Elder Cultivator

Normally Velvet would have found Durff the easiest to blame for disrupting their stealth, but it could have been any one of them revealing a slight trace, even Velvet herself releasing her killing intent. They’d approached close enough either way, and Velvet sprang into action. Even if she hadn’t been fully revealed, she and Runa would still wish to try to take out Zorka as swiftly as possible.

The woman who was an Augmentation cultivator from the Disciples of the Beyond reacted not by readying a weapon, but by taking her storage bag and upending it. However, in the time it would take for anything to begin to fall Velvet and Runa were there in front of her.

Velvet’s twin blades- sadly missing any voidsteel- cut into the woman’s left side while Runa struck her neck, stabbing upward. She hadn’t locked onto their energies in particular, and barely moved to avoid the blows. Shifting her energy to block Velvet’s incoming attacks was not enough to save her, as Runa’s blade cut into her flesh.

There was a pulse of energy from the surrounding formation the moment before Chidi cut into it, a single slash dividing it into useless parts.

Velvet and Runa made certain of their kill, Runa’s blade stabbing into the woman’s dantian to disrupt any energy flow she might have in the last moments of semi-consciousness.

Even as the bag continued to fall, Velvet turned to catch it, sealing it closed. But the pulse of energy from the formation continued outward carrying with it something.

Having secured their objective they should have felt accomplished- even with hundreds of enemy disciples turning on them for an immediate assault, Velvet felt that something unfortunate had happened. Perhaps not as much as might have been, but it was still concerning.

Enemies flooded towards them, and were quickly cut down. Or smashed into each other. Or set ablaze. Everyone had different fighting styles. The twins Misi and Juli seemed to swap weapons with alarming frequency. Velvet had first seen them fight with small hammers, but they seemed to use anything particularly agile… while also carrying weird trinkets.

Specifically, the two had pulled out what Velvet was pretty sure were some of the teeth of the great worm that had almost killed them in subspace. Or rather, the very tips of the teeth since they stretched up to hundreds of meters. Furthermore, to carry them it had to be ground down to a narrower profile so that it could even fit in their hand.

If the twin had used them as weapons, Velvet would have understood. And in a way, they did. But barely swiping the heavily modified teeth in the general direction of their opponents didn’t seem like a useful attack.

They might be taking advantage of the multidimensional properties of said teeth, but Velvet didn’t notice any wounds. However, she did discern that whatever the twins were doing, it disrupted the flow of their foe’s energy. She’d have to ask about it later.

A seemingly endless tide of enemies posed some danger for the Integration cultivators among them, as many of the enemies were in the same realm. However, they could not gather together to attack as one. Durff was also further advanced within the Integration stage than the others, his wide swings devastating to incoming hordes of enemies, knocking them into each other and causing the demise of all intersecting parties.

Chidi cut down cultivators with ‘superior’ energy blow by blow, focusing on the segment of the battlefield where Jyotsana and Yuval fought together. The appearance of something like a dragon approached the fire cultivators, a great scaled beast- a projection of the disciples and not a true distortion beasts.

That did not make its fangs any less sharp, however. But the limitations of humans meant that when Yuval leapt towards it instead of dodging away, when he ended up inside its mouth beyond its teeth he began to cause great damage to the projection. Creating an energy construct that did not have to follow normal rules was possible, but it also weakened the mental image unless all cultivators involved had sufficient insights.

Thus, Yuval began to burn the inside of the creature’s mouth- his own focused flames overcoming the natural resistance the projection had. And when it spewed a gout of flames from its throat, catching him in its mouth, the greatest harm went to the artificial dragon.

Yuval caught the incoming flames in his bare hands, wrestling them back and causing the force behind them to build up- until the head of the projection exploded. Chidi had been an instant short of cutting the head off of the creature himself to free his brother… but instead he stood proudly even as his brother collapsed.

The cultivators who had been forming the projection staggered at the loss, and the dagger wielding duo began to slice them down.

Jyotsana’s flames spread across the battlefield, and once they caught something alight they did not die down until she chose to let them. They were flames that sustained themselves off of the energy of her foes, spreading from one to another.

As the Disciples of the Beyond fell, the battle was felt from afar. Exalted Quadrant reinforcements began to stream towards the location- but so did others of the Chaotic Conglomeration, ready and waiting for something to happen. They hadn’t been apprised of the exact operation for security reasons, but their approach proved to be a valuable deterrent to incoming enemy forces.

Beyond that, the upper energy emanating from two Augmentation cultivators- with only remnants of one who had perished- caused most of the enemy forces to take a cautious approach with their reinforcements, a few groups approaching in a staggered manner while many realized there was nothing they could salvage from the situation- at best they could help cover the fighting retreat of the remaining Disciples of the Beyond.

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Yet even with the great success, those present felt something ominous.

-----

Chidi carefully opened the neck of Zorka’s storage bag, carefully protecting the area with his energy. Whatever was so important for her to focus on its use before anything else was no doubt dangerous- but also important.

“... It’s a bunch of junk,” Durff commented.

Velvet didn’t find there to be much of interest either, with a quick visual scan.

Misi and Juli inhaled sharply. “It’s bait,” Misi said. Juli nodded.

“Bait for what?” Velvet asked.

“Distortion beasts. Obviously. That’s what the Disciples of the Beyond do.”

“So we smash it,” Durff said. “Then it won’t be a problem. Or should we eat it first?”

“It’s not food,” Juli said. “Well, the distortion beasts might eat it but that doesn’t mean anything. It’s just things with particular energy signatures that they enjoy.”

“Best we keep it sealed up, then,” Jyotsana commented.

Chidi shook his head. “Too late. The pulse of energy from the formation… well, it would have been much worse if was sustained, but I expect we’ll have some unwelcome visitors here.”

“We should leave behind this outpost, then,” Runa said.

Misi responded before Chidi could. “They won’t be drawn to anywhere so specifically, right? I imagine they’ll come to look at the planet as a whole.”

Chidi shrugged. “I’m not an expert on distortion beast behavior, but the formation was certainly imprecise in its function. And I don’t think distortion beasts are so small as to particularly care about where they are on a planet, for the most part.”

“In short,” Juli said. “We should have everyone prepare to fight them.”

Runa frowned. “How many would you anticipate arriving?”

“It’s hard to say,” Misi said. “It would depend in large part how many are in the region. If we’re just dealing with anything wandering past the system? No more than one or two. But…”

“I have the feeling I’m not going to like what you say next,” Runa commented.

“If this was planned beforehand, they might have drawn in many more to the general region. And any who notice the pulse might be followed by others.”

“How many?” Runa asked.

“Alert everyone on the planet… and in the neighboring systems just in case,” Misi said. “We might get lucky and only run into a handful, but that’s still a reasonable precaution.”

“Or we might end up facing hundreds,” Juli commented.

“Yeah. And they’d be the type that don’t eat each other as often,” Misi said. “Though we can try something with that.”

“How long do we have?” Runa asked.

Velvet had the answer for that. She could sense one already. “It’s already started.”

At least this one didn’t have a stomach the size of a planet. However, combined with the others they could cause widespread damage to the locals. The upside? That would likely also include the Exalted Quadrant. Especially with the damage to the Disciples of the Void.

About half of those involved looked worried, and the others excited. Chidi might not have wanted to test himself against distortion beasts specifically, but if they were coming he was ready. And Durff would absolutely appreciate the opportunity to hit massive monsters.

-----

Paradise was a good turtle. Durff had never met Paradise, but just a small piece of shell easily convinced him of the truth. It was heavy and strong and really good for smashing distortion bests.

He saw a few snakelike monsters, and of course smashed them back into the weird dimensions they belonged in. He also saw big tentacles, like sea monsters. There were also creatures with bat wings and nothing else- those were awkward to smash as their wings simply tore apart and covered the land with weird goop. Maybe there were more smashable parts of them but those were hidden in subspace, which Durff wasn’t good with.

Still, he found he was pretty good at smashing things back into subspace. An eye of something poked out, and then another. And another hundred. Durff hit one, and all of them crumpled back into the creature. He didn’t have to be limited by the size of his own hammer. He’d hit a planet sized… planet before. And a planet sized clump of angry asteroids. If he could do that, he could also hit a bunch of eyes at once. It was simple, really.

Giant fang? Cracked in half. That was probably better than sending it back. Unless it smashed into the thing? Hmm, good idea.

He didn’t know how many distortion beasts there were, but the answer was at least hundreds. Or maybe one big one? They didn’t really make sense, but most of them tended to have a theme so it was probably a bunch of them. It was more likely to run into one with a thousand eyes and a thousand teeth rather than one with a normal amount of either and a sensible body.

But it didn’t matter if any of it made sense, he just had to break it. Was it a claw or some kind of sharp rib striking through into reality and trying to impale him? Didn’t matter. His hammer came down, directly on the end. Yeah, it didn’t matter how these things worked. There had to be more of the thing at the other end of where he hit, so he could hit more of it if he smashed parts of its body into itself. Simple.

Durff grinned, even as ten thousand teeth chomped down on him. He had some nice armor that molded around him and two working arms, so he was feeling quite safe. The more of these things he took down on his own terms, the fewer individuals he might care about on the planet would get hurt.

Even if they weren’t fully allies of the Scarlet Alliance, the Chaotic Conglomeration was in a similar position where they were forced into conflict with the Exalted Quadrant. Mostly. Even if they had their own fault in the war, he still knew some of them. Others were Velvet’s friends like Runa, which made them his friends by default. And he wouldn’t let his friends get hurt. Within reason, obviously. When they were all fighting in a battle together, he just had to make sure he fought well enough that their battles were easier.

Something roared inside of him. Not Durff’s fighting spirit, but an actual monster trying to destroy him with a sonic attack. He focused on the solidity of his body and held himself together. Then he smashed at the general idea of where it had been. He wasn’t good at hitting things in different levels of space, but he wouldn’t get better if he didn’t try!

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