Elder Cultivator

Chapter 1083

Chapter 1083

By the time the Scarlet Alliance approved a letter from Everheart to Anton, he had gone through several iterations of what he wanted to send. His ultimate goal was to encourage the man to continue to focus on mutual enemies, as well as to encourage the few positive traits the man had.

Everheart had put a large amount of effort into creating tombs meant to raise the generation just before the invasion, knowing what would happen. Even if he’d done it to spite the upper realms, he still took care not to unnecessarily kill too many people in his tombs.

He already knew about the connection to the Scarlet Alliance- he’d been back to Ceretos, after all. So Anton focused on the most recent information to come in. Specifically, the information on Sudin.

“I find it interesting how Sudin used various forms of attention, including devotion, to empower himself and the soul drawing chambers the Twin Soul Sect made use of. I find that contrasts with the information I know regarding other Domination cultivators.”

Sharing information about Shelach with the lower realms had been a careful process. The process had taken several years to carefully transport the original scroll for those who needed to be aware of the details- primarily Enrichment cultivators. Even if they were confident in the security of their transmissions, they thought it better to not risk potential dangers.

It was a curious question, how a man like Shelach might have formed an anchor. If nobody knew about him or the anchor, where would he get devotion? If perhaps he cultivated spite or similar negative emotions like Everheart seemed to, it would still require being known. And fear... while the fear of a small number of individuals might be powerful, would that really be enough?

Perhaps it might be. Especially if he kept himself secret. Fear of the unknown was often worse than fear of the known. In such a case, spreading the information could either empower Shelach... or weaken him. But knowing whether or not he was going to be a problem for them was important first.

Either way, Anton wasn’t afraid. An assassin from the upper realms meant very little to him. He didn’t believe he would be killed, nor was he afraid of death if it did come for him. But they would have to be careful about others. Whether they tried to find out more or not would be the prerogative of the Scarlet Alliance, since they were the ones actually at risk. Though hopefully, their formations would be prepared to pick up sneaking Domination cultivators.

Anton’s letter continued, touching mainly on topics of power. “It is unfortunate that I couldn’t witness Koronis’ advancement firsthand. Bonding with a nebula is quite adjacent to my own style. I hear that you have been quite interested in stars lately as well. You’d better take good care of them. You never know when one you mistreat might develop a consciousness and try to hunt you down.”

The chances of such a thing happening were practically nonexistent. Though, if Everheart was messing around with stars perhaps such changes were more likely, as it was outside of the normal bounds of stellar interaction. None of Anton’s stars had showed signs of growing independence or sapience, and Maheg might truly be a unique phenomenon, but it was worth considering. Speaking of which, Anton had promised to see if they could bond together. Anton wanted to take some time to prepare for the possible results still, and the star was nothing if not patient. But soon enough, he probably would.

“Have you been practicing your archery? I know you aren’t the sort to devote yourself to a single weapon, but I imagine you should at least learn to shoot something in an adjacent system. It’s quite a useful trick. And perhaps with enough practice, you might strike much further than that.”

In all cases when interacting with Everheart- first his projections, then the real man for some time- confidence was key. If he saw weakness he was liable to exploit it.

“Oh, right,” Anton added at the end. “Paradise says hi. He heard you got a new turtle and would like to remind you to take better care of it and not abandon it for centuries.” With that, he included an image of Paradise, taken by an excellent photographer. There was of course a planet nearby for scale. Paradise was significantly smaller than a planet... but he did outscale most landmasses except the proper continents. He should be something like a couple hundred kilometers across. The invaders from the upper realms who saw him had gotten quite a shock at that.

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After delivering his letter, Anton found himself on the border of the upper realms. He didn’t have to roam far to confirm how much the Exalted Quadrant was pushing into the Scarlet Midfields. The Trigold Cluster too, and they should have had first hand witness that they were on shaky footing.

But since the upper realms had only really seen the one shot that annihilated Sudin, most of them didn’t really know the danger they were in. When the time came, Anton could take out anyone on any of those planets, just a few handfuls of lightyears over the border.

Leonid wasn’t supposed to do anything involving physical storage. He was more of an archivist. However, the Scarlet Alliance did have a number of dangerous artifacts... and he happened to be the closest person of sufficient security permissions when something happened. Thus, he found himself running into the secure vaults to do... something.

He sure didn’t know what that something might be. But maybe he could make whatever bad thing was going to happen delay until someone actually important showed up. He preferred a quiet life, and the last few years had been far too stressful.

“What are the contents?” Leonid asked the guards outside the room. They might not know, which would help inform his reaction.

“I dunno,” said one young woman. “Fingers or something?”

The older man next to her shook his head. “Not ‘or something’. These would be some rather important digits.”

Ah. Leonid knew this one. The exact details weren’t public, but Zaur Beridze had lost fingers in the most recent confrontation.

“So what should we do?” asked the woman. “Do we open it up or...?”

“Absolutely not,” Leonid said. “We’ll be watching to see if the formations are doing their job. If they struggle, we’ll supplement their energy until someone proper shows up.”

A worrying burst of energy came from behind the door. Leonid had felt that before, but only from a great distance. Everyone on Xankeshan had. Nobody would forget a Domination cultivator. His mere presence above the planet had caused some people’s cultivation to go awry, and others broke through barriers they’d been struggling with due to sudden insights.

Leonid had hidden under his bed. But apparently he had ended up rubbing shoulders with too many important people, so here he was.

Oh good, the formations worked. He felt things settle down in a few moments. “How many times has it done that?” he asked.

“Four or five,” the woman said.

“Exactly four. Stronger each time,” the more reliable older man declared.

“About every minute then,” Leonid grumbled to himself.

There was another surge of energy and something in the room cracked. Leonid just about jumped out of his skin, but he supported the wall with his energy. He really hoped that someone else would show up soon. Surely they couldn’t be more than a minute or two behind him, right...?