Elder Cultivator

Chapter 1380

For all their brashness of stepping into the territory of the Lower Realms Alliance, the Holy Stars didn’t seem to take much interest in securing things beyond their own borders. Just in case, though, the relay station had been set up several systems out. It would take a bit longer to send and receive messages, but it should be harder to find.

Xaliima was glad to have it, because that meant she and her crew would be able to provide more reliable updates. Transmitting to the instant relay would still be risky, but she was confident in her ability to hide anything as long as they weren’t deep in an enemy system. Ever since her advancement, she had felt confident of that. Her crew were growing rapidly to catch up with her, though obviously they weren’t going to turn into several dozen Enrichment cultivators anytime soon. Though if they did, they might be the strongest crew the Lower Realms had. Unless one counted Magnitude V battleships and stuff. But even the combined power of millions might be insufficient, with how much space they took up.

Then again, Xaliima wasn’t that good at fighting. She was the leader of a scout ship. Even if they were all Enrichment, they’d have to take that into consideration. Doing what they were good at was the only place where they’d live up to that potential.

That was why they weren’t home defending territory. They were in the Holy Stars, hunting down divinities. Not to fight. Absolutely not. Just to report on their locations. If they figured out how many there were, and how many were present, they could fairly safely help the rest of the Alliance balance their responses. If they couldn’t even find Daria... it would be safe to assume they were all on an offensive route and would be trouble for the Alliance in the near future.

Their task wasn’t to infiltrate specific planets. There would be some void ants they carried along as well as others that would do that, but they just needed to get a broad overview. And a quick one. It seemed to be the case that the strongest cultivators wouldn’t hide themselves within their own territory, but that could have been a misreading. Daria didn’t do so, but she had just returned. Perhaps normally they were more subtle.

Xaliima had already made an initial assessment during their first trip, but they had been far from surveying every system in the Holy Stars. Just a small number on the border to get a good picture of the territory they controlled and how they functioned.

The plan was to seek out the nexus of each major sect. Whichever ones were most likely to have a divinity among them. That included the Purified Wardens- assuming they had only Daria might be too much. Optimally, the crew would find some way to prove they didn’t actually have any others- though that seemed unlikely. Unless they had sewn very convincing lines among their own people. One informant from the Burning Hearts swore they had one, so that would be one of the first stops.

Just passing the systems near the edge was good enough. It was a shame they wouldn’t get to take in many of the unique features of the systems, except what could be seen from a distance. Some odd energy readings from planets, though whether those were natural or due to the influence of sects was a bit difficult to determine. A variety of stars, of course, and some had special properties. One had particularly fast rotation of celestial bodies around it.

Xaliima would have preferred to look into that stuff more, but they moved on. No divinities so far. She almost hoped to never find any proof of more than one, but she did.

The Burning Hearts did have one. That seemed to be the limit after checking the dozen largest systems they controlled, and Xaliima was pretty sure the ship would have actually picked them out from a system out at least. That had been true for both so far.

She sent an update, though it wasn’t urgent. One more confirmed divinity- their quality and quantity of power were vastly different from anything else. The ship had approached close enough to confirm the source was a person and not some sort of strange phenomenon, but there really hadn’t been much doubt.

Confirming others would be important. Hopefully they didn’t have too

many. The Lower Realms Alliance only had three Unity cultivators after all. Plus a couple methods to take down people at that level of power at varying levels of reliability.

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Velvet was assigned to the western conflict for various reasons. Obviously she was most comfortable working out of the Little Alliance, but if she was spending most of her time in enemy territory that wasn’t important. The targets were also easier to pick out, with known conspirators that could actually be reached. The Hardened Crown Sect wasn’t exactly an exciting target, but she would move out from there towards others responsible for putting together Project Apocalypse. Which might just be everyone who had begun to launch attacks against the Scarlet Alliance at the same time.

It didn’t matter if it had become moot because of Everheart’s much better virus. It was the principle of the thing. Plus, there was no way Velvet was going to try to take down Everheart without some sort of very well put together plan that involved far more than just her. So someone else would suffer the consequences of Everheart’s actions, as usual.

There was a nagging thought in the back of Velvet’s mind that she should have just killed every Augmentation cultivator that the great powers had. It was possible. At most if she had been detected she would have just run, and they wouldn’t have been able to reliably pick her out.

Velvet didn’t want to live that life, though. The constant death wouldn’t be so bad as never being home. Besides, it would have fairly quickly provoked a mass attack that could easily have involved all of the Exalted Quadrant or Trigold Clusters or both- instead of just a handful of powerful sects banding together.

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It would be easier to destroy the whole thing. The planet, not just the facility. Velvet’s abilities didn’t lean towards wide area destruction, but a single planet was within the power of a Domination cultivator. Carrying things... varied from individual to individual. Most importantly, Velvet might not be able to drag a million or more people with her and stay unnoticed. She didn’t want to be chased down by a dozen sects all on her own. That wouldn’t save the people. Death would be better... but it was too early to make that choice for them. She could come up with something, somehow.