At some point early on, Varghese realized the war had begun with no words spoken between sides. Not really, at least. They had captured the fleeing ships, but they were already on the path to war at that point. They hadn’t prompted any conversations, and the Trigold Cluster had never attempted any of their own.
When their scouts had been spotted, the enemy immediately opened fire. That spoke volumes, though they really weren’t certain yet how much the enemy knew about them. Even after a few years of skirmishes, only the closest border systems on either side had been involved.
Capturing more people wasn’t as easy as Anton had made things seem at first. Only overwhelming strength allowed that without risk. They might pick up a few survivors from the wreckage of a battle, but they couldn’t pick and choose who they got. And enemy commanders, especially those related to the Twin Soul Sect, seemed especially eager to off themselves if it seemed they couldn’t escape.
Varghese did not have the strength to dominate the battlefield all by himself. He was a fairly new Assimilation cultivator, in the grand scheme of things, and without any bound stars he could only display a certain level of power. With just a few stars available and dozens of enemy systems, he could only save himself to greatly affect a few critical, core systems.
They just didn’t know what those systems were yet. But that didn’t mean he couldn’t participate in the war- he just couldn’t be a driving force for most of it. And perhaps that was alright. He was still young, as far as cultivators went. And he’d heard enough from Anton to know that the glory of war was at best lackluster and at worst completely incorrect.
And there were a few places Varghese could use his full power. He had bound the stars of In’istra and Poriza, either of which could be targets. In’istra had already been targeted once, and though they hadn’t been sure at first if the information of its location made it back to their enemies, there had been a few more squads probing their defenses.
So for the moment, Varghese waited on the defensive. Once they could confirm important targets he could join the offense and bind their stars. Until then, he could focus on protecting his people.
-----
An opportunity to use his power came sooner than he thought- though it was not an assault on the enemy. Instead, a fleet had been detected entering the system perpendicular to the plane of rotation. Most likely they were trying to avoid defenses, and in some ways they were correct- but the entire system had sensors that formed a spherical formation around the system. Any anomalies would be logged. There were exceptions, such as the ships that had slipped past with the mold- but not every ship could be equipped with similar stealth capabilities and they had dismantled those captured ships and tuned their sensors to their style of stealth.
Now that they were on high alert, enemies were spotted sooner, and there were fleets ready to maneuver to any point. Likewise, one was ready to mobilize to deal with this threat- currently angled towards some mining bases without much population. They had their own defenses, but couldn’t stand against a proper fleet of assault ships.
But Varghese had the local fleet hold off, except for a smaller portion. He wasn’t sure if they were trying to draw the defenses away from other parts of the system, but they didn’t want to mobilize too much.
Of course, that didn’t mean he was going to leave their people undefended. It was quite the opposite. The few ships being sent were just backup for him. Not because he doubted his ability to take on the fleet as described, but because he could only be in a single place at a time- and he didn’t have the ability to shoot across a system like Anton.
He wondered what the fleet thought when a single person approached. Perhaps he would get an answer, if there were any survivors.
Varghese had used a variety of weapons in the past. Swords and spears and even heavy maces. Given the way he had developed his skills, he was actually best when he had a few things available- but they were best used to fight against individuals. Varghese knew he could take out the ships one at a time, but there were over a hundred ships between personal sized and troop transports. It would take too long to bring them down individually.
That was why he pulled out a large number of metal plates. He did not make them himself, but instead had them crafted by formation masters to augment his abilities. These plates were sent out in all directions as he approached the fleet. Once the furthest of them passed beyond the fleet, Varghese began to draw upon the power of his local star, and the properties of Azun just a single system away.
Before the enemy fleet truly knew what was happening, the ships began crashing into one another. Even if many cultivator ships happened to keep the same aesthetics as sea ships, ultimately few were made primarily of wood. Metal was the material of choice, and even those that had their main structure made out of special wood were still drawn towards the rest. After all, there were always other things to magnetize. Precious metals in formations, weapons and armor of cultivators, crystalline structures that could be charged with electromagnetism despite not otherwise being magnetic.
A few of the ships resisted the pull, their composition and shields happening to sufficiently resist the field. But even they found themselves clipped by other ships being pulled past and through them.
In only a few moments, the hundred or more ships began to drift towards each other, some impacting others and clinging together. Varghese condensed the magnetic power into a smaller space as they drew closer, its effects multiplying as the same power was concentrated over a smaller distance. From a slow drift that they were just barely resisting, the ships suddenly hurtled towards each other, crashing into one giant clump.
Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Explosions of all sorts ranging from stored natural energy to attacks meant to protect one ship or another happened all at once. Only those with the swiftest reactions managed to flee the ships that crashed, and those that had resisted the pull wouldn’t be getting away either.
Varghese’s energy pulled on the disks, flying towards the furthest ships and fleeing cultivators. Imbued with the power of a star, they cut through hull and cultivator alike, displaying power above the Life Transformation stage.
During the chaos, a portion of the ships had managed to fire attacks towards Varghese, but those attacks became uncontrolled in the chaos before reaching him. He was only barely proficient in Star Steps, and he often kept more momentum than intended as he moved through space, but there was nothing to hold him back either. Ship weapons that were mainly meant to hit other vessels of a certain size with particular restrictions on their movement simply didn’t stand a chance of hitting him.
The total power of the enemies certainly outmatched Varghese by a good margin, but they hadn’t been prepared for such an attack. And if all went well, they wouldn’t be prepared for something similar in the future. He kept his output of energy, spread throughout the area to distort any possible forms of communication. While they wouldn't use something specifically affected by electromagnetism, just the disturbance of a blanket of natural energy should stop most transmissions. Others would take time and effort they didn't have.
The portion of the local fleet helped Varghese clean up what was left- cultivators that hastily abandoned their ships and those who had avoided the initial clustering. Varghese picked out a few individuals of decent power to focus on, and hopefully capture.
-----
Far away- though not so far as where they had set out from- two individuals drifted into lower realms Trigold territory. One of them would go unnoticed in any but the most extreme of circumstances, where people were looking in just the right tiny spot of a system. The other was not particularly more noticeable, displaying the power of a single Life Transformation cultivator millions of miles from the nearest living individual. And that was only when she was being careless.
Communication between them was a bit difficult, requiring one move at just the right angle to see the other by the dim light of distant stars. Even the local sun was barely more visible than any other, at their current distance.
“I understand you wish to get involved,” said the human, projecting the words into the bubble of air she had brought along with her. She couldn’t directly affect the target she wanted to hear, so that was a necessary effort. “But keeping your existence mostly unknown is better for now.”
The ant on her palm responded accordingly, her forearms and antennae signing back. “I understand. But we would not have come all this way together if you didn’t think I could help somehow, Nthanda.”
The powerful woman grinned. “Or maybe I just wanted to babysit you. But no… you are right, your people can still provide us useful information. Or perhaps just you, since most of you can’t fly.”
“A mistake one of my daughters has sought to rectify. Too long, I relied on our traditions… but they were meant for those with little. We have much, both food and natural energy. We can afford to have a bit of extravagance in our bodies,” the Great Queen said.
“Well, wings wouldn't let most of you fly through space to begin with,” Nthanda reminded the Great Queen. “And few are as durable as you either.”
“It is true,” the Great Queen admitted. “Which is why I am here and no other. I will visit these planets, and report back to you. And you will report my findings to our people.”
“I guess I can’t really enter the boundary of a planet,” Nthanda admitted. “I can’t fight off a whole planet myself. Probably.”
“It would be better not to try,” the Great Queen said. “And more specifically, you would not want to start close up.”
“We’ll get a bit closer,” Nthanda said. “Then I’ll set up on a rock somewhere. You’ll be able to find your way back, I assume?”
“My memory is more than sufficient to keep track of the orbiting bodies in a single system. And your concealment of your energy is only good enough to hide from those who don’t breathe the stuff.”
“I understand that spying is important,” Nthanda commented. “But I’d rather fight.”
“And I’m sure you will. But we must check out a few places first. If only Anton were here… but he cannot create more to take over his responsibilities. Or rather, it is quite a bit different when humans do so. They’re so picky about such things.”
-----
The Great Queen hurtled towards a planet at great speed. There was a thin planetary barrier that was meant to react to intrusion. When a thumb sized hole opened in it, its reaction was just as it was intended to be. Nothing at all. Many tiny space rocks would pierce through it every day, and if it reacted to absolutely everything they would drain their energy reserves immediately as it remained at full power.
Not that she would have had trouble going through a greater planetary barrier either. There was only so much durability one could put into a small section. Given that the Great Queen could consume more energy in an instant than a Life Transformation cultivator could put into an attack, it couldn’t do anything but let her through. It just would have been a bit more obvious if they lost a huge chunk of energy.
Those looking up in the sky at just the right angle might have noticed a small sparkle as bits of atmosphere ignited due to the drag on the Great Queen’s body. But she was already slowing her own descent, manipulating the natural energy around her to guide her path. Then she slowed to her own terminal velocity, which had her land with a plop upon hard stone roads.
The most important place must have the most energy. So she began to tread towards the tastiest seeming place. She wasn’t actually going to eat whatever she found there, of course. Unless it seemed to be an immediate danger to their Alliance, it would merely be reported back for others to deal with. And she knew that even a single individual mysteriously dying was something humans would go mad about.
Well, actually mysterious deaths were problematic for the void ants as well since usually they were watching over each other. If they didn’t know how some of them died, they had to investigate. It was just that humans were less aware of their surroundings, being so big and all.
But the point was, she didn’t intend to cause any ruckus. And if she did, it would be carefully calculated to be more beneficial to the Alliance than the potential backfire.