Elder Cultivator

Chapter 1106

“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.

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.