Chapter 1130
Any single one of those present could have managed the issue on their own if they merely had to fling a reasonable sized mass towards something a relatively ‘close’ as the nearest system a handful of lightyears away. However, the task they were undertaking would take a bit more than simply that. Instead, they needed to make use of their experience with applied orbital mechanics.
Mainly Prospero and Hoyt’s tendency to throw things at their enemies. Anton could actually perform the Falling Stars technique as well, but he preferred precision attacks with his arrows. Though it wasn’t like Falling Stars lacked its own level of precision, as the first time Anton had seen it had involved a wide area strike on a beast horde while avoiding allies. It still fit him better to make use of archery techniques.
Because of his style, Anton was less involved with the dealings of gravity- he still had to be aware of how it would affect everything, but it wasn’t an empowering mechanism for his attacks. The other two would be more experienced, so they could help him make real-time adjustments that would align with the calculations that had been performed.
The biggest mystery at current time was the size, shape, and actual mass of the corruption in the star. That was what would require the most active involvement, and while they had to precisely align the mass along an intended trajectory it wasn’t actually that delicate of a procedure- they would be able to spend a significant amount of time fine-tuning its motion after ejecting it from the star.
It had already been decided that all three of them would be responsible for acting together. Though in the lower realms Hoyt and Prospero were weaker, they were still sufficient to support Anton’s actions. Their actual power wasn’t the important part.
From the time of their arrival until the day of reckoning was over a year, as implementing their plans took a bit longer than expected- though it wasn’t an unreasonable amount of time for them, even if their ascension energy was slowly diminishing.
During the last week, Anton’s focus was solely on the star and none of the local planets were in his mind. His connection was taken to its limits as he separated star matter from what did not belong, slowly pushing the foreign material towards one end of the star. It clung to the star, not simply from gravity but also from some other sort of attraction. It felt almost actively malicious, though it was just short of that since it didn’t seem to have any consciousness.
Pressure built up greater and greater as it clung onto the surrounding bits of the star, trying to fling itself deeper- or to carry a chunk of the star with it. Neither were acceptable results, and Anton had been working out how to disentangle the mass for most of the time he had been in the system. It was a matter he had been practicing for decades, and he was getting pretty good at it. But he’d still like the effort to be done and over with.
The time finally came. Anton was ready for the last push, and he communicated that to his compatriots. “Aid me,” Anton requested. “We’re going to tear it out… even if it means taking a chunk of the star with it.”