After a visit to Akrys, Anton found himself at the northern end of the lower realms, as they knew them. This was his best chance to test his actual progress with an outside perspective available.

Outside of a planet, there was nothing akin to a horizon. To that end, a name like Horizon Shot was inappropriate. But none of the names Anton had gone through were particularly better. And in a way, perhaps the name was still appropriate on a grander scale. Shooting between disconnected horizons, to the edge of systems, beyond a galaxy…

The latter was far beyond the scale Anton could comprehend. But his range had improved significantly. With adjacent systems bound to him, he could manage to reach one from the other with an arrow- though perhaps it might be more efficient for him to launch an attack from the second star.

But he couldn’t bind to stars in the upper realms. He couldn’t even get close, and even thinking about it made him feel queasy. The local energy there would reject him, with his practice of Fleeting Youth.

He sent a message ahead of him to Crossed Antennae. The void ant queen should be the one most able to detect whether he was successful. Anton himself should know, but he might lose connection to his attack at some point. It would be weak and dissipate rapidly if it did arrive, so he was not worried about collateral damage.

His fingers traced along the spine of his bow. Worldheart was the material, and Anton continued to wonder where Everheart had acquired it- either the material or the bow itself. He’d given it up rather easily, but perhaps he’d had the intentions to take it back from Anton later. The man could have destroyed a world for the worldheart, and Anton couldn’t say he would put it past him. But something about the bow felt melancholy. Whoever had constructed it had some connection to the world that birthed his bow. This was not something stolen through devastation, but something reclaimed after a tragedy. At least, that was what his instincts told him. If he had suspected a more foul origin, he would have rid himself of it long before.

The soulstring also spoke of the deaths of many. Anton hoped he was worthy of the legacy of those who had died. And he hoped to be worthy of fighting for those who yet lived.

The war with the lower realms Trigold cultivators was something that needed to be taken seriously, but Anton was already looking beyond to what came next. And for that, he needed to continue to grow.

He drew back his bow, a single arrow created to near perfection. It flew forward from his bow, along with his thoughts. Time and space distorted around him. There was a nearly unfathomable distance between star systems, and the nothingness between upper and lower realms where neither energy lived seemed to tear away at him. But then, he reached the ascension energy. He let his connection fade, as it lunged towards him.

There was that issue he still had to consider. Energy from him could still be recognized as an enemy. That would mean any of his attacks couldn’t pierce very far into the upper realms. But then again, he didn’t really need to. Distance was the important part.

He spent the next several days attempting the same shot again and again, just hoping to get it close enough to Bounty that Crossed Antennae would be able to notice. And he tried to prevent its decay, not only from time and distance but from clashing with upper energy.

He did get a message confirming something being sensed- but Crossed Antennae noted it was mostly irrelevant at that distance. And Anton was okay with that, because that was only how things were at the moment. The most important thing was he wasn’t playing tricks on himself. His spirit arrows could reach that far, with sufficient control. All he had to do was improve them so that he could actually be effective from a better range than simply the edge of a system. Three to five lightyears… was a big ask. The travel time on such shots, even traveling through subspace at tremendous speeds, was such that he required some way to predict a target. That was especially so since his senses couldn’t really stretch that far.

Perhaps it was a foolish task, seeking infinity when he’d already reached far beyond what people considered as practical limits. And to those people, Kseniya would probably say they were fools. What the archer lacked in tact and teaching ability she did make up for with gumption and talent. She should still be kicking around in the upper realms. He would have certainly heard if she had perished. Perhaps he should try to arrange some sort of exchange at the border… though without the Tides of the World she couldn’t come down, and he could never go up.

-----

The first wave of fleets from the Shining Cooperative and the Lower Realms Alliance had been quite rapidly mobilized, as such things went. Now after the troubles with Zunrose and the fear it had imbued people with, no proper fleets had entered Trigold space in over a decade. Only tiny groups of scouts and the like, but no proper assaults.

And if things had resulted in a peaceful stalemate, they might have remained that way for a century. But the Trigold Cluster had not ceased their assaults, attempting to reach their planets with vile weapons of all sorts. Virulent molds, prolific poisons, and even packets of viruses and bacteria in weaponized forms. Many of them were able to feed on natural energy, and without pure technology it would have been nearly impossible to contain or study them. Even then, it was difficult- and the best and brightest minds were constantly occupied thinking of counters should any of these weapons slip past their system patrols.

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The unfortunate experience on the planet Mazlerth had been on the brink of total disaster, but in some ways it was fortunate that the planet was just developing. It slowed the spread of the mold with the lower population, and gave time to prepare a proper response. Without testing some of the other options, they couldn’t be certain how to respond- and it was not something they could easily do. Even if they were willing to infect humans, it wouldn’t mimic a natural environment.

Thus, their best options had been to prevent deaths had seemed to be remaining on the defensive. But they had finally started the process to move out again. The Shining Cooperative simply couldn’t afford to maintain the stalemate, and the Lower Realms Alliance had plans to at least weaken the structure of the enemy. If they could find who was responsible for the biological attacks, they could destroy wherever the weapons were kept and whoever was making and distributing them.

Then they only had to worry about fleet to fleet combat, and while the Trigold Cluster had a large population and many ships, their quality was lower than either group fighting against them. The Shining Cooperative had already had ships that were pushing past the ascension barrier of power, and now they had Assimilation cultivators as well.

Varghese was looking forward to taking active steps again… and he was comfortable enough with his ability to attack from stars that In’istra would be safe. Unless the enemy slipped massive fleets past them, which was more difficult than it might seem even with the vast amount of space and angle of attack that were possible. After all, a mass of fleets would have an energy signature that could be picked up from an adjacent system- or sometimes further. The Lower Realms Alliance had a network of satellites spread along the border that should pick up anything of that magnitude easily, but they themselves were low enough power that a fleet could pass right through their systems without noticing them. Not that they were perfectly camouflaged, but it was more likely than not they would be passed over.

With over a decade of recovery after having a bound star destroyed in Zunrose, Varghese had mostly repaired his damaged cultivation. He was ready to risk himself again, and much more capable of countering a similar assault to the first time. If the Trigold Cluster had multiple different ways to destroy stars, they would likely had been far more successful with subsequent attacks not on their own people. And Varghese could now wipe out a fleet that was foolish enough to approach one of his bound stars, as long as he was in the system.

Their growing momentum along with the internal friction in their enemies meant this was the best time for them to make a move. Their morale was back to something like a peak, relative to how it would have been, and the incident in Kunion had to have been noticed by more than just Tor and his people.

-----

Nthanda and the Great Queen, the former with nearly no energy signature and the latter with none, were part of a group watching Kunion for movements of the worldheart. Whatever they wanted to do with it, the Alliance didn’t want to be done. So when a ship stealthily landed within the grounds of the Void Scrying Sect, retrieving a mysterious shipment before setting off, Nthanda was ready to shoot it down.

But a nip at her limited natural energy caught her attention. The Great Queen looked at her. “It is a decoy. Or at the very least, it does not contain the worldheart.”

“And yet they took the effort to hide the ship. So it should have something important.”

“Agreed,” the Great Queen signed. “But perhaps not as important.”

“So I should let them go?”

“Not at all. I would simply suggest we take that one down subtly.”

“And by that you mean…?”

“Toss some of my subordinates into its trajectory. With precision.”

Nthanda grinned. “A difficult task, to not crush them while giving them enough velocity to match a ship going who knows where. I imagine they’re more likely to perish than not.”

“A sincere attempt will be acceptable.”

“Just because you wouldn’t feel bad about it doesn’t mean I wouldn’t.”

“I would feel their loss,” the Great Queen said. “But I believe it worth the risk.”

Nthanda sighed. “Get some volunteers, then.” Though she asked for volunteers, in truth any void ant would volunteer if the Great Queen asked for any. It wasn’t a concept she quite got. Even if working towards a common goal, she still saw herself as an individual. And she knew that these ants were developed enough to be more than mindless insects.

But how many lives was it worth to stop whatever was on that mysterious ship? How many deaths could they cause with some sort of weapon? It could be a whole planet. Or multiple. And she just had to not crush the ants.

Soon enough she had a clump of ants the size of her fist. She had asked them to remain loose, so they could absorb the shock. Then she chased after the ship herself as it angled out of the system, trying to reduce the amount of instantaneous acceleration the void ants would have to experience. When she determined the time was right, considering the velocities involved and likely changes in trajectory, she tossed the void ants.

If she missed, they would die from exposure before they could be retrieved, which might be a worse death than being crushed. And yet… they had simply clamored to be a part of the operation, to the point she’d had to force some to remain behind.

Visual confirmation told her that the bundle of ants was properly flying through the empty space towards her target, and intact. She just hoped that their velocity would be close enough to the ship when they crossed paths.

But she couldn’t think about that long, because the Great Queen was prompting her. Now was the time for the ship carrying the worldheart. She readied her bow. They most likely had barriers with excellent energy defenses, but could they survive the kinetic energy equivalent to a full ship impact, compressed into the space of an arrow? She doubted it.