Because he had a hold on the captain of one of the larger battleships, Devon didn’t have the spare capacity to continue participating in the ongoing battle. It was a delicate situation, keeping the man’s energy bound in a way that he could not trigger any of the systems without completely sealing him and breaking the connection. Furthermore, this particular captain clearly had a more advanced cultivation than the others.

Outside of the ship, Devon could feel the rest of the battle reaching its peak. Several of the smaller ships had been captured, and an assault was underway on the other larger battleship. Lower Realms Alliance cultivators were infiltrating from as many different directions as possible to force the captain to split her attention. Even so, she clearly had enough power to draw upon to suppress several Assimilation cultivators at once along with several squads of Life Transformation and Essence Collection cultivators.

Moment by moment, Devon's chains wrapped tighter around the man in front of him, sliding into place not for a stronger seal but a more stable one. Devon knew that he could form a lasting configuration of energy, but he needed to make certain it didn’t have any flaws that could be exploited when his attention was gone. Most likely it would only last a few days at most, but he simply needed it to last for the rest of the battle.

More than a few ships from the allied fleet had been destroyed, the natural energy of the crew mixed up with the constant attacks obscuring how many people had perished and how many still survived. Obviously Devon would have preferred if they lost no one, but believing that was possible was far too arrogant. Even as an Enrichment cultivator, he wasn’t untouchable. He would have had difficulty defeating this small fleet alone, six mid-sized ships and two larger ones. Doing so without most of the enslaved cultivators dying would have been far beyond him.

His chains clinked into their final form for the moment, spikes driving none too gently into the flesh of the captain and the inner hull of the ship. If something did happen, Devon hoped it would not go beyond the command deck.

With one captain properly sealed, Devon reached out towards the other largest ship. It seemed that his allies had that one pretty much under control, but he was going to make that a certainty. His chains wrapped around the ship in a sphere, bolstering the power of his allies while suppressing the enemy. Moments later, the assault forces breached the command deck, and the captain was swiftly subdued without the ship to protect her.

Devon moved his attention to one of the smaller ships, and then the next. Somehow, they managed to capture all eight of the enemy ships- though not without losses. There were segments that had been detonated on both the second large ship and several of the smaller ones, with an estimated loss of a thousand lives lost.

Their own side had a handful of smaller and mid-sized ships lost from their fleet, plus losses sustained while boarding the enemy ships. There were likely only half as many dead, but in a certain manner all of the losses felt like theirs. At the current moment, none of their actual enemies were dead. Though they would be, sooner or later.

“We need to move quickly!” Devon advised the fleet. “We don’t know if reinforcements are coming.” Plus, they couldn’t keep the cultivators suppressed indefinitely. They would eventually worm their way through temporary restrictions, which would then allow them to continue the fight- or perhaps worse, detonate their own ships.

Though they hadn’t been seen doing so purposefully for their entire ships, clearly they were not timid about doing it for smaller parts. Most likely they only valued their own lives, but if they figured they were going to die anyway there was no telling what they might do.

The fleet had come knowing that they were going to try to capture enemy ships, so they had various methods to bring them along- as well as the larger wreckage of their own ships so the enemy wouldn’t be able to easily reverse engineer anything.

They hadn’t quite expected to deal with ships of such quantity or size, but they had ships meant to clamp onto others, either pushing or dragging them. Because of the unexpectedly high volume, some of the process was unstable and Devon had to contribute his own chains between the battleships. Ashildr was a great boon, directing formation experts on how to activate the ships’ drives even without the consent of the sealed captains. They were clearly not working close to maximum efficiency, but it eased the process.

“Additional ships detected trailing us,” Maryamu reported as they were nearly at the border of the system. “Ten smaller ones.”

“Can we get away from them?” Devon asked.

“We should be able to activate our subspace drives in a few moments,” she said. “With additional ships and the wreckage of our others, we should still be able to outpace the standard drives of our enemies. However, it will take at least a week to return to our forward base.”

“Maybe we can arrange for a pickup along the way,” Devon said. “We can’t really afford to leave anything behind, but keeping everything will also be tough.”

“I’ll request reinforcements at a meetup point,” Maryamu confirmed.

A few moments later, before the trailing enemy ships were close enough to open fire, their subspace drives were engaged, bringing the whole fleet into a single bubble. In an instant, the trailing ships were no longer within sensory range. The fleet adjusted trajectory slightly within subspace, just enough to throw off potential pursuers in case they were faster than calculated.

Rather than risking disaster, Devon and those others who had energy binding abilities kept their continuous focus on the eight captured cultivators. With the help of Ashildr smoothing out the reactions of their ship formations, Devon was able to keep a hold over the two strongest individuals at the same time. It was a draining task, but his active control allowed him to respond to even the slightest resistance on their part.

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Moving physically between ships while in a combined subspace bubble was difficult, so they had to leave the enslaved cultivators attached to the ships. When they arrived at their designated rally point and returned to real space, they began the process of disconnecting the cultivators while they waited the last few hours for their reinforcements to arrive.

While that was going on, they were able to get reports from the other simultaneous missions. Not all had been so successful with their captures, though the majority of their fleets were able to claim a victory of some sort. One other had encountered something of similar size to the two battleships and was forced to retreat to avoid sustaining heavy casualties. It was troublesome that they had more, but it didn’t seem like they had terribly many.

Accommodating tens of thousands of new and frightened cultivators was a bit tricky, though they weren’t entirely unprepared for such a situation. At least some more socially inclined people had been wise enough to bring some of the other local cultivators along, to help make those who were just freed more comfortable.

There were only about fifty out of the first group at the base, and they had only experienced a few months of freedom, but spread among the new rescues they significantly helped things.

Food and space were tight, though the captured ships did have a small supply of food and a more significant supply of a nutrient slurry that was used to keep the cultivators on the ships alive and ‘healthy’.

Extra supplies were already on the way, but a few of the fastest ships not really meant for transporting supplies were sent as well.

Tensions were high with limited supplies and even more limited space. Beds had to be shared between several individuals, each sleeping in shifts.

Aerona was watching carefully, then soon came to Devon with an idea.

“We’re too separated,” she said. “It’s them and us, still treating them like outsiders. They’re huddling together with people they don’t know for security from what they can only see as new captors, despite our efforts.”

Devon nodded. “I assume you have a solution?”

“That’s right,” she nodded. “It’s pretty simple.”

And that was how Devon found himself standing with his crew in the middle of five thousand people crammed into a dormitory wing. All of those present clearly recognized his energy, though his individual impression of theirs was less distinct.

Aerona was the one announcing them. “The concerted efforts of many different individuals are responsible for your freedom, but the CSS Valor is most directly responsible.”

Devon appreciated her not calling him out specifically, because he knew he was likely to already get too much of the attention. He’d been able to directly focus on a single larger ship because he trusted the crew of the Valor and the rest of the fleet.

“We have not brought you here to have you praise them,” Aerona continued. “We just want you to recognize that there are names and faces behind your rescue.”

After that, the crew went around to meet as many of those around as they could. Rather than being directly swarmed, people gave Devon a wide berth, feeling more comfortable around those of lower cultivation.

The first brave soul to approach Devon was a young man, barely an adult. He was in the Spirit Building stage. “You… I felt you pass by us. And then…”

Devon could feel the young man’s energy was unsteady, not that there were terribly many in a good position. However, he recognized that the source was different. “You… were in that outer segment?”

The young man nodded. “We were nearly detonated. About half of us didn’t make it but… you saved us. And everyone, I guess. So, thanks.”

“You’re welcome,” Devon said.

“You… you fight with chains,” the young man continued. “Why?”

“Because I hate them. And I wanted my enemies to experience the same.”

“Oh,” he nodded. “I get it.” The young man clutched his wrist, which was just one of several marks he had from the constant restraints.

Devon furrowed his brow. “What’s your name, kid?”

“Fen,” he replied.

This kid was far too young to go through what he’d experienced. Not that Devon thought it had been any good when he was older, but at least he’d had a chance to experience a good life for a while. “Wanna learn it?”

“Learn… what?”

“How I fight,” Devon said. “It doesn’t really have a name since I haven’t really been teaching anyone. Most people don’t have the right background, but I could probably teach you.” Devon looked around. “Or anyone else here who wants to learn.”

“Oh. Uh, I mean… could I? I… I don’t know if I deserve that. I don’t even know the name for the stage you’re in.”

“Enrichment,” Devon said.

“That’s… after Life Transformation?”

“Life Transformation, then Assimilation, then Enrichment,” Devon explained.

Fen shivered. “That’s… can I ever become as strong as you?”

Devon shrugged. “Don’t know. But I can definitely make you much stronger than you are now. The rest is up to you.”

And thus it was that Devon unwittingly founded a sect. His style had been personal to himself and his experiences. Of course, he had come across other freed slaves in the past but they had been directed towards more established and stable styles. But at this point, Devon had to say he had a pretty good idea of what he was doing. Obviously he wouldn’t expect everyone to work exactly the same, but with the guidance of many individuals who had gone beyond Life Transformation he had to at least be able to establish a formal cultivation method up to the peak of Life Transformation.

And while there was never any guarantee of success for Ascension or Assimilation, that wasn’t what anyone here really needed. They just needed to feel strong. To be strong enough to overcome what had been done to them.