Elder Cultivator

News traveled faster than ships. Continual improvements meant that such news could rapidly reach the upper realms, or at least specialized locations meant for high priority communications. From those it went directly to members of the council, and from them through more relaxed channels a small bit at a time.

They were too good about security at the top level. That was Everheart’s opinion. It was so annoying to have to rely on extrapolation from less secure information. Sometimes the keywords he wanted weren’t even present and he just had to read through mountains of data. Normally, he would have to do all that himself but he did have a few helpful computer things he’d managed to scrape together and one of them informed him he might want to take a look.

Everheart was a very busy man, especially at the current moment. The stellar heist had gone off without a hitch and nobody would ever hear otherwise. But maybe he had a few concerns in mind. Either way, news adjacent to the inter-realm planetary heist was still interesting.

He took a few moments to interpret the data. Based on the resources that were being called upon, he thought he figured it out. He frowned. What a shame. It seemed a bit silly to be looking for antidotes for a dead man, but they were sure doing it desperately. Unless… he actually wasn’t dead? Shelach usually wasn’t so careless. Then again, he also probably didn’t usually have to deal with such a unique situation.

Though Everheart wasn’t actually certain of that. After all, from what he could tell the man wasn’t a fan of unorthodox paths. It was entirely possible he had eradicated previous versions of post-Life Transformation advancement in the lower realms. Everheart had no evidence for that because of the history erasure, but he didn’t think it was out of character. Either way Everheart wanted to have nothing to do with him because of certain other issues.

Maybe he’d be easier to kill once all the other Domination cultivators were dead. Everheart could hope.

He thought for a moment. The Scarlet Alliance didn’t tend to act where they had no hope. If Anton wasn’t dead… Everheart had no chance of doing anything in time to matter. But a message might help. He didn’t have time to make it not suspicious.

-----

“As you can see,” Uzun said. “We have the message inscribed in plain text. An unsigned message,” Uzun emphasized. “No authorized equipment should be capable of doing that. It’s obviously not impossible, though.”

“That is… a lot of text to write by hand,” Timothy said, looking at what was essentially a book. “I’m surprised we have anyone good enough at scribing.”

“We have all sorts here on Xankeshan,” Uzun commented. “Some are more… traditional. But still quite good at what they do.”

“Give me that,” Aconite said, not bothering to wait before snatching it, using her energy to flip through it.

“We don’t really know if it’s-” Uzun began to protest.

“If it was meant to trick us,” Aconite said. “It would have a solution. Instead of more problems. I wonder how I could make some of these poisons…”

“Can we risk basing any actions on this knowledge?” Timothy asked.

“I will derive something from this, somehow,” Aconite said. “And I will send a message to the lower realms. If they have successfully saved Anton, it will not need to be tested. And if they know nothing else to do, I suspect he would at least die quickly.”

Speculation as to the origin of the information covered pretty much every possible source. It was clear they had some sort of information leak. Velvet thought she’d have to investigate that.

-----

“I have come to the conclusion that Korin does not exist,” Crossed Antennae said.

Juli rolled her eyes. “Just because we haven’t found her?”

“I have touched her energy! I could easily find her anywhere within a system. And she is in none anywhere close to the Soul Piercer’s territory.”

“I’ve been here the whole time,” Juli pointed out. “I know nothing has been found.”

“I could have been keeping secrets from you.”

Juli ignored that possibility. “You’re going to have to infiltrate planets to learn what the locals know. They might be able to shine light on this mystery.”

“It may already be too late,” Crossed Antennae commented. “I don’t know if the wound will have recovered already. What if she attacks the Chaotic Conglomeration while we are here?”

“Then people will die,” Juli said. “Same as happens if we were there. Unless she chose not to learn any way to counter void ants.”

“That would be foolish. And thus we should not expect it.” Crossed Antennae thought for a while. “Should I have expanded faster? Developed more?”

“You mean your people, here?” Juli asked. She shook her head. “We calculated an acceptable amount of risk and payoff. Now then, let’s pick a destination.”

The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.

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Anishka shuddered with relief when Three Squeaks arrived. Future planet stealing activities would definitely come with more backup ‘stars’.

It had been just a few days. They hadn’t had to leave Bounty freezing. It just seemed like the only option available during the first moments of panic.

It was clear to see that Three Squeaks was less capable than Anton, but that shouldn’t be surprising given the centuries of difference in their training and their cultivation stages. Three Squeaks might not have any experience emulating a star, but he was still better than Anishka. Not as hot, probably, which might be a problem for the planet in the long term- but as long as they didn’t freeze to death, other issues could be resolved by sending resources.

Anishka watched as Paradise carried her off into the distance. There was no way for her to fly while recovering her natural energy, and she’d lose Anton’s stasis in a short time if she carried him alone. After all, he wasn’t just cold. It was very precise and calculated, including freezing what little of Shelach’s energy was in him. It had to be the mysterious individual even Everheart had been reluctant to name. They couldn’t be exactly sure why he attacked, except that he was from the upper realms and their Domination cultivators were mostly terrible. No doubt the planetary ‘theft’ was some sort of influence.

Anton looked peaceful. They hadn’t had to do anything. He would have died with a peaceful look if they just left him alone a bit longer. Deep inside him there were still flickers of fire- his stars- but they fortunately remained relaxed within his dantian and weren’t negating Anishka’s freezing. Because that would absolutely happen in a single moment, and it wouldn’t be good. If Anton avoided injuring himself with rapid heating, he’d still have to face the poison. Some of said poison had been scoured away, but it wasn’t enough.

Paradise hadn’t even entered the Akrys system when a medical ship was hailing them. No doubt it was the best healer from Akrys.

A wide variety of individuals scurried off the ship. Anishka didn’t recognize any of them, but she wasn’t actually that familiar with Akrys as a whole. Just certain individuals. Presumably, they had doctors that were capable of working on a human. Better than trying to reach a more distant system.

A hippo and a rhino seemed to be carrying an entire medical suite. Anishka would have gone to them, but nobody had asked. So she remained where she was, occasionally glancing over at her great-and-some-grandfather as if seeing him would reveal more of his existence compared to the energy she had locked inside him.

A screeching voice like blades being drawn against each other drew Anishka’s attention. It was the oddest rendition of Akrys’ local language she had ever heard, yet the sounds were recognizable enough. “Where is the patient?”

“Right here,” Anishka said, looking around. Her eyes landed on the closest new source of natural energy. In other circumstances, she would have chastised herself for being so distracted, but she did need the vast majority of her focus for this.

Down on the ground was a praying mantis. “This one Severs Sickness. You will keep the patient in cryo stasis until the moment I say so. How long will the warming process take?”

“Just a few seconds.”

“How much harm will happen to the patient?”

“There shouldn’t have been any expansion. The heating should be about as safe as it gets.” It was odd to be seriously answering the questions of a praying mantis, but she had regular conversations with a void ant so it wasn’t that odd. Mostly the ‘voice’ was weird, as the praying mantis- Severs Sickness was her name, her job, or both- rubbed her forelegs together, then modified the sound into the ‘voice’ she used.

“Do not react to my energy inspection,” Severs Sickness warned.

Anishka probably wouldn’t have, but it was still important to say so that their energy didn’t clash inside Anton.

“You have hands. Gently carry this one into the box,” Severs Sickness gestured to the mobile medical suite that had just been noisily set down on the flattest area they could find. Inside, Severs Sickness used her energy to push around various modular parts, creating a flat bed just about the right size to hold Anton. She hopped up at the head.

Anishka carefully set Anton down. Erin had come to watch in person- probably because peeking with her energy would be more disruptive- but everyone else was kept away. Paradise seemed to lack curiosity, or was similarly being polite. It was hard to tell how the turtle thought.

Severs Sickness was giving orders to a handful of lemurs that were grabbing a number of vials and pouches of liquids. “Do you control blood?”

“Uh, no?” Anishka tilted her head. “Just fire and ice. I could freeze blood, if you want.”

“It would be better for you to step back after you finish the unfreezing process. I have analyzed the issues. He will either be healed, or he will not. Turtle-human, your energy is the most potent here. If I direct you to annihilate foreign energy, please do so.”

Erin nodded. “I can do that.”

“Good. Freezing human, you may begin the unfreezing process.”

Anishka hesitated for a moment, but it was clear she was expected to act right away. “Alright.”

Was she adding heat, or drawing out cold? A scientist would certainly say the former. However, Anishka didn’t know if her powers necessarily worked that way. She had no intention to make Anton hot. She merely wished to remove the freezing. “Around the foreign energy too?”

“Yes.”

Anishka let everything go and stepped back.

Blood began to fly a moment later as Severs Sickness cut into Anton’s veins- and stitched them back up in the same instant. She slashed open bags of various medicines, coating her claws with them. One claw paused for a moment, pointing. Erin seemed to get the message.

Fire suddenly began to erupt from inside Anton. Anishka reached forward instinctively, calming the flames before they devoured Severs Sickness. The doctor didn’t slow, but her head turned completely around and nodded to Anishka. So she’d done the right thing, probably.

The flames were Anton’s own, Anishka could tell… but prompted by an outside source. Maheg, perhaps? The sapient star was likely what she was feeling. She tried to sooth him, dancing the flames back and forth. Everything was alright. She hoped. Anton was having an awful lot of blood removed. Though the hole in his heart was actually looking better suddenly.

Everything stopped.

The only sounds were the bodies of Anishka, Erin, the lemurs, and Severs Sickness. If she listened more closely, Anishka could make out the sounds of muscles moving inside Anton. But not the most important one.

The flames of energy were flickering inside him, shrinking away. Severs Sickness pointed meaningfully, and one of the lemurs began to rub her hands together rapidly. Lightning began to crackle around her hands. Anishka had no idea if restarting Anton’s heart would be enough… but she had to hope. However, she knew there was more to the life of a cultivator than an intact body.