Elder Cultivator
Chapter 1291

Orbital platforms pelted Yann, as his great bulk made him an easy target. Ratna couldn’t defend any of them from his counterattacks, but they were not so easily taken down. If he gathered his energy to strike them down in one fell swoop, she was ready to pierce his defenses and wound him.

As his dragon form slithered about, Ratna waited for her perfect timing. He made several powerful attacks, but he remained cautious- and he didn’t really need to rush to take down the platforms. Maintaining his defenses against the constant assaults was only logical. However, his conservative actions were at the cost of his own allies.

Other Fearsome Menagerie cultivators fell as the local defense fleets thinned their numbers. If it was just Yann, Ratna wouldn’t need as much support. However, it would still be quite difficult to take him down. She moved behind space, waiting. For what, she did not know.

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Zazil was quite happily continuing to cause chaos in Fearsome Menagerie territory- except at this very moment. The randomness introduced into the plans also sometimes included when she would rest. Just a few days was sufficient, as she never stayed long enough to be pressed to her limits. A Domination cultivator could recover anywhere- and Zazil was no exception. Indeed, since she could move her anchor to the void between systems she might actually be better than others of similar experience.

For times such as this, Zazil restricted her anchor to a very small section of space. She had no intention to let anyone test ways to destroy it, nor to easily discover her location. For anyone to sense it, they would have to fly right into the area. She would destroy them, and then the ship with her would change locations. But of course, none had managed that just yet.

While there were ships flying around between systems trying to find her, they had to get within a volume just a few thousand kilometers on a side when they were searching an area multiple lightyears across. They’d have one in a billion odds if they happened to pick the right starting point. A few thousand ships wouldn’t manage that even in months of attacks.

Though Zazil had been fully recovered for a full twenty-four standard hours, they weren’t moving on. Because their next target was right in front of them, once they started to approach the system they were effectively committing to action. Their random break duration hadn’t run out yet, and if she was going to ignore it because it felt too long then other people would likewise think it was too long. Which meant waiting would have them drop their guard.

Clearly, she would be going somewhere further. Sometimes, that was the case.

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Zazil left behind the ship and crew as normal. They weren’t here to fight, they were here to make sure the ship didn’t fall apart and that it was maintaining full stealth capabilities, ready to pick up Zazil at any moment and hide her energy signature from the Fearsome Menagerie. It wouldn’t work if Yann himself showed up, but short of that she shouldn’t be noticed before she revealed herself.

After Zazil had been attacking she couldn’t immediately restrain her aura on her own, despite her best efforts. It certainly didn’t work with people already watching her, so she needed the additional support.

Today was a rocky planet with many mines. Except for exotic things like voidsteel, which Zazil didn’t believe the Fearsome Menagerie had much investment in, powerful cultivators were the ones best at mining. That meant disciples from the Fearsome Menagerie itself would be doing all the work… which meant she wouldn’t feel bad if she collapsed large sections.

Zazil began with a single giant ring blade to announce her presence in the region. The ring descended from the heavens, shattering a defensive barrier over a city and rolling towards the nearby foothills. Only a few cultivators were damaged, but they weren’t the targets. Instead, her following blades went after some of the stronger cultivators she noted, a swarm of several dozen ring blades spinning through the city and honing in on the stronger auras. A similar number swirled around her defensively, striking out at those flying up to attack her.

Larger rings toppled storehouses. While most ore wouldn’t be ruined by some battering, it would be quite a pain for people to relocate it if they didn’t want to leave it exposed to the elements. Besides, some materials were sensitive to being struck by aggressive energy.

As she began to target mines, one of her larger rings hit it. She instantly knew something was wrong, and had to make a choice. She decided that that hit didn’t count… and since she found it she might as well make one proper strike.

Zazil had been intending to avoid running into Yann’s anchor… but fate apparently had other plans. Otherwise, she would not have come to this particular region, this part of the planet, and struck that mountain.

Inside, there was a massive skeleton. Long and thin. A dragon? No. A snake, buried long in the past. But Yann would probably tell people it was a dragon, if he said anything.

The majority of Zazil’s freely available energy went into her strike, a single large ring that tore across the landscape as it rolled towards its target, slicing into the side of the mountain.

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A small flicker, a chance in Yann’s posture. Ratna moved, striking his side. Though the various organs should stretch throughout the whole length of his dragon form, it wasn’t even a particularly vital area. But Ratna found a weakness. Her blade drove into his side up to its length and more. Her energy stretched and expanded as she widened the wound.

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Then she pulled back, but not before receiving a gash across her ribcage- going all the way through several ribs and lacerating her lung.

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The mountain exploded. Shrapnel flew everywhere, laced with Domination energy. However, only a tiny portion of it reached Zazil. It completely annihilated the surrounding towns, flattening the land for at least a dozen kilometers. As a Domination cultivator, that level of diffuse power simply wouldn’t hurt her.

That was it. Zazil was done. She had taken her one attack. Yann wasn’t sleeping on the job, and she imagined he could make the entire skeleton rise up to attack her. As a more seasoned Domination cultivator, he would win that fight with certainty.

So she prepared to run. Just one more attack. She was prepared to transition all of that energy into a push away when he suddenly moved.

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It hurt to breathe, so Ratna didn’t. Her body could live without it for a while. The damage wasn’t deep enough to kill her, so it wasn’t relevant. She was glad it was on her off side, as her arm dangled at her side.

As she dove back in, she made certain her muscles didn’t strain at all. But she was going back in. Instincts told her this was her opportunity, and she felt something she couldn’t quite describe. Yann was weak. He spun around, clawing at her, but she dove forward- towards where he was missing one very important claw. Yann still formed energy around his missing limb out of habit, but the lack of a base made its power less than half. Its speed was the same as his overall, but Ratna stabbed into it and dragged her blade towards his body, stabbing into the scaleless area that he had brought to her.

Yann screamed in rage, and frankly Ratna thought he was being a baby. He’d pretty much blocked her attack, with her weapon only going in less than an arm’s length. Nothing for a mighty dragon.

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One section of spine. Zazil didn’t even completely sever it, but instead her mighty ring cracked it. The feeling of energy spewing out reached her far before the sound of the crack, vibrating through her own controlling energy.

Zazil paid no more mind to her own attack. Her rings shot back towards her, even as the ones around her arms and legs dragged her skyward. That was about the time the mountain sized skeleton started chasing after her. But it was… weak. Not to the extent that it couldn’t devour Zazil, of course. Had it instantly lost so much power? Had Yann?

No. He was fighting. Maybe just Alliance fleets. Ratna, if it was possible. Zazil wished them good luck. She’d already done far more than she should have. She resolved to take the long path. Obviously she wasn’t going to go back to the ship, not until at least the second or third meetup location outside the system- and perhaps not even then, depending on how fast she lost this tail.

Damn the snake was fast. It would have been awful if it was a dragon.

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A flick of Yann’s bulk shoved Ratna away. She let it happen, because the other options were to clash power head on or potentially let him wrap around her. Neither of those were great, so being shoved back was fine. She even protected her ribs from taking further damage by solidifying her defensive energy around her.

Ratna took the momentum of the shove and moved further, flickering to a hidden position among Yann’s own fleets. She was ready to move back in at any moment- but his spin faced him away from the planet he was assaulting. And then he moved.

Ratna could chase him, hoping it wasn’t a trap… or she could kill some of his best elders. She could get at least one before he turned around. She went for the giant squid. Ratna didn’t remember what her name was, just that she was an annoying old hag. The elder was already moving, but Ratna caught up to her. She drove her blade into one of the two large tentacles… and found it was immediately torn away.

It was shocking enough she almost didn’t continue after the woman… but she did. Ratna went in through the eye as the woman tried to accelerate away. Damage to a shifting cultivator like the Fearsome Menagerie was reflected on their actual bodies to some extent. The exact details shifted depending on many factors, but fatal wounds were fatal wounds.

The other elders were already far enough that Ratna wasn’t willing to give chase. If she found herself among several Augmentation cultivators and Yann without the bulk of her own fleets, she would be in a serious bind.

She could pick off the stragglers, and she did. It would be obvious to Yann where she was, and she didn’t mind. Weakening the forces of the Fearsome Menagerie was most important. And he was wounded. Probably worse than her, even though her torso looked terrible. None of her organs were damaged, so it was nearly cosmetic. She just had to stitch a few things together and she’d recover within a year. Maybe faster, with the weird medicine the Alliance had.

Ratna tried to avoid having to personally test such things.

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Yann’s skeleton snake chased Zazil out of the system. He was faster, though not by much. Just enough that even when she put on a burst of speed he would quickly catch up. Given that, Zazil was going to have to stand and fight. What a terrible miscalculation. If she’d just run…

No, he would have been at full power, thus slightly faster, and she would have only been a short distance further.

Zazil picked where she was going to stand her ground. At such a distance there was no real density of interstellar objects, but she did find one decently sized lone asteroid. Her anchor was already surrounding it. It might not matter that there was a chunk of rock there, but to Zazil that reminded her of the early Dark Ring. If only she had a base full of allies waiting there.

But things like that mattered in clashes of Domination cultivators. Furthermore, the value of Zazil’s mobile anchor was not that she could remove it from an area. If she wanted it safe, she would have simply had something in the Midfields. Probably the same system as Xankeshan, if she was being honest. There was no reason not to- an incoming enemy couldn’t easily destroy anchors.

Ah. She had to test it.

Zazil rounded the decently sized asteroid. She imbued it with her power. Yann struck it headfirst. It wasn’t unreasonable, as his power was superior. There was a crack. Zazil felt her heart skip a beat.

It wasn’t the asteroid. Sadly, it wasn’t much of Yann either. Just the tip of the snake’s nose. Nothing big. At least, normally.

This was Yann’s anchor. He couldn’t afford to have damage building up, even if he might kill her. Apparently, he thought that was more important than continuing to chase her. He let the momentum rebound him and just… went.

Zazil took her lucky asteroid with her. She wasn’t sure if she could bring it all the way back to the Alliance, but she wasn’t going to bet on Yann not returning until she’d been outside of sensory range for at least a day.

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