Arrows rained down on one of the Magnitude III ships assaulting the Lower Realms’ Alliance forward outpost. Allies from Akrys were upon the ship, rapidly dismantling the devices keeping human cultivators captive.
The cultivator in control of the vessel was in a difficult position. The locusts acted not as a horde of weaker cultivators, but with unity of purpose and direction from Cultivates and Consumes Grain. It was entirely possible that detonating the compartments they were assaulting would be able to take them down, but it was not so easy.
Anton’s assault on the cultivator in question meant they needed to use every scrap of natural energy they had to defend their own life, and properly sending signals to a certain compartment would take decision making they couldn’t spare. As simple as it was for the Numerological Compact to detonate the people they used as power sources, it wasn’t something that would happen accidentally. It required conscious effort from the ship captains or them suddenly disconnecting from their stations in a way that indicated death.
The decision to try to destroy the locusts or not was not one Anton intended to allow his target to have the luxury of making. All of their concentration had to be focused on him and his assaults. Steadily losing power was something they couldn’t afford, but they also couldn’t afford to suddenly lose huge chunks of it either. And while the enemy likely knew that the Lower Realms Alliance was concerned about the captive cultivators, the captain had to be concerned about her own life.
It was possible she would eventually make the choice to try to take out the rest of her ship at once, but the thing that would cause the most damage to was herself and the surrounding allied fleet. The locusts might die- though Anton also judged their chances of survival fairly high if they properly combined their defensive energy- but Anton himself wouldn’t be touched. It couldn’t even be deemed a heroic sacrifice if it only achieved a very limited spiteful revenge.
Even so, Anton didn’t intend to risk the possibility of thousands dying, in addition to Grain and his people. His energy reached out for the captain of the ship, transmitting his voice to her. “If you surrender now I can guarantee you survive,” Anton said.
That offer was only useful because the rest of the captain’s fleet was also not doing so well. Anton was focusing about half his attention on the one ship, but there were many others present swiftly incapacitating the smaller Magnitude II ships, and the other Magnitude III ships were also under assault.
The captain at least entertained his words enough to respond, reaching out to his own energy and trusting it to carry her words back to him. “Even if I could trust you, then what? At best I might spend the rest of my life in a pit.”
“I trust you will find our accommodations for cooperative individuals more than adequate. And there will be opportunities to do more than simply survive.”
“Swear I will live.”
“I swear upon all of my stars that you will be kept in good health and that even after your capture you will not be executed.” It might be troublesome for the Lower Realms Alliance to keep the woman, though without the ship and its captives she should only be a weak Assimilation cultivator. “If you accept, take no further actions except to break away from the battlefield. Don’t use your energy except to maintain your barriers.”
“I accept,” she said. Anton’s Insight felt her sincerity. “If you could stop those insects from detaching my… power sources…” she clearly was uncertain about her words there.
“I will.” Anton shifted his void. “Grain, after you clear that compartment, withdraw and prepare to assault the next ship.”
Grain buzzed his wings and legs, forming his energy into sound as an acknowledgement. “We will do as you say.”
It only took them a few moments to finish in their current compartment, and then they were moving towards the next ship which was already harried. Seeing one of their three largest ships withdraw, the next captain quickly surrendered as well- though Anton had the feeling she wouldn’t actually cooperate well. He didn’t give her as strict a guarantee of her continued survival.
The third of the captains was slow to tender his surrender. As far as Anton could tell, he was on the very edge, leaning slightly towards his desire to survive. He might have been slightly helpful as well, but no deal was made. He hesitated long enough for him to be captured in a traditional manner, the remnants of his ‘power sources’ detached from his control and his body secured by Grain and the other locusts infiltrating the ship. Anton offered supporting fire, of course, but he wasn’t much for sealing people especially from a great distance- though he could have more easily destroyed the man’s cultivation entirely if he thought it appropriate.
The battle ended with significant damage on both sides, though it was still a clear victory for the Lower Realms Alliance. They had captured many ships including saving their ‘crew’, and there were at least parts of others that were salvable.
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Not knowing about the assault on their forward base, Devon and the others were making their first attempt to land on Waral, a moon the Numerological Compact controlled. Once certain decisions had been made, the process moved rapidly.
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The very first thing was Ty Quigley crashing into the planetary barrier over one of the power centers. It happened in less time than it took to say it, one moment he was accelerating towards the surface of the planet the next he was skimming along the surface of the ground with a large hole in the barrier above him. Large enough for any of their ships that could enter atmosphere to pass through several at a time. That meant leaving the Ascension-class battleships up in space, but they would still be able to participate.
Devon’s job was to immediately stabilize the hole in the barrier, holding it open with his chains. He could feel the strain as he fought against the energy of a vast number of lesser cultivators. He couldn’t quite comprehend how many there were, but it could easily have been as many as a million. However, unlike the ships their energy was not smoothly condensed into a single stream of intent.
There were a dozen or so local cultivators trying to channel energy into the barrier, but they also had to split their focus to the local weapon emplacements to try to strike down the fleet pouring through their defenses. Because of that split focus, they succeeded at neither. Though that didn’t mean their weapons did nothing, and indeed they displayed great power. It was just that for the most part they weren’t able to maintain a target.
Devon mostly focused on holding the barrier as it was, but he still spread his chains out over the battlefield, trying to suppress the enemy’s natural energy while also seeking out the most dangerous emplacements.
Immediately after breaking through the barrier, Ty Quigley had turned his ship towards the most powerful cultivator among the enemy. It was unknown what would happen when those cultivators died, but they couldn’t afford to hold back in this particular encounter. It was unfortunate, because this battle was the one with the highest stakes in terms of total lives- yet that was the very reason they had to succeed, as there were many more cultivators on the planet who didn’t carry the energy of the Numerological Compact.
The sword cultivator was completely unafraid of flying into and through buildings while being assaulted from a thousand angles, slicing through enchanted walls and into barriers. His momentum only seemed to increase as buildings toppled behind him. All that so he could reach a single target. They didn’t simply stand and take the assault, but the battle was over in an instant. Devon felt Ty Quigley take some damage to his ship, and his energy was no longer at its peak, but he continued on towards the next target without hesitation.
There was something about the flow of energy below that caught Devon’s attention. He sensed an opportunity, and he reached out for it. He would have liked to consult with Ashildr first, but in battle it wasn’t always possible.
Large bands of crystal wrapped in gold ran through the ground, one of the many energy transfer methods the Numerological Compact used frequently in their ships. Devon didn’t understand all of the mechanics behind it nor their formations… but he did know how to break things.
He charged through the open barrier, slamming down to the ground on top of one such line. He reached his chains into the ground, digging around himself for other conduits. He felt a surge of energy trying to flow through him, causing him to tremble as it threatened to overwhelm him. He was standing between the mass of power and those controlling it, a position that was both critical and dangerous.
As the conduits of power began to break, Devon felt the energy flow continue to grow- but no longer was it flowing through him, or according to the whims of the Numerological Compact. Instead, it was flowing towards the surrounding formations and the weapon emplacements- not bolstering them, but overloading them.
Devon was glad his instincts weren’t wrong. The great mass of cultivators in the power station- a huge dome of some sort- might have been mentally suppressed by the rest… but on such a scale it wasn’t perfect. They still had their own will, directed by not nearly a sufficient number of those who would wrestle it away from them. It wasn’t clear if the way they overloaded the formations was intentional or purely instinct, lashing out at anything trying to take from them, but either way the process continued until there was nothing left but the restraints holding them in their prison.
Normally imprisoned cultivators would have their energy shackled, but as they were literally being used to have their natural energy drawn from them that wasn’t possible for these locals. The shackles were of little use when a city full of souls focused on each one… though it wasn’t a perfect process by any means. Large detonations of uncontrolled energy threatened the lives of weaker cultivators inside the dome, and the structural integrity was becoming compromised.
The barrier above Devon no longer needed his attention, and the Ascension-class battleships were able to get clear lines of fire on the remaining ‘Confluence’ cultivators that Ty and the rest of the fleets had not taken out. There were also a large number of other Numerological Compact cultivators within the city, mostly below Life Transformation, but Devon didn’t care about them at the moment. Instead he focused on the collapsing dome, suppressing all forms of energy as much as he could with a shell of his chains. He tossed aside falling chunks, protecting as many innocent people as he could.
Some of the cultivators inside reacted on instinct, stifling his efforts, but most of them were collapsing from the shock of being freed. The building was large enough it took more than a few moments to collapse, but Devon was fighting it every step of the way.
As the dust began to settle, Devon realized something. They would not be able to retreat from this planet. Not without leaving the greatest number of locals in the most dire situation they had been since the start of the war. Shackled they would be left alive as it was convenient for the Numerological Compact to continue using them, but freed they would be a danger. There was no way to retrieve all of those cultivators in a timely manner, even from just this one city.
Rather than letting it bring him down, Devon smiled. This was the first real step to freeing these systems, after all, and the process was empowering for him both psychologically and literally. Though they might not have realized it consciously, the residents of the city were providing Devon with a steady flow of devotion that replenished him- even those who were of the Numerological Compact. Though the latter might not remain for long.
Devon already had a steady stream of devotion from many planets, but they weren’t local- and more importantly any feelings they had for him were old and dull. Here, they were strong and vibrant at least for the moment.