Elder Cultivator

“I can’t believe I let you talk me out of staying behind,” Chikere complained. “From what I heard that Swordmaster Netta was pretty strong!”

“That’s the point,” Vasu shook his head.

“What, you think I’d lose?” Chikere vaguely slashed a sword towards him, which he sidestepped without effort.

The members of the Million Sword Vault had already returned home with their spoils, though some were eager for another excursion as soon as possible.

“That’s not the issue. You simply wouldn’t have gotten the fight you wanted. I imagine if we had remained behind that after Netta began to lose the rest of the sect would have gotten involved…” Chikere’s eyes began to shine as Vasu spoke, “... And then a whole bunch of annoying people from outside the sect would come remove us from their territory the quick way.”

“Hmmn, could be worth it,” Chikere stroked her chin. “I’d have to see what kind of sword she has first.”

“It might be better to arrange such a battle on another front,” Vasu commented. “Perhaps they might come to us.”

“You think so?”

“Probably not,” Vasu admitted. “They seemed hesitant to draw Aicenith into this battle.”

“I thought that was why we were the ones attacking them? And to support our allies too, I guess.”

“Something like that,” Vasu confirmed. “I will remind you that not everyone wants to fight. Many would prefer an end to hostilities, such as Anton.”

“Yeah, I get it. But until the enemy makes that choice, we have to make them regret starting this.”

“Give it time.”

-----

Some groups were easier to convince than others that minimizing concessions required for the end of the war was in everyone’s best interests. Lev and the Grasping Willows understood, but given their location in the center of the continent they hadn’t suffered any significant losses so far in the war. The same was geographically true of the Glorious Flame Palace, but they were less accommodating about his ideas.

“We can’t just let them off!” Sarka represented much of the general opinion of the passionate sect. “They need to pay for starting this!”

“And we will make them, but it can’t be excessive,” Anton explained. “Otherwise it will just cost us all more lives for a few shiny rocks and maybe some sticks or cloth.”

The co-located Frostmirror Sect was easily on board. There was no benefit to the war, and it was only logical to end it. “The important thing is to make sure they will honor any agreements, instead of simply building up their forces for a subsequent attack.”

“That’s being worked on,” Anton admitted. “We are hoping that some sort of formal agreement might give some sort of excuse to allow internal conflict. That would depend on what sort of arrangements they have with the upper realms. Though enforcing the provisions through traditional methods might work.”

“Nothing beats raw power,” Sarka agreed.

“I imagine they’d try to weasel out of it, though,” Adelina pointed out.

“That’s why I’ve already been working with Kohar,” Anton said. “She’ll make any contracts airtight. Though Catarina had some crazy ideas about self-enforcing contracts…”

“That doesn’t sound like something possible to achieve with formations,” Adelina frowned.

“Well, it’s imperfect. But certain broad conditions might be achievable, such as the destruction of certain structures when meeting certain conditions. Self destruction is… well established.”

“Everheart,” Adelina sighed, “Right?”

“He was a genius,” Anton grinned. “Anyway, she said something about setting those up in a few places. It wouldn’t be perfect, and they could probably be removed… but removing them without triggering some sort of alarm would be another level of difficulty. I don’t know all the details though.”

“I find it unlikely that they would allow us to set up formations in their territory, on their sect grounds or anywhere important,” Adelina pointed out.

“It’s difficult,” Anton admitted, “But if we can assert enough dominance, we might get something. At the moment the Exalted Archipelago is sort of floundering. If we could take advantage of it somehow,” he shrugged.

“They sent a lot of ships to the Middle Sea,” Sarka said. “Very circuitous-like. Seems like a good time for a counterattack, but we also can’t know if they’ll attack either continent from there.”

“It’s likely they’re flailing, trying to cut off our support for each other,” Adelina said. “Though they’ll likely learn about the teleportation formations one way or another. I’m surprised they haven’t already.”

“... Maybe they think it’s a deception?” Anton asked. “If they don’t have something similar, it sounds unbelievable.”

“Some of them went to the moon, though,” Adelina pointed out. “They experienced it.”

“Not that many of them,” Anton pointed out. “They’re… rightfully suspicious of Everheart’s tombs.”

“I can barely believe that was really the last one,” Sarka said. “But it’s not like there’s somewhere else he could put an even bigger, more impressive ‘tomb’, right?”

Nobody commented on that. It was hard to imagine where such a thing might exist, and the side effects of it would be immense. Hopefully, it really was the last one.

-----

“I suppose that makes sense,” Anton said after listening to Kohar explain some of her current plans. “It’s not unpalatable, but that makes it harder to pitch to our side. Trade provisions… well, actually requiring them to open their borders would be a pretty big win. And with favorable conditions for us… it might amount to something.”

“I’ve been working with a lot of economists,” Kohar said. “They say this will ultimately be better for us than trying to scoop our five or ten percent of everything they have. That’s nearly impossible to calculate to begin with. Are we going to appraise every single sword everyone has?”

“We could easily get the swords done,” Anton pointed out. “I know some people. But everything else… there are fewer people obsessed with specific furniture, and it would take… far too long.”

“We’re still asking for boatloads of gems and valuable goods though,” Kohar said. “Just a small number of them spread out through the whole area. Or rather, specifically those who have been involved in this war.” Kohar shook her head, “As if they’ll agree to this.”

“That’s not your job. Or rather, only the part of making it reasonable. The rest is up to us,” Anton slapped his chest.

It was funny because at the moment, he was barely stronger than her. Or at least, his quantity of available energy was quite similar. The poison still had annoying lingering bits, but Anton currently carried with him energy similar to late Spirit Building. He would be avoiding battlefields for at least another month, since he didn’t have a death wish. It would be one thing if he were actually in late Spirit Building, but his current potential was much higher so he’d be a juicy target.

“I suppose it’s now my job to convince people we’d want to trade with these guys, after a war,” Anton pondered. “But we have seen significant wealth, and both sides have different materials more readily available. That’s a reasonable enough basis, at least.”

“When you get us the lists of the actual most valuable materials we can be more specific in that section,” Kohar said. “We’ve got a handful of us pouring over the thing for the wording to be as good as possible. We’d also like to avoid any sweeping changes at the last moment, because that’s where holes come in. We can’t count on anyone to just respect the spirit of the agreement.”

“It’s unfortunate,” Anton agreed, “But that’s the way it is.”

-----

The most successful intrusions by the Exalted Archipelago had been in northwestern Ambati, in the region of Obuandi. Of the areas they could easily reach, it was the least defended and generally the least important, but it had allowed them a foothold on the continent from where further attacks were orchestrated. They had been holding the location for several months now, but a counteroffensive was on its way.

Though they controlled a small corridor leading to the area, actually getting more people there was difficult. More than a few ships at a time and the continental forces could organize an attack while they were away from land and thus relatively vulnerable. They needed time to organize, but over the course of the war they had been capturing and building more ships of their own to allow themselves greater control of the sea. The reason the upcoming counteroffensive was on the way simply had to do with their ability to get reinforcements. While the port did not freeze in the winter, the circuitous route they had to go through to avoid notice did freeze. That would limit attacks along the entire northern half of the continent, freeing up forces for the offensive while still allowing them to be ready to defend the western and southern parts of the continent.

As for the forces in the Middle Sea, between Brogora and Aicenith, that was already being worked on. Ships from Aicenith were very specifically flying their flags and aggressively sweeping through the ocean near their territorial waters. This didn’t result in many direct conflicts, and was intended to drive them off. Though Brogora didn’t have the spare forces to randomly sweep through the vast sea, they had sufficient forces ready to defend their coast.

Though cultivators could remain at sea for arbitrary lengths of time, the various beasts present would consistently cause some amount of damage to the ships and potentially casualties to the crew. While food and water were replenishable, long durations on a ship were not comfortable. Cultivators could be patient, but not all of them would be comfortable spending so long at sea. They couldn’t remain forever, and even if they did tying up dozens of ships for a potential attack was not going to work out in the long run. It did make trade between the continents more difficult, but the route past Paradise was still traversed by some. The complete destruction of the Ponderous Turtle Clan’s forces there seemed to make them reasonably cautious.

-----

Anton flexed his fingers one by one. He certainly wasn’t back to full, but his range was sufficient to make his participation feasible. Staying in the back lines meant that enemies would have to make risky maneuvers to get to him or the others in the same role, so the fact that his total energy was still suboptimal didn’t make him feel particularly vulnerable. If anything, he was still far better off than most fighting on the front lines. Doing his best to support them and make them safer was better than doing anything foolish like moving forward himself.

This was the first battlefield in a while where Grand Elder Kseniya was also present. For the moment the center of the continent was deemed safe, so more forces had been shifted outward, even if it was only temporary. Assassins might still appear, but that simply meant people had to stay in groups.

Everyone was present, really. Hoyt, Velvet, Timothy, Catarina, Devon, Alva, Lev… alright, it was mostly the Order and a few others, plus local forces from Ambati. There was nobody from Aicenith at the moment, which also meant no Chikere even though she was originally from Brogora. Aicenith was helping with keeping other areas secure during this assault, with the Million Sword Vault specifically trying to provoke the Void Blades into fighting them. Some were here around Obuandi, but the strongest were not present.

The last few days had been slow moving, not because jungle terrain was terribly difficult. In fact, with members of the Grasping Willows and the Rolling Bush Sect, the underbrush practically bowed out of the way on its own. The problem was when formations had been set up. That was why Catarina and other formation masters were present, keeping an eye out for traps. Some were so simple that Anton could spot them from kilometers away, but others were more devious. Whether making use of proper formation materials or augmenting a natural formation, there were sufficient dangers to the bulk of the army if the traps went undetected.

Void ants were also helpful in detecting them… and though some found it disconcerting to have a handful sitting on their shoulder, when they tapped the side of someone’s neck to get their attention and thus helped them not step into a trap they found it worthwhile. Then the void ants would be let down to feast on any pockets of natural energy gathered by a formation, which was ultimately a win for them.

They were still able to advance ten or twenty kilometers a day, not an insignificant pace but much slower than they were used to. No doubt the enemy was aware that they were coming, but whether they could do anything about it was another matter.

They made a few attempts at guerilla warfare, but the forces from Ambati were generally more familiar with the type of terrain they were dealing with and… Kseniya would make anyone who came close enough to attack regret how far inside her range they were. Nobody was able to escape her once she had locked onto them. There were a few enemies with ranges nearly as much as her, but they alone would not be able to cause significant harm to the army. The march continued, and would hopefully be sufficient to push them out of the area.