“Confluence is important, right?” The Son of the Queen asked the Sergeant.

“Absolutely,” she replied. “It’s one of those big cultivation stages. If we stumble upon any such cultivators, we should take them out.”

“What if they’re not enemies?”

The Sergeant twisted her antennae in confusion. “Of course they’re enemies. Why do you think we’re here?”

“But if they were locked up by the people here,” he pointed out. “Then they wouldn’t be our enemies, right?”

“A Confluence cultivator in chains?” the Sergeant asked. “They would have to be the most foul of criminals or…”

“A decent fellow?”

“Something like that,” the Sergeant agreed. “We should go find this guy and figure it out.”

Their group set off nearly immediately, but finding their way was somewhat more involved than it seemed. First, they had to find maps of the planet to figure out the city they needed to get to- which turned out to be a few hundred kilometers away.

For human cultivators, that was literally nothing. For the void ants, only the fastest of them could make that in a reasonable time. Not knowing what they would face, they wanted all of them present.

After scanning various maps, they learned that information… then they had to sneak aboard a shuttle heading towards their destination. That wasn’t terribly difficult, as once again the humans weren’t looking for them. It was a good thing the language hadn’t diverged too much so they could understand them.

Getting near their intended destination and getting to it was a whole different story. Rather than finding themselves at some sort of prison or even power station, they seemed to have found themselves at a high security military facility.

“Careful,” the Sergeant radiated caution as they approached a barrier. “This one is highly sensitive.”

“Let’s try the vents,” Queenson suggested.

They scuttled up the wall, hiding within grooves in its surface, but not only were the air vents also plagued with formations, the airflow nearly sucked away some of their troops. Only quick reactions allowed them to catch on, linking together. Not wanting to give up, however, they formed a bridge across the flow of air and down a side vent.

They weren’t quite certain where they were going, but the more problematic the formations the more likely they were heading somewhere important. After dozens of turns and dead ends they were growing tired. They took a brief moment of rest behind a pile of crumbs- but their caution taught them not to touch the food. Instead, they munched on the rather mediocre natural energy around them. Not filling, but enough to take the edge off for a moment.

Their salvation came when they found someone pushing a cart towards the inner area. They stopped when someone called them for some trivial task, leaving the cart unguarded. They latched onto it from underneath, ignoring the tempting smells of food from up above.

The group passed barrier after barrier, before arriving at a fancy office with some sort of important lady. A Confluence cultivator, even. Not their target, because he was a prisoner not a warden or…

“Commander Leoid!” said the servant who had brought them into the secure belly of the facility. “You afternoon refreshments.”

A commander. The Sergeant started an audio recording, but there wasn’t much else said.

She exchanged looks with Queenson, signing, “Is that name familiar?”

“I believe so. However, she seems far too weak to be the final one.”

“A relative?”

“She must be watched,” Queenson confirmed. “I will monitor and track her movements if necessary. You take half the troops with you to find our original target.”

-----

Thus it was that the Sergeant continued deeper into the facility, until she finally began to sense the energies of the prisoners. There were formations everywhere, quite problematic for human cultivators… but very little of concern to void ants unless they happened to be nearby when a human triggered one and superheated the air in a room. The secondary effects of formations might be able to damage void ants, but direct action was generally pointless.

Still though…

“There is something odd about the construction of this place,” the Sergeant commented to her troops. “Remain cautious.”

Their noses led them to the man in question. The documents they had scanned did not provide much information, but they had determined the man’s name was Byron. Asking him that would be difficult, of course, because he was rather unconscious and wouldn’t be able to understand he was being questioned to begin with.

This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

He was in a very large room, shackled right in the middle. The Sergeant led their approach, avoiding any problematic sources of natural energy.

The man’s cultivation was different from the other Confluence cultivators they had been exposed to. Then again, all of them had been part of the Numerological Compact- this man wasn’t.

Determining why he was imprisoned would be difficult, but ultimately the question was when he should be freed. Doing it randomly would not cause nearly enough trouble for the Compact, unless the man could take out an entire planet alone- which didn’t seem likely.

The matter of timing would be left for later, and the matter of how was first priority. Chewing through the restraints would be impossible, but if they nibbled on the formations properly the flow of energy would stop. Except, the shackles themselves didn’t appear to have a way to remove them- they were literally welded on. The Great Queen could likely bite through them, or a rare few others, but the Sergeant was a bit less confident in her jaw power. Perhaps if they negated the formations the man could do it alone, as it would act as unenhanced metal.

Assuming they didn’t get him killed. The Sergeant was looking closely at a particular marking, trying to determine which ones were the most important so they could synchronize their efforts… when the cell suddenly trembled.

The front where there had been a nearly solid door was fully sealed by a wall. The Sergeant panicked, wondering how they had been spotted. Would they be killed with poisonous gasses? Drowned?

But then the room trembled, nearly sending the void ants tumbling as the entire thing shifted. It was moving. The Sergeant momentarily noticed they were surrounded by a large number of other similar cells… and slowly she sensed the energies around them shifting. They had been snatched up into one of the enemy battleships. And not a small one. She could feel the thrumming of energy through the ship. A powerful one. However, it wasn’t clear the size of the ship. She could only sense so far with the various layers blocking things. Was this a Magnitude III or Magnitude IV ship? She wasn’t sure… but all she could do was transmit as much information as possible as the ship began to move.

Should she try to free the man now, or go towards the individual controlling the ship? When would be the best time to act?

That was easy. When the enemy was in combat. Best to learn what they could before then.

-----

The Son of the Queen was following the one called Commander Leoid, oblivious to his companions being abducted. Somewhere in his senses he noticed ships moving about, but the many layers of formations and abundance of different human energy sources dulled the impact of any individual feeling. It simply seemed like more of the norm for Turlilia.

“... and never touch the emergency release lever.”

“I am aware of how everything functions,” Commander Leoid commented. “Just because my niece has higher cultivation than myself does not mean I haven’t been around.”

“My apologies,” said another figure. Much weaker. “It is standard protocol to repeat. Though it would mostly be a pain to reconnect everything to the system. We can’t have standard disposal systems landside because of the collateral damage.”

Something about that lever was important. Which one it was Queenson would have to figure out. However, it seemed it wouldn’t be good enough on its own. Would it disconnect the prisoners from the grid? If they were still sedated, it would mean little for them. Perhaps that was something he should investigate.

First, though, he had to figure out what locations the Commander had access to, so they would not lose her. One office and a control center were useful points of data, but her sleeping chambers would also be valuable.

It wouldn’t be until much later that his prisoner investigations began, towards where the people were held. It was there that he discovered the Sergeant was gone- her trail ending at what was now a wall, on the other side of which was open space, along with her troops. While concerning, that was something she could handle as a competent agent. There was little he could do about it now.

-----

The Lower Realms Alliance pored over the odd series of transmissions from their void ant spies. Pictures of a certain individual locked up, and a familiar vessel structure. Missing context, they seemed almost accidental at first.

Those tasked with interpreting the incoming information were quickly able to surmise a few things. Even though the void ants’ devices didn’t directly transmit their locations, the minute changes in transmission speed indicated that they were nearing the edge of the system. Or rather, one of the leaders. The other remained behind on the planet.

Upon learning that, they soon got information from their scouts about movements in other systems, except for within the system containing Waral. However, they were able to determine that was the ultimate destination- with the local forces likely not to cause a commotion too early.

Some care was taken to make certain that was where the enemy was headed. They couldn’t send many reinforcements between their two locations on Waral and Kathariel faster than the enemy could reach them- not safely, at least. If it were simply about straight line movement, they had many ships that were fast enough even with the greater distance, but only a few could take the longer route around the enemy system.

The movement was not entirely unanticipated. They expected the Numerological Compact would have to make a move soon, or they would cede all initiative to the Alliance. It might have been nice if they stayed in defensive positions where the Alliance could target more of their outlying planets, but that was apparently not to be.

The most important concern they had was the Magnitude IV ships. They knew there were three of them, each with a particular cultivator who controlled them. Elders Raeburn, Endymion, and Leoid. They also seemed to be the leadership of the sect, a triumvirate instead of an individual sect head.

Determining whether or not they were on the move was a matter of great concern- enough that their scouts were ordered to approach close enough to make that determination, even at the risk of their own lives. Fortunately, the enemy didn’t seem to be hiding it. There were still some ships lost in their haste to confirm it, but except for Endymion’s ship which was already in the system with Waral, the other two were on the move. All information indicated that was their target.

Devon recalled the previous battle. He was rested, now, but while they had fortified the planet to some extent- and they could make the planetary barriers functional with the help of the hivemind- the situation still wasn’t ideal. It would likely take decades for the moon to stabilize, though that was impossible when it was in the middle of a war zone. Food was already beginning to become a concern, and plans for raiding enemy supply ships were being implemented.

The power of Endymion’s ship had stuck with Devon. He knew it wasn’t the man’s own power- instead, it was that of a great many slaves. That didn’t stop him from being capable of wielding it effectively, and there should be plans to deal with him. Devon had his own plans for how to react to the ship of course, but they were slightly hampered by there potentially being three of them.

It wasn’t a situation he could handle alone. Thankfully, he wouldn’t be.