Chapter 891

Chapter 891

The ship rose up from Kunion. The Great Queen indicated it was the one that carried the worldheart, which Nthanda had to accept. It was concealed from her senses, but unless they could layer beneath that a very convincing replica, the Great Queen would be correct.

There was but one question to answer. Where do we bring it down? Do we want to secure it? Obviously they didnt want the Void Scrying Sect to have it for whatever purposes they had. But retrieving it themselves seemed problematic as well. It might look like their goal with the war was to acquire a worldheart, and seem as if they were responsible for the systems destruction. And while the Lower Realms Alliance and Shining Cooperative would know better, it was still something to consider.

Nthandas bow was drawn back to full. There was no way she was going to let the ship escape. She just waited for the Great Queens response, pointing towards a location. Fearsome Menagerie, she signed.

Nthanda nodded. With the information they had gathered, that made sense. The shapeshifters werent known to have a hand in the destruction of Zunrose, and they should have at least had a decent sized branch there. That should cause maximum trouble.

As the ship began to leave atmosphere, Nthandas arrow shot around the planet, making a full circle before it impacted the ship from her intended direction. She didnt have a direct angle to propel the ship in the direction she had wanted, so she made one. It was easier to take advantage of the planets own gravitational pull than to adjust the trajectory of her arrow all on its own.

The arrow was made out of the sturdiest and densest materials she could get, merely so that it could survive the acceleration of her bow. The bow itself had a draw weight that only someone with a body tempering focused cultivation could consistently fire. But here, she only needed the single shot to bring down the ship.

The ships barrier was destroyed, the impact sending the whole thing off course as the impact was spread throughout the hull of the ship. But that was imperfect, the arrow still piercing through its layers to come out the other side.

The barriers broken, Nthanda could sense the worldheart. Which meant she could target it. The ship was going down, but it was difficult to make it land properly in the Fearsome Menageries territory given its previous trajectory. A second arrow went out, the ship unable to respond with the damage it had already sustained. The captain made a brave and ultimately useless sacrifice as he was pierced through, crashing into the mass of worldheart and being blasted out of the ship with the metal.

Nthanda couldnt have lined things up better if she had coordinated with the Void Scrying Sect cultivators. And the reason they were so surprised was because they focused on predicting fluctuations of natural energy. She didnt have overwhelming power that disrupted their predictions- instead a sort they didnt even consider.

Nthanda was impressed how the unrefined worldheart held up. It seemed completely unperturbed at her attack, even without proper working and enchantments. She wanted some. Too bad its origins were so foul.

As it turned out, the kinetic energy of a piece of worldheart propelled down from orbit was enough to break through planetary barriers and sect covering barriers alike- though in fairness, the planetary barrier was only at moderate power. It was meant to cover widespread bombardments, not focused attacks. And again, completely without her intention, Nthanda marveled at the perfectly lined up things as a Void Scrying Sect cultivator crashed into some sort of dragon statue in the Fearsome Menageries sect grounds. Just behind the worldheart ore which did the majority of the damage, obviously.

Nthanda whistled. I was aiming for the center of the sect, but that was even better than I thought. This should be good.

The Great Queen nodded in agreement.

More void ants died than cultivators, but there were more of them to begin with. It was an acceptable trade. And the private yet lived.

He was drawn into a mobility formation, a mesh of ants rolling along. He automatically began flexing his limbs to contribute to the momentum at key points. They were headed deeper into the ship, towards the inner formations concealing something.

There, they found sealed containers filled with many class vials. The void ants worked together to destroy the vials in any way possible. Unfortunately there was very little natural energy in the substances. Some of one of them washed over the private, and he could feel it eating away at his carapace. Dangerous. But a necessary risk. He only had so much time left, so he charged towards another vial, crunching through the enchanted glass. More substances spilled over him, washing away some of the previous chemicals. But these too were unpleasant.

Again and again, he and the others broke apart everything they could. The private noted how some ate away at everything but the glass. Others, however, felt rather refreshing as they poured over him. Like pure water. He continued to stagger forward, one bad leg and some partially melted carapace. There was yet more to be done. They didnt need to know what these were for. Only that their enemies saw fit to conceal them.

Eventually, he reached his limits and consciousness faded but he was left with the satisfaction of a job well done. He wondered if void ants got to do the reincarnation thing that humans did. That might be nice. He would like to live, so he could do more.

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Zunrose was a system used to heavy traffic, but ever since the destruction of the system very few passed through- even though there was no more danger. Or rather, Varghese wasnt going to destroy ships simply passing through without reason. Not because he had pity for his enemies, but to conceal what he could actually do with the distorted neutron star that remained.

He felt something entering the system once again. He casually paid attention, until he determined that the trajectory of the handful of ships was aimed towards him. Towards the star.

If they were simply intending to observe, he would have humored them. But the moment they launched something towards him, he reacted. His instincts had already been on edge, as they told him these werent curious observers or truth-seekers.

He drew upon the power of the star and lashed out, string thin whips of extremely dense matter slicing through ships and causing them to collapse around those very strings as they passed through. A pulse of energy pushed the capsules away from the star, as he was unwilling to simply assume the heat of the star would properly consume them. Not if they were intended for something involving it.

He had a sneaking suspicion he knew what they were after. He sensed Void Scrying Sect cultivations, and a few more. And he realized that while a worldheart was highly valuable, it might not be sufficient for them to act so brazenly.

He felt it within the star, when he had lashed out. The core of its power, denser even than the rest of the neutron star. If the heart of a world was of great value, how much more the heart of a star? That might be worth betraying a whole alliance for. Or perhaps it was simply an experiment from those in the upper realms, who thought nothing for those who shared their names down below. Or at least those of other sects.

Varghese could see either option being the case, and neither option was better than the other. Either way, they would not achieve their goals, and not just because he wanted to protect a chunk of his cultivation.