The ship rose up from Kunion. The Great Queen indicated it was the one that carried the worldheart, which Nthanda had to accept. It was concealed from her senses, but unless they could layer beneath that a very convincing replica, the Great Queen would be correct.
There was but one question to answer. “Where do we bring it down? Do we want to secure it?” Obviously they didn’t want the Void Scrying Sect to have it for whatever purposes they had. But retrieving it themselves seemed problematic as well. It might look like their goal with the war was to acquire a worldheart, and seem as if they were responsible for the system’s destruction. And while the Lower Realms Alliance and Shining Cooperative would know better, it was still something to consider.
Nthanda’s bow was drawn back to full. There was no way she was going to let the ship escape. She just waited for the Great Queen’s response, pointing towards a location. “Fearsome Menagerie,” she signed.
Nthanda nodded. With the information they had gathered, that made sense. The shapeshifters weren’t known to have a hand in the destruction of Zunrose, and they should have at least had a decent sized branch there. That should cause maximum trouble.
As the ship began to leave atmosphere, Nthanda’s arrow shot around the planet, making a full circle before it impacted the ship from her intended direction. She didn’t have a direct angle to propel the ship in the direction she had wanted, so she made one. It was easier to take advantage of the planet’s own gravitational pull than to adjust the trajectory of her arrow all on its own.
The arrow was made out of the sturdiest and densest materials she could get, merely so that it could survive the acceleration of her bow. The bow itself had a draw weight that only someone with a body tempering focused cultivation could consistently fire. But here, she only needed the single shot to bring down the ship.
The ship’s barrier was destroyed, the impact sending the whole thing off course as the impact was spread throughout the hull of the ship. But that was imperfect, the arrow still piercing through its layers to come out the other side.
The barriers broken, Nthanda could sense the worldheart. Which meant she could target it. The ship was going down, but it was difficult to make it land properly in the Fearsome Menagerie’s territory given its previous trajectory. A second arrow went out, the ship unable to respond with the damage it had already sustained. The captain made a brave and ultimately useless sacrifice as he was pierced through, crashing into the mass of worldheart and being blasted out of the ship with the metal.
Nthanda couldn’t have lined things up better if she had coordinated with the Void Scrying Sect cultivators. And the reason they were so surprised… was because they focused on predicting fluctuations of natural energy. She didn’t have overwhelming power that disrupted their predictions- instead a sort they didn’t even consider.
Nthanda was impressed how the unrefined worldheart held up. It seemed completely unperturbed at her attack, even without proper working and enchantments. She wanted some. Too bad its origins were so foul.
As it turned out, the kinetic energy of a piece of worldheart propelled down from orbit was enough to break through planetary barriers and sect covering barriers alike- though in fairness, the planetary barrier was only at moderate power. It was meant to cover widespread bombardments, not focused attacks. And again, completely without her intention, Nthanda marveled at the perfectly lined up things as a Void Scrying Sect cultivator crashed into some sort of dragon statue in the Fearsome Menagerie’s sect grounds. Just behind the worldheart ‘ore’ which did the majority of the damage, obviously.
Nthanda whistled. “I was aiming for the center of the sect, but that was even better than I thought. This should be good.”
The Great Queen nodded in agreement.
Would it matter that the Void Scrying Sect was shot out of the sky unwillingly into the sect grounds? Sure. But not as much as one might think. This was definitely a time that hotheadedness might win out. And the Fearsome Menagerie wasn’t known for being calm and collected.
Nthanda also hoped the void ants she’d flung had properly arrived at her other target. That was… still uncertain. She’d find out later, as she didn’t want to hang around for anyone to come find her above their planet.
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The private was not supposed to be among the elite forces the Great Queen had brought with her. No, frankly he shouldn’t have even had a rank at all. He was a drone, after all. It was his duty to mate and then die. And yet, he hadn’t died. He hadn’t wanted to die. So he’d torn off his own wings and tried to blend in by lying with his pheromones as much as possible. He’d joined the combat forces, snuck into the lines of a special forces group, and now his job was to not get crushed.
Oh, and to not let anyone else get crushed. At least he came with the coordination instincts where they could manage that. Each of them were spread out as much as possible as they neared their target. Being accelerated to their current speed had been the most terrifying thing he’d ever experienced. He could withstand natural energy with the rest of them, but arms simply weren’t meant to move that fast.
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It was looking like he was going to get a new most terrifying experience, as they were coming up on the other end. Their bundle of void ants coordinated as they approached their target… and they were just a little bit off. Without a proper word between them, half of them pushed off, sending the others just barely into the ship’s trajectory.
The private was among the latter by sheer luck, though he would not have begrudged anyone had he been in the alternative group. This was important.
The impact of the ship broke many of them, and even the private had one leg dangling uselessly. But enough of them survived, now one with the ship.
It was to their great benefit that formations were used to make up for a lack of perfect air tightness. Ruteran technology had no such flaws. Perhaps different, unknown flaws, but not that flaw. Many tiny wires that were easy to bite might count there.
Either way, the private was one of many who dragged themselves through small cracks in the joints of the ship, working together to get all who were mobile through. Finally, they could allow their bodies to function properly again. Many of those on the outer layer had frozen and lost the last of their air. Unlike the Great Queen, the rest of the void ants couldn’t survive in empty space for indefinite periods. Sustaining themselves on only natural energy wasn’t sufficient. Though they could last quite a while.
As one, they moved towards the greatest sources of natural energy. First were the formations, which they slipped through and then began to dismantle. None of them were formation masters, so they didn’t fully know which ones were for barriers, or which ones were for powering propulsion. They were mostly interconnected anyway, so they just began taking things apart until cultivators began rushing over.
Then the private ended up on the end of a chain of void ants that swung down from the ceiling. Along with a few others, he landed on a cultivator and began aiming for all of the most vulnerable points around the head and neck. Upon realizing that their natural energy wasn’t crushing the attackers, they began to smack at their own body- sometimes propelled by natural energy. But the void ants were trained about the best places to move in such circumstances. Most of them survived. And that cultivator, along with the others, fell to their loss of blood from opened veins and to a lesser extent self inflicted wounds.
More void ants died than cultivators, but there were more of them to begin with. It was an acceptable trade. And the private yet lived.
He was drawn into a mobility formation, a mesh of ants rolling along. He automatically began flexing his limbs to contribute to the momentum at key points. They were headed deeper into the ship, towards the inner formations concealing something.
There, they found sealed containers filled with many glass vials. The void ants worked together to destroy the vials in any way possible. Unfortunately… there was very little natural energy in the substances. Some of one of them washed over the private, and he could feel it eating away at his carapace. Dangerous. But a necessary risk. He only had so much time left, so he charged towards another vial, crunching through the enchanted glass. More substances spilled over him, washing away some of the previous chemicals. But these too were unpleasant.
Again and again, he and the others broke apart everything they could. The private noted how some ate away at everything but the glass. Others, however, felt rather refreshing as they poured over him. Like pure water. He continued to stagger forward, one bad leg and some partially melted carapace. There was yet more to be done. They didn’t need to know what these were for. Only that their enemies saw fit to conceal them.
Eventually, he reached his limits and consciousness faded… but he was left with the satisfaction of a job well done. He wondered if void ants got to do the reincarnation thing that humans did. That might be nice. He would like to live, so he could do more.
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Zunrose was a system used to heavy traffic, but ever since the destruction of the system very few passed through- even though there was no more danger. Or rather, Varghese wasn’t going to destroy ships simply passing through without reason. Not because he had pity for his enemies, but to conceal what he could actually do with the distorted neutron star that remained.
He felt something entering the system once again. He casually paid attention, until he determined that the trajectory of the handful of ships was aimed towards him. Towards the star.
If they were simply intending to observe, he would have humored them. But the moment they launched something towards him, he reacted. His instincts had already been on edge, as they told him these weren’t curious observers or truth-seekers.
He drew upon the power of the star and lashed out, string thin whips of extremely dense matter slicing through ships and causing them to collapse around those very strings as they passed through. A pulse of energy pushed the capsules away from the star, as he was unwilling to simply assume the heat of the star would properly consume them. Not if they were intended for something involving it.
He had a sneaking suspicion he knew what they were after. He sensed Void Scrying Sect cultivations, and a few more. And he realized that while a worldheart was highly valuable, it might not be sufficient for them to act so brazenly.
He felt it within the star, when he had lashed out. The core of its power, denser even than the rest of the neutron star. If the heart of a world was of great value, how much more the heart of a star? That might be worth betraying a whole alliance for. Or perhaps it was simply an experiment from those in the upper realms, who thought nothing for those who shared their names down below. Or at least those of other sects.
Varghese could see either option being the case, and neither option was better than the other. Either way, they would not achieve their goals, and not just because he wanted to protect a chunk of his cultivation.