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They were all used to the pattern by now. Everyone evacuated the surface of the world and took care of any outstanding issues while Karna took care of sending the planet away from the Netherworld. On occasion, someone wanted to see how it was done and they followed along to watch her work, but most of the time everyone handled logistical issues. Any wounds were taken care of, armor and weapons repaired, hunger and thirst satisfied, and the need for rest was handled. Eventually, they could all get to watch the world they'd just taken over disappear in front of them.

“We’ve got more wounds than usual. People are also exhausted after the battle. A little catnap isn’t going to be enough to return all the expended mana or Qi.” The acting leader of the angels looked like the stereotypical secretary while reading off the list. She might have even dressed up for the part because her dark hair was up in a bun and she was wearing glasses, something few immortals needed to use outside a fashion statement. That or Lust had influenced the choice.

"She has a point," Indra grunted while shifting to a more comfortable position on the hastily erected chair that was standing on hastily conjured stone that held up their tent in the void. The leaders of the crusade usually gathered for a tactical meeting after a large battle, and this wasn’t an exception. “Little Ynnead can protect our forces against attacks that would take lives, keeping our losses near non-existent, but even she can’t stop all attacks or stop just the normal injuries that come from wear and tear.”

“We’ve had less than a dozen full casualties in all. That alone is a miracle.” Gaia said in wonder, half-defending Karna, even if it wasn’t necessary. “Think about all the Netherworld forces we’ve taken out! The worlds we’ve reclaimed!” Most of the casualties had been among the angels as they were the easiest to kill so quickly that no healer could reach them in time. In battles of this level, a single mistake could lead to your death if you didn’t have the fortitude of a dragon or a titan, even for immortals.

“Begging your pardon, I’m not making any judgements, only reporting the situation. So far, we’ve been using blitz tactics, moving with speed to avoid getting bogged down and to reclaim as many worlds as possible. We’ve had limited rest and it worked while the battles were simple and quick. We were able to easily carry on for a time and recover any expended power between battles since the battles were so easy. Now all the stress and injuries are catching up. Our forces are getting tired, and the power reserves are getting low after that battle. The situation isn’t dire yet and we can keep going, if necessary, but it’s only going to get worse and cut into our battle efficiency. Tired people, even tired immortals, make mistakes, which will lead to more losses.” The angel’s voice was neutral. She was explaining herself with detached efficiency.

"On the other hand, we've been presented with an opportunity." Khaine leaned forward and spoke. "We've just wiped out a large chunk of the enemy forces, and I have no doubt most of them were pulled from our surroundings. That means there are now many open and vulnerable worlds that we could take with token effort. We also struck down multiple Phaerons and their elites, which is going to leave the enemy in further disarray. The longer we dither and rest, the more time the enemy will have to reorganize a defense. They managed to mount proper defenses for the first time in this battle, but it will only grow worse from here.”

The flap to the tent they were all using opened and Karna slipped inside. Her work was finished, and the world had now vanished. "We should push forward." She stated simply. "We need to get to Envy, Temperance, and Hope." Khaine had been keeping her abreast of the meeting.

Indra pursed his lips a bit. “I understand your desire to reach your friends as quickly as possible and I certainly wouldn’t suggest we don’t help them, but…”

Karna waved her hand showing that she didn’t mind. “There’s something else for you to consider. I think we’ve accomplished a lot and gotten about as far as we can without stalling. This was the first battle where the Netherworld’s forces were serious, and next time they’ll be more prepared for our tricks.” Her words echoed Khaine’s. “They’ll also have more tricks of their own. From this point on, the resistance we face will only grow, not lessen. I believe that once we meet up with my friends, who aren’t too far from here, we’ve accomplished our original objectives and can simply retreat. Once we’re back in friendly territory, we can rest and resupply in peace. We can also then determine new goals. We could be happy with what we’ve accomplished so far, which is more than the Host has managed in a long, long time. Or we could come back for more, with a more serious intent to cripple the Netherworld. If that is our goal, however, we need to be better prepared and we also need reinforcements.”

“Reinforcements that I’m fairly certain are ready and waiting to join us considering our success so far. Success breeds more success.” Khaine nodded in agreement. “We’ve actually wildly exceeded our original ideas for how this would go. This was originally supposed to be a bit of a raid and a quick rescue, but our continued success and inability to find the person in question turned this into something more.”

“We could also allow the Netherworld to think we’re not coming back and relax their defenses before repeating what we’ve done here.” Gaia pointed out. She was less excited about an all-out war instead of just being happy with small gains. As a goddess representing life, the Netherworld was something of an antithesis to her existence, but she was also a relatively peaceful goddess. She knew the dangers of reaching too far just because you could.

"That's not a bad shout either." Khaine agreed. "Still, those are plans we can decide on once we make a graceful exit. I agree with the idea of making that exit once we rendezvous with your friends. It gives us more tactical options instead of just fighting until we finally run into resistance that we can't overcome. I'm not under any illusion that just the forces we have gathered here are enough to defeat the Netherworld. If that were the case, they would've been defeated a long time ago. Unless…" She looked meaningfully at the heavily cloaked figure standing by the side.

Only a handful of them were aware of who was under the cloak and the power she represented. The figure looked at Karna instead of answering. "I suppose it's time to let that cat out of the bag as well." Karna was not expecting the slight sound of amusement that came from the figure, and it took her a moment to remember the feline members of the crew working for the being. "Anyway, this is Keeper Selendil. She, along with her allies, comes from outside this universe. For the purposes of brevity, I'll just say that she's a rank 14 psion. A very powerful one at that."

“Rank 14?!” One of the two dragon gods present asked in shock. “Why hasn’t she been blazing the way for us so far? Heck, with her, we might actually be able to seriously threaten the Netherworld.”

“Because she’s been functioning as a deterrent so far," Karna explained. "She's not the only rank 14 being out there. We have more than one among the True Gods and the imperial guard as well. Do you all think that in all this time the Netherworld has not been able to produce one as well? The type of attack we've made is exactly the type of threat that a being like that could be used to deal with. She’s here to prevent that. It has also been to our advantage that both she and her counterparts have stayed out of this fight, as it would be inevitable for some of us to be caught in the crossfire. And our forces are less expendable than theirs.”

“Then why did they not send their Rank 14, or multiple if they have more than one, to deal with us during that last attack? They knew there was a risk that she would engage.” Gaia questioned. As a relatively old True God, she wasn’t a stranger to the presence of rank 14 beings, even if such beings were rare.

“Because they don’t know how strong I am exactly.” Selendil’s voice came from below the hood, which she finally lowered, revealing her decidedly alien, yet somehow charming face. “For all they know, I would’ve been able to defeat anyone they sent, and then I would be free to act with impunity. As long as neither side is entirely sure how strong the other side is, neither side can fully commit to such a fight. That’s why Karna has been stopping me from fighting as well. We don’t know the extent of their power either. And so far, we haven’t pushed them into such a corner that they would be forced to act regardless.”

“There’s also another factor. As we just saw in the previous fight, we have certain tricks we can pull, and they knew that. Otherwise, we wouldn’t dare to be here in the first place. Until they can determine the extent of our bag of tricks, any rank 14 they sent against us would’ve potentially been subject to those tricks as well. Always remember this. Just because someone is stronger than you, that doesn’t mean they can’t be defeated.” Karna made sure to try and make sure she wasn’t using a lecturing tone. These were all powerful beings that might take offense at being lectured, especially since these were things they would’ve figured out on their own given a bit of time.

“Now, let’s push on until we rendezvous with our missing members.” Khaine declared.

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Envy cursed quietly as she pulled one of the angels behind a support column. The patrols from the Netherworld were more frequent than she’d expected and the angels weren’t exactly subtle with their glowing halos and bright clothing. Wrath’s friend Tsumi also wasn’t as good at stealth as she’d hoped. Sure, the woman had managed to stay hidden for years in a hostile environment, so she wasn’t all that bad, but in front of true experts? She was a child.

Locating Tsumi had actually been simpler than Envy had expected. Once Wrath had gotten a sense of the right direction, Envy had easily found her within the deepest catacombs of this Tomb World. Her senses weren't as far-reaching as Wrath's, but when it came to shorter range, no one could defeat her. She was a hunter, and mere parlor tricks were far from enough to hide from her senses. Besides, one of the advantages of being born into the beast tribes was her heightened senses.

Anyone remotely competent could turn invisible and remove tracks, as they were all of course doing right now. That was the first step. Anyone who wasn't an idiot could also dampen sounds, which was also where the problems started. Most people just eliminated sound around them, not realizing that doing so would create a void of sound that sucked in all sound around it. It messed up the echoes of a room in a way that anyone attuned to it would immediately notice. People, and things, also gave off a certain amount of ambient magic, and competent people knew to eliminate this magical radiation, though eliminating it completely created the same problem as with sound. People who hadn’t spent time in universes with heat detection rarely realized they gave off body heat, and that body heat could throw off the heat balance of a room in many ways, even if simple heat detection was prevented. And that wasn't even getting into detecting souls or some of the more esoteric detection methods, like detecting life force.

There was a reason it had been Envy protecting Wrath’s back from all the ethereal and silent assassins. And the reason wasn’t just because she’d wanted the job.

The angels were complete idiots when it came to stealth. They were practically shouting their presence from the rooftops with their lack of any proper stealth skills, though part of that problem was racial. Few angels would ever be good at stealth. It was hard to be good at hiding when you passively radiated light and cleansing power to your surroundings. Lust was barely better, as she had always aimed to be the focus of attention, not hide from it. In that sense, Lust was worse than Wrath, bless her. Wrath at least tried sometimes, even if she mostly failed. Neither of those two had the correct personality to stay in the shadows.

Hope had more skill. The Virtue could use her illusions to cover for any lack of skill in other areas, especially since Envy had given her a few tips. Hope was also the only reason they hadn’t been detected so far. In comparison, Tsumi was quite skilled at stealth, though that was only because they were stuck with a group of bumbling incompetent idiots. One of the angels had almost caused an alarm with their bumbling, and it had only been thanks to Envy's quick action that the danger had been avoided. Still, that patrol would be missed sooner or later, and Hope's illusions couldn't cover that problem for too long.

They also had a reason to be worried. They could easily deal with some patrols. Envy had to grudgingly admit that Lust alone could deal with almost everything that the Netherworld could throw at them. The issue was, Tsumi hadn't been the only thing Envy had detected when they'd arrived. There was also something else hidden on this world. Wrath had been right to be worried about the Netherworld having a rank 14 being. Envy was pretty sure one was on this world. If the crusade attacked this place, that being would be roused from its slumber. She wasn't confident enough that the being wouldn't be alerted if their presence was detected.

Tsumi alone had not warranted its attention. There was no way a rank 14 being wouldn’t have been able to detect her presence with her lacking stealth skills. Just that she wasn’t worth the effort alone. A small squad like theirs might not be either, but Envy didn’t want to risk it. The being seemed to be in almost stasis-like state from what little she had been able to sense. Which begged the question. If the Netherworld had one such being in stasis, how many more could there be? And for what reason?

They slowly made their way through the narrow and eerily illuminated corridors, avoiding patrols. They had to stop on occasion to allow a larger group pass, or to allow Tsumi to recover. The woman wasn't looking too good. She clearly had talent, as she'd managed to stave off the effects of the Netherworld so long, eerily similar to the way Wrath had an item for the purpose, but the sheer amount of time she'd spent here was taking its toll.

Tsumi's cheeks looked sunken, and she had obviously not been eating enough. Much of her life force was drained, and she looked like a wilting flower. She was also constantly coughing, something they also had to hide via magical means, and Envy was pretty sure she wouldn’t have survived more than a month or two at the current pace. She’d handed her protective amulet to the woman to stave off further deterioration, and she could already tell that the Netherworld was starting to affect her negatively. They had to get out and soon.