The chances of encountering anyone between systems was already astronomically low before considering different methods of travel, and with the arrivals and destinations being different then there was simply no chance of being near each other.

Thus there was only a strange tension of waiting and running at the same time. They were retreating victorious, but Anton couldn’t shake a bad bad feeling. Not one of imminent peril, not to himself at least, but of greater troubles. Not as all encompassing as the tides of the world shifting and allowing for invasion, but significant nonetheless.

Piled atop Anton’s head were dozens of ants. He wasn’t particularly keen on being a replacement nest, but a sign that he was trusted by the wiped out group was nice. Even if most of their time in the blood ocean hadn’t resulted in direct attacks on them, the general presence of spectral energy was dangerous for them. So they were recovering where they felt safest- which was for the royal guard around their queen, and for the Great Queen with Anton. If he understood correctly the Great Queen knew how to recover from most long term effects of spectral energy, but it required energy intake. There wasn’t exactly a ton of that to spare in the void between systems, and munching on Anton’s was likewise forbidden as his recovery was almost nonexistent away from his stars.

Nthanda, despite being the direct target of attacks, seemed to be doing better. That is to say, she’d been violently sick in the hours after their retreat, but now she was able to move around with no significant signs of discomfort. She still had injuries, but if Anton watched carefully he could see them patching themselves up, more quickly when Nthanda had something to eat.

Merve lingered nearby, as overcoming years of not trusting anyone was difficult, and she still felt most comfortable around Anton. As expected, she had the best effect on the battlefield augmenting the most people possible instead of just Anton, though she wasn’t necessarily happy about that.

Anton himself just felt drained. He had the greatest experience with spectral energy among them, though he was nearly as new in terms of fighting it. Regardless, he was able to bring himself to a fatigued but stable state after the battle, though he couldn’t fully recover until they were back in Rutera. So he could only wait.

Finally, after about half of their journey back they got a response from Rutera. Or rather, a message that was likely sent before word was received of their victory in Aphuna. It was mostly a message relayed from Weos. As indicated, Bala Sykora and the final Worldbinding member of the Ivory Maw Leonas Kazlas had led an attack there. The warning had arrived in time for them to scramble some sort of response, but it was still difficult to deal with the two powerful cultivators and the army they had with them.

Following messages came with updates. The initial defense Weos produced was only what they could quickly rally, and the attackers pushed past them towards planetary targets. Lives were reaped for no purpose other than to feed a mountain of bone and a writhing ball of flesh, the power of two Worldbinding cultivators. They were finally driven away, but not before more deaths… including Oluchi, one of Weos’ new Assimilation cultivators. It was unclear if the two Worldbinding cultivators would come away weaker or stronger after the conflict, but at least many lesser disciples of the Ivory Maw were also killed- though they’d added to the necromancers’ respective abominations.

If Anton had simply chosen to reinforce Weos… he probably wouldn’t have arrived by the time everything was over. That was the truth, but what he felt was that he could have helped, prevented those deaths and perhaps swung the battle enough to slay the two Worldbinding cultivators. The fact that ultimately he’d probably made the right choice didn’t make him feel any better. Not while word of the spear-wielding cultivator’s death was fresh in his memory. Later, he could look on things with fresh eyes.

-----

The Great Queen’s enthusiasm was restrained as she placed Varlaam’s head on the table. “We look forward to continuing productive relationships with Rutera in the future.” She slowly rotated herself until she was facing the local representatives of Weos. “We are sorry for your losses. Know that as members of this alliance we will diligently hunt down enemy Worldbinding cultivators.”

Anton was appreciative that the Great Queen didn’t ask for or even imply the exchange he knew she wanted- nests in Weos. Learning any human tact had been difficult for her, but she seemed to know not to bring that up now. Later, perhaps, if she had something more to display.

As for Varlaam’s head, though it could be said that Anton and Nthanda were contributors to the victory as well, the void ants were the ones who secured the victory. With Anton not having any need for negotiating weight at the moment and Nthanda being an advocate for the void ants, letting the credit mainly fall to her was acceptable.

“One of three,” General Nicodemo said. “A massive step forward. Perhaps not worth the losses in Weos, but we managed to make the best of the situation. The question is if we can take out the other two.” Nicodemo looked quite unsure at that. “With the addition of Devon and The Independence…” he looked to Anton for his judgment.

“That might work,” Anton agreed. “But I cannot say there would be no losses among us. Perhaps another Assimilation cultivator.” For the sake of ease, they would lump Nthanda and the Great Queen in among those. Assimilation and Worldbinding had enough overlaps that they could be considered the same, or at least part of some larger category, but keeping the distinction between enemies and allies for the moment was convenient. “However, we will need some time to recover from our previous excursion. And there are other plans in motion that will hopefully produce some sort of results.”

“And those plans are…?” Nicodemo asked.

“The same thing we’ve been working on for a while. Diplomacy,” Anton grinned. “At least, that’s what some people call it.” While it was fun to remain vague, Anton really needed to properly explain. “Aridasa sent us good information. So we replied with information about Varlaam’s unfortunate death. Killing two Worldbinding cultivators is a significant decrease in difficulty from three working together, but still risky. If the situation has been understood correctly, however, there might be some within the Sylanis Cluster who would be willing to take that risk for us. If we’re wrong,” Anton shrugged, “Then we’ll act in some manner after we’re recovered.”

-----

A series of monitors displayed incoming text and images. Video would have been impossible, and Theia was honestly surprised that the transmissions were working from afar despite using minimal energy. She didn’t want to think about how much money had gone into the project and how many expensive recording and transmission devices had been subsequently stomped on or otherwise destroyed in Okloi.

Aphuna wasn’t much better. The first bits of information were just trickling in, pixelated pictures of blood coated buildings and garbled text representing nearby conversations. Some had never transmitted anything, and some suddenly stopped. Even so, every bit of information they got from these was something they would have no access to otherwise. The extremely minimal communication with Okloi notwithstanding.

As a coordinator for all of this incoming information, Theia found most of it was nonsense. Even so, she and her subordinates were tasked with looking through everything. Images and snippets of conversation could be important, but so far there had mostly been a lot of disciples speaking in fear about Varlaam’s death and others complaining about having to sort all of the bodies. Not bury them- apparently that was not a dignity the Ivory Maw allowed. Instead, they would be ‘reused’. Expected, but still discomforting.

Even so, some of this information could one day be words spoken by their Worldbinding cultivators, secrets spoken where no ears should be. Unless they found all of the hidden devices and destroyed them. Or worse, compromised them. Filtering through things that might be intentionally misleading was another job for Theia’s department.

-----

It was an uncomfortable time to be in the Upper Realms, not because things were going particularly poorly for the Xankeshan Guardians, but because those from the Order wished they could be of assistance in the war. But they had taken their opportunities for advancement as they came. Assimilation was attractive, but each of them would have still chosen Ascension even if they were fully aware of the possibilities.

Catarina was fascinated with what formations could do with upper energy, and Timothy would have followed her anywhere. Hoyt was able to encounter his reincarnated grandfather, while also working towards the future safety of his homeworld. Velvet chose to join them after being aware of the options, pitting her stealth skills against ascension level opponents regularly in both combat and espionage. Alva had come to follow Fuzz and the others. Spikes and Vari were already in the upper realms to begin with, and Chikere wouldn’t have given up the chance to get better swords.

Just in case, they had been looking into the potential of any presence of the Sylanis Cluster in the upper realms. There was no indication that there would be, but that just made it easier to ask. At best, they found information on similarly named sects, systems, or planets. So they probably didn’t have to worry about that in particular when the tides of the world next changed, something that would happen in less than another century- at least for the region around Weos, Rutera, and Ceretos. It seemed it wasn’t the same for every place on the border between the upper and lower realms, but finding even what they did about the phenomenon was difficult. It seemed that the Exalted Quadrant and the Trigold Cluster preferred to keep it secret so they could exploit it.

Both were far too powerful for the Xankeshan alliance to even dream about making a move against, but the Harmonious Citadel was another matter. They were bound to come into conflict for many things as the Harmonious Citadel continued to spread throughout the area. Working with the Dark Ring, Xankeshan had prevented some of their ‘westward’ expansion, but they continued to gobble up planets and systems year over year.

With few powers of any significance to oppose them, their efforts had been successful. Getting disconnected people together for an organized resistance was difficult, especially since some didn’t think they should bother. For cultivators, if a powerful sect took over they thought they might be able to rise up within the ranks. That might even be true. The issue was the Harmonious Citadel’s structure being set up to be intentionally unfair, while hiding that from both the public and the members on the subordinate track. Sadly, informing people about that was about as useless as using a bucket to try to drain a lake. Few people would listen, as information from a random individual wasn’t necessarily reliable.

Those who were a bit more clever knew that information from a large sect was also suspect, but there was little they could do. Except now, they might hear about joining the Xankeshan Guardians. The problem was, even though expanding rapidly was required, they couldn’t just arbitrarily let anyone join them. It wasn’t just a simple desire to not give up control, but weeding out bad actors and spies was necessary. Repairing the old formations to manage not only external but internal defenses was a project for a lifetime- one Catarina was glad to have, but it meant they could only count on them to stop direct assaults for the moment.

Still, as the personal power of each of them grew at a steady pace, the risks they could take on grew as well. It would be a long time before any of them were the equivalent of Augmentation cultivators, but having gone through proper Ascension- or an atypical advancement like Vari- they were a step above most of the rest. It was possible for natives of the upper realms to smoothly transition from the end of Life Transformation to Ascension, but without undergoing proper trials they weren’t as effective. With more time, the gap would grow- though there were resources that could be used to overcome any hurdles. For the moment, however, time favored those new to the upper realms in the last few decades.