Elder Cultivator-Chapter 1310

The difference between fighting one Domination cultivator and two was the difference between nearly guaranteed victory and defeat. Zazil was confident in her abilities, but only to a rational level.

She was the one supposed to be getting the drop on her opponents, not the other way around. It was unfortunate that the flaw in splitting up their foes had revealed itself. Zazil had a moment of worry that the third Domination cultivator would be there… but she would be dead already if that was the case. Unless they were incompetent, in which case she didn’t have to worry.

Two was a bit much, though. She was glad she had reached the edge of the Swirling Swarm and thus could focus all of her energy on defense, because she needed it. The two handed blade that the man wielded was barely slower than the armored fists of the woman, and Zazil was barely holding them off.

It didn’t take long to determine that she wouldn’t last. Against two powerful foes her ring blades wouldn’t be strong enough to block and attack. Knowing that, Zazil changed her tactics. She retreated towards her anchor, further away from the central battles in the system. The slight boost in power wouldn’t make up for the difference in strength, but it would at least allow her to focus on avoidance and draw out the battle.

Without the rest of the Swirling Swarm around them, her enemies weren’t so bad. But Zazil still needed backup, which the Alliance members weren’t capable of giving. After all, there were still a vast quantity of enemies to deal with.

Zazil’s rings spun around her in a crossed pattern, a blade always flying forward to deflect either of her two foes. She retreated as she continued her assault, intentionally dragging the Domination cultivators away. It worked… until it didn’t.

She wasn’t gaining any advantage over them. Perhaps the pair just grew bored. They might have realized she was stalling. Either way, they simply turned and left. Zazil moved to chase after them, attempting to lock down just one of them, but she wouldn’t be able to hold them down unless she fully engaged, leaving herself open.

And so… she didn’t. She sent a warning message to her allies, declaring her intent. The fleets drew back, relying on the protective barriers of the orbital platforms as well as the planetary barrier. Swirling Swarm members poured forward, and Zazil lashed out at their rear, annihilating vast swaths of them.

She had hoped that would draw the attention of the two Domination cultivators. Then she might pull them away again. Every moment of their time she wasted was beneficial to the Alliance. But they simply chose to continue the assault among the rest. Unlike many before them, now that the two had revealed themselves they were relatively simple to track. At the very least, Zazil knew what mass of enemies they were in before they hit the barriers, causing them to crack and tremble.

Knowing where the biggest threats were allowed Zazil to expand the radius of her sphere of blades. She reformed it to be a hundred meters out, and her weapons were still growing as they chopped up the masses. Some lesser Swirling Swarm cultivators tried to slip around the dome shaped slaughter zone she had, but they were individuals and small groups. It was trivial to wipe them out without having to distort the spinning field of blades.

An orbital platform was shattered. Zazil’s heart clenched. With the offensive power lost, the local defenses would be overtaken more rapidly. They still had more, but each one covered the others and with each that fell they had less offensive capability.

That was why Zazil had to continue to focus on the Swirling Swarm as a whole. If she could significantly reduce their numbers, then she and her allies could both focus on the Domination cultivators. They had really hoped to split them individually, but they were prepared to deal with the fallout if they had to. This system was mostly a military installation. Everyone was prepared for danger… but it still didn’t sit right to let it happen. Zazil could certainly survive, but she wanted to win.

Her attacks passed through the masses like they were nothing. It was like cutting grass, but most grass didn’t bleed. Nor did it come in three dimensions to any significant extent. There was so much to work through… but Zazil took one look at the death and destruction she had wrought so far, comparing it to what was left to do. She would have to manage. And if the Domination cultivators suddenly cared, she would draw them away. Or preferably just one, but they at least seemed wiser than that.

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Chidi was usually content with his path, but at this one precise moment he wished he’d continued the traditional path of the swordmaster. If he was a Domination cultivator now- a rather uncertain future- he could cut open space and close the distance to Zazil in a few moments instead of hours. It was only that low because he was riding in a fast ship. He had to cover the same distances that the incoming fleets had, after all. Plus he’d had to reach the border of the previous zone… mostly.

At least Aconite had rather swiftly annihilated the Swirling Swarm in their area. It was uncomfortably effective, he had to admit. The cleanup was going to involve throwing a whole mass of bodies into a star or the nearest gas giant, because nobody wanted to touch the Swirling Swarm in case of mutations. Aconite could handle it, but it was just easier to recycle them as a whole regardless.

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Catarina would have been able to reach Zazil faster than her son, but she had other priorities. Thus, she adjusted the spatial distortions to speed his arrival in the correct space as she made her way to the Bloodsoaked Nebula. That was the one place they had no direct feedback from, and she needed to confirm what was happening with Koronis.

The good news was that finding the woman was easy enough. She didn’t have a vast number of subordinates with her- not anymore- but her energy stood out from Lightyears away. It was partially because she was a Domination cultivator, and partially because of what the Bloodsoaked Nebula itself was doing. Perhaps the dead remembered the Creeping Fire Sect, if they had even existed at that point. It was hard to say.

Leaving Domination cultivators unsupervised could be a mistake. Even if the local formations taking advantage of old grievances were doing their job, Catarina saw they could use a little help. She was too far to directly affect anything- she hadn’t been willing to open up the middle distortions in case Koronis used them to try to flee. However, Catarina could still modify the flow of energy. That was what she was best at.

“... What did they do to you?” she asked herself as she felt the lingering hatred, far more than the ambient levels around. The Scarlet Alliance hadn’t amplified the grievances- if anything their formations that fed upon that energy should have dulled it with time, even when they went unused.

Cultivators that died often went down cursing their foes, but it usually didn’t mean anything. It had to be something worse than a slaughter to result in something like this. Then again, the Bloodsoaked Nebula covered numerous systems. Among other things, there were numerous planets that had been destroyed, their pieces strewn about among the local stars. And there were also traces that some of those very stars had been torn apart.

Stars couldn’t hold hatred. At least, the vast majority of stars couldn’t. Of course her grandfather had found a rare exception. Perhaps this place had been the same once, or perhaps what was now the Bloodsoaked Nebula previously held far more lives than she could imagine. Either way, the centuries had done little to dull their anger, and now that it had an outlet and a bit of guidance the energy flow was immense.

Catarina had to be careful not to be caught up in the flow. She’d either be ripped apart or go insane, if not both. Koronis was doing quite well herself, surviving as long as she had. It was time for that to be over.

Rather than directing things according to her will, Catarina simply nudged the flow of energy towards what it wanted to do, and the formations that had already been set up. A little bit of encouragement went a long way. She felt as the nebula began to swirl and condense, the color deepening from a vague dense fog to a vast sea of blood.

A cry of pain and rage came with a message from Koronis. “Cease your assault! I would treat with you! You know that I am a reasonable person.”

Catarina did not let up as she responded. She wasn’t even sure if she could stop what was happening now. “I have seen your ‘reasonableness’. You are open to talk when you feel weak, and constantly on the offense when you feel you have an advantage. There’s no point in keeping you around to attack us again.”

There was no response. There probably wasn’t time. Expending any energy at all on anything sort of being annihilated was probably too much.

Catarina couldn’t tell if the ending was poetic or not. Koronis had bound the Creeping Fire Nebula to herself. She almost certainly hadn’t even been alive when the Bloodsoaked Nebula had been formed. And yet, she carried on the legacy of those who had annihilated the area so her destruction was quite appropriate.

But even if it was misplaced vengeance, the area should be calmer in the future. Once it had some time to settle down.

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Zazil had literally no idea how many Swirling Swarm cultivators she had killed, just that it was a vast number. What she was certain of was that their ranks were looser now and their presence less all-encompassing.

The damage to the Alliance and loss of life wasn’t as immense, but it wasn’t trivial either. There were many ships that had been destroyed and companies of cultivators slaughtered, in large part by the two Domination cultivators.

Finally, it was time for Zazil to move in. With the numbers thinned, she could flank them with her allies. Even if she had to take the full brunt of one, she could handle it.

She committed hard, diving towards the pair. Five rings were launched specifically to deal with the sword cultivator’s weapon, three to bind the blade and one each for the guards on either side. Zazil didn’t expect her attack to land perfectly, but if she could even get one or two in place she could control her opponent’s flow. As for the brawler, she sent an attack in from all angles. Two fists and two feet would have trouble blocking all of them. Enough that the rest of her blades could focus on the sword wielding man.

Ring blades slid along the sword as she managed to deflect it from the man’s slash. They aimed for throat, heart, and belly. Zazil only hoped that some of them would achieve glancing blows but…

They went straight through. Certainly, Zazil could have expected her foe to be fatigued but not so much more than herself. It wasn’t even a lack of energy that was the problem. It was just… barely Domination.

The woman remained intact, but little else could be said for her. Zazil’s follow up immediately finished her off. Were they so fragile? Of course not. Zazil had directly clashed with them earlier. No, rather than fatigued they had grown… weak? Were they so transitory, or was something else at play? Zazil had been expecting to continue the fight for a while yet, until Chidi arrived… but it was suddenly over.

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Timothy had a Domination cultivator sealed inside his energy… and then he didn’t. It wasn’t that she escaped, she simply stopped being strong. That was more than a small bit unexpected. However, with her somewhat weaker he was immediately able to seal her energy properly instead of just holding her in place. Whatever was going on, he should at least be able to keep traces. A practically undamaged capture would be quite valuable.

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