Elder Cultivator

Somewhere in front of Fuzz was a woman concealed by illusions. Alva tried to fire her bow where she thought the enemy might be while Fuzz swiped his paws at her. She considered running, but if the woman could catch up to Fuzz unseen staying together with him was better. Alva followed the woman’s movements by the damage appearing on Fuzz, first some cuts along his snout and then one under his left shoulder. Even as she was registering that wound appearing, Alva was shooting immediately to her side, hoping to hit the hidden woman.

A slight weight was lifted from her shoulder as she saw a black blur the size of a mouse move past her. Alva had nearly forgotten- no, she had completely put it out of her mind- about the ant her grandfather had forced her to take along. And not just any ant. The queen ant was far from any image Alva had of an ant. They were either supposed to be on the millimeter scale… or a giant beast of some kind. Ants slightly longer than her finger were unnatural but not at all what anyone expected. That included the Ascension cultivator who stumbled backwards with a scream as her eye was sliced open.

Alva immediately shot an arrow as close as she could to the ant queen at her revealed opponent. Fuzz was leaping away to the side, ignoring her injured leg, but Alva was used to his movements. As she hung in the air for a moment, her first shot nearly made it through the hole in the woman’s defensive energy. It wasn’t enough, and she fired several more in succession.

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The woman who had been concealing herself with illusory techniques tried to shake off the Great Queen. How foolish of her. The Great Queen was able to grip onto sheer glass in a tornado, the force of some neck muscles wouldn’t do much. But the cultivator had found herself in a panic at running into truly unforeseen circumstances. They were all so reliant on their energy sensing everything around them, giving them warnings of approaching enemies. Few could even notice something jumping straight at their face without it.

To be fair, the Great Queen was a prime specimen. Among the ants her strength and speed were unmatched. In truth, her position was something of an abnormality since she didn’t oversee a single nest herself, but instead guided her daughters. To survive they had to get along with the cultivators, but that didn’t mean all of them. These invaders were foe to the entire world… and oh so tasty.

The chunk of the woman’s eye the Great Queen had snatched was nothing special. No better than a deer or pig or any animal. But the energy she had… it was the same as Anton’s. Which meant they were the most important targets. The Great Queen speedily added wound after wound on the woman’s face. If she had one weakness… no, the Great Queen had no weaknesses. But if she were to have another strength, she would have preferred a greater size.

Finally the woman grabbed her directly, attempting to crush her. The woman flung the Great Queen to the ground below and stomped on her. But she was not crushed by her grip nor her feet. The woman was no stronger than Anton in terms of bodily power, and while many of the lesser brethren would have been annihilated by such an attack the Great Queen was the oldest and mightiest of them all. By default, since every one of the rest were her descendents, but still. Her exoskeleton was durable, built through a diet of fine energies over the course of decades.

The woman also didn’t seem to understand that the Great Queen cared not one bit for how much of this ‘Ascension Energy’ barreled down upon her. It was merely food to be snatched up at her leisure. But for the sake of her weaker allies, she would focus on other tactics.

She shoved herself out of the dirt to the side, not because she needed to avoid the incoming stomp but because it was inconvenient to be directly below a foot. Instead she grabbed onto the side of the woman’s shoe as it came down. It seemed to be made out of some special material, but to the Great Queen what mattered was that it did not go much above the ankle. She skittered up a body length and slipped her head under some defensive layers, nibbling at some important bits.

Humans were so strange, with all of their important parts accessible without hard shells. Those that had hard shells were unnatural and not nearly so complete in their coverage as they assumed.

When the dagger stabbed into the Great Queen’s back, she felt it. That actually hurt. It didn’t pierce all the way through her exoskeleton, but she hastened her journey inside the woman’s lower armor until she was fully covered. Then she resumed her assault.

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It was impossible for Hoyt to face an Ascension cultivator alone, even with the effects of the formation. However, he didn’t have to. He was surrounded by allies, the strange dual-man having come deep into their defenses to seek him out. Flames filled the area, but Hoyt had studied with the cultivators of the Glorious Flame Palace and could exclusively harm foes if that was his wish. The small decreases in effectiveness were worth it for having allies be comfortable around you.

His axe wasn’t much good for parrying, but the man’s attacks weren’t solid regardless. Streams of blood and darkness that sought to burrow into Hoyt and draw out everything that made him alive were the actual threat, not the man’s fists. Two of the Order’s Life Transformation elders were backing him up, wielding spears to restrict the man’s movement. Hoyt could feel their conviction… and the way they were burning their power to fight higher than their normal effectiveness. Hoyt was prepared to die in this battle so that the sect could survive, but they were prepared to die for him. Not because he was Vandale’s grandson, or at least not exclusively, but because he was part of the future of the sect. If they survived, Hoyt and the others in his generation would usher in a new era for the Order.

Hoyt swept his axe in a wide arc, sending a burst of flames out in front of him. While the two elders might be willing to give themselves up for him, he would much prefer they survived. He had never been holding back, but a new conviction inspired him to greater heights. Hopefully, it would be enough.

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Alva didn’t like the idea of being outdone by an ant, but then again it would have happened to anyone. It was an Ascension cultivator. Way out of her league to begin with. The Life Transformation cultivators peppered throughout the enemy forces, however… those were much more reasonable.

“Stay here, Fuzz,” Alva ordered as she leapt off his back. Knowing that he wouldn’t abandon her, she concluded, “Just keep away anyone who gets too close.”

The tendons beneath his front shoulder were all cut up. If he wasn’t so large he probably would have had the limb cut clean off by the woman. Alva gave one more glance at her and shook her head. She shouldn’t worry about defeating the strongest individual, but rather achieving the most she could do.

Arrows flew out. With some actual experience using anti-ascension techniques, her understanding had grown significantly. It wasn’t just those who had surpassed Life Transformation that were making use of the energy, the others were as well. But the remainder of their power was nothing impressive. Several quick shots went out, testing the defenses of different opponents. Two seemed unharmed, but everyone reacted differently. One woman simply shifted energy to block her.

She was the first target. An arrow streaked through the air. An actual arrow that was specially made to negate energy. Not in the way that the black barbed arrows did, though Alva had some of those as well. Instead, only the arrowhead was special. It was made from the chitin of the very same ants that were fighting alongside them right now. It wasn’t quite as effective without being part of them, but as it pierced into the woman’s upper back it did its job well enough.

The attack was meant to go into the woman’s neck, but a slight deflection was an exceptional accomplishment given the circumstances. Before the woman could realize her mistake, several more arrows landed around the same area, opening a wider hole in her defenses. Some of them made it into her neck- quite deep.

She didn’t die immediately, but Alva moved on to her next target. She would die, but weakening someone who could cause more trouble was a higher priority.

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A shortspear and a watery woman wielding it persistently pursued Anton across the battlefield. He never stopped barraging her with shots, but there was only so much he could do.

“Your lower energy will fail you soon enough,” the woman taunted him. “It would have been easier to just give up.”

Anton had a response, but another voice interjected first. “Such choices are for people like you. Weaklings who can only fight against those they consider ‘lower’.” The words were punctuated by several arrows as Grand Elder Kseniya planted herself between the woman and Anton. “Since you didn’t get my hints, I came closer. You’re going to fight me, old hag.”

That taunt wouldn’t have been the first on Anton’s mind, especially given Kseniya’s apparent age being older than the woman… but it worked. Either because it was true, and the Ascension cultivator was much older than she looked… or because she was simply susceptible to such insults. Her spear was the first to speak for her, stabbing right next to Kseniya’s head. “You’ll regret that!”

“Will I?” Kseniya said as she shot an arrow directly towards the woman’s arm from less than a meter past the front of the bow. “Try it.”

Though Anton would have loved to just watch the fight, he knew Kseniya wouldn’t be enough on her own. He was humble enough to get some more distance, especially since not doing so would be wasting Kseniya’s efforts. Then he began to contribute his own string of attacks, while Kseniya somehow managed to avoid being impaled over and over again.

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A large man leapt up in the air, slamming his heel down on Timothy’s shield. He was reflected backwards, flying several dozen meters into the distance. Timothy understood that the man was trying to force him against the ground, and it was a fairly reasonable idea, but most of the man’s power was lost without firm footing. Timothy took a slow breath, steadying himself. Just because the man hadn’t killed him yet didn’t mean he was winning. Frankly it was a miracle he had held on for so long.

Catarina’s formations had to be part of it, but he felt there was something else. Their side was doing… a little too well. He didn’t have a bad feeling about the circumstances like it was all a massive deception. It wasn’t as if their side was going without losses, but overall things were going well. With the allies he could see Timothy knew he was still going to lose this particular part of the battle, but overall they might actually have a chance.

Apparently he had decided he had enough with how things were going, the large man began to gather a huge amount of power. If he were anywhere close in cultivation to Timothy, telegraphing such an attack would be a death sentence. Unfortunately, Timothy had nothing to rely upon but his blocking techniques. They were extremely effective against raw power… up until the point he could no longer withstand it.

Could he retreat? Not likely. So he just had to withstand one more. And then what? Well… at least the man would be weakened. Timothy took a stance, his sword held in front of him. He might not be able to pierce through the man’s defenses as he charged, but it might slow him down just slightly and distribute the force of the attack over a longer time. Or he might dodge slightly, which would have the same effect, hopefully.

Timothy aimed his sword right for the man’s incoming fist. Even with anti-ascension techniques tearing away at the man’s power, he didn’t even cut a hair. As the man’s fist impacted his shield, Timothy felt his arm shatter. A moment later, he was extremely relieved at that… because he was still alive.

His opponent was technically alive as well, but the wide gouge on his throat indicated he probably wouldn’t stay that way. Velvet had already pulled away after her attack, but the rest of those inside the area had also done their best to take advantage of the opening, forcing him to spend effort defending everywhere else.

Timothy had known Velvet was around, but she was able to hide well enough to make him feel like she wasn’t there at all. Unfortunately she was vulnerable after an attack, especially a big one like that. Black flames tore through the side of the building and towards Velvet. The formation was supposed to keep people out… but the fact that they basically took down a single Ascension cultivator with it was enough. If Timothy lived, he’d make sure to complement his wife on the setup.