Chapter 1062
Optimally, a scout would both observe the energy and bring back information all without being noticed. However, survival was the most important part. Being spotted but escaping, while inconvenient, was still a victory. Which meant that the best possible option involved being able to gather information in a way that the enemy couldn’t retaliate even if someone was spotted. Spyglasses were invented for that very thing… but they were only useful on scales where people could actually see things.
Having heard about people setting up near the border, Anton couldn’t help but be curious and go take a look himself. And while he had no guarantee they wouldn’t notice him… there wasn’t anything they could do if they did.
The end of the last cycle had already made it clear that the lower realms was far stronger than the upper realms ever thought they could be, and Anton’s presence wasn’t a secret by any stretch of the imagination. But if possible, he would avoid detection so that people would feel safe. After all, they would reveal much more if they didn’t feel like they were being watched.
Stretching his senses more than a system or two was already difficult for Anton, and reaching into the upper realms? That was an order of magnitude more difficult. It was an actively tiring process, not one he could simply keep up indefinitely. Ascension energy instinctively rejected him, and while it was inconvenient in this particular situation, Anton didn’t think that the drawback of Fleeting Youth was actually entirely a negative.
Certainly, it made things more difficult for him… but he had to consider one thing in particular. The most relevant factor that overrode all inconvenience. Sudin had perished. Anton wasn’t the sort to be overly humble, but he knew he simply wasn’t strong enough to kill a Domination cultivator. Even with a flash of insight and amazing technique, plus the man being fatigued after a marathon of hundreds of lightyears as he fled the lower realms, it still wasn’t enough.
But he’d died. Anton had been so focused on his energy holding up against the upper realms that he had only barely felt the surge of energy joining with him, trying to annihilate his energy. It just so happened to have not been concerned with not harming natives of the upper realms.
Anton wondered how Everheart had the insight to create such a technique while still in the lower realms, but it was clear that if nothing else the man was a genius at compiling and combining techniques. For the moment, he’d rather not think of him.
Instead, there were planets to inspect. It took Anton more than a few tries but eventually a thin strand of his energy, hidden from the upper realms itself, managed to inspect a particular planet. He couldn’t make out individuals except for the very strongest, but he could detect the overall situation on the planet. They were setting up many structures, and while Anton couldn’t guarantee anything it seemed to be a proper settlement effort.
He drew his energy back, towards border planets he’d known Crossed Antennae once had colonies on. Every member of said colonies had been part of the defense of the lower realms, though not all of them made it onto enemy ships. Anton had been far too occupied to see anything in real time, but looking at the planets now… they would find it difficult to support life again.