While Anton was rushing back towards Kathariel after the battle around Waral, small workers were making great progress on Turlilia.
The Son of the Queen might have liked to instantly press a do-not-pull lever that had been found, but he was more responsible than that. He wasn’t concerned about negative consequences, or the loss of his own life and that of his troops. If anything of that sort could happen, the damage to the Numerological Compact would be far greater.
So the only reason for hesitation was to determine that it would cause the maximum amount of damage that they could expect to do. Learning information about the prison facility they were in was difficult but valuable. They continued to learn what they could, ultimately discovering other locations they could get to.
It was unfortunate that the Sergeant was gone, but wherever she ended up she was no doubt admirably performing her duties if she had not already made a noble sacrifice.
Still, there were others under the Son of the Queen that he could trust to take over subsections of his command. It was looking like that would be necessary, as they had found word of other containment facilities. And that wasn’t counting the ‘power grid’. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be a way to shut the whole thing down, especially not with the power of just some void ants. Maybe if they had a proper colony of them, but just a few hundred could only do so much.
Uncertain if the Sergeant had been detected, the Son of the Queen gave himself and the others a time limit. They split apart, finding their way onto various transports headed to different parts of the planet where their information indicated there were facilities.
From there, they could only hope to catch rides on humans until they actually arrived at their destinations. Both speed and navigation were issues that they would have to solve.
The time limit was fast approaching. If he survived beyond this current mission, the Son of the Queen would recommend some sort of time synchronization devices. Those might need to be separate, but if they had a few dozen of them carried by other members they could split up and act with greater coordination.
Now, the plan was to act after so many days, or immediately if it seemed they were compromised. The Son of the Queen and his fifty or so companions around him had infiltrated another facility, and were ready to act when the time came. They had a lever in sight, though they would also need an authorization token. With people scattered around the globe, they couldn’t act at noon or any particular time and instead had to go with their gut,
Such imprecision rankled, but that was what would have to be done. Acting in concert would give the enemy no opportunity to prevent countermeasures.
“The time has come,” the Son of the Queen signed, signalling with his pheromones as well.
He stepped forward, leading the march towards a particular cultivator that had what they needed. They climbed their opponent, positioning themselves as necessary to take her out all at once. When she fell- to the clear alarm of others present in the room- the void ants snatched her token.
There were several moments where the cultivators didn’t react, but soon enough beams of focused energy and blasts of lightning were directed at them. The Son of the Queen leapt towards the attacks, chomping into the most dangerous before they could reach the more vulnerable members of the troop. Though the larger danger was the floor becoming superheated.
Void ants tumbled the coin-shaped token, maneuvering around sudden pits in the floor while protecting the token itself from assault. The Son of the Queen flapped his regrown wings with great vigor, launching himself at cultivators and tearing at their energy. He sharpened it into blades as it pulled it from their throats, or yanked it out of their dantians like spears. In truth, the Son of the Queen barely understood what he was doing or how. Only that he could grab their energy, and finding their bodies quite vulnerable.
The token reached the device, and the void ants worked together to push it… then found it locked in place. Another layer of security? But they had observed it previously, and there was nothing that should have held it in place. Perhaps they simply weren’t strong enough, even with their combined might.
No, that wasn’t quite right. Queenson felt the flow of energy within the device. He was no formation expert, but he could tell it was asking for something. Not just the token’s presence, but another sort of energy.
His wings brought him back to the first woman. Her body lay dying, her energy dissipating, but he grabbed onto it, yanking a stream of energy out of her and towards the device. Fortunately, it didn’t seem to require complex manipulation- the lever snapped forward.
There had been a few alarms already, but at that moment even more of them triggered. And the intended result had not happened- the flow of energy to the cells was clearly in place still.
“Someone stop those things before the release is completed!” yelled one of the cultivators, tossing a fireball towards the void ants clustered together.
How helpful. So there was a timer of some sort. They would need to keep the control panel intact until that time.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Queenson flew through the fireball, all of the natural energy he was consuming being used to bolster his flight, draining almost as quickly as he could take it in. He ate the natural energy within the fire- making it nothing at all. It was just a representation of fire to begin with. Even so, it could destroy the devices.
The last of the cultivators in the room fell with jaws at his throat, bleeding from the inside and the outside. But there were more coming.
Then a flood of energy filled the room, brought about by some aspect of formations. All of the bodies began to burn away, and the Son of the Queen saw something actually happening to the younger void ants. He rushed back to his troops, tearing at the streams of energy with reckless abandon. Every time he got rid of one it was replaced by another, but he continued to rip apart the strings of energy over and over again. Some of his more powerful subordinates were able to protect the rest.
And then… everything stopped. The flow of energy stopped when the human bodies in the room were nothing more than dust. The sounds of alarm ceased.
But that was only for a moment, as shouting could be heard outside the room. Both from the group that had gathered outside the control room they were in, and others. New sources of energy- or rather ones that were previously muted.
Queenson looked down at the soldiers. Losses were minimal. Those who had died in the line of duty would be remembered. “We need to join the battle. We will prioritize Compact cultivators of the highest cultivation.”
At his size, he could actually lift all of the remaining void ants. That was easy. Flying with them was not nearly so simple, but the surging energy flowing through him was once more focused on his wings. The Great Queen’s flight was so much more fantastic, manipulating the flow of energy in the world. Still, his was good enough to drag his group to the door.
Slipping through cracks to get out of the room was easy enough- there was a barrier they had to chew through, but nobody was focusing on it so it was just a quick snack. And then their targets were in sight. Even a Confluence cultivator- perhaps not a strong one, but the one that had activated the formations that tried to kill them. Had killed a few of them, though it would have been much worse for anything but void ants.
The man died before he truly knew what hit him. The Numerological Compact was clearly not prepared for void ants, not here. And to avoid them being prepared in the future, all of the witnesses had to die.
It was unclear why the various prisoners had been locked up by them, but it was unlikely any of them could be worse than Compact members. Forcing people to do things against their will was simply unreasonable. Void ants all chose to act in concert, so such a concept was foreign to them. Even so, they understood humans well enough to know it was unreasonable.
The Compact cultivators called for those who had been freed to ‘stand down’ and ‘stay in their cells and they wouldn’t be harmed’. None of them obeyed. Many died, but Queenson understood that humans would generally prefer that fate to enslavement where they had no control over their bodies or energy. Having a chance to fight was the best that they could be given.
A few smarter cultivators tried to squash the Son of the Queen and the others, when they realized their energy attacks were ineffective. More died, though Queenson darted around slashing blades with ease. He had already been stronger than those he led, and he felt as if he had further developed recently. Each attack still contained danger, but just as many of their allies lived through dozens or hundreds of potentially deadly battles, so too could he.
Hopefully the other locations were doing as well- or at least had accomplished their primary objective. No, they would. He believed in them.
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For all of the flaws he had as the head of an entire slavery-centered sect, it did not appear to Anton that Elder Endymion was possessed of cowardice. That was expected, if somewhat unfortunate. Perhaps some caution or at least respect for his fellows would have been appropriate.
Despite Anton’s threat, he did not turn about… which left Anton in a troublesome situation. Attacking from within his condensed space between his stars might be possible, but he would stop his forward progress. At best, he could make a few attacks that would take far too long to reach the enemy fleet.
Kathariel wasn’t entirely helpless, but it wasn’t prepared for an attack of the size of the incoming fleet. When the time limit Anton had given was up and the enemy fleet was still incoming, he had no choice but to act where he could.
Rather than shooting from his current location, he would direct the power of the local star. The attacks would be more consistent, if somewhat weaker than when they originated from him- and with a proper bow.
One shot at a time, he started targeting the smallest ships. Even the current fleet still carried only Magnitude II ships and above, hopefully because they had limited numbers of Confluence cultivators. There were clearly still a large number, but if they were limited to just a few hundred like the Alliance believed then the overall situation of the war was going to tip precipitously towards them. Which might be why the Elder felt unable to hesitate.
Anton didn’t want to kill the pilots and thus everyone aboard their ships- but he realized that he’d been missing a part of human nature. These were not fanatics promised second lives like the Twin Soul Sect. They still wanted to live. Thus, Anton amped up his earlier tactics, shooting through barriers to target limbs and organs and anything that would stop short of death.
He preferred to avoid unnecessary crippling of enemies- it was so much more kind to just kill them. But here, he had to get his point across. One after another, he nearly killed the enemy. They were left weaker than before, and more importantly they had to focus on keeping their wounds from killing themselves. That slowed down the progress of the fleet- though they were already within the boundaries of the system, so it would only delay them by a small amount. An hour, if he was lucky.
The local fleets of Kathariel were aware of the incoming threat, and they were prepared for the enemy to arrive. Hopefully, they would be strong enough to drive them off. They had to be. But either way, Anton was already planning his very unmerciful end for Endymion. Nothing too cruel… but he would be given enough time to regret his decisions. It was unfortunate Anton couldn’t do it immediately, but it was now inevitable.