Chapter 754
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Chapter 754
The dead planet caused Anton to make many assumptions, but he was glad to be wrong about one of them, given the circumstances. From what he understood the Trigold Cluster tended to be quite thorough with destroying records to reduce the ability of the raided systems to fight back during the next cycle. That was the case with everywhere they had encountered- plus the twin planets where they had gone a step further to attempt total annihilation.
Here, it seemed they had considered the destruction of life combined with shunting the planet out of the habitable zone to be sufficient. Anton didnt see any cultivation techniques or anything that seemed to have value left behind, but they didn't bother destroying everything. In a way, it made sense. If everyone was going to be dead, why be meticulous? They wouldnt be able to fight back next time, because they would be dead. And the Trigold Cluster wouldnt be returning regardless.
But that left records. Including a few Anton found frozen to the desks in front of several scholars who seemed to have been furiously writing until the last moments. He very carefully sliced away the ice freezing one of them to the wood and carried it outside. A simple application of fire would be enough to melt the ice, but he needed to not destroy the paper at the same time. It wasnt anything Anton had specifically done before, but if he couldnt manage something like that in the Enrichment stage perhaps he needed to study the basics of energy again.
It didnt take long before he had the text in his hands and had read through it. His speculation had not been far off. Jinrisa had managed to fight back the cycle before their demise, but unfortunately had been weakened enough that when the retaliatory attacks came in greater force they werent able to resist. The power described was much greater than anything Anton had experienced, involving dozens of Augmentation cultivators. The same hadnt happened to them, but there had been an abnormally short cycle. Perhaps that had made them unable to bring their full power to bear, or perhaps there had been special circumstances for Jinrisa specifically.
He began to scour the planet. Every scrap of paper, every book or carved stone was read by him. He pierced his energy many kilometers into the planet searching for hidden locations, and indeed stumbled upon a few- though they were not as well hidden as they might once have been with active formations.
It took him over a year, but he was able to piece together the reason. Such as the reason was. It seemed to come down to a certain member of the Tilki clan who had come to Jinrisa for training. The lass had been killed, obviously. But it seemed that she was either extremely important or the clan was extremely petty, and the Tilki clan influential enough to cause the planets extermination.
Anton hadnt heard of such a clan, though he would admit to not having had long chats with anyone from the upper realms. It was unclear if this particular clan only dealt with planets closer to the border, or in a certain region or perhaps these events had happened so long ago that they had died out. Though Anton was a bit iffy on that possibility. It wasnt possible for him to precisely judge how long it had been, given how everything was frozen, but even in such a state things slowly decayed. Very slowly, perhaps, without bacteria or much in the way of weather- but the thinner atmosphere also allowed more radiation in.
Anton judged it had been a handful of cycles at most. Though that could still be as much as three millennia, he knew that many organizations in the upper realms had longer histories than that. Specifically within the great powers, because in the Scarlet Midfields there had been only a few that survived the destruction of the war between the Exalted Quadrant and the Trigold Cluster, and they only survived in name. The Harmonious Citadel might have been over a millennium old, but not much beyond that.
Looking at the state of the planet, Anton didnt quite know what he could learn. If it was that standing up for yourself and trying not to die might still lead to death regardless he could accept that as true with the caveat of might. But he wouldnt lie down and take it. Especially since he found little point in living as if he was already dead and then dying. The survival of future generations was certainly something to consider, but at this point the Alliance couldnt change its response even if they wanted to.
The fact that greater retribution might yet come wasnt anything new, either. It just spelled out specific possibilities. And if it was only a few dozen Augmentation cultivators, limited by their presence in the lower realms Anton thought that they could kill them as many times as they came. Furthermore, some of the formation experts had been working long distance with Catarina to actually enhance the drain from the swap between ascension energy and natural energy.
Ultimately it wasnt them in the lower realms that Anton was worried about. The problem would be the upper realms. He had heard great things about the security of Xankeshan, but ultimately one planet alone wouldnt be sufficient to stand against the forces of the great powers.
-----
He made his way around and determined that he understood the formations well enough. He had scratched a few markings along the way, and pulled out a couple formation flags and planted them. Then he reached out to start swiping things off the shelves before the formations raised the alarm for not having theft. A simple reversal of the logic in the systems. Easily exploitable. Which is why the elder was supposed to escort people in the warehouse.
Disaster almost struck when an actual disciple came around a corner, so weak that Everheart hadnt even sensed their energy. Of course, that same weakness that allowed for surprise also meant that when Everhearts fist reflexively hit them in the face they were knocked out. Without any energy involved, even. Everheart paused for a moment. He understood why someone with his cover could be here. He had a letter from someone important. Why this chump?
Ooh, thats a lot of stuff in your pockets for a crappy disciple, Everheart said. Then he went back to sweeping everything off the shelves. After that, he walked out. There was only one moment where the elders senses flashed into the room that she could have sensed the unconscious disciple or cleared shelves, but she just glared at Everheart on his way out.
Lovely woman, really.
The locks on the cages were extremely easy to open. Amateurish, really. Sure, the formations were solid but the locks themselves were pickable by babies. Though not enough cultivators learned to pick locks for some reason.
Either way, once he got the first one it only took one second for each of the following ones, so by the time the first cage swung open and someone poked their head out, Everheart was nearly gone.
... Are you helping us escape? the man asked.
Am I? No, quite the contrary, Everheart shook his head. But the opportunity will be there if you can seize it. No, youre helping me escape, Everheart said.
The warehouse was bound to have someone go in soon. Frankly it was surprising there werent a dozen people in there. Why even have it if it wasnt in constant use?
So around the time the alarms would be raised there, the slaves would be escaping. And of course Everheart looked into the snake pen. Yes, hed take exactly those two. He jumped in, grabbing the large serpents behind the neck and shoving them into a bag, specially made for living things. It didnt come with more air, oh no. It slowed the metabolism of everything inside so they wouldnt do anything during the wait. And enough air to survive. Everheart did grab a bit of food as he scurried out the pen doors followed by dozens of serpents. Hundreds and thousands of more would be released in a few moments.
Everheart came to a screeching halt. He almost forgot to leave the note. He carefully pulled one out and tossed it into a prominent location. Then he changed his look as he walked around the corner and yelled. Whats going on? Why are there so many alarms?
With that, he became part of the confused mob until he managed to work his way out of the secure locations to his concealed ship. He might hit up another couple places since he was in the area, but for now he should get out of this particular one.
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Chapter 754
The dead planet caused Anton to make many assumptions, but he was glad to be wrong about one of them, given the circumstances. From what he understood the Trigold Cluster tended to be quite thorough with destroying records to reduce the ability of the raided systems to fight back during the next cycle. That was the case with everywhere they had encountered- plus the twin planets where they had gone a step further to attempt total annihilation.
Here, it seemed they had considered the destruction of life combined with shunting the planet out of the habitable zone to be sufficient. Anton didnt see any cultivation techniques or anything that seemed to have value left behind, but they didn't bother destroying everything. In a way, it made sense. If everyone was going to be dead, why be meticulous? They wouldnt be able to fight back next time, because they would be dead. And the Trigold Cluster wouldnt be returning regardless.
But that left records. Including a few Anton found frozen to the desks in front of several scholars who seemed to have been furiously writing until the last moments. He very carefully sliced away the ice freezing one of them to the wood and carried it outside. A simple application of fire would be enough to melt the ice, but he needed to not destroy the paper at the same time. It wasnt anything Anton had specifically done before, but if he couldnt manage something like that in the Enrichment stage perhaps he needed to study the basics of energy again.
It didnt take long before he had the text in his hands and had read through it. His speculation had not been far off. Jinrisa had managed to fight back the cycle before their demise, but unfortunately had been weakened enough that when the retaliatory attacks came in greater force they werent able to resist. The power described was much greater than anything Anton had experienced, involving dozens of Augmentation cultivators. The same hadnt happened to them, but there had been an abnormally short cycle. Perhaps that had made them unable to bring their full power to bear, or perhaps there had been special circumstances for Jinrisa specifically.
He began to scour the planet. Every scrap of paper, every book or carved stone was read by him. He pierced his energy many kilometers into the planet searching for hidden locations, and indeed stumbled upon a few- though they were not as well hidden as they might once have been with active formations.
It took him over a year, but he was able to piece together the reason. Such as the reason was. It seemed to come down to a certain member of the Tilki clan who had come to Jinrisa for training. The lass had been killed, obviously. But it seemed that she was either extremely important or the clan was extremely petty, and the Tilki clan influential enough to cause the planets extermination.
Anton hadnt heard of such a clan, though he would admit to not having had long chats with anyone from the upper realms. It was unclear if this particular clan only dealt with planets closer to the border, or in a certain region or perhaps these events had happened so long ago that they had died out. Though Anton was a bit iffy on that possibility. It wasnt possible for him to precisely judge how long it had been, given how everything was frozen, but even in such a state things slowly decayed. Very slowly, perhaps, without bacteria or much in the way of weather- but the thinner atmosphere also allowed more radiation in.
Anton judged it had been a handful of cycles at most. Though that could still be as much as three millennia, he knew that many organizations in the upper realms had longer histories than that. Specifically within the great powers, because in the Scarlet Midfields there had been only a few that survived the destruction of the war between the Exalted Quadrant and the Trigold Cluster, and they only survived in name. The Harmonious Citadel might have been over a millennium old, but not much beyond that.
Looking at the state of the planet, Anton didnt quite know what he could learn. If it was that standing up for yourself and trying not to die might still lead to death regardless he could accept that as true with the caveat of might. But he wouldnt lie down and take it. Especially since he found little point in living as if he was already dead and then dying. The survival of future generations was certainly something to consider, but at this point the Alliance couldnt change its response even if they wanted to.
The fact that greater retribution might yet come wasnt anything new, either. It just spelled out specific possibilities. And if it was only a few dozen Augmentation cultivators, limited by their presence in the lower realms Anton thought that they could kill them as many times as they came. Furthermore, some of the formation experts had been working long distance with Catarina to actually enhance the drain from the swap between ascension energy and natural energy.
Ultimately it wasnt them in the lower realms that Anton was worried about. The problem would be the upper realms. He had heard great things about the security of Xankeshan, but ultimately one planet alone wouldnt be sufficient to stand against the forces of the great powers.
-----
He made his way around and determined that he understood the formations well enough. He had scratched a few markings along the way, and pulled out a couple formation flags and planted them. Then he reached out to start swiping things off the shelves before the formations raised the alarm for not having theft. A simple reversal of the logic in the systems. Easily exploitable. Which is why the elder was supposed to escort people in the warehouse.
Disaster almost struck when an actual disciple came around a corner, so weak that Everheart hadnt even sensed their energy. Of course, that same weakness that allowed for surprise also meant that when Everhearts fist reflexively hit them in the face they were knocked out. Without any energy involved, even. Everheart paused for a moment. He understood why someone with his cover could be here. He had a letter from someone important. Why this chump?
Ooh, thats a lot of stuff in your pockets for a crappy disciple, Everheart said. Then he went back to sweeping everything off the shelves. After that, he walked out. There was only one moment where the elders senses flashed into the room that she could have sensed the unconscious disciple or cleared shelves, but she just glared at Everheart on his way out.
Lovely woman, really.
The locks on the cages were extremely easy to open. Amateurish, really. Sure, the formations were solid but the locks themselves were pickable by babies. Though not enough cultivators learned to pick locks for some reason.
Either way, once he got the first one it only took one second for each of the following ones, so by the time the first cage swung open and someone poked their head out, Everheart was nearly gone.
... Are you helping us escape? the man asked.
Am I? No, quite the contrary, Everheart shook his head. But the opportunity will be there if you can seize it. No, youre helping me escape, Everheart said.
The warehouse was bound to have someone go in soon. Frankly it was surprising there werent a dozen people in there. Why even have it if it wasnt in constant use?
So around the time the alarms would be raised there, the slaves would be escaping. And of course Everheart looked into the snake pen. Yes, hed take exactly those two. He jumped in, grabbing the large serpents behind the neck and shoving them into a bag, specially made for living things. It didnt come with more air, oh no. It slowed the metabolism of everything inside so they wouldnt do anything during the wait. And enough air to survive. Everheart did grab a bit of food as he scurried out the pen doors followed by dozens of serpents. Hundreds and thousands of more would be released in a few moments.
Everheart came to a screeching halt. He almost forgot to leave the note. He carefully pulled one out and tossed it into a prominent location. Then he changed his look as he walked around the corner and yelled. Whats going on? Why are there so many alarms?
With that, he became part of the confused mob until he managed to work his way out of the secure locations to his concealed ship. He might hit up another couple places since he was in the area, but for now he should get out of this particular one.
Chapter 754The dead planet caused Anton to make many assumptions, but he was glad to be wrong about one of them, given the circumstances. From what he understood the Trigold Cluster tended to be quite thorough with destroying records to reduce the ability of the raided systems to fight back during the next cycle. That was the case with everywhere they had encountered- plus the twin planets where they had gone a step further to attempt total annihilation. Here, it seemed they had considered the destruction of life combined with shunting the planet out of the habitable zone to be sufficient. Anton didnt see any cultivation techniques or anything that seemed to have value left behind, but they didn't bother destroying everything. In a way, it made sense. If everyone was going to be dead, why be meticulous? They wouldnt be able to fight back next time, because they would be dead. And the Trigold Cluster wouldnt be returning regardless.But that left records. Including a few Anton found frozen to the desks in front of several scholars who seemed to have been furiously writing until the last moments. He very carefully sliced away the ice freezing one of them to the wood and carried it outside. A simple application of fire would be enough to melt the ice, but he needed to not destroy the paper at the same time. It wasnt anything Anton had specifically done before, but if he couldnt manage something like that in the Enrichment stage perhaps he needed to study the basics of energy again. It didnt take long before he had the text in his hands and had read through it. His speculation had not been far off. Jinrisa had managed to fight back the cycle before their demise, but unfortunately had been weakened enough that when the retaliatory attacks came in greater force they werent able to resist. The power described was much greater than anything Anton had experienced, involving dozens of Augmentation cultivators. The same hadnt happened to them, but there had been an abnormally short cycle. Perhaps that had made them unable to bring their full power to bear, or perhaps there had been special circumstances for Jinrisa specifically.He began to scour the planet. Every scrap of paper, every book or carved stone was read by him. He pierced his energy many kilometers into the planet searching for hidden locations, and indeed stumbled upon a few- though they were not as well hidden as they might once have been with active formations. It took him over a year, but he was able to piece together the reason. Such as the reason was. It seemed to come down to a certain member of the Tilki clan who had come to Jinrisa for training. The lass had been killed, obviously. But it seemed that she was either extremely important or the clan was extremely petty, and the Tilki clan influential enough to cause the planets extermination.Anton hadnt heard of such a clan, though he would admit to not having had long chats with anyone from the upper realms. It was unclear if this particular clan only dealt with planets closer to the border, or in a certain region or perhaps these events had happened so long ago that they had died out. Though Anton was a bit iffy on that possibility. It wasnt possible for him to precisely judge how long it had been, given how everything was frozen, but even in such a state things slowly decayed. Very slowly, perhaps, without bacteria or much in the way of weather- but the thinner atmosphere also allowed more radiation in. Anton judged it had been a handful of cycles at most. Though that could still be as much as three millennia, he knew that many organizations in the upper realms had longer histories than that. Specifically within the great powers, because in the Scarlet Midfields there had been only a few that survived the destruction of the war between the Exalted Quadrant and the Trigold Cluster, and they only survived in name. The Harmonious Citadel might have been over a millennium old, but not much beyond that.Looking at the state of the planet, Anton didnt quite know what he could learn. If it was that standing up for yourself and trying not to die might still lead to death regardless he could accept that as true with the caveat of might. But he wouldnt lie down and take it. Especially since he found little point in living as if he was already dead and then dying. The survival of future generations was certainly something to consider, but at this point the Alliance couldnt change its response even if they wanted to. The fact that greater retribution might yet come wasnt anything new, either. It just spelled out specific possibilities. And if it was only a few dozen Augmentation cultivators, limited by their presence in the lower realms Anton thought that they could kill them as many times as they came. Furthermore, some of the formation experts had been working long distance with Catarina to actually enhance the drain from the swap between ascension energy and natural energy. Ultimately it wasnt them in the lower realms that Anton was worried about. The problem would be the upper realms. He had heard great things about the security of Xankeshan, but ultimately one planet alone wouldnt be sufficient to stand against the forces of the great powers. -----He made his way around and determined that he understood the formations well enough. He had scratched a few markings along the way, and pulled out a couple formation flags and planted them. Then he reached out to start swiping things off the shelves before the formations raised the alarm for not having theft. A simple reversal of the logic in the systems. Easily exploitable. Which is why the elder was supposed to escort people in the warehouse.Disaster almost struck when an actual disciple came around a corner, so weak that Everheart hadnt even sensed their energy. Of course, that same weakness that allowed for surprise also meant that when Everhearts fist reflexively hit them in the face they were knocked out. Without any energy involved, even. Everheart paused for a moment. He understood why someone with his cover could be here. He had a letter from someone important. Why this chump?Ooh, thats a lot of stuff in your pockets for a crappy disciple, Everheart said. Then he went back to sweeping everything off the shelves. After that, he walked out. There was only one moment where the elders senses flashed into the room that she could have sensed the unconscious disciple or cleared shelves, but she just glared at Everheart on his way out.Lovely woman, really.The locks on the cages were extremely easy to open. Amateurish, really. Sure, the formations were solid but the locks themselves were pickable by babies. Though not enough cultivators learned to pick locks for some reason.Either way, once he got the first one it only took one second for each of the following ones, so by the time the first cage swung open and someone poked their head out, Everheart was nearly gone.... Are you helping us escape? the man asked.Am I? No, quite the contrary, Everheart shook his head. But the opportunity will be there if you can seize it. No, youre helping me escape, Everheart said. The warehouse was bound to have someone go in soon. Frankly it was surprising there werent a dozen people in there. Why even have it if it wasnt in constant use?So around the time the alarms would be raised there, the slaves would be escaping. And of course Everheart looked into the snake pen. Yes, hed take exactly those two. He jumped in, grabbing the large serpents behind the neck and shoving them into a bag, specially made for living things. It didnt come with more air, oh no. It slowed the metabolism of everything inside so they wouldnt do anything during the wait. And enough air to survive. Everheart did grab a bit of food as he scurried out the pen doors followed by dozens of serpents. Hundreds and thousands of more would be released in a few moments.Everheart came to a screeching halt. He almost forgot to leave the note. He carefully pulled one out and tossed it into a prominent location. Then he changed his look as he walked around the corner and yelled. Whats going on? Why are there so many alarms?With that, he became part of the confused mob until he managed to work his way out of the secure locations to his concealed ship. He might hit up another couple places since he was in the area, but for now he should get out of this particular one.
