For all that there were effectively only a few enemies present on the battlefield, things were not as heavily weighted towards Weos as it seemed things should have been. The skies around Bavore were filled with local ships, but their main impact was maintaining the formations that were drawing out the two Ivory Maw cultivators. Unfortunately that also came along with the distortion beast, a great mass of eyes that spewed beams of energy at anything it found a tempting target. Anton was learning to avoid those attacks and even sometimes redirect them towards Bala or Leonas’ masses of bone and flesh, but he had to concern himself with both their attacks which included a reanimated Oluchi as well as the distortion beast, and more specifically the spherical maw of teeth he worried could come at any time.

At the moment, the Great Queen’s presence in the battle was of minimal impact. Anton was under the assumption that she was still making her way towards Bala, and if she actually reached the center of the mass of bones it would not take long for the woman there to perish. The Great Queen had gotten a hand and three toes on her previous attempt, and that was with only a few moments of contact. Bala Sykora might be more aware of the Great Queen’s approach this time, but she was also occupied by the distortion beast. There were still pulses of spectral energy from the bone mountain she occupied the center of, but they were infrequent compared to the attacks at surrounding ships or random eyes popping up.

Nthanda was nearly free to attack as she pleased, not concerning herself with the distortion beast. It had attacked her a few times to little effect, and in return she had ignored it, resulting in an unspoken pact between them. Her arrows pierced into the masses of flesh Leonas surrounded himself with, muscly meat that animated as he pleased. That included parts of the former distortion beast that had been fought in Rutera, though it seemed controlling something both new and of such great power was draining. His general movements were slowing, and heavy arrows were finding their way deeper into the mountain he occupied, tearing large trails through the area as they went.

Anton’s arrows focused on Oluchi. He would have preferred to preserve her body for a proper funeral, but it was already too late for that. He himself had shot off one of her arms at the shoulder, now holding itself together by pure writhing muscles. There were other injuries, both from the distortion beast and passing ships, and presumably others from her death at the hands of the Ivory Maw, though the latter were small in number. Perhaps her body had been restored in the intervening time.

Since Ascension energy seemed likely to get him nearly eaten again, Anton focused on his ‘normal’ arrows and spectral energy. The animated body of Oluchi was now locked onto him as a target, throwing a spear that tore apart the space around it towards him, one which dogged him repeatedly as he avoided its motions. That suited him well enough, because even with the spatial distortions he was still skilled enough to avoid a single projectile indefinitely. Though he couldn’t exactly say it was easy, with Oluchi still holding most of the power she had in life. It didn’t seem to take sustained effort from the Worldbinding cultivators either, though perhaps it was simply lessened.

Anton found himself moving closer and closer to Oluchi, the masses of flesh blocking his attacks on her making it difficult for him to finish her off. That put him within the range of Leonas, but the man was occupied to the point he could only manage a few dozen attacks on Anton himself at any one time. Anton would have praised his ability to act simultaneously if they could be anything but enemies.

Soon, Anton was barely a dozen meters from Oluchi. With her primary weapon chasing him, her actual body was only a small threat. Avoiding the ‘ground’ reaching up for him was a larger concern, but he avoided it as he pressed forward. When he nearly crashed into her, a secondary spear piercing towards him held in her hands, Anton spun around her with Star Steps, instantly redirecting his momentum twice. The movement technique was more effective on a larger scale, but it still did what he needed despite the excessive use of energy.

Behind Oluchi’s back, Anton drew upon a small shard of ascension energy, firing it even before the arrow was fully formed. Two results followed, one unexpected and one anticipated. The first was that Oluchi’s spear did not slow its momentum, piercing through her heart in its flight towards him. The second was a maw of teeth appearing. The latter made dodging the former more difficult, and Anton pulled away from the mass of flesh with new gashes along his body, blood pouring from wounds laced with spectral energy. He immediately focused on expunging the effects from his body while he surveyed what happened with Oluchi.

An inverted dome was carved into Leonas’ mass of flesh where he had been, nothing remaining but bite marks on all sides. That included bits of unknown creatures, the other distortion beast, and Oluchi’s body. A result that was a mixed blessing. The damage to Leonas was good, as well as removing Oluchi from the battle, but her body was now gone, unlikely to be retrieved in any form. Anton at least had her spear, suddenly inactive without control of the replicated version of her energy. Though it was impractical in the middle of battle, he took the moments to store it away.

The event occurred just before a cascading effect. A scant few moments after Oluchi’s second death, a great pulse of spectral energy came from Bala Sykora’s ‘ship’. Anton felt the energy wash over him, attempting to bring him directly towards ‘death’. His body weakened further as fatigue set over him, but he was familiar enough to resist its effects enough and survive. The pulse weakened in power as it spread, but it still affected many of Weos’ ships. Unlike against the distortion beast their spatial distortion barriers had some effect, but Anton felt many lives perish, the greater formation beginning to fail.

As giant skeletal arms began to tear apart space itself, they suddenly stopped. Anton felt a powerful energy suddenly get snuffed out as the core of Bala’s energy disappeared all at once. Yet he could still sense her life for several moments beyond that. But the mass of bones had already begun to pull apart next to the gas giant’s gravitational pull, no longer bound by her control.

Through the sizable crater the distortion beast chewed in Leonas’ mass, Nthanda fired a series of arrows that flew in a spiral pattern, cutting a helix deeper and deeper into the core. Spectral energy drained the natural energy from her arrows, but once they were on target their main power was simple momentum, heavy metal moving at great speed and cutting its way deeper. Some found their way to Leonas himself. Yet he too began to tear apart space, making use of the distortion beast’s tendrils primarily. The large hole began to close up as more of his flesh mountain writhed its way into the gap.

Then a sphere of light and energy, countless individual beams, tore its way out from the center of the mass. Anton could both see and sense an eye… many overlapping eyes? A compound eye like an insect? That part was unclear, but what wasn’t unclear was that a good portion of the beams of energy had gone through Leonas, leaving little of his body intact.

Ingeborg, the formation master coordinating Weos’ ships, had already begun to withdraw their ships as the formation was already collapsing. With Bala’s death, she had likely found the results acceptable, even if it meant Leonas could retreat. Thus, the formation fully collapsed a few moments later… and with it, the eyes only winked into existence a few more times. Anton did feel several dozen spherical maws of teeth appeared and chomped down in sequence throughout the masses of flesh and bone, but the world quickly began to settle down after the distortion beast was no longer being agitated and got its snack.

Anton began to bind his wounds, keeping aware as possible for anything that might indicate further intentions of the distortion beast. Yet it seemed to be either sufficiently injured or satiated to withdraw. From what Anton understood, they were actually relatively docile until agitated to begin with, content to passively feed upon energy over years. Some things were simply too tempting, though oddly enough the Ivory Maw had not drawn its attention from their subspace.

-----

The Great Queen tossed most of a corpse onto a table. It was a rather awkward movement, not because she did not have the physical force to carry the fifty or fewer kilograms of mass, but simply because she had no hands or arms or leverage. The motion was managed nonetheless, and Bala Sykora’s corpse- with the anticipated weird protrusions of bone replacing one hand and three toes lost in a previous battle- was sitting in front of a local council of Weos.

“Is this… why did you bring this here?” Rikuto asked. “The reports of her death were sufficient…”

Nthanda translated- though Rikuto himself had learned at least the basics of the void ants’ sign language. He was a diplomat that worked with Ceretos, after all, and he intended to do his job. “She says that in exchange for slaying a Worldbinding cultivator, the void ants request to establish nests within the Weos system.”

“It is true that there were talks of a potential deal of the sort…” Rikuto frowned. He had the problem of his own decision making powers being limited, and of also being absolutely terrified.

Anton could at least help him with the latter. “It’s not a threat, by the way,” Anton smiled gently. “It’s more like a gift. It could have been hunted prey, but in this case it is a mutual enemy.” He placed his hand next to the Great Queen, nudging her with a pinky clearly able to be bitten through with her mandibles, should she want to.

Rikuto recovered quickly. “I will of course bring up your request with all of Weos’ planets,” Rikuto agreed. “Determining who should be the first to host you, should people be agreeable, will likely take some time.” He tried to make his deep breath seem as inconspicuous as possible. “But we appreciate your assistance, Great Queen.” He inclined his head to her, then to Anton and Nthanda in turn. “And of course the human cultivators of Ceretos as well.”

“Our contract was already fully established,” Nthanda said. “And I imagine we are all pleased with the results.” Nthanda was promised a reasonable rate for her presence- actually being involved with slaying two Worldbinding cultivators would earn her much greater rewards. Those would come after the joint groups had combed through the storage bags of Bala and Leonas, or at least the exploded remains of such bags. Anton could easily describe a good portion of what they had as ‘accursed’, but they were still cultivators and some resources were useful to all, or easily exchangeable.

“Today was a great victory for the trifold alliance,” Anton declared. “May we continue to prosper and have good relations in the future.” He would advocate for the Great Queen’s colonies to some extent as well, likely with the reminder that void ants would be very effective against invaders from the upper realms- and were quite zealous in their shared ambition to fight them.

After all of the talking was done, Anton was going to go take a nap, and begin the process of healing his body. He preferred his natural elderly state rather than the current unnatural decrepitness he was experiencing. Even if he hadn’t been the primary target of much spectral energy in the battle, it had still affected him. The gashes from the distortion beast’s maw would also leave their scars, the wounds a bit more persistent than their simple physicality would have implied.

At least they could now say that the Sylanis Cluster was officially down more than six Worldbinding cultivators. Only ninety-four to go. Not that those numbers were ever fully accurate. At least if Carlitos and Aridasa stepped out of line he was confident in taking them out.