Elder Cultivator-Chapter 1261

The Starless Sailor crew looked out on the facility in front of them. It was about what one would expect of something in the middle of space, vaguely spherical which extended to the area it controlled with its formations, the distortion beast nests placed carefully around it. As for the creatures themselves, the ship’s sensors were picking out quite a few. Fortunately, without any signs of cultivation insights.

“The infiltration should be initiated by myself,” Departs Home suggested. “We void ants may go unnoticed.”

“Or,” Valentin countered. “They might have anti-void ant formations set up.”

“Unlikely,” Departs Home countered. “How would we even get here? The construction must have begun before public knowledge of our connections existed. If not before the birth of the Great Queen herself. Does it have artificial gravity?” she signed another question.

“I don’t believe so,” Valentin confirmed, flipping through various readouts.

“Then I should go and make an initial assessment. Human infiltration might be impossible. If I should die without any sort of report, you may have to consider returning with only passive scans, though I leave that up to your judgment.”

Nobody could think of a good reason to stop Departs Home. They had a strong level of caution about the whole facility, but there wasn’t anything particularly related to that interaction.

The humans were left on the ship to make what assessments they could from a distance.

“I can’t be certain,” Avram admitted, “But I don’t sense a great amount of combat capability. The total energy here is… well, effectively just the output of that odd core of Domination energy.”

“Should we risk using thrusters to circle around?” Valentin asked.

Yeter shook her head. “Not until Departs Home returns… or doesn’t.”

Ivan nodded. “She’s going in without a communicator. Possible energy fluctuations. This place is so isolated that anything could be noted. Including us, though hopefully we haven’t already been marked.”

“I remain ready,” Yeter emphasized. “Keep alert for evasive maneuvers.”

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Departs Home had a small vessel that she could have used to approach, but it was large enough to be picked out. The layers of energy indicating formations got stronger further inward, so she risked going about halfway. Even with methods to capture air, void ants couldn’t simply breathe in space endlessly. At best, they could sustain themselves by devouring energy- which would be too obvious.

Unless the cultivators aboard had grown soft. How many troubles could they face out here that were not closer to planet sized than ant sized? Not all distortion beasts actually reached that scale, but none were smaller than a city. Though theoretically, they had to be smaller at some point in their development, it had been theorized that they might reproduce through a form of mitosis- splitting off a full sized distortion beast. Or perhaps they constructed them as a group with unnatural energy manipulation.

But Departs Home wasn’t a specialist. She was just ready to rip out the energy of her enemies if it should come down to that.

She carefully worked with her company of void ants to impart themselves sufficient momentum to reach the vessel without running out of air, and without crashing into it and shattering their carapaces. It was relatively easy to put too much power into movement in a vacuum.

The second layer of formations, after the outermost formations that concealed energy from the outside world, likely had little sensory purpose. Departs Home thought it was actually connected to the docile stare of the distortion beasts. Even so, she carefully maneuvered her company to catch and twist the energy, slipping through as if it was a loose mesh of threads. That would be far less disruptive than any form of cutting.

They had targeted what looked like an external hatch. They would be coming upon a very important scenario- how was the station sealed?

Obviously the Alliance would have made it physically air tight. Traditional cultivators might have gone for a more energy based approach. The constant usage would be concerning, but it could probably be balanced fairly cheaply.

They weren’t as careless as Departs Home would have liked. The chosen hatch was well sealed, so she sent out groups of void ants to search for any flaws. Flows of energy would be the easiest to pick out. Perhaps they could find something.

Some would die. Humans found such things concerning, but most of the void ants were not people. Even if they were, for a task such as this it would be worthwhile. The small crew was not chosen because the Lower Realms Alliance could not afford to lose more people, but because it was judged to be efficient for the chances of success.

They could have created a ship a hundred times as large that had more redundant systems, but it would have been much more obvious. Judging that whatever they were looking for was to be kept secret, stealth had been preferred over total combat prowess or even other forms of potential mission success.

One squad returned in a short time. They had to communicate more directly, with no starlight to allow physical sign and a lack of atmosphere to transmit pheromones properly. However, they would at least be able to lay trails for others to follow. Waiting for the others to return would be a waste. They could make their own judgment.

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A close entrance… sort of. The squad had found a section of enchanted wood used as a sealant. The base material was flimsy, as they had demonstrated by tearing out a small chunk. The enchantments no doubt would have made it firm enough to keep the seal, but the void ants didn’t have to tolerate that.

Departs Home hurried towards her destination, finding the sealed area and tearing it apart with her larger jaws. Many void ants needed to fit through… and mainly her. It would still be a very small hole by human standards.

She braced for depressurization as she felt her mandibles pierce into open space. However, she had been right about at least one enchantment. They hadn’t entirely trusted the physical mechanics, opting to keep the air inside via formation.

What opulent use of energy in a land without stars. She admired the ambition, and hated the implementation.

It was convenient, though. She pushed her way through, and her brethren poured in around her. A typical human interior, though slightly unfamiliar in that she was used to Lower Realms styles. This had no traces of Ruteran influence.

And no internal seals. Oh, sure, doors were closed. That would keep out people, but they swung open above the floor… which meant there was room for pretty much any void ant to slip. Larger queens would not have, but Departs Home was not a larger queen. She was precisely her own size, and specifically chose not to grow too large as she was raised for this mission.

She would complete it. And if she returned alive, it would be a bonus. Whatever information was held here had to be collected, however.

She waited until she was certain all her people had entered- or perished. Ninety percent was good… and perhaps some of the others had found an alternate entrance. Then she gave instructions to search the entire station- avoiding secured areas. By void ant interpretations, of course.

Their goals were to return with a map of the facility that the humans could use, as well as a reasonable count of the local cultivators. Now that she was inside she could already sense a few handfuls, and that was in one small section. Most of them were relatively weak, however.

Ironically, that was bad for the void ants. Stronger cultivators weren’t much more of a threat, and generally were more likely to be isolated.

Nobody would die. And in a place that should have no insects, they couldn't afford to get caught. Departs Home followed that thought by running directly into a spider’s web. Just a single strand, and her companions tore her out in a moment.

How sloppy. Such a massive feat of construction, but clearly their protocols were subpar. How did they even survive?

Oh yes. Through excess. They had more energy than they should- which was really nothing at all- and enough to sustain something resembling a normal town. Just in space, and without gravity. Not that gravity mattered much to void ants, because they would be crawling on walls most of the time anyway. Or floors or ceilings.

The things the humans wanted to be somewhere were bolted down. Among other waste was a waste of space- she found a lounge with high ceilings where they could have put an inverted version of the space below. It might have even been a positive stylistic choice.

She slowly made her way closer to the core… and almost broke her own instructions. But she held herself back from entering a more secure area. Even if the formations weren’t meant to stop her specifically, any minor disruptions were likely to be more considered.

Still, if their goal had been to shut down this facility she would have gone directly in and tried to sever the connection to whichever Domination cultivator sponsored this place. She hadn’t tasted the real flavor, but now that she was deeper in the station she could place it by the approximations that had been made.

Ramil, of the Disciples of the Beyond. Perhaps it should not be surprising that the sect related to distortion beasts was in fact doing something highly suspicious with them.

That man needed to get bitten by void ants. He’d avoided it, last time. Hopefully Fearsome Mandibles would be there to follow through on the next opportunity. Crossed Antennae might manage as well, but she wasn’t said to pride herself on her combat prowess. Departs Home hadn’t actually met either. Just the Great Queen, who could obviously kill any cultivator if she wanted. She just had to be there with them.

Void ants gathered with their reports. Food stores had been spotted, should they be necessary. Food production was done here as well- though inefficiently. Various plants in an artificial growing room far inferior to what the Starless Sailor had.

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A flawless extraction brought the void ants back to report.

“The destruction of the facility would no doubt cause endless misery to the sect,” Avram said. “But we also need to know what this was for. Aside from vaguely manipulating distortion beasts.”

The good news was that some of the void ants had stumbled across a library of some sort. The bad news was that they could only skim the texts, and not with a special reading technique. They remembered a few sentences each, which weren’t enough to make a clear determination.

All of the cultivators aboard did have some infiltration training. They hadn’t known they would run into this exact situation, but they expected to want to hide wherever they ended up. Chances of encountering unfriendly individuals had been estimated at near 100%, if there were to be any encounters at all.

“We’ll have to activate the spatial storage on the way back,” Yeter commented. It would take extra energy, but they had recovered enough energy that it should be fine. They had been planning to return with a half full ship, after all. “We can’t sort through everything all at once.”

“If we can grab it all,” Ivan commented. “They might also have more sealed records near the core. The total number of cultivators aboard…”

“More than a thousand,” Departs Home confirmed. “But significantly spread out. Only a single Augmentation cultivator.”

“That’s a bit tough,” Avram made a face. “One on one from a million kilometers away I might stand a chance, but…”

“We will be responsible for the strongest cultivators. Obviously,” Departs Home declared. “You must take out the weaker ones so they don’t just… stomp on us.” Obviously void ants could avoid being killed by a single human, but the more times they encountered them the more chances one would finally crush them. Specifically Departs Home, but with too many lost void ants their battle formations would break down and they would become more vulnerable.

Not once did they believe they weren’t up to the task. After all, they had to be, so they would be.