With every move Sly matched Kigal’s strikes, he felt his body ache. His bones creaked, threatening to break again. And yet, the fight he was directly engaged in wasn’t as impactful as another fight happening nearby. The waves of energy from the battle of two Domination cultivators were fortunately equally damaging to both sides.

Obviously they could move their battle further away, but the Hardened Crown Sect wasn’t full of wimps.

“How’s it feel to fight someone in the same stage as you for once?” Sly commented as the two of them clashed.

“I’ll let you know when it happens,” Kigal responded. “Just because you broke through to Augmentation doesn’t mean you can defeat me. Not everyone within a stage is the same.”

“Clearly not,” Sly said. “Otherwise you wouldn’t have lost last time.”

The response to that involved Kigal’s fists slamming down on Sly, sending him bouncing off of the planetary barrier, only to be slammed back down again before he could arrest his momentum. “Lost? Hardly. Your surprise knocked me far enough away that I couldn’t rejoin the battle in a reasonable timeframe, but it’s not like I was injured. Unlike you, with every rib broken.”

“Broken bones grow back stronger,” Sly countered, standing shakily. “That’s why you’re going to lose.”

“Idiot. They haven’t even had time to heal yet.”

Sly shrugged. He didn’t particularly care about that.

-----

Chikere circled around her opponent, cutting down anyone who dared to get too close to their mutual battle while keeping Laurit between her and the battle of the Domination cultivators. Chikere had gotten used to the woman’s lightspeed steps, and was beginning to glean the deeper patterns of her movements. Anywhere she went she would find Chikere was ready to attack, keeping her constantly on her toes. Those constant movements did make it more difficult for Chikere to keep Laurit on the side of the Domination battle, however.

“Can’t handle the shockwaves?” Laurit commented.

“You’re the one who seems to be having trouble with it.”

“Hmph, hardly. I’ve experienced the might of Zaur up close before.”

“Yeah, you do seem like the sort who gets up close and personal,” Chikere commented, her face mostly neutral.

Laurit’s eye twitched… and with two sudden movements, she was immediately behind Chikere, her palm pressed against her back. Light surged from her palm… but the results weren’t exactly what she was expecting. She pierced through Chikere’s defensive energy, but an instantaneous counter found her suddenly withdrawing her hand and retreating to a great distance.

She felt like she’d been stabbed thousands of times, and her palm was dripping blood. Fortunately, she’d pulled away fast enough that she wasn’t chopped to pieces… because she hadn’t been far from that. Meanwhile, she saw Chikere standing in her same position. At least there was a clear wound on her back with blood dripping from it.

“If you don’t pay attention to me, you’re going to regret it,” Laurit commented.

“... but the battle over there is so much more interesting,” Chikere replied.

Laurit frowned. This lower realms brat thought she was something special. But could she handle Domination shockwaves along with Laurit’s own attacks? Doubtful. She held her position, waiting for the perfect timing. It came when a spear of light from Zaur blasted in the general direction of their battlefield. Laurit was flooded with power, while Chikere’s energy flow trembled.

Learning from her previous mistake, Laurit wove through the field of blood that the sword cultivator used. She stopped slightly further from Chikere. Her blood would take a moment to reach her, but Laurit’s attacks came at the speed of light. Dual fists punched forward, striking directly at her back.

Then her arms were cut apart from the inside, her flow of light flowing into the void and never reaching her target. “... how?”

“I cut you,” Chikere said. “Obviously. And I just copied her,” Chikere pointed towards Ratna, the other Domination cultivator. “But you know… sharper.”

“That doesn’t even make sense,” Laurit grimaced. “The Veiled Brilliance isn’t that sort of technique.”

Chikere turned her head to look over her shoulder. “I told you. Sharper. Also, you really should have been paying attention.”

Laurit only briefly comprehended why her vision grew fuzzy. Perhaps if she’d had longer to think about it, she would have realized that was a haze of Chikere’s blood-swords. But she was already surrounded and wounded, so she was quickly finished off without the opportunity to realize why.

Chikere shook her head. “So rude. She kept interrupting while I was watching the fight.” Some others from the Citadel of Exalted Light had as well. Now, there weren’t so many of them left in the immediate vicinity.

-----

Tauno twisted and tore his way through the distortion beast projected by the Disciples of the Beyond. Each wound he caused was more than just a slice of energy taken from them, but something more as he found his way closer to the core of the beast and their most prominent cultivators.

Zhelyazko was there, along with Zazil. Protected and enhanced by her, even. Tauno had picked out where they were hiding within the beast, and pulled out one of his favorite bone axes to slice away the beast around them. Their faces were revealed to him, including a smiling Zazil.

The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

And then… something odd happened. Tauno punched forward, extending spines running parallel to his wrist and towards Zhelyazko. He expected to find great resistance with the man’s own energy augmented by Zazil’s rings… but instead the spikes pierced through the man like paper. Or like he was attacking a bound captive.

The look of surprise on the man’s face indicated he hadn’t expected it either, and Zhelyazko barely turned his head towards Zazil. His mouth moved, but no sound came out.

Well, Tauno was probably going to ask pretty much the same question. He flicked his wrist to make sure the man was well and truly dead, then focused his eyes on Zazil. “What the hell was that, huh?”

“What did it look like?” Zazil asked, her rings pulling away from the dead man and settling into a wobbly orbit around her.

“A desperate attempt to rescind your betrayal and get back into my good graces.”

“Oh,” Zazil said. “I suppose that does make sense, but… if you look at the bigger picture you’ll find I never stopped being on your side.”

“What about the part where you enhanced the big beastie these guys made?” Tauno gestured, vaguely realizing that the projection was falling apart with the loss of its core cultivator. And he hadn’t been the only one attacking, of course.

“That was just for show.”

“Yeah, well, your show might have helped kill hundreds of our own people.”

“Is that too much?” Zazil asked. “In exchange for an Augmentation cultivator, I don’t think that’s the case.” She shook her head. “I didn’t think you would take this so poorly,” she said. “Just speak to Prasad. He’ll tell you.”

Tauno shifted his body, retracting some of his spikes while extending others. Some went towards Zazil, others targeted other members of the Disciples of the Beyond who were suddenly finding themselves more vulnerable. “How convenient. I’m sure you chose an incapacitated cultivator as your cover exactly for that reason. He was the one most convinced you were a traitor. If you were really doing this just for an opportunity, why not tell me?”

“Because you’re a crap actor,” Zazil said.

“... Okay but-”

“Look, it’s pretty clear who’s going to lose this battle… aside from whatever happens with those Domination cultivators. Perhaps if you’re so concerned about the loss of allied lives we should get to fighting. The Exalted Quadrant would obviously not be fond of my presence since I openly helped you kill that guy,” she gestured. “I promise you can take me in and verify later.”

“So you’re telling me to trust you instead of Prasad. But you trusted Prasad to pretend to not trust you. So if I don’t trust him, and you’re telling the truth, maybe I shouldn’t trust you?” Tauno tilted his head to the side. “Ah, whatever. Just kill those guys and we’ll talk later,” Tauno gestured to an area that still had quite a few Disciples of the Beyond. There were still more than a few enemy Augmentation cultivators among enemy forces.

-----

Little by little, the battle of the Domination cultivators began to shift away from the planetary barrier of Lonkeon. Catarina breathed a sigh of relief, because whether or not it was a temporary situation neither she nor the barrier would have lasted much longer.

That Ratna woman… certainly, Catarina hadn’t heard about her being on their side. Nor did she seem to be taking any care for what collateral damage happened. The battle only seemed to be moving away from the planet because Zaur was actually moving. And if she wasn’t wrong… he was retreating.

The two masses of energy beating on each other had actually diminished somewhat. They were probably still near two thirds of their total capacity, but it was a measurable diminishment in their power.

If the two were exchanging words, they weren’t giving anyone the courtesy of a nice field of energy to transmit that information… and Catarina’s sensory energy crumbled anytime she got close. So she could only passively observe what was happening.

If that was the case, she should make use of some local technology. Nothing fancy, just some telescopes with cameras on them to record things. When she accessed the system, she found Uzun had already activated them and was focused on the battle. Even with the filters preventing a complete white-out of the screen, following the battle was difficult. Flashes of movement in one spot led Zaur to appear somewhere else and required a refocus to get him back in their sight.

Perhaps only a third of the time did they have anything more than a blurry image. But Catarina thought she saw some wounds on the man… and that was backed up by his energy growing unsteady.

And then… he was gone. No, he simply appeared a vast distance away, and the sense of his energy was out of reach for a moment. Even within the gravity well of a system, it seemed Zaur was able to move significantly faster than the speed of light. They’d observed it to a small extent before, when Kseniya provoked him, but his current flight seemed to be much more than that.

Perhaps they should thank this Ratna. Or maybe it would be better to do nothing unless she addressed them first. She hadn’t seemed the friendliest sort, and was just here to fight an old rival of sorts.

Ratna’s energy followed after Zaur, but her ability to catch up to the fleeing individual seemed limited. Even so, the whole battlefield noticed the event… which brought about a huge shift in morale. Whatever parts of the battlefield were in favor of the Exalted Quadrant suddenly began to collapse, while those already in the favor of the Scarlet Alliance quickly turned into a massacre.

-----

“Looks like it’s time for me to go,” Kigal said.

“Hah. I won,” Sly grinned.

“Hardly. You’re a few moments from death. At most, you could say it was a draw.”

Sly coughed. “That’s right. And you were also right about me being weaker than you. I really am. Which means that because it’s a draw, I win.”

“I- you-” the old woman’s face wrinkled in annoyance, but seeing the approaching enemy cultivators she just shook her head. “Think whatever your thick skull wants. It doesn’t make it true. That said, it’s clear that the Exalted Quadrant had lost here today… even if I haven’t.”

Sly watched her leave. He wondered if that meant she considered herself not as part of them. Or maybe the Hardened Crown Sect. He might have thought of more if he’d remained conscious for longer. Instead, he passed out and was drawn into Lonkeon’s gravity, where his fall was cushioned by the barrier.

He would be picked up later by one of their ships, once they were available.

Even though they knew they had won, a great victory for the Scarlet Alliance, the majority of them were already thinking about what would happen next time. But instead of despairing about their lack of strength, they simply resolved to grow even more. They might not be a match for the powers around them yet… but handling even a small slice of them was good enough.

And while they hadn’t caused the majority of the injuries of the Domination cultivator themselves, there would be information about what little they had done. Only accomplishing a small wound would be treated as a badge of honor at how they had grown rather than a sign of their own weakness. Next time, they would do more, both individually and with the Alliance as a whole.