Chapter 1063
In some ways, dealing with the much more powerful Citadel of Exalted Light was simpler than dealing with the Silver Fang. That was because the Citadel had been so confident in their superiority that they didn’t bother with things like tactics- and for their first assault and much of the second, they had been justified in that belief.
The Silver Fang, meanwhile, were undoubtedly weaker than the Scarlet Alliance. They weren’t able to take and hold planets, nor could they threaten their core systems in the slightest. But they were able to cause trouble, raiding planets within their sphere of influence. Not all were officially part of the Scarlet Alliance, but they couldn’t allow such intrusions to happen near their territory if they wanted to continue to grow. More than that, they couldn’t ignore the calls for aid.
With their complement of Augmentation cultivators, the Scarlet Alliance could take down any of the attacking groups- the only issue was actually catching them. They had swift ships, but unless they could predict the enemy’s path it made little difference. A single ship carrying a modest number- seemingly two Augmentation cultivators and a couple hundred others split between Life Transformation and Integration- was the biggest thorn in their side. Others had similar numbers but seemed to have only a single Augmentation cultivator taking the lead- or none at all.
The Scarlet Alliance had sufficient forces to completely fortify ten or twenty systems beyond their borders. They could have smaller complements in others… but they couldn’t completely cover the great number of systems that the Silver Fang could reach.
Various options had been suggested, but it wasn’t possible to implement them all. The one that would be guaranteed to work to some extent came with other problems- launching a proper counterattack onto Silver Fang worlds. But that meant committing to a proper war, and the costs in life and other resources involved in that. The Silver Fang wasn’t considered particularly important within the Trigold Cluster, but they still had to consider how the great power would react.
The one tactic that was able to be implemented quickly and that should have some effect was the creation of small teams meant to supplement the defenses of the predicted targets. In general that meant forces similar to the greatest offending ship. They could only hope to catch some of the roaming enemies while they prepared more of their forces.
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Chidi and Aconite, rather than leading other cultivators, were operating independently. Both of their styles were far too disruptive to allied cultivators. They were also confident facing greater numbers, though if they ran into the pair of Augmentation cultivators they would have to carefully assess their odds with the inclusion of the enemy’s numerical advantage.
“We should bring your family next time,” Chidi commented, speaking of his trip to the lower realms. “I bet Fuzz would be delighted to see things.”