Additional observation of the gathered invader forces provided more insights for their chosen location. From the west and south they were concerned about the forces of Ofrurg and Droca, but to the east it wasn’t Facraona that they were worried about. Not primarily, anyway.

All it took was one time for Anton to know. At first he thought there was a powerful storm, but it moved more quickly than any storm he had ever heard of. An Ascension cultivator… wasn’t that strong, and the entirety of the feeling was made up of natural energy. Lower energy by the invader’s terms.

He wasn’t able to see it with his eyes given the mountain range in the way, but he could sense the giant ball of water. It didn’t warp or bend with the friction of the air like would be expected, but kept its form perfectly. It struck the far side of the mountain at the foot. Anton wasn’t even sure if there was a particular target since he’d been focused on the attack itself.

Afterwards, there was nothing. Not that was feasible to sense with his senses, at least. Perhaps he could have picked through the area for bits of debris to determine what they had once been, but any energy signature they might have once possessed was gone. It was just chunks of rock and mud and trees and maybe some bodies. And the lingering sense of Paradise.

That explained why they wouldn’t head towards the coast. It also left things in an awkward stalemate, because the invader forces present were too much to reasonably attack. Even with the combined forces of Graotan and Ofrurg, the numbers were a close match. Fighting an entrenched group wasn’t appealing for anyone who wanted to live. And since they weren’t currently moving to attack anyone… throwing away their lives seemed unnecessary to everyone involved.

They would be dealt with, of course. It was simply a matter of when. Contacting Droca and Facrona to combine with whatever remained of their forces was the next priority, and if they could be trusted to remain there assisting Estary first was reasonable. But going around the enemy army forces with sufficient stealth would take days at minimum, probably more if they wanted to negotiate any combined form of attack. That would allow their enemies to recover much more than they wanted… so harassing them in the meantime was absolutely essential. They had defensive formations, but now there were multiple formation masters to match against them.

-----

Graotan had a relatively centralized location on the continent and combined with Catarina being one of the primary formation masters creating the teleportation formations, that meant they had one of the big ones. The intercontinental teleportation formation was thankfully intact… and even active. It just happened to be watched by a mid sized army at the moment. That included most of the Order that was still in Graotan, though some others were back at the sect itself.

The other, smaller scale one that went between the Glorious Flame Palace and the Order had been reopened, though there wasn’t actually much activity at the moment. At least emergency messages could be passed back and forth instead of taking days of travel even by the swiftest cultivator traveling at top speed.

Grand Elder Kseniya had recovered enough to participate, and was tasked with watching the intercontinental formations. So far there hadn’t been a glimmer of any activity, though Catarina had determined the far end should still be active, unless it had been destroyed in a very select manner. As for why they didn’t just disassemble the formation on their end, not only might they need it but it was actually conveniently safe.

It took energy to transport cultivators, especially if their reserves were full. That energy would normally come from them, but even if others provided it significant effort would be required to transport anyone strong. Either they’d get a bunch of exhausted people or a smaller amount of well rested travelers. If they were allies it didn’t really matter, but if they were enemies… they were prepared to kill either. In the worst case where opponents they couldn’t match came through somehow there were contingencies to destroy key components to prevent further reinforcement.

But now it was finally activating. Everyone could feel it, natural energy resonating in response to activities too far to sense. The power built up to a crescendo and then… a small army appeared, swords in hand. Except for the woman at the front, who appeared to be wrapped from head to toe in bandages, including her arms being bound in front of her.

Everyone was waiting for Kseniya to give the order, or to take the first shot if an order gave the enemy too much warning. But instead, she slowly and carefully lowered her bow. There was not a trace of ascension energy about the visitors, and she recognized one. Chikere wasn’t quite as familiar to her as other members of the Order, but she stood out easily enough. Just standing near her felt sharp. Every Life Transformation cultivator had some sort of aura, but hers was the most casually dangerous that Kseniya had felt.

“Hi! I’m back!” Chikere wiggled back and forth on her feet before realizing she couldn’t independently move her arms to wave. Kseniya felt the bandages- and beneath them some sort of plaster covering her arms- strain against the movement. Then Chikere shrugged. “None of you look like invaders so… is everything going well here?”

“Depending on the definition,” Kseniya commented as she approached. “We have survived. From your presence, I take it Aicenith has dealt with the invaders?”

“Nope! Well, sort of. We got a lot of them. But the others are taking care of that. We just thought we’d come here because…”

“They ran out of swords,” Vasu commented. “At least, worthwhile ones.” His eyes drifted to one at Chikere’s waist. Even Kseniya could feel the aura of slaughter it emitted, and she was far from a sword cultivator. “So we came here to offer our aid.”

Kseniya had no previous interaction with Million Sword Vault, but from what she had heard they were pretty easy to interact with. At least, if you were willing to accept certain eccentricities. “I can’t guarantee there will be any of interest here, but if there are… Estary or on the border between Ofrurg and Facraona is the best bet.” She wasn’t willing to send them anywhere else, even if she knew of a particular place that needed help.

“Great!” Chikere spun, turning vaguely to the east, then fell flat on her face. She somehow wiggled back to her feet without bending her legs then started stomping off in that direction.

“Is she in any condition to fight?” Kseniya asked Vasu, who was trailing behind. “She seems…”

“Can’t stop her,” Vasu grinned. “Besides, it’ll take us a bit to get to our destination. By then her legs should be working.”

“What about her arms?”

“No chance,” Vasu said. “They got cut clean off. We know how to stitch them back on, but it still takes time to repair that. Not having use of her arms… well, hopefully her new sword will make up for that deficiency.” Vasu nodded seriously, “And I get the next one! This should be quite fun.”

“Fun, huh?” Kseniya shook her head. “And here we were just trying to survive.”

“See, there’s your problem. You care about survival more than your path. How are you even going to ascend like that?” Vasu laughed, “Not that I’m at the point I can do it myself.”

-----

A group made up of Life Transformation cultivators wasn’t exactly stealthy on its own, but it wasn’t feasible to travel with weaker cultivators without greater numbers, which had its own problems. It was just Anton, Timothy, and Catarina instead of more- since they also couldn’t spare too many if there was an attack while they were gone. They did have a few extras with them to balance out their numbers, mostly because the queen didn’t want to let Anton go off on his own. There were other queens and plenty of ants capable of communication still with the armies.

The group was currently making their way around the north, planning to move along the coast into Facraona. Avoiding natural hazards and beasts was fairly routine for them, and the only real danger was if they came across any invaders. Not all of them were grouped into one place, either because they didn’t know about the gathering or because some chose to remain independent.

Taking out the weaker individuals would be easy, and when they approached nearby they did so. As for those who were further, even if Anton could shoot them… it would give away their position. Nothing could cover up a Spirit Arrow crossing many kilometers and ultimately killing someone- anyone with a half-decent sense of energy would notice from at least as far away.

Anton was willing to make exceptions if anyone was in danger, but the trend of people sheltering in larger cities continued. That was the right choice, given what had happened to most other places. It would be very difficult to recover from this invasion, even if the invaders hadn’t destroyed fields for basically no reason. They weren’t even stealing most of it, and chances were they would be gone before the end of the season. Anton certainly hoped so, given the speed cultivators could move at.

Running across an Ascension cultivator would be dangerous, though that danger was mitigated by their proximity to the sea as well as the ant queen. Some ants took on names to better interact with humans, though this one was always referred to as just the Great Queen. From a certain standpoint it wasn’t incorrect, as there was a lot of danger packed into a small area.

The border of Facraona had no guards, though hopefully that meant they were all taking positions further south instead of simply gone.

“It’s weird we haven’t seen anyone yet,” Timothy commented. “Where are they?”

“I sense people further to the east, but not many,” Anton admitted. “We’re not in the core of Facraona, but I’d still expect more people.”

“Could they have been defeated?” Catarina asked. “Paradise might have driven them off on his own.”

“I don’t think so,” Anton shook his head. “I would never choose to be involved in a fight against Paradise if I could help it, but it should only take a small to moderate army to defeat him. And I imagine he would make for excellent turtle soup and extremely valuable materials. It should have simply been the difficulty of getting to him while also dealing with others. Though I suppose there’s also a question of whether or not anyone could actually catch him.”

“I thought Paradise moved rather slowly?” Timothy mentioned.

“Only when… meandering. In the fight against the Kraken, he was swift.”

The trio of humans made their way further into Facraona, where they found more of the same. Death and destruction with pockets of firm resistance. Attempts to contact some locations resulted in unfriendly welcomes, even though they were clearly not connected to the invaders. While they could have pushed their way close enough to try to communicate, they decided to look for a friendly sect instead. Or at least one they had prior communication with.

The Courageous Heart clan was at the top of the list, but they were on the far eastern side of Facraona. Instead, the Crimson Trail Sect was closer. Though their reputation was quite poor given their status as blood cultivators, Anton hadn’t heard any factual allegations against them. It seemed they lived up to their tenants of using only their own blood for their techniques, which mostly meant they focused on other areas given their limited supply. If Anton were going to disregard a sect for using forbidden techniques, of those present he could only accept Timothy. And the ants, but he also had to exclude himself.

As they got close enough, Anton considered various ways to contact them. Ultimately he settled for something easy. He had a supply of standard arrows for emergencies, tucked away in a storage bag instead of readily available in his quiver. Since the Crimson Trail Sect had a strong archery bent, he would try to speak to them as an archer. He summoned the most bows he could at once, formed of energy. If he were actually trying to kill anyone he would have only a half or a third as many, and even that would be unsustainable. But for a single shot, it was good enough. A small cloud of arrows flew towards the Crimson Trail Sect, aiming for outside their walls. As they landed, they formed the other best way to communicate with people. Words.