The local cultivators were ultimately fortunate to receive the amount of casualties they did. If the battle had gone the way they expected, their predictions were for greater losses. Even the optimal projections where the experimental formation for suppressing ascension energy had expected more loss of life.

That was not to say there was no damage. In addition to the deaths and injuries sustained by their cultivators, the ring of ascension energy spread over a large distance beyond the reaches of the Cragtooth mountains, devastating plants and wildlife. The damage would have been much greater if not for their formations and Paradise, and they could have even been wiped out. In a strange twist of fate, the ultimate damage to the region was minimized because of what the Twin Soul Sect and Flying Blood Cult had done leading up to the battle at Black Soul Valley. WIth mass abductions in Facraona even decades later the area had not been settled much, and the area to the west was not heavily settled to begin with.

Yet it couldn’t be said that no damage was done. The area was now bare of natural energy except a thin amount that slowly crept in from the surrounding area. In addition to the intentional actions in the Cragtooth mountains to strip the area of its resources, the surroundings would take a long time to recover.

Another ultimate disappointment was the utter annihilation of the invaders. Everyone involved had wanted them dead, of course, but their destruction included every piece of equipment that had remained on them, as well as the resources scoured from the surroundings and dug out of the mountains. Now there was only a strangely shaped lake devoid of life, with tens of kilometers around it being damaged to various extents.

Over the last two decades the continent had been carefully developing their natural energy production, including seeding plants of certain varieties outside of where anyone lived. The natural feedback loop of plants that required natural energy to grow strong that ultimately produced more than they consumed had now been disrupted. It was a huge loss, but at least they would be around to recover from it.

It was also a reminder that, barring the presence of Paradise which they could not control, they had ultimately lost the engagement. They’d grown complacent with their triumphs over the invaders and didn’t fully understand the limits of their capabilities. They couldn’t have, but it was still jarring to realize what could be done.

That lesson they would keep in mind as the continent turned its eyes towards Estary, still under the control of the invaders and with very little information coming from the area. The invaders had been fairly well cleared out of everywhere else, including Ambati which was now back in communication with the rest of the continent.

There were some hopes that Paradise would take a position to the north of Estary given its coastal position, but there was no actual way to control him. Despite the worries of the invaders in Facraona, he had mainly stayed to the east side of Facraona.

Advances into Estary were slow and methodical, as the invaders had much longer to settle themselves in the area. So far they appeared to be content with remaining where they were- and given the success of the rest of the continent killing the invaders it was understandable. Yet the danger of backing them into a corner was now well known, and the sense of urgency had dulled.

It wasn’t a pleasant thought, but they had already had sufficient time to cause whatever damage to Estary and its people that they were going to. If the information was correct that at the end of the season they would have a window to leave through whatever methods allowed their traversal. Nobody wanted to just let them get away, but it was an unfortunate matter of weighing the costs. Despite the victories throughout the continent, everyone was worn and weary. So much death in a short amount of time was devastating to deal with, and even if the basic resources necessary for life were produced in abundance by cultivators the normal cycle had been disrupted.

The continent wouldn’t starve if they went a year without proper harvests. The great loss of life meant fewer mouths to feed, and the ability of cultivators to efficiently work individual jobs meant that some people were able to get back to maintaining the world without undercutting their ability to fight. But nothing was going smoothly, and the mental toll on the people was mounting.

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Standing where he had once been in the Mistly Hill Palace, Anton found it hard to reconcile the two images. Part of it was that he was a different person, his cultivation having advanced from Spirit Building to Life Transformation in the decades since he’d come to them with news about the spiked rollers being killed. Elder Byrne had been one of their best, at the peak of Spirit Building, and had helped identify some of the buried equipment they had discovered in the creatures’ lair. That included the difficult to use bone bow, now in the hands of Nthanda, as well as many less impressive pieces of equipment that had faded from memory.

The other more depressing change was that while most of the structures remained intact, none of the members of the sect remained. Each building was at best an empty husk, though some were piles of rubble. The only thing of comfort was that no bodies littered the area, though it was a small comfort. There were signs of battle from the previous months, so there should have been some bodies. The invaders weren’t known to nicely clean up after themselves. Likely wild beasts had come through and cleaned up the area, to a certain extent.

Recreating a battle from over a month before without any bodies to show for it was basically impossible. Anton would have liked to say that a certain spatter of blood was one of the invaders or a collapsed wall had resulted in one of their deaths, but it could have very easily been the people of Misty Hill Palace. At least the signs were enough to show that things hadn’t been easy for the invaders.

So far there were no signs of people still in the area. They were near the border still, and Anton could sense vague masses to the north where there were certainly some cultivators, but it was unpleasant to have the sense of such a large area being… empty.

It was not to the same extent as the Cragtooth mountains where the plants had been stripped bare, but the fields were empty of the foods rich in natural energy and the various herbs that would have been growing. The same was true in the wilds, with areas plucked bare of nature’s bounty. Even the weakest pieces of equipment had been taken from the Misty Hill Palace, unlike the previous time where the Luminous Ocean Society had a few less valuable items last in some form until the modern day.

The lowest level of equipment was not that different from before, so there had to be some change either in the needs of the invaders or some desire for revenge. Though Anton wasn’t willing to give up on the possibility that local cultivators had come through to try to arm themselves with something once the invaders were gone. He wasn’t necessarily a fan of looting sects that might still have a chance to return for their equipment, but if it was used against the invaders it would be worthwhile.

The hardest part was just not knowing. The all-or-nothing results weren’t entirely unexpected, but were quite frustrating.

Anton was tempted to move ahead of the other scouts to push for information, but what was that going to accomplish? He might save someone, but even he didn’t value his life so little that he actually went through with the idea. If he was going to die in this war, it needed to be for serious benefits. Otherwise, he knew there was still much good he could do in the world after they won. And he firmly believed they would win, even if it cost them dearly. Unless there was a serious divergence from the expected forces that had come to Estary. Yet when the invaders were descending from the skies, nobody could say there was anything remarkable about the numbers or power of the cultivators who had come to Estary. It should merely be bad luck that they were matched up with the various groups they came against, the invaders coming out on top more than in any of the other countries. There was every possibility that there was something special about the forces invading Estary as a whole and they were being taken seriously, but chances were that it could have gone the other way. But with a few initial victories they could have begun to work together and overwhelmed the rest of Estary, just like happened the other way around in Graotan, Ofrurg, and eventually Ambati.

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News from Aicenith had become more frequent as a portion of resources could be devoted to teleportation. With both sides being well secured the risks of the travel were minimal, as arriving exhausted of natural energy was the main side effect. Simply transmitting missives was theoretically cheaper, but sending through cultivators from known sects was more secure. The other continent was doing similarly well to Brogora- huge losses, but ultimately resulting in victories. The remaining invaders were spread out in more different locations there, but each involved fewer groups concentrated together.

The two continents had only recently begun interacting with each other, with a single generation being quite minimal by cultivator standards. They maintained no animosity, but they also felt no obligation to each other. Outside of the current invasion, at least. Neither had the forces to spare to help each other- volunteers like Chikere and others from the Million Sword Vault being a notable exception- but ultimately they all wanted the invaders defeated. It appeared that was going to happen, but it would take many decades to recover.

The question was, would the world remain in its relative state of harmony after the invasion? People could only speculate, though the significant damage to the population might actually help in that case.

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Careful weeks of scouting had indicated that the invaders had ultimately congregated in central Estary, generally around the trade city of Yedo and branching off to the north. Though it appeared that they were separated into different groups, any large movements of troops would undoubtedly alert them and allow them to respond, moving troops where appropriate. It didn’t seem that it would be so simple to surround them, and even if it was possible a significant amount of resources had been devoted to improving the defenses of Yedo itself. Even from a great distance the formation masters of the continent could tell that it would be nearly impossible to break down the barriers in a short period of time.

Then there was one other thing. A single cultivator that could be sensed through all of the barriers, though it was unclear if it was on purpose or simply could not be hidden. Either way, the power was another step stronger than even the most powerful Ascension cultivator seen up to that point. While Life Transformation cultivators had been able to match up against the other ascension cultivators- usually in groups- that increase in power would allow them to dominate a battle, killing as they pleased.

Of course, nobody was undefeatable. It was simply a matter of how much it would cost in lives. That one cultivator alone would not be able to stand against their armies, but as an addition to a battle that otherwise might be considered even, it was an uncomfortable factor to consider.

It was also unknown what might not be knowable just from sensing them from afar. Most people were quite certain that they had a good estimate on the unknown cultivator’s power, but it was still a concern. As a unique factor in the situation, it bore serious thought as to how they came to be, and if there might be others hidden among the remaining invaders.