Elder Cultivator

“Grrrr…” Aconite grumbled as Zaur turned into a form that seemed to be mostly made of light. That could negate more than half of the poisons she’d painstakingly chosen! Not all of them, obviously. Some of them reacted directly with energy. If she’d known this would be the result, though, she could have created some pretty impressive results.

But she’d done her part, and she recognized Chidi’s work with that leg. Though it wasn’t like there was anyone else who could have cut off Zaur’s actual leg from hundreds of lightyears away. What was even happening over there?

This Domination cultivator being made of light was a problem, but not her problem. Her problem was these incoming ships. Metal and stone. They’d of course heard about the war in the lower realms, but they hadn’t put as much consideration into countering them as the Citadel of Exalted Light.

The stone was… actually, Spike should probably handle that. Aconite’s parents had been blasted into space by a previous attack, so that was a good time for them to get away from Zaur and let people with the right sort of attacks focus on him.

Aconite howled, clearly declaring her intent- to those who knew how to speak wolf. That should not include the incoming sects, even if the Citadel’s spies might have. “Great wolves! Draw your focus on the vessels of metal and stone!”

Now, one might have thought that Aconite would be a terrible match against these people, and she would understand where people were coming from and respectfully disagree, for multiple reasons. First, with the way they moved around the parts of their ships it would actually be fairly easy to slip poisons into their contained systems. Second, Aconite had a quite liberal definition of poisons. There were some things she carried that weren’t what people would normally consider poisons. But they were substances that she could use to make people feel very bad, so poison was correct.

Or in this case, it didn’t work on people at all. Except the ones with prosthetic limbs. There was a reason she wasn’t allowed to keep this stuff on her most of the time. War was an exception.

Wolves weren’t made to fly, but they weren’t any worse at it than humans. Once you got into space, it literally just took pushing yourself with energy. Aconite picked out a good ships and clawed it as she rushed by. She didn’t use the good stuff, but if the part she touched ever reached the inside of the ships it would react splendidly with their internal air supplies.

Shards of metal and hurling chunks of stone flew towards her, but Aconite didn’t remain in any one place. It was never her style to get locked down in a brawl with anything. She scratched up a few ships, appearing to cause no real damage, and then she spotted the big one.

She’d had a vague sense of it, since there wasn’t really anything blocking, but it was big and ponderous so it had also been more distant. The thing was probably the size of a handful of orbital defense platforms crushed together. Maybe more. That was absolutely going to be trouble.

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If Chidi were able to activate Negation back to back, he would have. However, his control was yet imperfect. Negating energy until he completed an attack was already an astounding improvement. Having seriously wounded Zaur twice, he could die content in his contributions. But he didn’t want to, so when Timothy rushed forward to cover him, Chidi gladly moved back.

The Citadel was spraying energy in all directions, and he really didn’t want to be disintegrated. Now where was his mother? She was doubtless up to something clever, but since they both worked with energy flow it would be easy to disrupt each other if they weren’t careful.

Ah, there she was. The Citadel had only just begun to crumble, but she was already observing the new edges- most likely to mess with the structure itself.

Zaur was clearly not happy, but he was also severely injured. And while it might not seem like losing a leg should have weakened him in any way, even a normal cultivator would be afflicted by more than blood loss. A Domination cultivator? Damaging his body affected his anchor, which affected his source of power. Zaur probably should have looked into fortified bones or something. He might still have that leg.

Of course, ‘reduced power’ merely meant ‘attacks that Timothy was barely capable of blocking’. Chidi happily retreated with his father so that they could take the pressure off, though it wasn’t actually possible to escape Zaur’s range. Being inside the Citadel seemed problematic though.

When Zaur fully turned his form into light, the first thing he did was try to kill Velvet. She was cutting apart the energy attacks he was sending at her, so he attacked directly. The only part of him that was still vaguely physical was that crystal sword he was holding- he’d tried to counter Chidi with it, but of course he wouldn’t be touched by such amateur swordsmanship.

At the speeds Zaur could move with his energy, however, Velvet was barely moving. Chidi thought that perhaps he should have broken the weapon. It sliced towards Velvet’s neck, and there was no way she could dodge.

A frontal confrontation with a Domination cultivator’s power was basically the stupidest thing that Chidi could think of. Obviously Velvet wouldn’t try it- but Durff would. The thing was, Zaur could absolutely avoid the trajectory of his hammer, but he was clearly going for two victories in one.

The weapons clashed… and Durff was sent flying through the Citadel. It looked like his loss, but it was actually a double victory. The fact that any momentum transferred to him at all meant his weapon wasn’t cut through… and Durff really went through the Citadel. He took out a huge chunk of floor with him, and Chidi thought he saw a bit of Zaur’s jaw briefly flicker out of existence, before being replaced. Another inefficiency, as Zaur couldn’t even admit to himself he was taking damage.

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Velvet hadn’t just stood still. Her weapons flickered towards Zaur- one targeting his outstretched hands, the other his waist. Because of the way Velvet contorted her body, she actually touched his waist first. The voidsteel dagger began to cut into Zaur… and he flickered away instantly. The wound was probably trivial, but the reaction meant Velvet could hurt him.

Chidi ended up next to Catarina, just ‘outside’ the Citadel. “What do you need?” he asked. She’d come up with something, given the offer.

“I can’t carve this,” Catarina declared. Then her energy traced a symbol in the air. “Channeling rune!”

The shape Catarina drew was far from complete, but Chidi knew the correct depth and angles he should cut to. As for carving into the Citadel… Zaur’s energy was weaker, and negating a small area on the tip of his blade was still within Chidi’s capabilities. Normally he had to negate a wide area to avoid being obliterated by his opponent’s energy.

Chidi didn’t question for an instant why they began carving energy amplification runes into the Citadel. He hadn’t studied it much. His mother would know why, and the time it took to ask would be more symbols he could draw.

Zaur refused to focus on just one person, and Chidi wasn’t going to correct his mistake. The Domination cultivator continued to throw out attacks, but Velvet had disappeared again and Durff was seemingly unconcerned with his position embedded with his head and shoulders in translucent crystal.

Timothy’s posture changed slightly, but the two next to him knew what it meant without him saying. He was practically out of energy. Like the rest of them. But they weren’t going to stop now. Escape was probably impossible… and Zaur was in a death spiral. If they could just manage a little bit more, they might be able to break him. And if not, at least the Scarlet Alliance should be able to deal with what was left after they died.

Chidi punctuated what he knew to be the final rune by thrusting his sword into the crystal. When his blade withdrew, energy came spilling with it. The reactions of himself and his parents were quite different. Chidi withdrew into himself, focusing only on the energy immediately around him. He lost all feeling of the outside world beyond a thin layer of energy washing over him as he activated Negation…

But it wasn’t enough. His internal energy was disrupting things, so he cast that aside. He briefly felt cold. Then again, he was in space. He’d absolutely die without energy… but it wasn’t like he was going to live long enough to freeze, suffocate, explode, or any of the other vacuum-related ends that might come for him if he didn’t do this.

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Timothy stepped between his wife and the overflowing Domination energy. He had no idea how long he could last, and it wasn’t even an attack, but he didn’t care what it was or if he lived. He had the best chance of resisting it, so he did.

The sensations that washed over him told a story. A story of power. Of Light. But it wasn’t a happy story. There was fear- and less of it was respectful fear than straight up terror. Timothy couldn’t say it was tainted. Clearly it worked for Zaur. But Timothy would never tread down that path himself. Not that he’d get the opportunity.

He was trying to figure out whether his legs would disintegrate or his shield when his energy ran out. Not that there would be any appreciable difference in time between the two. Then something stabbed into his chest.

Catarina’s arm was wrapped around him, and she had in hand a dagger, carving into his breastplate- and him. He didn’t even have an instant where he felt betrayal. Instead, his only thought was that she was up to something crazy again.

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Normally, it didn’t matter to Catarina whether or not she was ambidextrous. She could use one hand- or no hands- for pretty much everything. There was only a very slight difference between left and right either way. But when things had to be perfect, like special formation markings? She thought perhaps she should have tried to train any difference out of her limbs.

Too late for that. Her left arm contorted to carve into her own back.

Timothy’s energy flickered out, and the fact that she was able to comprehend that meant something was working at least a little bit. Energy built up in his chest, seeming like the power of a star. Just one, but Catarina wasn’t going to disparage anything on the level of a star.

As the energy built up, Catarina squeezed herself tightly against her husband. She’d studied Domination energy as thoroughly as possible- including a trickle that had come through Zaur’s severed fingers- and she had a million ideas for how to affect it. Even ideas for how she might some day reach Domination herself. Those all involved grand formations, even trying to work with it.

The energy building up in Timothy suddenly began to diminish, instead flowing into Catarina. But there was a constant flow from the outside, and when Catarina was at her limit Timothy was still receiving more. But she let the energy reciprocate back into him. Timothy caught on, instinctively controlling the energy as his own. At least, to the point it didn’t disintegrate his body when it reached a new, higher peak. Catarina used the short break to prepare herself and the cycle repeated.

The two of them only vaguely comprehended Chidi next to them… or the Citadel cracking in front of them.

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Durff was stuck headfirst in the Citadel. Not optimal, he supposed, but he got a real close look at it. It was trying to murder him, but it wasn’t really meant to target people half inside it. Zaur blasted lasers or something at his legs, but Durff was too busy to care if he lost a leg or two.

After his assessment, Durff realized he’d been attacking wrong. He’d been expecting a durable structure, but this crystal was not strong. It just pretended to be. So with the right push- and the annoying Domination energy getting out of his way- he just needed to suggest kindly to it that it fall apart.

He was pretty sure he broke his arm getting his hammer loose, but then he gave the Citadel a nice good tap. It cracked around him, bits and pieces flinging in different directions.

Oh darn, he forgot to aim for the sun. Oh well, surely some of that would go there. And maybe it wouldn’t matter since it was pretty busted now.

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