Elder Cultivator

Chapter 1168

While she thought that direct clashes over useless territory were probably the worst way to engage in a war, Velvet wasn’t going to tell anyone from the great powers that. Ultimately, it was best that they wore each other down. Over the course of a couple years, she had focused mostly on organizing local groups to be transported away, and only very rarely did she remove anyone from the land of the living. If she did, it was in a way that could easily be traced to the most visible enemies.

Soon, they would be reaching a threshold where extracting anyone else from the core of the fighting became impractical. Those who were going to die were mostly dead already. That didn’t count those still at risk as the warzone expanded, which it might as more subfactions got involved. Things hadn’t yet reached the disaster levels that had created something like the Bloodsoaked Nebula, but now that proper fighting was happening between the two great powers it was likely that things would go further than they had in centuries.

Shady back-alley deals weren’t anything new to Velvet, but she hadn’t previously done many where just a few kilometers away largish turtles were eating forests at approximately the same rate those forests grew, flailing at them.

“You’ll pass on the word to others who need to know, right?” Velvet said.

“Of course,” the man said. “I know just the right people to speak to.”

“Excellent.”

She made a show of walking away, slowly slipping into crowds. A small strand of her senses was stuck to her espionage target for the day, and once she thought it reasonable she doubled back and began to follow him.

Sometimes, people lied to her face and she would get rid of them. Other times, she had to let them go. This time, she just had to wait. He did know who he was going to speak to, but Velvet didn’t. So she was going to have to find that out. She assumed he didn’t keep a clear record of criminal associates in his pockets at all times.

Criminals weren’t all bad. There were plenty of reasons for people to be keeping a low profile in the current climate. But this guy was supposed to be helping gather people to take off world.

What he ended up doing involved significant amounts of negotiation and things going into his pockets- or storage bag, usually. Velvet would have stopped things there, but he seemed to know where the right sorts of people were. She couldn’t reliably extract that information from his head, so he was left to continue. If he went too far, she’d handle him then.

As she continued to conceal herself, the question of Domination continued to flicker through her mind. It wasn’t a distraction, but instead a way she focused on her own power. She still didn’t know what an appropriate anchor might be, but the more she considered it the closer she could get. She didn’t need more of her mental faculties to track down a single fellow and avoid the armies stomping all over the planet.

Velvet had to admit, this guy was pretty good at what he did. She had expressly forbidden him to charge anyone anything and offered payment instead, so his greed was certainly a problem. But he knew all sorts of hiding places and had many contacts.

One group either didn’t have the price he wanted to charge, or they were too stubborn to pay. Either way, Velvet briefly stopped to deal with that.

“Show up here,” she said to a quite surprised young man. “With your family.” A scrap of paper dropped into his hand. “Don’t invite anyone you can’t trust.” It was risky, having physical evidence. But a location was not by itself suspicious.

“... We don’t have the price,” the young man said cautiously.

Velvet turned her head towards her companion in skulduggery. “He’ll be paying it. He just doesn’t know that yet.”

-----

Aerona hugged Devon’s arm as she frowned. “It seems we’ve made too tempting of a target.”

“Perhaps,” Devon agreed. “But I would argue that they’re too late.”

Anton had warned of forces making a move towards Bounty- and there was nothing else of note within several systems, so it would be hard to make a mistake of their target. Both sides had taken interest as it was impossible for them to completely miss the people being shuttled away to the southern border of the upper realms. However, they had been far enough away that with the limitations of moving at the speed of their slowest ships, they were barely entering the system. Though only because Paradise pushed hard to reach them.

“I thought we’d be weaker,” Anishka commented, before glancing over at Erin, meditating atop Paradise’s head. Though she was only the tiniest blip on the horizon. “It turns out bringing a small planet’s worth of natural energy with you is very helpful.”

Anton still remained in the lower realms- even stepping a single toe into the upper realms would be a danger for him. Lingering in between wouldn’t be particularly good for him, either.

Aerona was the one who had to act first. The groundwork had already been laid by her and Anton, but she still had to make sure that a planetful of people wouldn’t panic. Or at least, not panic in unfortunate ways.

Not that they’d have any reason to. It wasn’t like fleets of invaders had just shown up- and some unknown individuals from the lower realm. And a giant turtle, who looked like he was about to headbutt the planet.

Making people feel comfortable with that was a bit difficult, but they would vaguely recognize her. And people would get over any panic within a few days.

Watching the approaching fleets and the incoming turtle, as well as reading the general feeling of the people on the planet, Aerona did what she could, projecting feelings and responding in ways that weren’t quite words.

“Do not fear,” she said. “Please, trust us.”

Not that they had much choice. Though she would have called the whole thing off if the population completely rejected it. Dragging a planet of struggling people out of its system would not be feasible even for a handful of Augmentation cultivators.

“You might as well begin,” Aerona said to Devon. “Try to make it... comforting.”

He grinned. “Comforting chains, coming right up.”

The chains began to wrap around the planet at about the same time as Paradise began to push the oceans. He did nearly headbutt the planet though, and one hemisphere was getting a good look at his face.

Bounty was now accelerating away from the incoming fleets. Probably not fast enough to completely avoid them, but there was some clear commotion among them. Neither of the great powers was going to let the other claim whatever this prize was first. No doubt they assumed that something about the planet was special instead of it just being full of people. To them, people without sufficient cultivation literally didn’t matter.

Anishka was ready to freeze and incinerate the first people to get close, but she would have to keep some energy in reserve. Actually, she should probably get started soon. They’d already reached a significant deviation from Bounty’s normal position relative to the sun.

She wasn’t going to provide good artificial sunlight, but she didn’t have to last forever. Hopefully just a few days. Maybe weeks, depending on how long it took them to get into an area with thinner ascension energy. After that, Anton could take over.