Word of the Limitless Edge’s humiliating defeat spread quickly after the battle. It was a surprise to all parties involved in the actual battle, but rumors didn’t care about small details like truth. And the actual news was nicely mixed up with that same rumor, by design.

Obviously the Exalted Quadrant wasn’t happy about Everheart showing up and causing trouble… but if they were capable of doing anything about it, then he wouldn’t have been a problem to begin with. It wasn’t that they couldn’t kill him if he actually fought them on their terms. It was that he would never be anywhere near a battle not of his own choosing.

The Exalted Quadrant had quite a bit of experience locking down news within their borders, minimizing any shame that might have been directed their way. However, it was impossible to perfectly control the spread of information within their borders, and certain sorts of news were simply too provocative for people to ignore. So while some of the populace might not have received the information, everyone important heard that Everheart had caused trouble again. And many of the disciples of important powers as well. Thus, the true damage was done.

Unfortunately- but most likely not accidentally- Everheart’s actions didn’t only have consequences for himself. They were enough to actually provoke a reaction from the Exalted Quadrant as a whole- though ironically not from the Limitless Edge herself who cared little about her own reputation and was fully aware of her victory. But for the Scarlet Midfields, it meant forces beginning to build up along their borders. If they had the choice they might simply let people through to the Everheart System to go fight it out with him, but things wouldn’t be so simple.

“How long do you think we have?” Catarina asked.

Hoyt shook his head. “It’s difficult to say. There might not even be a real attack.”

“But we certainly wouldn’t bet on that,” Tauno commented. “It doesn’t require a serious effort from the Exalted Quadrant to cause us real trouble. Even with our growing numbers of Augmentation cultivators. No, that might be the very issue. We both don’t have enough yet, and we have too many.”

Zazil of the Dark Ring nodded. “So far, they mostly have rumors of our growth. But if we actually have to fight, we will have to reveal our Augmentation cultivators. And then they might consider us an actual threat. We’re at that unfortunate in between stage. Now, the Scarlet Alliance’s recent growth has been astounding, but realistically the difference between five and twenty or more Augmentation cultivators wouldn’t even be enough. We need more time. Even a century or two…” she shrugged.

“What about those plans on the border?” Prospero Vandale asked.

Catarina shook her head. “They’ll still take some time before they’re effective. And it’s really only meant to hinder the invasion of the lower realms at the end of the cycle. There’s no way anything meaningful can happen with that for the next century.”

“I feel like it would be helpful if we could know what this thing was,” Tauno said. “So we could assist.”

“It really wouldn’t,” Catarina said. “It will either progress as it is… or not. Knowing would only be a risk.”

“Fine. Then what shall we do?” Tauno asked.

“Put up a good front,” Zazil said. “Force them to move around our core systems if they want to reach Everheart. They can take a straight line path along the northern edge and we wouldn’t stop them… but there aren’t supplies to ‘gather’ along the way. And the Exalted Quadrant certainly won’t be shy about taking whatever they pass by.”

“Should have killed Everheart when we had the chance,” Tauno sighed.

“You say that,” Catarina said. “As if there was ever a real chance. When would it have been? As we took out the Harmonious Citadel, and were exhausted from the war? It’s better to keep him… relatively neutral. At least, as long as we don’t determine the consequences of this were intentionally directed towards us.”

Zazil nodded, “Far be it from me to say anything positive about Everheart, but conflict with the Exalted Quadrant might have been inevitable regardless. If this ends up with them attacking hurriedly instead of being properly prepared…” Zazil shrugged. “It might not be the worst possible result.”

Catarina stroked her chin. “Do you think it would be possible to make it easier for the Trigold Cluster to get involved? I’m not saying we should recruit them as ‘allies’ or anything suicidal like that. But routing them around towards the Everheart Cluster at the same time might help exhaust all of our biggest threats at once. And the systems on the northern border are some of the least occupied to begin with. I just don’t know how we can force them to pick the path we want instead of what they want. Not for any achievable price, at least.”

“Not with the systems as they are,” Tauno shrugged. “They’ll take the easiest or most profitable route.”

“Hmm,” Catarina frowned.

“What?” Zazil asked.

“Oh… nothing. Just a foolish thought. Nothing that will be relevant for the current situation.”

Timothy looked at his wife. He knew it wouldn’t be a foolish thought. Crazy? Perhaps. But not lacking intelligence behind it. And whatever it was, if she chose to advance the plan it would be backed by something special indeed.

“What of the spymaster?” Zazil asked.

“Still no report,” Catarina said. “But also… no indication of her death or capture. It’s not unreasonable to believe her mission could take another decade or two.”

Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

-----

The blade in Velvet’s hand didn’t feel like anything. That was the weird part. Okay, one of the weird parts. Another was actually having a void blade of her own. In her hands. She knew how precious they were to the Spirit Slicing Sect. Then again, she was also aware how valuable her contributions had been. She couldn’t exactly consider this a natural conclusion, but it hadn’t happened accidentally either.

“I like it,” Velvet said, feeling its edge on her finger. It was… weird. It actually touched her skin, and she could do nothing about it. Yet it also lacked a supernatural sharpness. She was fairly certain a thick shirt could bind and catch the blade. She kind of wanted to test its fragility, but that was a good way to make certain smiths very angry.

“You’d better,” Runa said. “It’s better than my own, you know? They had to reforge that thing like ten times through their very difficult process. It took a small mountain of ore to extract the void metal necessary. And I heard countless hours of experimentation to make a better alloy.”

“So if they learned something, they can make other better blades now,” Velvet said. “Sounds like I did you a favor,” she grinned. “Plus, would you even have that mine without me? Oh, and when’s your father breaking through to Augmentation?”

Runa didn’t bother responding to most of that. “Well, it’s probably going to take a while for him still. We’re not the same cultivation style, so your insights aren’t perfect. But knowing that he’s more likely than not to actually reach that point… is very comforting.”

Velvet waved the knife around, not casually but instead sweeping it through the air in specific positions. Wherever it went, it left a trail of nothingness, upper energy being cut off. Velvet held out a hair-thin tendril of energy, slicing through it. Her connection lost, the detached side dispersed instantly. “Hmm. I imagine that only works because it was so delicate to begin with.”

“Well, yeah,” Runa said. “You still need to use proper techniques.”

“You haven’t shown me yet,” Velvet pointed out.

“It’s not really possible to train them without the blade. And no, you couldn’t use mine. The balance has to be tailored to the user. It’s that delicate of a process.”

“Fine, fine,” Velvet waved her hand. “So show me. I have it now.”

“Great. We have a training course. Please don’t sever the outer formations. They’re there to protect everything else. And uh… not all severed connections unravel peacefully.”

“Obviously not,” Velvet said. “Which is why we’ll be training. Though I imagine against an actual cultivator, it’s rarely ever worse to have their energy explode uncontrolled rather than letting them do whatever they were going to do.”

“Yeah. Rarely,” Runa admitted. “Regardless. Whatever you have learned from observing disciples of the Spirit Slicing Sect- besides myself and my father, not even those who had void blades- forget about it. You’ll just inherit bad habits.”

“Fine,” Velvet said. It wouldn’t be that simple, of course, as she’d wanted to steal the techniques for herself if she wasn’t actually being taught. But she could at least try to bring no former knowledge to the actual training.

Runa brought her to a room that didn’t really feel like anything. There was upper energy, of course, but it mostly just permeated the room. It didn’t seem like it did anything. Which might be the point, since it was for training. “Take note of the crossing lines of energy here,” Runa said, raising her knife. “They’re not strong, but don’t worry about that. Because if you do it right, this will work on anything from random training connections to serious cultivators. Unless someone makes a meter thick pillar of upper energy to completely prevent the possibility of a severed connection in which case…” Runa shrugged. “You wait for them to pass out in a minute or two. Or find somewhere they slacked off.”

Runa swirled her knife, severing some lines of energy and leaving them as dangling strings in Velvet’s mind’s eye. She tried it herself, watching them easily fall apart. There was no feedback, whereas she’d kind of thought it would feel like cutting strings.

“So your first problem,” Runa said. “When you cut them. What did you do?”

“I just cut normally?” Velvet frowned. “Were the knife movements wrong?”

“Do it again and try to figure out what was wrong.”

Velvet repeated the motions, watching Runa. But she couldn’t figure it out. “Well, I must be missing something because the connections are growing back.”

“True, but that’s not the issue currently,” Runa said. “The issue is that you used your energy to try to augment the cut.”

“... And that’s not going to do anything, is it?” Velvet sighed. She repeated the motion of cutting, this time noticing her energy fading into the blade.

“At best, it’s a waste of energy,” Runa agreed. “At worst, you leave a lingering path of energy for your target to reconnect. There might be some arguments for doing something intentional there… but you’re certainly not there yet. But now that you’ve got that, I need something else. Your senses are pretty good. Tell me how many strings are in this room.”

“Do I have a time limit?” Velvet asked.

“Nope.”

“If they go out the walls, do I have to count them potentially reconnecting outside the room?”

“There’s no tricks like that. Yet,” Runa clarified.

Velvet nodded and began counting. The strings were faint. The smallest connections of energy, like single strands of perception. Most likely, they couldn't even shift a paper on a desk with their power. But there were so many. Hundreds. If they had curved around each other, Velvet wasn’t certain she could have kept track. But as they were currently all straight, she only had to mark their endpoints to determine how many there were. “Five hundred and six,” she said eventually.

“And you’re confident in that answer?”

“I’m confident that’s how many I can pick out,” Velvet said.

Runa sighed. “What an annoying answer. Well, as you probably figured out you missed some. Not that many but… it takes some special techniques to learn to pick them out. As for whether you’ll actually come across anything this difficult to detect…?” Runa shrugged. “Better to know how to do it and not need it than the other way around. And besides, faster is necessary for in battle. You won’t have time to casually count connections.”

“Obviously,” Velvet said. Though she could keep herself concealed, so it wasn’t quite true. But she really shouldn’t sit around for long without participating in battles. Especially as the only local Augmentation cultivator, for the moment.