Elder Cultivator

The human scale battle against Korin was not going well, but neither was it going as poorly as it could have. Because Korin had to focus individual attacks on some of the void ants, a significant amount of pressure had been taken off of the humans. Enough that very few of the powerful ones had died.

Tessouat didn’t know if he trusted the void ants. He saw them fighting, of course. The great mass of void ants dying meant nothing to him. But one of them had taken off one of Korin’s toes. He was pretty sure that she could replace that easily enough, but comparatively it was like him taking out her whole body. Potentially more than that. It was too bad that one got stabbed.

He watched carefully. The void ants might try to annihilate all of the humans after they killed the Domination cultivator. He needed to be ready for that.

Korin looked directly at him. No, past him. She still had her focus on Bryndis. He would have thrown up a shield to defend her, but he had nothing of the sort to bring to bear. Then several things happened in an instant.

A snip of his energy drew his attention down. A pillar of void ants had climbed up to his feet. They latched onto one foot.

So this was how he was going to die. He kicked his leg forward, and the column came with it, flexing. They swung up, flinging several of their members off the end before curling towards his arm, where he was habitually holding his arm. The shape of the void ants reformed into a shield. Not his sort of shield, just a big round disc, but it was impossible to mistake it for anything else.

What a strange shape to choose for eating his arm. But since they were going to do that, he could take advantage before he died. He wanted to participate in the death of a Domination cultivator before he died, but he would settle for slightly annoying one.

A surge of his energy brought him in front of Bryndis as Korin tossed her spear. His energy wrapped around the mass of void ants from all sides- it couldn’t flow through it, like it would if it was a proper shield. But he did his best.

His initial layer of energy was useless, pierced through like it was nothing. Tessouat imagined that the same would happen with the void ants and the inner layer as well. He was half right, and he survived to comprehend the process which was pretty nice.

The void ants folded around the spear, tearing away the energy even as he watched thousands of them get crushed. The shape of his own energy was collapsing when the spear struck it… but it was just a spear. A masterpiece made for a Domination cultivator going at close to light speed, but still just a spear. Without the vast majority of the energy allowing it to ignore physics, Tessouat was able to use his own energy to deflect it. Just a few centimeters off course from his position, but that was plenty.

The spear turned a mountain into a crater, but it didn’t hit Bryndis or Tessouat, nor did it return to Korin’s hand.

Also, the void ants hadn’t eaten Tessouat’s arm yet. So that was something.

-----

Expending energy to save a single ant had not been something Uduak ever thought she was going to do, but it seemed like the best use of her abilities at the moment. Now, that ant- Crossed Antennae was her name- happened to be climbing on Korin. Uduak couldn’t create a visual illusion inside Korin’s sphere of influence, but she could bend light just enough that her current target was missed. Some of the other ants, flying from a strange whip dangling from Tessouat’s leg.

They moved so slowly through the air. Korin’s eyes would say they were moving a little more slowly. That was all Uduak could do, before the void ants landed on the woman. She’d already killed a great cloud of them, so a few dozen more probably wouldn’t mean anything… but what was there to lose?

Her life, maybe. She probably should have run. The loss of a leg was inconvenient, but she could fly. Retreat to fight again another time. But she saved more ants instead. Crossed Antennae was surprisingly inspiring.

-----

The scent of her Royal Guard was sufficient to rally Crossed Antennae. She didn’t even have time to properly say anything. She just spewed out the most attack pheromones she could, gesturing to a specific part of Korin’s body.

Snips didn’t fail her. It was unclear how Snips got herself flung to Korin during the battle- maybe Runa helped?- but she was there in along with a significant quantity of functional legs.

Snips had learned from a swordmaster. It was a strange thing for a void ant, but cutting was good. The metal plates that had caused so much trouble for Crossed Antennae tore open. That left her open to do…

Something. She knew what she wanted to do, but she didn’t know how to do it. She flat out refused to consider if it was possible. It was way too late to deal with such trivial things.

Korin had to die.

Crossed Antennae hadn’t had the time to communicate that this was a puppet.

Korin wasn’t here.

Crossed Antennae probably couldn’t kill someone that wasn’t present.

She killed so many void ants. And Chops, probably.

Fire and Bullet joined Snips on the attack, trying all sort of poisons. There was some living flesh in this puppet, so they were probably doing great.

Crossed Antennae didn’t have time to think. So she did what she would do to any cultivator she found herself fighting. She took a bite out of their cultivation.

Korin wasn’t even in the same system.

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There was only a puppet.

But Korin was connected to the puppet. Crossed Antennae bit that.

Domination energy was spicy. It was almost strong enough to convince Crossed Antennae that she couldn’t bite things she knew she could.

From up close, Crossed Antennae thought it was like the sun turning off. A massive conduit of energy just… stopped.

The body that people thought was Korin began to fall out of the sky.

Korin wasn’t dead. But Crossed Antennae would have bet all her nests that Korin was injured- and where it mattered most.

-----

Morale was a tricky thing for people. Sometimes, killing a great hero in front of people would drive them into a frenzy. Other times, they would fall into despair.

Korin’s fall was much more like the latter. In fact, her sudden lack of presence on the battlefield was astounding to both sides. But the Chaotic Conglomeration got over it more quickly… and when they attacked, many individual cultivators just weren’t using their energy for anything.

It didn’t matter what their cultivation level was if they offered no defense. Some things happened automatically. Ship barriers generally stayed functional, unless a cultivator was actively manipulating them. Some had talismans that reacted, providing momentary defense. But it didn’t matter, because Korin was no longer on the battlefield.

Runa didn’t believe it until her dagger stabbed through the ‘brain’ of Korin’s body. Her father didn’t either. Emrik actually severed the limbs, just in case.

“She’s… dead?” Runa blinked. It was so fast. She knew void ants were dangerous but- she looked down.

Crossed Antennae shook her head. “A puppet,” she signed. “But injured.” Runa could feel something from Crossed Antennae. Normally, a void ant had no energy signature, but just after they ate there could be a little bit. She had more than a little inside of her, almost ready to explode out.

“A puppet?” Runa sighed. That made sense. There wasn’t a connection to elsewhere, but it could have been internal. If it was external, she wouldn’t have been so crazy as to get anywhere near the Spirit Slicing Sect with lightyears of a thin connection behind her, just waiting to be cut. “We’ll discuss this later.” They had a battle to finish up. And Tessouat was looking quite concerned about the void ants he was carrying.

-----

The Exalted Quadrant was driven back. A Domination cultivator, injured. A significant victory.

Tessouat sighed. “I thought it was too easy.”

“You didn’t lose a leg,” Uduak commented.

“Or three,” Chops commented- but nobody translated for her. The void ant had a large part of her scraped off by the spear, but it was less than half of her body so she thought it was fine. She hadn’t died instantly. It would still take a while.

Tessouat shook his head. “No, but you only lost a leg. And we only lost… a few others. Killing a Domination cultivator isn’t that easy. Even if it’s happened a few times in the past century, I still believe that.”

Everyone wanted Crossed Antennae to explain the extent of the damage to Korin. All that she could say was that her cultivation was injured. Not fully broken, but also not something superficial.

And they had her body. One of her bodies. A doll. But she was putting in a lot of effort to get Bryndis’ body, so it was clearly not something she could easily replace. Nor could she just conjure another spear of the same quality. Even if she had several, the cost wasn’t negligible.

“So what we should do from here…” Runa looked around hesitantly. “Is discuss the void ants.”

“They saved our hides,” Uduak said. “I can acknowledge that. But they’re also a threat to us if they remain.” She held up her hand. “I don’t mean directly. No more than any other allies we’ve fought alongside. But the Exalted Quadrant is quite determined to exterminate them, and if they focus on our planets…”

“I believe they should stay,” Emrik said. “If they wish to. Obviously that shouldn’t be a surprise, since we knew they were around the whole time. Even if there are certain risks, there are also benefits.”

“They were watching us,” Tessouat said. “Making sure we didn’t break the rules of the Scarlet Alliance.” His eyes slid over to the twins. “Isn’t that right?”

“We couldn’t just trust your word,” Misi said. “Clearly, they weren’t watching enough people. The Serene Pill Society…”

“We’ll deal with them,” Runa said. “Now that we know for certain they were sharing information. So the void ants…”

There was a split. Many didn’t think the knowledge the Alliance could provide outweighed the risks of the void ants- and their own privacy. No doubt the parts of the Chaotic Conglomeration that hadn’t personally witnessed the void ants fighting for them would be even more wary, despite the way the border held.

Uduak wanted the void ants to withdraw from the Order of Light and Darkness, and any planets they were established on.

Tessouat hadn’t trusted them at all. He held up his arm, looking at it. “Can we get more?”

-----

It took several months to decide everything, which was actually quite rapid as such large scale things went. Officially, the void ants were going to withdraw from everywhere that didn’t want them. That left only a few handfuls of planets that would keep their presence. Some who wanted knowledge enough were willing to uproot their sects from the planets that rejected the void ants so they could still maintain an influx of information.

“Now that we have a smaller group of trusted people,” Misi said. “I think the Scarlet Alliance can actually share more information.”

“Domination?” Tessouat tilted his head.

“Maybe,” Juli said. “But that won’t be transmitted. You might be able to visit the Alliance.”

The connection between the Scarlet Alliance, the Chaotic Conglomeration, and the void ants couldn’t stay secret. The Alliance only had a small presence, but it was clear enough. Meanwhile, the void ants were known to too many, and it was difficult to make sure everyone would be silent.

“You’re not actually leaving them unsupervised, right?” Tessouat asked Crossed Antennae directly. “Nobody would notice a few little ants sneaking around.”

“How dare you insinuate we would go against the terms of a contract,” Crossed Antennae signed. “All void ant colonies will be withdrawn.”

Obviously some individuals would remain. It was far too dangerous to allow enemies to develop on both sides of her territory. But the nests would be gone. And no void ant would dare to act in any way that could reveal them. They’d die first.

“Right,” Tessouat grinned. “Obviously.”

Could he read void ant body language? Crossed Antennae didn’t know. Clearly her words still needed to be translated, but maybe he was good at reading people. Well, she wasn’t worried about him. He intended to be covered in void ants most of the time. Tessouat appeared willing to sacrifice any amount of privacy for power.

Void ants directly working with people in the upper realms was exciting. And terrifying. Hopefully, they were strong enough to hold their own. And Alliance needed to be as well.

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