Anton had a distant chat with a couple handfuls of cultivators representing groups factions in the upper realms beyond the Trigold Cluster to the east. He discussed some of the potential futures with them. Each word spoken took as much effort as Anton would expend fighting a battle.

It wasn't a great conversation. Not everybody agreed with what the Alliance revealed about their intentions for the Swirling Swarm- not because they supported the Swarm or any part of the Trigold Cluster, but just because people had different opinions on how things should be done. But if they weren't going to handle the threat themselves, there was only so much weight Anton placed on their words. He did his best to assuage their concerns… and provide them sufficient forewarning without compromising the Alliance's goals.

After that, a number of years passed before Anton finally had a task to perform for the upper realms. They needed a distraction to draw people away from where they were performing the mission. Since he couldn't possibly reach the destination they were actually going to, he had his pick of anywhere he could reach all along the border.

It had been noted that his assault might stir them to action, but they couldn't feasibly pass over the border to assault him. They might attack the Scarlet Alliance- but they were prepared to defend their territory. They might attack others in the Trigold Cluster- and that was their own problem to deal with. The sects in the upper realms beyond the Trigold Cluster had been warned to ready themselves for potential upheaval.

Anton readied his bow. He would have to pace himself. He needed to begin before the mission- otherwise he would just be advertising something was wrong- and continue until it had ample time to be completed. It might be a year or two. Anton had some endurance, but even he couldn't feasibly fight for multiple years straight.

He didn't need to. He just needed to launch some very real attacks every day. In the worst case, he made a dent in Swirling Swarm overall fighting force and the mission never got off the ground.

Picking out Augmentation cultivators to target wasn't easy. Anton just went for any high concentration of energy within individuals. Or anything that seemed well secured. After a month or two of blowing things up, Anton had some insights on how to be more efficient. He was already taking advantage of the ascension energy's hatred for his, but he could do it even more.

An arrow, almost impossibly thin, pierced through the chest of a cultivator. The arrow didn't explode, and it was thin like a needle. For the cultivator in question, it would have been a point of pain. Even passing through their heart, the wound would heal on its own or with the slightest of active efforts. Except for some energy that followed through the miniscule break in defenses afterwards.

The first dozen times Anton tried it, he actually only had a single success in the middle. His arrows could be annihilated by the energy before he reached his target, or explode in front of a foe- anyone worth shooting would survive that with the level of energy he was using. But if he created an impact that lasted just an instant, it worked. The trick was doing it consistently. Then again, Anton had both time and plenty of time and targets to increase his consistency. It wasn't like the Swirling Swarm would run out of people… and they didn't seem to be moving their strong cultivators away from the planets he could target. They did seem to be trying to activate planetary barriers that they hadn't built, to limited success. Anton could only hope they were also sending more people to try to defend against his tactics- or at least sending their attention.

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Putting together a proper strike team to destroy a potential anchor was not a task that the Scarlet Alliance took lightly. First was Velvet. They would have sent her on a solo mission to investigate the point in question, but they didn't want to miss a potential opportunity by delaying potential backup. Sending only a single mission was simpler. She would be making only a small segment of the journey alone to scout out whatever they might be encountering.

If they had previous confirmation that what they found was indeed the anchor, they would send overwhelming force. As it was, they were considering whether to send two or three Domination cultivators- more than sufficient for nearly any conflict. Aside from the Swirling Swarm, none of the sects or clans within the great powers had shown any signs of having more than a pair of active Domination cultivators.

Ultimately they picked two more. Zazil, because of how her mobile anchor would allow her greater effectiveness in a location where the details were unknown, as well as Catarina. While Catarina did have constant tasks that required her attention, they couldn't afford to ignore the potential risks of complex formations protecting whatever they found. If it was the anchor they needed to take it out- if it was a decoy they needed to ensure that they could find their proper target or targets. While the Swirling Swarm as a whole hadn't shown any great expertise for formations, it was possible that their origin involved something of the sort.

Then there were a number of auxiliary personnel. A proper crew for a high class stealth ship that would serve as a backup fighting force- in case the formation was protected by more than the power of the Swarm's Domination cultivators. Because of the import of the mission, they packed as many Augmentation cultivators onto the ship as feasible. It wasn't a vast amount given the size of a stealth ship- they had a couple dozen individuals that would be quite uncomfortable on the trip. Ultimately, it was a force that would threaten anything but a powerfully established system with flourishing planets, something which would have stood out sharply among all of the dead systems.

Some Augmentation cultivators were chosen for their destructive power- like Durff. He had proven his capability to harm anchors in the past, which was good enough. Aconite was coming along for utility- if there were a large number of Swirling Swarm cultivators she could greatly thin her numbers with her specialized viruses. To do that, she would need to manually control them.

Chidi would not be coming along on the mission with his closest and oldest friend. His efficacy against the Swirling Swarm was mixed- dealing with a single aura made his Negation fairly successful. On the other hand, they were still just a large number of people. Without energy they might still overwhelm him with sheer numbers, or even crush him with the weight of their dead bodies. They also couldn't afford to disrupt others involved in the mission, so Chidi would be maintaining his usual positions within the Alliance.

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Without Chidi's presence, one of the next most prominent 'sword' cultivators happened to be Half Oink, the warthog. She had recovered from her previous injuries- as she always did. Likewise, her tusks had grown back from the conflicts with the swordmaster Prabhu. Having cultivators focused on different sorts of destruction was important for a mission that could run into various forms of obstacles.

The mission truly began at the furthest point of the Distant Shadow Sect- from there they would have to find their own opportunities to replenish their vessel or their own energy without any access to friendly systems. The cultivators on board would either need to use some of their own energy to maintain their bodies or to supply energy to a storage bag. The vessel simply didn't have enough room for traditional storage of food for a journey of months.

-----

The mission was… boring. There was little entertainment to be had aside from social interaction- but not everyone was enthusiastic about being packed together with so many others. It was something they could tolerate for the duration of the mission. A cultivator that couldn't handle discomfort wouldn't have made it to Augmentation or beyond. But still, it was boring. Conserving every bit of energy they could was important- especially once they passed through the outer shell of the Swirling Swarm's territory.

Then it was just passing through nothing, occasionally passing by a star to scrape together small bits of energy from the lifeless systems. Circumventing the Swirling Swarm in their own systems had been rather trivial- Velvet had done so on many journeys now, and their vessel was equipped with the best stealth systems the Alliance could make. Meanwhile, the Swirling Swarm's individual awareness was… minimal.

Eventually they approached their target, though they ceased their relative velocity some distance away. Velvet and Catarina approached ahead alone, while Zazil slowly spread her anchor throughout the area- a useful way to determine how much awareness people had of the area. If her anchor rested there, people didn't.

Taking all caution, it was a full day for Catarina and Velvet to cover a distance they could have bypassed in a moment. There was no way to know what sort of invisible formations might be waiting for them, though of course Catarina was prepared to react at the first hints of energy.

"I feel something," Catarina communicated through energy sign. Transmitting actual sound was unnecessary for those who were proficient in the language, and Catarina had to 'point' regardless. "A powerful energy flow."

Velvet nodded. She'd had a vague feeling, but once it was pointed out she was certain. "Yes. Domination energy. Do you think they empowered a formation with it…?" She frowned. "Whatever it is seems to be well concealed."

They continue their cautious approach, closer and closer. Yet they still had no visual signs of the anchor. From fractions of a lightyear to distances they would traverse within systems to the width of a planet, they still saw precisely nothing. Nor did Catarina pick up any signs of concealment formations. They were cautious about reaching out aggressively with active senses, but they had to do so to some extent- giving away their position was certainly better than stumbling face first into danger which would certainly also give them away.

Eventually, Velvet felt it. A thousand or so kilometers distant, right at the center of the energy phenomena. It was so… small. Her own anchor was a conservatively sized section of space, but it was still not much smaller than an individual solar platform like the ones Catarina and Timothy shared. Zazil covered a much larger region of space. Prospero had a proper meteor locked in time, and a quite sizable one.

Zaur Beridze had made an entire crystal palace his anchor. Yann had the skeleton of a tremendous beast that could fill a mountain range. Koronis had bound an entire nebula covering multiple systems.

Anchors tended towards larger, not smaller. Those that were smaller weren't just a couple meters across. Velvet resolved the anchor into a proper form in her mind and…

"A corpse," she said.

Catarina nodded, confirming Velvet's assessment. It wasn't difficult. Both of them had seen dead bodies before. It wasn't ambiguous about whether the figure was alive. There was no energy concentrated in a dantian, and there was enough catastrophic damage to various vital organs that even the most generous estimates wouldn't say that it could be a living individual.

The only strangeness was that very little decay had taken place, but that was easily explained. They were between systems, so no significant amount of solar radiation was passing through the area. Bacteria didn't survive in a vacuum- some cultivators might even eliminate the sort that might break them down. Furthermore, it was clear to their continued investigations that the corpse was a bit more durable than most.

Because it was an anchor? Or was it an anchor because the corpse was durable?

"Why would anyone make a corpse their anchor?" Velvet asked. "Was it… someone they loved?"

Catarina carried a morose grin. "I think it would be quite the opposite. If that was the case, they would have most likely wanted it to look… nicer. Besides, whoever killed this person would have probably destroyed the corpse before a loved one could 'preserve' it."

"So the corpse of an enemy, just to make a point. Perhaps."

"Let us investigate more closely."

They still remained cautious. While there were no signs of formations, an anchor itself contained quite a lot of power. It could even be a conduit for the perception of the Domination cultivator- or cultivators- that were bound to it.

The two of them studied it carefully- while minimizing any active contact. Velvet focused more on concealing their traces while Catarina focused on reading the flow of energy. It was a delicate process.

Finally, Catarina pulled away and Velvet followed. Actively conversing while close to the anchor was too risky. "First, I think we can just attack it," Catarina said. "We should make our way back to the rest. Beyond that, I have come up with a wild theory."

"I'd love to hear it," Velvet commented.

"There may no longer be anyone alive that can confirm or deny this. I hope there isn't." Catarina took a moment to arrange her words. "I think one of the first Swirling Swarm Domination cultivators turned himself into a living anchor."

"The flaw in that argument is that… he's dead."

"Interesting, isn't it? Usually, the destruction of an anchor breaks all the Domination cultivators. So- this is just a theory- perhaps there were others who were the same way. They had some sort of disagreement, and this one died. But they kept the body… vaguely intact to produce more Domination cultivators."

"Do you think there could be more like… him?" Velvet asked.

"That's why I was hoping there are none of the originals alive. If this is the solitary origin of the Swirling Swarm's Domination cultivators… we can handle it. We'll achieve our goals."

"And if not?"

"We have to do it anyway," Catarina said. "Whether it permanently reduces their available number of Domination cultivators by one or three or… well, we've never seen more than three. But it's still our target and must be destroyed."

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