The news about the actual potential to harm Zaur spread quickly throughout the local Alliance. Even though they were embroiled in combat, the information that he wasn’t actually invincible was useful. Being able to defeat him was another matter entirely. He might eventually be worn down by their numbers, but not before the remaining fleets arrived. That meant fighting the whole of the enemy forces while many were tired or injured… and where some were already dead.

The Scarlet Alliance hardly had Augmentation cultivators to spare, but Kseniya’s ploy had still been a worthy attempt to take out their greatest opponent. Presuming they could drive back the Exalted Quadrant without losing any Augmentation cultivators was simply unrealistic.

Even their assault with the formations crushing Zaur had only caused him the most minor of injuries, and it looked as if they would have to retreat. That was not something they had ever hoped to do, as fleeing all the way to Xankeshan would essentially leave the rest of the Scarlet Alliance open to the Exalted Quadrant. Their promises of protection would be almost entirely worthless… even if they hadn’t intended them falsely.

Then there was another matter. They might not even be able to flee, because there was a mysterious force entering the system. Catarina had shifted her attention to monitor them when the external formations restraining Zaur were ruined. Everyone was just waiting for someone to call the retreat. Staying to fight would only mean more deaths, unless they found some sort of flaw that would allow them to seriously injure or kill Zaur.

Catarina bit her lip. It was difficult to think rationally when Timothy was one of those at risk, repeatedly striking forward to hinder Zaur for even another moment while in the process sustaining more and more injuries. He was supported by many other cultivators, of course, but there was only so much they could do when their attacks barely seemed to scratch Zaur’s energy.

A ten meter wide pillar of light blasted towards Alva, who was firing upon Zaur from a distance. Somehow, Timothy managed to maneuver himself to block… but Catarina could sense both his energy and the durability of his shield dropping rapidly. She almost thought to join the fight herself, even though she knew that she was needed to manage the formations while they continued to evacuate civilians.

Then, she felt it. A brief blip in the overwhelming flow of energy from Zaur, and then his attention suddenly shifted from attacking Scarlet Alliance cultivators, all at once condensing his light tightly around himself.

A crackly voice echoed down upon Lonkeon. “You’re a long way from home, Zaur.”

Even though she heard the voice, Catarina wasn’t able to resolve it to coming from a particular location. Nor could she sense the energy of this mysterious cultivator. Could it be the hidden fleet? Indeed, their sensors were picking up something, though the readings were distorted by Zaur’s presence nearby.

“Ratna.” Zaur spit out the word like the foulest curse. “I should have expected this Scarlet Alliance was working with some of your ilk. None but the Trigold Cluster have the guts to stand up to us.”

A deep cackle echoed around the planet. “Sorry to tell you, but you’re wrong. I was just tipped off to your presence here. And from what I can tell, you were having a hard time with these kids.”

Sensing the shifting energy of Zaur, Catarina realized that they weren’t simply talking. It was just that their battle was happening on a level difficult to perceive. Zaur’s physical body was moving beneath his aura of brilliance, but just like looking directly at the sun would blow out vision, so too did directly sensing his energy burn a lasting imprint. One that didn’t remain true.

The sudden appearance of new damage on the orbital platform supported that theory, and then it began to break into larger chunks, with whatever portions got close to Zaur disintegrating. And that happened to cultivators as well, the first few Scarlet Alliance members who thought they would take advantage of the distraction to harm Zau.

“I’m not on your side, kids.” The voice that was presumably Ratna declared. “But I’m also not here for you just yet. So just stay out of my way.”

Not that anyone seemed able to interfere anyway. Catarina focused her senses and finally began to pick out the deeper flow of energy. She couldn’t pick out the other vessels with Ratna. Were they waiting for something? She certainly didn’t sense them participating.

However, she did manage to pick out more details about the battle happening. Zaur’s zone of movement had widened, and the two of them were tearing about the very expensive orbital defense platform. Zaur seemed to finally be countering with attacks of his own, very concentrated slivers of light that seemed to disappear randomly, along with other sections of his defensive aura. For the first time, Catarina could actually sense a dip in his total energy.

“Uzun,” Catarina spoke through their comms directly to the lead Engineer. “Focus on the incoming Quadrant fleet. I’m going to keep my attention on this battle, and the barrier.” She winced as the two of them scraped past the planetary barrier, deflecting off of it only because they came in at a shallow angle. Yet dropping the barrier would absolutely subject the planet below to collateral damage. But if she was only focusing on them, perhaps she could redirect its flow somehow…

If you come across this story on Amazon, it's taken without permission from the author. Report it.

-----

Sly was unsuccessfully trying to ignore the largest battle he’d ever been near as the enemy approached. His attention finally managed to focus when Kigal’s presence came into his mind. Ah well, looks like he had a grudge match to get to. His half healed bones crackled as he stretched his body, and he looked around at the others with them… those who could still fight. Too many of them were already down for the count due to Zaur. Perhaps they should have waited… but they had no basis to expect that a mysterious individual would show up and attack their greatest enemy.

Zaur fighting alongside these incoming fleets that had constantly pushed them back… would have been a massacre. He could have taken out Augmentation cultivators left and right. They might have all been wiped out before the mysterious Ratna revealed herself.

Sly cracked his neck. Thinking about what might have been was for suckers. Instead, it was his job to think about how he could make things as difficult as possible for Kigal.

-----

Chikere had come to the realization that her favored opponents were no longer part of their enemy forces, and thus she’d found herself directed to fight against the Citadel of Exalted Light. The reasoning was quite simple. They used light, she could cut light. Though really that would have been a good reason for her to fight any of the incoming enemies. Except maybe the Hardened Crown Sect. Her battle with the Limitless Edge had been enlightening, but not so much in terms of cutting annoyingly durable enemies.

Since the other major option was distortion beasts and the Fanboys of the Beyond or whatever, the Citadel seemed like a good target. Besides, that one lady who worked for them had been the one who captured her during her low point. Chikere still wanted revenge for that, though she didn’t see whatever her name was here today.

She did see one person who had been pointed out as ‘Laurit’ however. An Augmentation cultivator she might fight if it wasn’t too annoying. Otherwise she could just cut down the rest of them and leave that for… well, not Prasad, Timothy, or unfortunately Kseniya. Maybe Alva. Or Zazil, except the part where she’d up and vanished. No wait, there she was standing among the Beyond Boys.

Well, not Chikere’s problem.

Waiting for her enemies to come to her wasn’t her style, so once they were close enough she cut a tiny little hole in space and hopped closer. “Hey you!” Yeah this Augmentation woman didn’t have a sword so her name was already gone. “Catch!”

Chikere gave her an easy one. A wide swipe. Nothing simpler to dodge than that. And as it turned out, she did dodge it. The same couldn’t be said for the ship or half of the crew, however. They should have learned to duck. Or instantly shift a hundred meters at the speed of light like this lady.

Alright, Chikere realized she might actually have fun with this one. Time to see how she reacted to two simultaneous attacks. Then three. Then maybe a hundred.

-----

Tauno grimaced as he saw Zazil. It wasn’t just his annoyance that Prasad might be right. It was that he hadn’t seen any of it coming. His memories filled in hundreds of tiny signs of their time together… but Tauno knew those could just as easily be false flags based on his current understanding of the situation.

“How does this even make sense?” he demanded without preamble.

“The situation is quite different from when we fought the Harmonious Citadel,” Zazil shrugged. “Different situations require making the best choice.”

“Yeah well…” Tauno pointed half a dozen spines towards her, menacingly causing them to grow. “We’re going to have a very violent talk after I cut down the rest of these fellows.”

Zazil just smiled. “I’m looking forward to it.”

Tauno hadn’t actually been standing around talking for nothing. He was giving the Disciples of the Beyond time to figure out there were no local distortion beasts to call upon, which meant then combining their efforts to form a greater projection between all of them.

He didn’t let them enter their combined battle form out of some sort of misplaced arrogance or the desire to fight the biggest monster and prove himself. He already knew full well he could beat monsters half the size of planets if it came down to it. Which was the whole point. The Dancing Slayer Sect could absolutely kill humans… but they were specialists at fighting monsters. And taking down one big beastie was much more straightforward.

There was a small problem he hadn’t anticipated involving Zazil. She distributed about half of her weird floating rings to each of herself and the local bigwig of the Disciples, Zhelyazko. Those rings were useful for attack, defense, and augmenting energy. So perhaps the beast would be a bit stronger than anticipated.

But even so, Tauno watched without worry as their combined monster began to stretch through and behind space. Then when he was sure it was in place, he charged forward into one of its open mouths, a wave of Dancing Slayer Sect disciples following along with him- though some chose to attack externally.

As teeth bit down around Tauno, he flexed his body… and the spikes around him expanded and expanded. Ten meters, a hundred meters… they could probably go further, if he could wrap his head around it. But either way, they did a great job of stabbing between the endless rows of teeth into whatever flesh happened to be available. And the spikes didn’t care too much about whether those bits were hiding behind normal space.

Tauno twisted and flexed. He couldn’t really rotate with the spikes extended, and he kind of wished he could have gotten one of those beasts with the parts that were nearly infinitely sharp in all directions. But the extending spikes were great too. He agitated the beast around him and when they decided to try to reshape the beast around him, he snapped the spikes in more closely and dove deeper.

His goal was to reach the cultivators themselves, seemingly safe hidden inside their great distortion beast. And perhaps they were slightly safer. But now that Tauno was inside, they couldn’t really move away from him… and he could keep moving closer to them. As long as they didn’t grow too many new teeth inside his lungs and devour him from the inside out, but he was more prepared for such a situation than they might realize.

He was going to cut them apart, and then he was going to have a very pointy talk with his former ally.