- but as it turned out, his cultivation style leaned into that on its own. Certainly, he preferred people to like him or at least appreciate his deeds. Anton was quite certain much of the devotion came from people who actually knew nothing about him personally.
It was a great benefit to his cultivation, especially considering that he was not bound to In’istra’s star. Being able to refine devotion kept his cultivation on an upward trajectory. That was important for another reason, as he still found himself teetering at the edge of his lifespan. The drop in cultivation from giving up Ekict’s star had come with enough other things that he couldn’t be certain the cause of all his woes, but the life force thing was at least part of it.
At least Fleeting Youth continued to grow happily. He wasn’t going to incorporate ascension and spectral energy into his standard attacks, but he was able to use them more freely year after year. And to think in just another handful or two of decades he might reach rank 129, the next prime. Somewhere around there would be the brink of Augmentation, or some lower realms equivalent. Though perhaps he was wrong about that. Catarina and some of the others thought that would be another critical point, but the One Hundred Stars seemed to be diverging between upper and lower realms.
Not that there was anything wrong with that. Adapting to suit the situation was the whole point of it. For so long they had been the Ninety-Nine Stars, a professed statement of their incompleteness. Anton needed to keep in mind that he couldn’t be certain that his would be the generation to consistently bridge that gap and the next.
Which was why he had people like Varghese, and everyone back on Ceretos. Anton grinned widely.
“What has put you in a good mood, Sect Head?”
“Your very existence,” Anton said.
“Is that so?” Varghese shook his head. “Somehow, that seems more honest than ‘your talent’ or anything like that.”
“Don’t be concerned about that. You’ve got a good long while until you’re the age that I began cultivating. That’s quite a head start, and a dozen chances to become a whole new person, to see the world a different way.”
“Uh, alright,” Varghese nodded. “That’s actually… kind of encouraging?”
“I try,” Anton said. “But you didn’t really get into my farming based anecdotes so a lot of my material became useless.”
“Maybe I’d like to hear more about that, sometime. You before cultivation.”
“Sure thing. And from me, you can hear the true story… unlike the embellishments of my granddaughters.” It certainly took quite a bit of that to make people he hadn’t even met in the upper realms think so much of him.