Chapter 1096
Fatigue was slowly building on Anton… but he imagined that the fatigue on the dual-sect that had attacked them was far worse. Because it was far easier to attack a thousand or a million times than to be attacked so many times… and be able to do nothing about it.
There had been some consideration given that, with Anton’s range, they could eventually take out all of the Imbued Fragments and Broad Eyed Harvesters without risking more of their own people. However, the enemy’s movements made that an impossibility. Many fleets were targeting their own systems and the defensive war was harder on them. If the Lower Realms Alliance gave up their initiative, the enemy might be best served by focusing only on offense. If their various fleets banded together to target just a single system, they might not be able to withstand the assault.
That wasn’t the only potential danger. While Anton was immensely strong around a bound star, their enemies weren’t completely without options. They had been consolidating fleets together… and the surrounding systems had begun to combine their planets as well.
It was clear that it was extremely energy intensive for the planets to move and build upon each other’s defenses, but Anton alone couldn’t cause much damage though the combined barriers.
Fortunately, not every system reacted with the same speed and the Alliance was able to target those that adapted more slowly. Before the enemy could consolidate too many of their forces, they managed to take apart some of the isolated systems.
They still found it possible to take on the systems with consolidated planetary mass, but they had to draw out the enemy fleets, causing as much damage as possible while minimizing their own losses. Then they retreated, taking advantage of the relative immobility of the planets.
Anton was now focusing much of his efforts on fleets traveling between systems. It wasn’t always possible for their own fleets to cut off the enemy movements, and their forces seemed to be gathering in one particular system.
Ever since he saw it, Anton knew it would be a critical system… and their greatest problem. That was the system with the star being encapsulated and slowly drained. Ocreaf, according to the local naming. The project hadn’t advanced in any measurable way in the relatively short time the war had been ongoing- a project like that likely took centuries- but it wasn’t completion that was the threat. It was its mere existence, what it represented. And of course the fleets and shells of planets gathered near it.
In any other situation it would have been vulnerable- even some other sort of megastructure could easily be taken down by a starbinding cultivator. But one connected to the star? The risks of destabilization were high, and Varghese had personally experienced the dangers that came along with that with Zunrose. While the sects might not prefer that their star was destroyed, it was possible they were crazy enough- and it was a decent defense against starbinding cultivators. Anton was in reach of the system, but he wouldn’t be maximally effective.