Binding her wounds on the go wasn’t the most comfortable, but Velvet wasn’t willing to sit in one place simply hoping she wouldn’t be pursued. She was taking a long, circuitous route through territory she was fairly certain was safe. The energy she was replenishing was all going towards concealing herself and her traces. Medicinal pills were consumed to boost the process of healing, but she wouldn’t recover any relevant amount in the next hours or even the next day.

She was lucky, really, to not have died or even received any crippling wounds. Her armor was in shambles. With the damage it had taken, its enchantments were weakened leaving it little better than cloth where it still held firm. Durable cloth, yes, but nothing relevant to higher tier cultivators.

Her steps carried her silently onward as she pondered. She had the feeling she would reach Augmentation at some point- even soon, though that was more considering it as a matter of years or decades. Velvet simply hadn’t expected it to happen like this. It wasn’t the crisis situation- breakthroughs were much more common in such a case, even if they didn’t always result in survival. No, it was simply the way her power had manifested.

For all her focus on concealment, the first abilities she had displayed had little to do with that. It was one aspect of light she hadn’t anticipated advancing in. She couldn’t really complain about how it had happened, since it led to her survival. Even the complications that would still be coming could only be experienced by a living individual.

She should have turned and left the instant she recognized the Limitless Edge. If she had… things would have gone differently. Even so, she couldn’t guarantee they would have gone better. It was only a few moments before she was spotted anyway, and moving back out into the camp might have revealed her earlier. And perhaps she would have been right next to someone from the Limitless Edge who could cut her in half.

Speculation was pointless. What mattered was what she was going to do next. It was more than a question of her immediate survival. The Spirit Slicing Sect was not her ally, and that would be even less true of others who she didn’t know as well. Best to find somewhere to hide until she recovered, and then figure out a route back towards the Scarlet Alliance. There wasn’t much else she could do here, after all.

There were a few problems. She would need some time in safety to heal. The Exalted Quadrant would be hunting her- and not just casually. It would be hard for them to have missed that she had just stepped into Augmentation, and they wouldn’t want to miss the chance to take her out. Worse, the Limitless Edge seemed to have recognized her as she feared. She might not be connected to the Scarlet Alliance, but she would at least be known as a spy.

No settlement would be good as a shelter. She would stand out too much, and would likely be reported to someone. She needed something else. She found a cave- though she only intended to stay for a short time. A few hours, then she would move on. Around to the east, where at least she might be found by members of the Chaotic Conglomeration who didn’t know much about her. They shouldn’t immediately recognize anything was wrong.

-----

Plans were made, but they were always meant to be adaptable. Velvet had no delusions that her plans would work out perfectly. But at least if she recovered to a sufficient extent, she could simply leave. Flying between systems without a ship was not something she was used to, but after a certain level of power flying was possible for every cultivator. Perhaps not effective, as she had demonstrated just a few days prior, but possible. With an increase in her strength, moving between systems would likely not be worse than a cheap ship.

Her plans were overturned entirely when she sensed someone approaching. There had been a tingling sensation as someone had scanned her most recent hideout, but Velvet thought she concealed herself properly. By the time they got close enough for her passive perception to pick them out, they were far too close for comfort.

Time to run.

“Velvet!” A voice called out from afar. “I know you’re there!”

Well, that was that, then. But why did it have to be her? How unfortunate. She should probably still run, but… she wanted to at least talk to Runa, even if it was a bad idea.

“How did you sense me?” Velvet said as Runa reached the mouth of her burrow.

“I didn’t,” Runa said. “I just assumed you would be hiding somewhere like this. This is like the twentieth one today.”

Dammit. So she wouldn’t even have known if Velvet just fled? How embarrassing. She’d fallen for one of the easiest tricks in the book. That’s what she got for trusting a new person.

“Wow, you’re pretty beat up, huh? I’ve seen corpses with fewer cuts than you.”

How was she supposed to respond to that? “They’re healing.”

“Good. So…” Runa didn’t hide her senses probing Velvet’s cultivation. “They were right, huh. You’re in Augmentation now.”

“That’s right,” Velvet said. Without her wounds her recovery might have been quick enough to fully hide it by now, but unfortunately she’d been spending nearly as much upper energy as she drew in ever since her advancement.

“You’d think someone like you would be more famous in the Chaotic Conglomeration.”

“I don’t like the limelight,” Velvet replied truthfully. The truth was always the best deception.

“Apparently so, because the Order of Light and Darkness didn’t even remember you existed,” Runa folded her arms across her chest. So vulnerable. If Velvet was not so weakened, it would be a prime opening.

Velvet wasn’t going to fall for the same thing again. “If you’d actually contacted them, they would have.” Perhaps she was wrong about this, but in that case she was fully compromised.

Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings.

“Hmph. We won’t get a response for a while, true, but I doubt my father will wait to pass judgment.”

“For what?” Velvet had some ideas, of course, but she wanted to see what Runa thought she knew.

“Being a spy.”

“And what makes you think I’m a spy? Or rather, an enemy spy. Everyone needs some of their own.”

“The fact that you didn’t come back to base after the incident, and that you didn’t look happy to see me.”

This was the problem with making new friends. It left you vulnerable. Perhaps she’d gotten too much into her role because of mutual enemies. “It’s hard to be happy while injured.”

“Plenty of people are happy while injured. And after huge advancement. Which… I’m surprised you’re not.”

“Didn’t plan on advancing,” Velvet shrugged.

“So? Augmentation is literally one step short of the greatest power in… anything. Do you know how few there even are?”

Velvet did not. Because it was frustratingly difficult to get accurate information on that. “Depends on where. I know it’s not many.”

“Not many? Even big sects are lucky to have one in their entire history. Entire planets will go by without seeing one.”

That shouldn’t be right. Because the Scarlet Alliance had a few, now. Tauno, Catarina, Chikere, and maybe Timothy and Hoyt by now. Most of those were from Ceretos. Engineer Uzun should also be on the list soon enough. “How many does the Exalted Quadrant have?”

“I’m not quite sure,” Runa admitted. “Ten? Twenty?”

“It has to be more. The Citadel of Exalted Light has a Domination cultivator.”

“I- what?” Runa’s eyes widened.

“Yeah. Probably. It’s not like I’ve seen him, but it should be them and a few others. Which means they have to have quite a few Augmentation cultivators around.” Velvet thought they were tied up fighting the Chaotic Conglomeration. Was that not it? Certainly, she hadn’t seen any here on Taon- but that was hardly sufficient.

“How do you know that? I haven’t even heard that.”

“I was spying on the Exalted Quadrant, obviously,” Velvet said. She didn’t really have any proof. She’d just surmised the fact. “Before I came to reinforce you.”

“Oh right!” Runa pointed her finger at Velvet. “I almost let you distract me from the point! You’re totally spying on us! But I don’t get why the Exalted Quadrant tried to kill you. Is it because you’re deep undercover?”

“We’re just enemies,” Velvet shrugged. “It’s not that complicated.”

“That doesn’t make sense, though. That doesn’t leave anyone for you to be spying for. And we know you are. Come on, you have to help me here or I won’t be able to convince my father you’re alright.”

“... You intend to do that?”

“Why not? We’re friends, right?”

Velvet thought about that. Her instinct was to say no, but it hurt to think about. “I suppose we are, now.”

“Listen, if you’re not an enemy, we’d be so glad to have you with us. We’d do pretty much anything to get more Augmentation cultivators on our side. It’s just… if you’re an enemy…” Runa shook her head. “We can’t let you be part of them. And while your wounds are certainly real, the fact that you survived could be a ploy in itself. So tell me.”

But she couldn’t. That would ruin everything.

Wouldn’t it?

Velvet frowned. At this point, her position here was compromised regardless. The only risk was information about her being passed along to the Exalted Quadrant. It wasn’t impossible that it would happen because of other spies, but it wasn’t as if the Chaotic Conglomeration could get angry at the Scarlet Alliance sending her and… do anything about it. The whole of the Exalted Quadrant was between them, and even having barely visited a single path of planets she understood how much that was.

“What do you know of the Scarlet Alliance?”

“... The what?” Runa looked genuinely confused. “Haven’t heard of them.”

“The Scarlet Midfields…?”

“Is that, uh…” Runa frowned. “Nope, that was the Fields of Crimson Death. Yeah, don’t know it.”

“... The region in between the Exalted Quadrant and their rivals the Trigold Cluster?”

Runa furrowed her brow for a while. “I think I heard about the Trigold Cluster once. There a place there?”

Velvet sighed. The people here were so far from caring about the Scarlet Alliance. She should have realized. The entire point was that the two groups were flanking the Exalted Quadrant. But until she was deep in Exalted Quadrant territory, she hadn’t heard of the Chaotic Conglomeration either. And half of that was as the ‘western barbarians’.

“Well, we have a faction there,” Velvet explained. “We’re not on great terms with the Exalted Quadrant so… as their enemies, I came to see if we could… make use of your conflict.”

“Okay,” Runa said. “That makes sense. What do you think?”

“About what?”

“Is what we’re doing here useful?”

Velvet shook her head. “I don’t know. Because for all of the things I have pretended to know about your group, I don’t really know much. The mines weren’t a great place of study, and I was careful around your sect’s library.”

“Oh yeah,” Runa nodded. “That makes sense. So.. you didn’t want one of these,” she gestured to her void metal knife, “To steal the formula for the Exalted Quadrant?”

“Would that work?” Velvet asked. “If so, they would probably have it already, right?”

“Uh, I suppose it wouldn’t. Or they don’t think they’re worth it.”

“Yeah well, I just thought they were useful,” Velvet said. “And I use daggers so it’s not that far off from my style.”

“That’s great,” Runa said. Then she held out her hand. “So, come with me and we’ll explain all that. Dad will try to poach you from this Scarlet thing but I don’t mind if you just want to help us out for a little while. As long as we’re friends still?”

Velvet took Runa’s hand. She’d expected it to be a symbolic gesture, but instead her friend grasped her hand and yanked her away. “Come on, we have to get you out of here. All sorts of annoying sword and tree guys are looking for you.”

Ah, right. That was all still happening, wasn’t it?