The sounds of battle continued as Alva sprinted her way through the forest. These enemy archers had some decent range, though personally Alva felt they should have been either further away or closer to their melee counterparts. Being isolated as they were only worked at extreme ranges. Though they hadn’t anticipated anything able to flank them.

Twigs cracked underneath her feet as her legs carried her forwards. There were still several archers to deal with, but their threat was slightly diminished. Alva should have been focusing on those within the defensive formation, though those opponents might not last long. And her feet carried her automatically. She kept alert for incoming arrows… or more enemies, hidden somehow. She wouldn’t put it past the Harmonious Citadel to have assassins among them.

Then a ball of fire leapt out from behind the trees. Alva was tackled to the ground, the weight of the figure pinning her down. The scent of blood was strong. “Wow, Fuzz, you’re covered in blood,” Alva said. “I hope most of it isn’t yours.”

As she was speaking, the canine tongue was licking her face in excitement. But their reunion couldn’t last long as they were. Fuzz stepped back, letting Alva up. She grabbed a handful of fur and vaulted onto his back, just in time for him to leap forward away from incoming arrows. With his speed taking care of defenses, Alva was able to focus on taking down the remaining archers. Two of the stronger ones were still up, as well as some weaker ones. Though at the current moment they were being harried by… another wolf? Alva wasn’t going to question that. Unless proven otherwise, it was on their side.

The man who had been causing the most trouble continued to fire a series of arrows at Alva. Now that they were in combat he did some fancier moves like curving his arrows, but Alva still recalled how they only went for direct shots in their initial barrage. As if anyone could fail to handle something so simple. Vari blocked the entire volley! Sure, she was now being flailed around holding onto someone’s spear, but that effectively took a stronger opponent out of the combat so how it looked didn’t matter.

Fuzz didn’t slow down as arrows continued to fly at him. Alva shot half of them out of the sky, while the others Fuzz dealt with himself by avoiding… or just ignoring. Some weren’t strong enough to hurt him.

Alva could see the eyes of the leader now. The distance rapidly closed between them. Several hundred meters became a hundred, then fifty, then ten. Alva took a moment to pull together a stronger shot, which shot into the man from an arm’s length as she passed by- at the same time Fuzz pounced on the other Integration cultivator.

For some reason the man hadn’t been prepared to be shot at that distance. Alva had kind of expected him to dodge it, preparing to twirl it around behind him, but it just went into his left lung. None of the opponents seemed funcional in close range, but turning to flee only gained one of them three seconds while Fuzz chomped into the other. Then he had to turn and build up speed. Alva’s arrows sunk into the weaker cultivators, just to give her the ability to focus- but it didn’t matter since the last one barely even managed to turn as Fuzz ran them down.

Alva glanced back at the battle in the formation. Too many trees were in the way to see, but it was habit. Her senses told her that things were almost done there. Vari had managed to wrestle away the spear from her opponent, then flung it aside. He was currently in a headlock with Catarina stabbing towards him. And then he was dead.

Fuzz didn’t stop moving. His target was the other wolf. Was Alva supposed to shoot it? She hadn’t quite made up her mind when Fuzz leapt onto the other wolf… in the same friendly manner as greeting Alva herself. Just in case, Alva disengaged herself from the whole rolling around. There was a lot of growling and biting, but no blood was being drawn. Yeah, they were friends. Apparently.

-----

“Good job Vari,” Catarina said. “I’m quite impressed.”

Vari’s head was snapping around, looking for more enemies.

“I do believe we’ve defeated them all,” Catarina said. “Both here, and there.”

Vari’s eyes eventually settled back on Catarina.

“... you can’t hear me can you.”

Vari tilted her head, then pointed to her ears. They were bleeding.

Catarina put her face in her palms. “I said to stifle her hearing. Not destroy it.”

“... She can recover from that, right?” Timothy asked worriedly.

“It should be fine,” Catarina sighed. “Maybe a few months.”

“I can’t hear you right now,” Vari said. “I destroyed my hearing like you suggested. Good idea.”

They were going to need to get out writing materials.

-----

“This is Spikes,” Fuzz said to the group, via writing his message on the ground. “She’s part of the pack now.”

“Oh?” Alva said with a raised eyebrow. “Is she your girlfriend?”

“We are not mated yet,” Fuzz wrote, seemingly without any form of embarrassment. Though perhaps that sort of thing was more human. Spikes made some noises, which Fuzz interpreted. “She humbly requests to join the pack. It seems she found the other stone wolves lacking in greatness.”

“It kind of sounded like you already decided,” Alva shrugged. “I have no objection. As long as Spikes can behave around people.”

Spikes looked unsure of her surroundings, but controlled enough. Fuzz confirmed that she should be able to get along… if she wanted to.

The group was already working on treating their respective injuries. Even beyond Vari’s self inflicted ones, some were reasonably serious. The enemy had been stronger than anticipated, and Fuzz’ arrival had been a great release of pressure. The formation would likely have allowed them to come out on top regardless, but nothing was guaranteed. If one of them had gone down, the battle might have spiraled in the other direction.

Vari took out the communication stone she had and crushed it in her fist. “I hate this. I never want to interact with the Citadel again.” The serious nature of her tone surprised Alva, who less than a few years earlier had only heard positivity about the Harmonious Citadel come out of her mouth.

“We’ll find a way to prevent that,” Alva wrote. “But how did they find you the first time? This is far from their territory.”

“Maybe it was a coincidence,” Vari lied poorly. “If you’ll excuse me, I need to relieve myself.”

Alva grabbed the back of Vari’s shirt, yanking her to a stop. She wasn’t going to let Vari just wander off to be hunted down individually- or to die before she could get more orders. They’d figure out a way to help her.

-----

“At least we have lots of copies of the Glorious Harmony Technique to search through,” Catarina commented. “It will make it easier to discern which ways it is different from the others.”

Alva nodded. The bows were all the wrong size to use on wolfback, but they still got a respectable amount of wealth from their slain foes. The cultivation techniques were intended to disintegrate themselves upon viewing by those not approved, but after failing with the first one Catarina properly disarmed the enchantments on the others. There were also different supporting techniques available compared to what they found on the sword-wielders. Forms and stances and the like, not necessarily useful… but able to be sold to the right people for a tidy profit.

And they had Fuzz. Alva had almost given up hope that any of the rumors would find him, but after more than a year of searching they’d done it. It had definitely involved a bit of luck, since Catarina’s attempts to track him down from beyond planetary distance had never panned out… but they did it. He was stronger than ever, though of course that was the case. They hadn’t seen him since he ascended after all, the troublemaker.

“... I don’t think I will survive restarting my cultivation now,” Vari shook her head sadly. “I fear the Glorious Harmony Technique might have the same flaws, or the hooks buried in me might be too deep. Is it really possible?”

“Anything is possible in cultivation,” Alva assured her. “Catarina’s the best I’ve met at things like this, besides maybe grandpa. Hoyt and Timothy too.”

“What about Everheart?” Hoyt questioned.

“Have I met him though?” Alva shook her head. “Besides he doesn’t count since he’s an asshole who wouldn’t help.”

Hoyt shrugged, “I’m just saying, he’s amazing at breaking techniques apart and making new ones.”

Vari’s face scrunched up. “Are you guys saying something about Everheart? It hurts to hear, but… I guess he’s really from your world, huh.”

It was reasonable that she found it difficult to believe, given that he had taken over an entire planet and made a region wide phenomenon with it. It was strangely natural to them, though. Everywhere always had something left behind by him, with dangers associated with it.

“It’s about time to head back, actually,” Catarina commented. “I’m ready for the next step in figuring out the thing.” The formation plate was still half-secret from Vari, not because they didn’t trust her now but because it was safer for her not to know. “We’ll have at least a few weeks, potentially months if we have to take a more circuitous route back. We can stop somewhere to sell some of our… recent gains. I’ll need some materials, and we could all use some upgrades of at least part of our equipment.”

Everyone agreed with that plan. Catarina and Timothy could return to the Silver Sea Coalition for some time of safety, but nobody was a dominant force around Everheart’s Tomb anyway. Hoyt was also reporting what they had learned back to the Dark Ring, and though they couldn’t count on backup from them they would be glad to hear of a victory over the Harmonious Citadel, even if only on the scale of individuals.

-----

Energy gathered in Anton’s hands, forming a special arrow in his bow. This one needed to go much further than any before… and faster as well. This particular Spirit Arrow was formed of light, and if Anton wasn’t fooling himself he might be able to make it go nearly that actual speed. There were some methods that made things faster- or travel between systems would be impossible- but without active control that was all Anton could hope for.

He needed this arrow to be as stable as possible, disconnected from himself but still able to provide feedback. And he even had to twist some anti-ascension techniques into everything else. The skies lit up as his arrow arced into the sky, vanishing into a point of light that would never be seen by human eyes again as it left the atmosphere behind it. Anton waited, watched, and felt. He’d tried similar things frequently, but he had high hopes for this attempt.

The feedback was minimal- the tiny fragments of energy in empty space only hindering the flight of the arrow by the sheer quantity of them and the speed at which it came into contact with them. Anton focused on maintaining the link, but it was a boring half of a day before he got any relevant feedback. Distances in the void of space were strange where pure energy was involved. The ascension energy threatening Anton felt as if it were oppressively close, but it was beyond the furthest planet by a significant margin.

Anton almost missed the impact, where his arrow came into contact with ascension energy. It happened over a fraction of a second, but he smiled. Good. So the techniques worked to some extent on free ‘upper energy’ as well. He wasn’t quite sure how that would be useful, since he would not be going to such a place, and he only need concern himself about those coming to Ceretos, but it was something to learn nonetheless.

Inside of himself, Anton felt his connection to the sun strengthening. He was almost at the hundred and first star. Via communication with the others, some of them were at that point as well- though it was clear the actual functional details of their cultivation had diverged. He wished he could speak to them in person to discuss the finer details instead of sending vague overviews, sadly limited in information. Maybe they could come visit. He wasn’t certain if they could, until the tides of the world changed. That information was apparently not easy to find, even in the upper realms. But even if he could not see them again, he could at least be content that they were prospering in their new environment. Meanwhile, Ceretos itself was on another upswing. He intended to make sure it lasted as long as reasonable.