Two armies crashed against each other like great waves. Chaotic violence filled the area, forcing everyone to focus on the area around them. Ships and people clashed. Fire and ice, the epitome of which were Anish and Annelie, clashed with lightning and illusions and weapons of all kinds. There were even plants- mainly from Lev. He wasn’t quite as dominating away from Grandfather Willow, but he still had great power on the same continent. Actual waves swept over the invading ships as Paradise introduced himself and those upon his back to the battlefield.

On the other side, Fajra maintained her aura, a significant contribution to the battle even if it appeared as if she were simply not participating. Juta, on the other hand, had not yet left the command ship, seemingly looking for an opportunity. Rodolph of the Soaring Air Sect continued to menace the battlefield with his ring weapon, while others of the Trigold Cluster and the Exalted Archipelago all had their own disparate fighting styles.

Since the most powerful cultivator seemed content to stay out of things, Anton focused on smaller targets- though not insignificant. There were hundreds of Life Transformation cultivators present, but each second he pared down the enemy’s numbers. He also picked out Integration cultivators, weaker for not having access to Ascension energy. The latter he couldn’t necessarily kill as he pleased, but with additional effort and the fires burning inside him he still managed to take out two in the first minutes of the battle.

Anton felt strange. It had been a long time since he last used Candle Wax. That was intentional. A forbidden technique that devoured one’s lifespan was not something to use casually. Here, in this battle, it felt necessary. As he struck down enemies, he understood each of them could cause no more harm to Ceretos. The power of Candle Wax helped that. But… strangely, while it certainly empowered him, it didn’t have the same impact. It was expected to be a proportional increase in his power, but he didn’t feel it was as significant. Was it because it didn’t work the same way in the Assimilation stage? Certainly, it was an Everheart original and quite good at what it did, but not practiced or refined. Everheart hadn’t even known of the existence of the stage when he made the technique.

One of Anton’s arrows pierced through a ship, leaving rings of flame rapidly spreading from its trajectory. His next one immolated the sails of one of the enemy skyships. The power was there, certainly. But not as much as he hoped. Perhaps he was running out of lifespan. That was a straightforward possibility. This could be his final battle, so he had no intention to hold back in any manner.

Paradise repeatedly focused his attacks on the flying ships above, even as he sunk enemies all around him with his simple movements. Each time he dipped his head, he rose up with a lakeful of sea water and propelled it with immense force at the enemy flag ship. Everheart stood upon his head, fending off individual attackers who thought to assault his head or neck from behind. The Island Tenders, meanwhile, covered the whole of his shell and the surrounding area- while the phoenixes he had adopted flew the skies around him.

Void ants joined the battle, their first major opportunity since the start of the war. If the continental forces had been badly losing, the enemy successfully infiltrating their countries, that would have been quite different. However, they were doing well enough that the void ants simply didn’t have many chances to act before now. The enemy was quickly experiencing regret. The Exalted Archipelago was aware of the void ants’ strength, but even they found themselves surprised.

Ants swarmed cultivators, and whether they left behind a bloody corpse or an otherwise healthy individual devoid of energy, it made little difference. The stronger individuals moved in smaller groups, nearly impossible to detect in the chaos of battle with them being invisible to energy senses. The ants weren’t invincible- they could be cut or crushed like anything of their various sizes, though they were more durable than actual ants. Many died, but so did their continental allies- no matter how quickly Anton worked his way through enemies.

Then the moment came. Juta finally descended from her perch on the flagship, transforming into a gargantuan flying raptor- though with unbalanced wings, one clearly severed along its span. The rest was a mix between an eagle and a hawk, or perhaps some specific creature that did not exist on Ceretos.

Anton immediately switched his target, bombarding her with arrows that barely served to slow her down. Yet the instant after that, something nobody expected happened. The oppressive aura dominating the battlefield was withdrawn. No, not withdrawn. Erased, as Fajra perished.

In a moment of shock Anton’s senses snapped to the scene. All he saw was Fajra’s head falling to the ground. Rodolph of the Soaring Air Sect held in his hand a bloody ringed blade- and the storage bag from her waist. A sudden and unexpected event, unbelievable to the point Anton stopped everything he was doing to dispel potential illusions affecting him.

Yet after a few moments, he found there was nothing at all, or he was so deeply affected as to be completely unable to resist. In which case, there was nothing he could do but accept this as reality. In the middle of a climactic battle, the joint enemy forces had one leader kill another. Nothing could have been better for the natives of Ceretos. It was enough that Anton almost forgave Rodolph for participating in the war.

Almost. As the man broke away from his own flagship- where a dozen Radiant Beauty Sect cultivators were charging towards him with the intent to kill- Anton followed him into the skies. Beneath them, Juta gave a flabbergasted and enraged look over her shoulder. No doubt she would have charged after them both, but she was immediately engaged by a half dozen Assimilation cultivators.

Instead of immediately turning Rodolph into a pincushion, Anton took the reasonable approach. As Anton followed him into rapidly thinning atmosphere, he projected his voice through his energy. “Why did you join in the attack?”

Perhaps sensing a chance, Rodolph turned to regard Anton- though he did not slow his flight, even as he left the winds that empowered him. “They threatened us with destruction.”

“I understand,” Anton nodded. And if he had believed Rodolph, he would have not shot him through the heart. But though he senses fear in the man, that was not what had driven his actions. Rodolph feared Fajra. He also feared Anton. But greed had overcome both- now loaded with regret. Not at his decisions, but that it hadn’t worked.

None of Rodolph’s torso survived Anton’s shot. The Soaring Air Sect had once chosen to declare war on the continents, and been forgiven. Now, a man who was present had chosen to try again, even leveraging mutual foes. There would not be a third chance.

Anton did make sure to grab Fajra’s storage bag. Though he doubted it would contain all of the vast wealth an Augmentation cultivator would possess, it should at least contain many practical things- medicines for healing or training, for example.

It only took a moment to kill Rodolph, a short time to have his focus drawn away from the battlefield. Yet in a battle, a single moment could change many fates. Fajra had died in a moment of poorly placed trust.

A great explosion covered the battlefield, flames that scorched some while merely licking the faces of others harmlessly. That was a power Anton recognized as coming from Anish, but as it faded away the man himself had nothing left. Juta’s great talon pierced through his chest, dangling him in the air- while behind him Annelie had a bloody wound of her own.

Juta did not live long after that moment. The burst of Anish’s energy had scorched away much of her defenses, and the combined attacks of those who had come to hold her off came with great fury. Devon’s chains wrapped around her wings. Annelie summoned a spear of ice radiating the icy chill of death, piercing it into the raptor’s abdomen. Even Everheart added his own attack to the mix- though he displayed little emotion in doing so. A cut severing the tendons in the one good wing, sending Juta spiraling downward towards Paradise where she was crushed in his jaws. When she reverted to her humanoid form, Paradise’s tongue crushed her against the roof of his mouth- then spit her onto the shore. Or what had once been Juta, and was now little more than mangled bones.

Anton’s arrows added nothing to the vengeance, but they did contribute to quickly resolving the rest of the battle. Without their Augmentation cultivators, the remaining enemies were hopelessly outmatched. Yet there was to be no surrender for them. The Trigold Cluster were invaders from the upper realms, and those of the Exalted Archipelago were performing exactly the same function over a longer time frame. Had they started another war on their own, perhaps they would not have had to be exterminated, but this was clearly an attempt at extinction. One that did not go their way in the slightest.

Fajra’s storage bag did indeed contain some miraculous medicines, but as Anton came to land on the shores next to Annelie, he knew they would not help. Anish was already dead, and without a stomach they could not hope for the medicine to restore his body without his own consciousness. Yet seeing his granddaughter with tears frozen on her face, he could not stop himself from presenting a pill regardless. It burned with flames reminiscent of a phoenix.

Annelie wasted no time breaking it down with her energy, distributing its power throughout Anish’s body but focusing mainly on his ruined chest. Miraculously, Anton could see his flesh growing back as they watched. A minute later, Anish’s body was whole.

But that was all. Between the attack infused with the energy of an Augmentation cultivator and Anish’s own last-ditch counterattack, his soul was already gone from his body. There was nothing left to make him alive, his intact body having no meaning.

Seeing this, there were many things Anton thought to say. Anish was a powerful cultivator. Perhaps, like Prospero Vandale, he would reincarnate and retain many or even all of his memories. Assimilation did not prevent that- Anton was a special case in that regard. Anton could also speak of the value of Anish’s sacrifice, how he saved many others and Annelie herself at that moment.

But instead, he simply laid his hand on her shoulder. “I’m sorry. I know what it is like to lose the one you love.” Though his time with Janina had been less than Annelie and Anish, Anton couldn’t have imagined being closer. They still spent a full lifetime together.

Anton didn’t say anything stupid like the pain fading with time. It might, but that was not useful to know in the moment. It still hurt to lose a spouse or child, or a brilliant grandson-in-law. Anton had drifted away from family that didn’t cultivate, so their passings hadn’t hit as hard. This was the first death in some time that hit so hard. And yet… Anton felt inside of him. Though he’d had the conviction to die in this battle, he had not.

He tried his best to not let his mind linger on the possibility that he might have saved Anish, had he not chased after Rodolph. Whether or not it was true was irrelevant- the past was the past and he could not change it, so it didn’t matter what could have been. They had to live with this.

The same as all of the others, mourning their fallen. Companions in battle, human, void ant, and phoenix alike.