Elder Cultivator

Chapter 1180

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.”

“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.