Elder Cultivator
Chapter 1284

The main problem the Scarlet Alliance had with their enemies is that they hadn’t suffered enough consequences. Velvet was more focused on the consequences than the suffering part. The only sect they’d caused real damage to was the Citadel of Exalted Light. They’d lost a lot of territory after Zaur’s death, but that was sort of the normal order of business for cultivators. They lost someone important and power structures shifted.

They would reorganize… and then trouble the Scarlet Alliance again. The problem was that they hadn’t had the ability to counterattack in many of the cases, focusing on their own stability. That was why their foes were emboldened to strike out time after time… though the loss of Domination cultivators certainly cowed most of them. However, there would always come the next foe that thought things would be different with them.

Velvet had sought out the Citadel this time because they weren’t causing trouble with the lower realms- which meant they were probably planning trouble elsewhere. Of course, there was a chance they intended to keep their head down for a cycle. That was what she had come to check.

It very much helped that she was able to slip into secret meetings and observe them without being discovered. It was so easy to figure out when they would be happening, because powerful people gathered together. That included Ludek. Velvet was disappointed he hadn’t created a giant crystal palace that everyone knew about, because it was so much easier to destroy an anchor than directly fight a Domination cultivator. There was just this whole thing about having a physical body.

Having gone up against Zaur’s energy projection, it was still a tough fight- but she hadn’t been a Domination cultivator at that point. Now, Ludek was a proper Domination cultivator rebuilding the sect… and Velvet was far more certain she hadn’t been discovered, like had happened with Zaur on his first assault on the Alliance.

She’d tested new techniques based on the formation of her anchor with trusted allies. She was implementing them now, along with her more traditional stealth techniques. Conceptually, she simply didn’t exist to any of these people around her. They weren’t in the right place for that to be true.

It helped when they had bright light sources. Normally, stealth didn’t do so well with that… but Velvet had long transcended the mundane. Aside from bending light around her or letting it flow through her, there were a million other ways to deal with that issue.

Now, if she had two proper light sources to attach to, she could be visible only in their intersection. While that seemed to be worse than not relying on such things, it became an absolute statement instead of mere potential- plus she could still implement standard stealth techniques.

Velvet was confident with this particular setup because Anton had helped her test this particular technique. And Bear Hug, with very interesting results that almost nobody should be able to replicate.

She currently stood in the stream of light coming in a window, because that was the best angle to view the meeting in front of her. The light behind her wasn’t one of her two chosen sources, just in case either of her picks happened to change somehow. The concealment of her energy and other signs also followed the rules of light, or else it would have been a fairly mediocre technique.

Velvet was fairly certain she could assassinate any one person in the room and get away- with the exception of Ludek who was a maybe. Not worth attempting, especially with the subject of their discussion.

“We will be making our move soon,” Ludek said. “Any questions?”

One of the elders drew attention to himself. “Is it really a good idea to move against… him.”

“I have it on good authority that the relevant forces are active in other regions,” Ludek said simply. “We will strike decisively, removing the blight on our territory.”

They sure were working hard to not say Everheart’s name, or to even reference him. Velvet wondered if that gave the man more or less power. Clearly, they were still invoking Everheart inside of them, which might make their negative devotion stronger.

Did they think he could hear every instance of his name? Pick up every reference? Because if that was the case… they might not be wrong. Though the Citadel was lacking computer systems, so there was that. The Alliance had basic assumptions that Everheart was inside most of their secure systems and thus avoided particular references, so it wasn’t really that different.

Velvet wondered what Ludek would have thought, knowing she was there. Would he regret failing to kill her when he had a chance? Or perhaps he didn’t have a chance. He didn’t exactly let them go. They properly escaped on their own.

Anyway, Velvet continued to listen. If they weren’t going after Everheart, it was still something within the Exalted Quadrant, near their territory. Nobody she cared about. Most likely they wouldn't be so careful if it was a lesser target.

Thus, she wasn’t going to disrupt their plans. Well, except for finding a way to send a message to Everheart in case he didn’t already know. It was in their mutual interest that he cause them maximum damage.

Everheart was great, because he personally had slightly more enemies than the Alliance. Which said a lot for how many enemies the Alliance had now, but it wasn’t their fault. They were just trying to exist, and people took offense to people existing happily and peacefully. They were forced to not be peaceful, and then people got angry how their assault fleets and Domination cultivators were destroyed.

Velvet wondered if she could also tip off some less friendly sects nearby that the Citadel was going to make a move. It was a tricky operation to perform perfectly, since if people tried to verify her words the Citadel of Exalted Light might catch word of it and realize they’d been found out. Everheart wouldn’t sloppily give up the info, but others very well might.

The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

She was going to steal other information that could be used against the Citadel and then move on. Maybe she could cause some damage to the Numerological Compact while they were focused on the lower realms. Or some of various other groups that were doing the same.

-----

When Everheart received the tip, he was disappointed. He was actually busy that day. It could have been a fun party. Ah well, he could at least assign appropriate forces to counteract their assault. Stopping just one Domination cultivator was simple enough. And maybe if things dragged on a bit, he could kill him.

Or better yet, steal everything he had and leave his systems barren and void. Because if Everheart killed him, someone else might pop up. Everheart had conclusively proven that Domination cultivators weren’t a zero sum system, but the universe didn’t always conform to facts. More relevantly, the chances of a despondent Ludek fighting other powerful neighbors and keeping them occupied was pretty high. If he failed to take out Everheart’s system, he wasn’t going to be more effective a second time.

Now then, the Tilki clan. Timucin used a flail… at a base, anyway. Everheart had obviously experimented with similar techniques, but trying to fill up space with lingering constructs was such a pain. What with space itself being infinite and all that. Timucin barely even got into subspace layers.

From what Everheart knew, that Devon fellow made better chains. They could contain a region of space instead of just… where they were. It was one of many reasons he stayed out of the lower realms. Aside from not needing anything from there- especially with his influx of new resources simply handed to him. Plus, Everheart didn’t like to weaken himself. And every time he poked his nose into anything, they were updating their security.

Sure, it was a fun game… but what if they actually caught him? It would be so inconvenient. Better to let his agents handle things.

Anyway, Timucin might be some trouble if Sevinc was bolstering him, but not otherwise. However, just in case he suddenly doubled in power on his own, Everheart had a few traps planned. It would take some time to set them up in enemy territory, but he had the manpower. It was great having allies… but not as great as having more of himself.

-----

Personally, Ratna thought that the preferred form of Yann- a mighty serpentine dragon- was a little too much. He went for maximum size, and while that was a good fear tactic, if he wasn’t facing masses he would have some issues. Or at least, that was how she thought about it.

Not that it was easy to kill him. He kept forcing her to reveal herself by launching attacks at her planets. It would take some time to get their defenses up to a standard where they resisted Domination level attacks, so she had to continuously counter him. At least the core Alliance had managed to send a few sturdy ships that could help. They were like mobile fortresses, and they might have never arrived if not for the spatial distortions. Short range teleportation was fine, but Ratna’s formation masters hadn’t even gotten to the inter-system level. Technically, this was something else entirely- but that just proved the point.

A claw reached behind space to try to tear her apart. Ratna responded by moving closer to Yann, moving towards where his limbs connected to his body. He was extremely protective of his lost leg. Ratna kept making moves on it only to be driven back. However, that just made her want to attack it more and more. She just had to be ready to avoid counters,

She ran down Yann’s body, provoking him to coil in a certain way to try to crush her. Then she launched herself towards his exposed stump. A coil of energy wrapped inward to crush her… and Ratna was gone.

She hadn’t committed to the attack. Because if Yann wanted to defend it so much, it was an excellent option for her to feint. She didn’t even know if it was truly vulnerable… so she was actually going after one of his upper claws, aiming for the shoulder.

Ratna wasn’t the type to take off whole limbs. Instead, she took out one scale. He would probably notice, but if she understood his transformation techniques properly he would need to take some time to heal from the ‘wound’. That meant she left a vulnerability that she would get to in… some later battle. Because her allied forces were beginning to beat back Yann’s, and he was not capable of facing Ratna and the concentrated firepower of a fleet simultaneously.

-----

Chidi was a member of the Twin Soul Sect. That was what he kept telling himself. It was extremely unconvincing. He would play a much better role as a random peasant. Maybe he should have purchased a sword cane. Or rather, a different sheath for his blade.

Predicting Sudin’s movements to catch him in a specific system was difficult, so Chidi was up to some spying. He might be better now than he had been before, though it was hard to say for certain. He had been dealing with entirely different levels of foes back when he was first picking up stealth skills.

Now that he was in Negation… his skills were at least different. He could bypass formations, but there were always risks. A loss of flow for a moment could raise alarms, either literally or from someone noticing something strange. If he had time, however, he was educated enough to properly circumvent them.

If the Twin Soul Sect had pure tech security cameras with facial recognition software, Chidi would have been screwed. He was walking along the streets… not quite openly, but not hidden either.

He did have a secret weapon. It was very difficult to make use of it, but he kept focus on keeping his eyelids open. He had fake eyes inside. He didn’t like it at all. This was not how he was supposed to be.

Some people in the Alliance had actually offered to make him working eyes. Recreating the eyes was easy. Artificial optical nerves to make up for what he was missing… was not out of the question. But Chidi had refused… because if he got vision, he might rely on it. Changing up his style now certainly wasn’t worthwhile.

Besides, energy senses were better than vision in many ways. According to people he had asked, at least.

Now then, Chidi wondered if he could find someone important enough to interrogate… if that even made sense. Then again, he didn’t expect the Twin Soul Sect to leave detailed invasion plans on the side of the street. He’d have to do some legwork.

Or maybe he’d end up back in friendly territory, trying to head off incoming attacks. But Sudin would be more wary when on the offensive. Whichever chance Chidi took, the first one would be most likely to work. He could certainly rely on the snipers he had brought along, but transporting them all into position without alerting a Domination cultivator- or something like that- was hard work.

Chidi might also find Sudin’s anchor. Usually, they were obvious… once you were close enough. Obviously, it wasn’t being publicly advertised but he wanted to deal with it so that they could get rid of this sect again. They’d seeped too far into the lower realms in the past, responsible for many cycles of suffering.