Anton had the feeling that seeking out another city on Tenoun’a would have similar results. If the various cities were in contact with each other, it would certainly seem strange. Perhaps he should have asked, but Aleksandra was limited with the information she shared about the planet. Though the only answer Anton could anticipate receiving would have been ‘yes’, either because it was true or because they would want him to think that causing trouble would have consequences extending beyond just Rolis.

Since he assumed they were speaking to each other and he indicated he was actually leaving, it would be best to do that for the moment. All he needed to do was find Shrenn. Which was harder than it sounded, because besides being in the same system he did not know what features it had. Except… the ability to have plants and trees. That didn’t line up with anything he’d seen, however.

Anton removed himself from the planet’s atmosphere- he should have noted that when considering if it might have cultivators- so that his vision wasn’t distorted. With just his eyes he could make out the larger planets- a couple gas giants and a large rocky planet, as well as a closer rocky planet. None of them seemed to fit. But he didn’t have to just guess. First he pulled out his portable telescope. Well, portable by some definitions, at least. It fit inside a storage bag, and it was much smaller than a proper observatory. Then he did a sweep of the orbital plane- most planets in a system would be similarly situated, though he’d seen some extreme exceptions.

After circling around Tenoun’a to make sure he covered everything, Anton had confirmed nothing seemed to fit. Nowhere had plants, nor did it seem like the temperature would allow for that. Most were too far or too close. Theoretically, he was looking for a planet just a little bit closer to the sun than Tenoun’a.

If he was inexperienced, he might have been stumped there- but the solution was actually rather simple. Shrenn was either off the normal orbital plane or on the other side of the sun- and if he was correct, it would be the latter. Most likely, it was always on the other side of the sun, which would be why Aleksandra had honestly wondered if he’d seen it.

There was also the trajectory of the incoming ships to consider, and ultimately all of Anton’s observations didn’t matter. Instead, he just waited and watched a few incoming and outgoing ships over the next few hours. That gave him a pretty good understanding of where they were going, confirming his suspicions. Then he took the route going the other direction- less energy efficient, but that wasn’t a problem for Anton unless he was pushing himself.

His path took him close to the star… the feature that had actually drawn him to the system to begin with. The star here was extremely rare, on the same order of rarity as Azun, his neutron star. Though they weren’t actually different to begin with. This was a supergiant star, a blue one to be precise- significantly smaller than their red compatriots. It ‘only’ had a radius of a few dozen times that of Ceretos’ star. When it ultimately died in some millions of years, it could leave behind a neutron star. From the perspective of stars this was on the last leg of its life- but even by cultivator standards it would live for an extremely long time. It would probably outlast the Exalted Quadrant and the Trigold Cluster, at least by those names.

Anton approached the star, feeling its heat. As he had not assimilated with it, he was still subject to the full extent of dangers a star could represent, so he had to shield himself from the heat and radiation. Even so, his familiarity let him capture some of the natural energy it produced even without assimilating it. It was only a couple steps below being around a bound star. Anton was tempted to connect with it, but he had resolved to only do so with permission of local residents, if they existed. And he had neither asked nor received that from any residents.

His loop around the star eventually brought him to the far side, and he could soon see the planet that had to be Shrenn, more or less where he expected it to be. It didn’t particularly look to be anything impressive. At a glance, it looked as barren as Tenoun’a. The same went for its moons- of which it had five. But as Anton got closer, he could see the signs of atmospheres around all of them. The atmospheres of the moons were certainly thinner, but they did exist.

Randomly picking one of the moons that felt interesting, Anton began to approach. Then a bolt of energy passed right by him. It wasn’t a warning shot, nor had it been missed- Anton had instead barely dodged it. He was impressed by the travel time, the attack moving at nearly the speed of light. It didn’t matter if it rapidly dissipated behind Anton- that might have even been intentional.

Star Steps showed its power as Anton continued to avoid repeated attacks with instant acceleration in unpredictable directions, all the while moving closer. No matter what he did, however, the bolts were never far. The bolts of energy themselves were wrapped around actual physical ammunition almost as large as Anton- or at least as long as he was tall. Physical size didn’t necessarily equate to actual power where cultivators were concerned, but Anton could tell the weapon size wasn’t inflated just for the sake of ego. Getting hit by one of those could easily take out a normal Life Transformation cultivator.

Anton picked out the source of the attacks, down on the moon he was approaching. A man with a large build and what could have seemed an oversized weapon, but instead seemed a practical consideration given the material type. The man had his hands on a full sized ballista, with the ability to swivel in different directions. Anton wondered how it would fare if he were directly vertical, and he set about finding out.

The answer was that the man simply lifted the whole device off the ground with one hand while pulling back the string with his other. Such a weapon would normally have required a crank, but the man had sufficient strength to bypass that issue and directly pull back the string, spinning the mechanisms and allowing him to maintain a high rate of fire. Thus it was that even vertically he could shoot at Anton- but it was clear he lost a bit of accuracy as he had to adjust his aim freehand.

Anton began to call down towards the man. “Stop-” he dodged a shot, “-wasting-” another came, getting surprisingly close to impacting Anton’s leg, “-your-” Anton twisted in the air. “-Energy!” Anton caught the last bolt, spinning it around as he formed an energy bow of sufficient size to return the attack.

Bolts were just arrows, often shorter and squatter and with slightly different properties, but Anton could compensate for all of those well enough. He made his first attack, returning the projectile with maximum speed. In only a fraction of an instant, it followed the return path between them, flashing past the man’s determined face and leaving a thin trail of blood on his cheek, caused not by the head but by the fletching.

Anton was prepared to demonstrate further, but the man clearly got the hint and ceased his attacks. As an archer, he could tell Anton didn’t miss, and that he couldn’t avoid that attack. Anton approached closer, until he was within a more reasonable speaking distance, just a couple hundred meters away in the air rather than tens of kilometers above. “Hello there. I am Anton Krantz. And you?”

The largely muscled man kept his eyes warily locked on Anton. “Admetus.”

“A pleasure to meet you, Admetus,” Anton smiled. “Is shooting at people a customary greeting in this system? The same thing happened on Tenoun’a.” Though mentioning the other planet was likely to sour information, by leading with it and not hiding that information he could deal with the fallout more easily- and intentionally.

Admetus narrowed his eyes even further. “You’ve been to Tenoun’a… but you aren’t from there?”

“Your system here is not the only one in the lower realms, you know,” Anton kept his face pleasant. In truth, he didn’t mind getting shot at a little. “I’m from outside, as you might be able to surmise. Someone in Rolis tried to hire me to fight for them, but I have for the moment declined.”

“So, what?” Admetus looked over at Anton. “Trying to get a better deal?”

Anton shook his head, “I hardly think either of you could give me a worthwhile deal. I just want to know what’s going on with this war. I might get involved… or stay out of it entirely.” Anton looked around. “Nice place you have here.” It was somewhat sarcastic, but by comparison to Tenoun’a, it wasn’t too bad. This particular moon was mostly barren, but Anton could sense more than a few orchards around small spots of water.

“What’s going on? They show up with their ships and rip up whatever trees they can get, and we kill any of them we can catch. Happy?”

Anton didn’t get the feeling that Admetus had great people skills. But he’d at least explained the basic situation, from Shrenn’s side. “What about counterattacks?” Anton asked. “Surely you must try to disincentivize them.”

“Not worth it,” Admetus replied, trying to keep one eye on Anton while scanning the sky. “They don’t have crap.”

“Seems to me that they desire basic resources.”

“So?” Admetus raised an eyebrow, “Makes it reasonable to just take it from us?”

“Not really,” Anton shrugged. “You want five degrees to your left.”

Admetus hesitated, then took his eyes fully off of Anton and slightly tilted his emplacement. He took a shot, and a flaming wreck began to crash into the planet quite some distance away. “So… you joining our side or what?”

Anton shrugged, “I’m not sure if I should yet. If I wasn’t here at all that guy would have died anyway. I’m not here to disrupt your defense efforts.” He looked around, “I don’t suppose you can get me in contact with people who aren’t occupied in a combat zone? Preferably without me having to repeat this whole approach battle.”

“What for?”

“I want to know more about this war. Its history. How Shrenn,” Anton gestured to the ‘nearby’ planet, “And Tenoun’a,” Anton gestured towards the sun, “Came to be like this. Also if you happen to have any information about invaders from the upper realms, I’d be quite interested to hear it.”

“From the upper realms? Hah!” Admetus rolled his eyes. “No way they’d put in the effort to come here and grab dirt and sticks.”

“Not recently, I’d imagine,” Anton agreed. “Now, if you’d direct me to somewhere appropriate, I can get out of your hair. I don’t imagine you have much in the way of embassies, but if you can signal someone I can avoid causing undue concern to people. And I’m sure that people would like some time to prepare security forces to keep me contained.”

“You think you’re that dangerous?” Admetus asked.

“How many people survive your barrages?” Anton asked.

Admetus grunted. “Not many. Then again, I don’t kill that many either. Most people avoid where I’m stationed.”

“And that guy?” Anton gestured towards the still falling ship.

“A sacrificial pawn to figure out where I am today. Or an idiot.” Admetus looked around. “I have to stay here. You can take my ship and some of my nearby subordinates.” He raised his voice, “Hear that? You get to do something, just like you asked! Now come on out.” A handful of people began approaching from behind distant trees. Admetus returned his focus to Anton. “If you hurt anyone I’ll figure out a way to kill you.”

“Glad to hear it,” Anton said. “I can promise I won’t make the first strike. And if I was interested in wanton destruction, that would have already happened.”

All in all, a decidedly unfriendly but much less calculated response from Admetus. And while Anton was definitely positively inclined towards the group that was visibly growing things, he would try to not let that affect his bias too much.