Elder Cultivator

A bad man had just passed by, and he was trying to hide it. But Fuzz had been assigned the very important task of tracking him down. The man had no scent, which was certainly a difficulty, but Fuzz had dealt with worse situations. He could have smelled horrendous, or been trailing caustic chemicals. Simply not having a scent was hardly a big deal.

Technically, it was impossible to track someone with no scent. Scent was very small things that people left behind, and if they didn’t do that, he simply couldn’t follow it. But the bad man had made a mistake. He left nothing behind, but that didn’t mean his passing had no traces. Indeed, the very trail of nothing was what Fuzz followed.

It wasn’t easy, as the surrounding scents had already filled in the area. But he could just pick out the remains of how there were slightly more scents from one side than there should be, and how there were fewer dust particles on the ground from people passing by. Because the man left no scent, anything that touched him hadn’t left. So Fuzz would find him. He began at a desk and rapidly made his way out.

His paws moved as swiftly as he could parse the scent. The first few minutes he barely waddled forward, but he felt himself getting further behind. He also grew more used to the ‘scent’ and was able to move more quickly. He followed the scent out of the compound all the way to a teleportation formation… which was where he lost the trail.

Fuzz carefully sniffed. “I don’t think he came in on this one,” he growled to the people following him. He rushed back along his trail, startling security. It was more difficult to pick up the even older trail from when he first appeared. The scent of nothing further minutes in the past was the faintest thing he’d ever tried to smell. But Fuzz was probably the best at smelling he’d ever been.

The original trail took Fuzz through winding streets, only to end up in… a random alley. “The trail ends here,” Fuzz whined. “No, it begins here.”

Alva had run along after him. “Not gonna lie,” she admitted, sniffing. “I have no idea how you did that.” She reached out her hand. “I do have some ideas how he did this though.”

“Teleportation?” Fuzz asked.

“Well… kind of.”

“It’s subspace stuff,” Alva said. “Though I’m only guessing on the exact methods involved.”

A short time later, Catarina had been called over and finished investigating the alleyway. “There aren’t any runes here compromising our defenses, at least.”

Alva nodded. “Good. I suspect he likely used one of his solar orbital stations to break into a level of subspace our formations weren’t ready to block. I don’t know how he got out, though.”

“Likely specific formation flags prepared for such an occasion,” Catarina said. “Either way, I suspect that the ‘Nighstar’ location within our domain might have an activity report. Whether he passed through it or split the difference with the original Everheart system somehow.”

“Can we do anything to prevent further intrusions?” Alva asked.

“We might be able to. But that sounds like an arms race we wouldn’t win. Instead, I’d prefer to try to secretly monitor this activity. At least he doesn’t seem to have stolen anything this time… so once we assess these flaws we might be prepared for his next arrival, assuming we don’t let on that we figured it out. So we’ll do our best to look like we’re locking down an embarrassing scenario- which isn’t untrue. And then hopefully we can use the information he delivered to do something helpful.”

-----

Beyond the first system Anton found, the others weren’t any better. Little better than shells of planets remaining, and even if they were functional for their purposes… they had gone far down the wrong path of how to get the most out of their resources. There were astounding levels of waste.

Curiosity forced Anton to look further. He had many questions… such as why these sects had not participated in any prior wars. They hadn’t assisted the invasion forces, and they had delayed decades afterwards before launching an attack. He thought perhaps they were attacking other unknown systems in the lower realms. Or they had simply been far enough that it had been impractical to respond immediately, instead taking time to prepare their forces.

Anton certainly found that they had copious ships and cultivators within their systems at the current time. Perhaps they had been at some critical point… but he hadn’t yet spotted anything that quite fit. Interrogation was outside of his area of expertise, unless it was common knowledge, and he was still trying to avoid revealing himself. He thought that perhaps someone else would find answers first… but he happened to look towards the next system.

Normal people might not notice a fifty percent decrease in light from a star. While that sounded like a massive amount, most cultivators would find their sight overwhelmed by the brightness of a star even at a single percent of its luminosity. The thing that made it stand out to Anton was that particular star had seemed brighter before. It wasn’t likely that it had suddenly gotten dimmer, but instead that he had gotten close enough to realize the dimming happened.

Stolen story; please report.

He made his way to the edge of the system, and then towards the other star to confirm. But if his assumption was correct, perhaps there really was something that happened between five and ten years prior- more than that, and he would have likely seen the changes from yet another system more distant.

In just a few days he had his answer, as he was able to more directly sense the star- and the structure being formed around it. He’d heard of theoretical star encapsulating projects, but as far as Anton was aware not even cultivators in the upper realms had made serious efforts. A number of stars had been destroyed over the course of time which occasionally resulted in securing starhearts, but this particular sort of project didn’t seem to have been completed.

At a surface level, Anton could not fault them for wanting to harness the power of a star. That was a desire he shared, in fact. Even capturing the entirety of the power it produced was not necessarily a bad thing- as long as the local planets didn’t need the heat and light, the energy could be extremely useful. But even in the current state of things, Anton could tell something was wrong.

He almost reached out to bind the star immediately. He would have then focused the power to annihilate the structure. But he held himself back, drifting closer. He was glad for his temperance, not because he found some sort of innocents he would have harmed but because the situation made rash action unwise.

Approaching the structure, a partially filled lattice that would cover the entire star when complete, he felt the star more closely. He also saw active links between the structure and the star- it wasn’t merely passively collecting energy.

Whatever they were doing had put the star in an unstable state, that Anton was certain of. He likely had the skills to stabilize it, if the structure was destroyed- but not taking at least a few minutes to study it would have been an unnecessary risk.

After he took a closer look, Anton realized it would be a waste to destroy it immediately even if he could do so safely. The structure was immensely valuable for its composition and the formations that made it up. It needed to be studied. He didn’t like leaving a star in a state of suffering but… this star didn’t show any signs of consciousness. For all his love of stars, he recognized that this was just a massive ball of plasma and it would be fine.

Even if the structure was meant to dismantle the star somehow, another few days, weeks, or even years wasn’t going to cause great harm. Unless the destabilization accelerated, in which case everyone in the system would reap the consequences of their hubris.

It would have to be monitored, of course. Anton didn’t want a supernova to wipe out the innocents remaining in the system, and there had to be some. Even if the majority of what he was were cultivators contributing to the dismantling of both planet and star, there were always innocents. War would be so much easier if there weren’t.

-----

Hundred of lightyears away on the opposite side of the Lower Realms Alliance, the system that Devon and Aerona first arrived at looked far more typical of cultivators. They had a presence on multiple planets, as typical for spacefaring cultivators. They were clearly concentrated around the ‘best’ locations with the highest levels of natural energy. Devon could tell that from afar without anything fancy.

“So what’s your plan?” Devon asked.

“Simple. I’m going to approach a planet and ask to speak to them.”

“Reasonable,” he said. “But it doesn’t sound… enlightened. Then again, if you could explain your insights you might have already mastered them.”

“You’re right. That’s just the surface. But that’s what you should expect. I expect they'll attack, at which point I’ll retreat and you and the fleets can do as you please.”

Once expectations were set for the fleets, they made their approach. It didn’t seem that this particular system was ready to defend their whole domain, though the individual planets clearly had their own defenses.

Aerona moved in front, with Devon supporting her. Before she even got terribly close, enemy ships were already departing her chosen planet. That didn’t dissuade her, however. Her aura spread out, much as one would usually do when projecting their voice through empty space. But Devon could tell that wasn’t all that was happening.

“People of the Exalted Quadrant, why must you bring war?”

Before any sort of audible response, Aerona recoiled. She looked crestfallen, but not defeated. However, she withdrew her energy and shook her head.

“That’s all I’m going to be able to do for now,” she said to Devon. “Though I’ll wait for their response nonetheless.”

The commander of the fleets soon responded. “It’s the only logical response for those who don’t understand the glory of the Exalted Quadrant.”

“Damned fanatics,” Aerona said, though without sending her words towards the approaching fleet. She turned to Devon. “You’d think they’d at least be a little hesitant with you here.”

“Should I try to be intimidating?” Devon asked. He’d just been keeping his energy fairly neutral.

“Just wipe out the ships. Nothing will happen with them anyway,” Aerona said.

“Very well,” Devon said. Then he projected his voice to the fleet. “Prepare to engage. Negotiations have fallen through.” If they could even call it that. He understood the aggressive response, given they approached with fleets… but that didn’t mean these people had to throw themselves into battle.

Several ships from the Lower Realms Alliance chose the same target- specifically, the ship of the enemy commander. At the current distance only the more powerful ships could attack, but they certainly did. One was Gabriela’s ship, clearly prioritizing the strongest cultivator felt among the enemy. The second was the ship of Byron, the first true Confluence cultivator. The third was one of the larger hivemind ships.

It was impossible to say if it was even necessary for two of the ships to attack together, but all three together were clearly overkill. The barrier of the ship lasted only a single instant before crumbling, then the entire vessel was annihilated. The commander was only a Life Transformation cultivator, after all. Even with the power of the ship and crew, they were gone before they could even make a single flash of light to counter.

The rest of the fleet was rapidly annihilated… but Devon had the feeling that they hadn’t seen the limits of what their enemy could do. Fanaticism was one thing, but the enemy had not displayed the numbers or any sort of secret that would give them the confidence to launch an attack, knowing that the upper realms failed in their invasion. Perhaps that was it. He would suggest Aerona bring up them being lied to, in case they thought otherwise. But Devon had the feeling they were simply hiding something, and while it was just a feeling, as a cultivator he knew it was unwise to ignore such things.

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