The Alliance mobilized quickly, once it was time. They didn’t want to leave any opportunity for the Numerological Compact to respond, so they would be going directly from system to system. While that would leave enough time for them to move things around in the same system as Turilia, they couldn’t bring in any neighboring forces. So even if they realized they were going to face a concentrated assault, they shouldn’t be able to do much.

The forces included Anton and others coming from Kathariel, though this time they could be certain the enemy wouldn’t outmaneuver them with regards to that base. Unless the enemy knew about their actions well ahead of time and went far off course from the direct line between systems… but even most of their own fleet hadn’t known precisely when they would move out. Besides, Anton would likely sense anyone powerful even a few lightyears away.

The one thing they didn’t consider was holding back, and not having Anton participate. Even if they faced off against the remaining two elders with no modifications on their part, it would be a tough battle. Anton was quite necessary. And though he didn’t like binding stars without permission, against enemies he continued to make an exception. Practicality eventually won out over politeness.

As soon as both fleets reached the system, Anton began the process of binding the star. He didn’t feel the need to get close like Varghese did, though getting closer was still better. That would happen naturally as they approached their target.

It didn’t take long before the enemy was scrambling to action. Ships began to leave atmosphere one after another. If Anton simply wanted to destroy them, he could have shot them down. He didn’t, both because of the hundreds of innocents on board, and because he didn’t want to show them the difference in strength without a bound star. Once he finished binding the star, though, he would try to disable some of the ships.

He was likely never going to be as effective as Ty Quigley, but he had done enough target practice that he thought he could blast a hole in the ship and swarm it with smaller arrows from his Energy Bows. If he failed… well, Anton didn’t like to think that casualties were necessary- perhaps inevitable, but never necessary.

He sensed two larger sources of energy, one coming from Turilia itself and another from elsewhere in the system. “I’ve confirmed the presence of the two elders,” Anton said. Joetta was trying to cut off Devon’s fleet, while Endymion was just leaving Turilia.

Just before Joetta reached Devon, Anton finished his binding of the star. It was just a matter of a few minutes, when taken at a proper pace and using one of his more limited openings.

He immediately shot a flurry of arrows towards Turilia, focusing on specific ships there. One Magnitude III ship, and a few at Magnitude II. His arrows flew forth and… ran into some sort of barrier, well beyond the planet’s atmosphere.

That was valuable information to determine before they actually reached it. Anton immediately tested the whole planet, attacking from different angles just to see if the barrier stretched in all directions. Unsurprisingly it created a whole shell, shielding the ships defending the planet.

In that case…

“Should we join with Devon?” Anton asked. The strategists would be aware he would follow their advice, but he wanted to suggest it. There was a brief discussion, during which Anton targeted some of the slightly more distant ships in the unshielded fleet- at least, they had no unified barrier as far as he could tell. He wouldn’t have put it past the Compact, to make their fleets a mobile formation. Then again, not all of their accomplishments truly belonged to them.

Anton found that if he focused on the smallest ships, he could indeed disable them. Quite useful, as they only had a limited number. Perhaps two hundred at most.

“We’ll continue onto Turilia,” the response came. “The formation experts need to begin identifying the barrier. If you could cover our position…”

Anton confirmed he understood, while shooting directly at Joetta’s ship. Her barrier resisted both himself and Devon simultaneously. So they’d continued to work on their adaptation… but how would it do if he changed the qualities of his personal energy?

He wasn’t ignoring the fleet he traveled with, of course. It was just that they had another minute or two before reaching the danger zone. And if he could cause enough trouble, he might be able to draw the fleet out of the barrier to try to defend their allies.

Light didn’t do much. It wasn’t as if Joetta was reacting personally, so even more extreme speed of his attacks didn’t matter. Fire was slightly better, at least pushing the barrier further. As for Ascension energy, he wondered how many shots he could manage. He always kept training Fleeting Youth, and it mostly depended on how much of himself he put into each shot. But he could at least match the shot he’d tried to use to take down Endymion.

Except he didn’t have to combine it with Realm Shot, so it wouldn’t have its power dampened by lightyears of distance. At best, they were at one thousandth of that distance.

Anton intended his shot to provide an opening for Devon. Instead, his attack punctured through the barrier directly, and he followed it through directly to Joetta. There was an inner barrier covering her location- and she drew on the power of the slaves to heighten her own defenses as well.

The arrow burst inside, causing damage to the formations. Devon didn’t manage to slip through the outer barrier, but with Ty Quigley cutting through enemy ships one after another- always a hair's breadth from being blasted into oblivion himself- her fleet was flagging. Keeping her occupied was good enough.

At the request of the formation masters, Anton shot several parts of Turilia’s outer barrier. Then he was told to concentrate his fire on a single point. Sure enough, he broke through. While the damage repaired itself, it was clearly slower than normal. That was what happened when barrier were created further from the source of runes. Any sort of distance could lose power.

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There were two more factors pushing the power of Devon’s fleet. Aside from the smaller ships piloted by hivemind members- and especially disciples of Devon’s sect. The Shattered Chains were flying circles around the enemy, almost literally. Then there was one larger ship. That would be Byron, if Anton remembered him correctly from the few moments they had passed by each other. Anton had left to Kathariel almost immediately, so he just remembered him being broken away.

Anton sensed some energy permeating the further battle, and was tempted to stretch forward and listen to the gossip. “... think you can do anything with that? You’ve lost centuries of cultivation.”

That was Joetta, taunting Byron.

He said nothing in return- until his weapons punched a hole in her barrier, allowing Devon to slip through. “Seems I know how to use it better.”

Instead of stopping Devon from getting closer, she focused her attacks on Byron’s ship. But his barrier resisted, despite having in theory a tenth of the energy. Some part of that might be due to whatever damage Anton caused, but much more had to do with the man’s energy control and quite possibly the cooperation of those on board. They wanted to live, after all, and were empowered to do something about it.

The secondary battle was drifting towards Turilia, as they couldn’t completely stop a fleet’s momentum, simply harass them as they moved. Anton thought that might have been the main reason they weren’t breaking into a proper retreat, because things were not going well for them. They needed to join up with the rest of their allies- and whatever secrets the planet had to offer. There would certainly be something.

Devon had wrapped his chains around the inner barrier, and was slowly crushing it. Clearly the same adaptation that helped protect against specific energies still worked for that barrier, but it was difficult for Joetta to cause him much damage either. Anton would help shift that standoff more in a moment.

-----

“And just like that,” Queenson declared. “They’re down. Since everyone’s distracted with the sky stuff.”

Luci didn’t understand him, because they didn’t have nearly enough time for him to write anything down. “Are you certain you wish to guard the entrance?”

“You’re much bigger and have hands,” he pointed out. Then he gestured her in. How many cultivators could even fit in the front entrance anyway? Ten or twenty at once? Well, it would be a problem if they brought a thousand rats or something, but cultivators were something the void ants could handle.

Ah, there they were. A confluence cultivator, literally chained to a bunch of others. That was new. And extremely inappropriate.

So was the way they blasted the entrance with a huge beam of energy. The younger void ants could have been hurt! Or the people inside!

But instead Queenson flew headfirst through it and chomped at the strings holding it together. That didn’t perfectly dismantle it, but it was enough. Meanwhile, Luci and her friends were detaching people from the power station. Hopefully there would be more in other cities, but they’d only briefly come in contact with other groups.

Queenson flew over the reach of the cultivators, not that the chained ones looked motivated to try to slap him. The guy in the center- or was that a woman? Humans were about fifty fifty on that, which was weird. Whatever, the Confluence cultivator tried to blast Queenson out of the air.

In a brilliant move, he pretended to be hit by the attack, spinning wildly as he tumbled towards the cultivator’s head. The man then drew in the energy of those around him, creating a barrier.

Queenson chomped it open directly. And then the man’s lip. He was aiming for an eye, but the spinning set him off. The man screamed out and slapped at him. Queenson felt the impact… and found himself tumbling into the man’s mouth. Well, that was fine. The man had energy flowing all over through him, it wasn’t hard to shove some of it directly upward.

Ugh, now he was covered in blood, his wing was broken, and the man’s mouth was stuck shut. Maybe he could wriggle around behind the back of the teeth? He only realized he could use the dispersing natural energy to cut a way out when he was already crawling along the cheek, and at that point he felt committed.

A number of other cultivators- Numerological Compact, not chained ones- had charged the entrance and found themselves fighting numerous tiny foes. They would have done better to take the long route. It wasn’t like such a big facility had only one entrance… but that was why they went through the front and made sure it was obviously open.

The energy around the city was changing. There were only a few hundred people staggering around, free from their restraints, but Queenson could feel it as he slipped out between the lips. A dozen cultivators were looking at him as he did so. No, the body. Ugh, now he had to break metal chains with his tiny jaws. The things he did for humans he didn’t even know. At least the chains were enchanted with tasty energy.

-----

When the secondary barrier around Turilia went down, everything happened at once. Both enemy fleets focused their fire on the two Magnitude IV ships- and artillery from the planet below also joined in. All of the energy from the various weapons was redirected from the incoming attacks through the ships.

Devon had experienced that before, and he tried to do something about the ship he was focused on, but he was too slow to stop Joetta’s control. The energy was all directed away from the ship, focused on Anton.

A moment later, the section of sky Anton had been in was filled with nothing but beams of energy redirected from Joetta’s ship. No Anton.

Devon breathed a sigh of relief. Did they think that just because he was a sniper he didn’t know how to dodge? Star Steps was a technique made by Everheart himself allowing for instantaneous changes in velocity. It almost looked like teleportation for those with slow senses.

No, Anton hadn’t come close because he needed to be. He was close specifically to be a target. It did mean he had to stop his assaults for a few moments, but the enemy fleets and the artillery below couldn’t keep it up forever.

Still, if his movements could be predicted Anton might be in trouble, and energy was still gathering on Endymion’s ship. And gathering. And gathering. Then it reached a peak. Instead of being transformed into properly targeted attacks, the energy exploded outward in all directions from the outside of the ship. The shockwave sent ships from both fleets tumbling, though the energy was diffuse enough it didn’t cause much direct damage.

That was shocking and unexpected- both for Devon and Joetta. However, Devon recovered first- and along with a few arrows from Anton began to sink his chains into the core structure of Joetta’s ship. Soon, he’d break in.

Endymion’s ship still seemed structurally intact, but something about it felt… dull. Devon still sensed the man’s energy was vibrant, but the ship was clearly not functioning correctly. This was their chance to break the Numerological Compact. And Devon would enjoy it.