"For Qlipoth!"

"For the Preservation! Charge forward!"

"Advance! Damn it! Get those mechs up at once!"

70% of the ships in the fleet upon contacting their enemies in the asteroid belt all succumbed to the destruction brought by the Lord Ravager Irontomb's underlings, most of them outright turned into space junk with all mobility and power drained, leaving the crew trapped inside their own iron coffin, while the swarm of nanobots slowly chewing through the hull, taking the material from their victims to repair those of the Legion.

Forcing the Company's forces to engage in the naval battle in clear space from a great distance...

The IPC did not come without any backup, the starskiffs of the Xianzhou Alliances, each carrying an assault squad of Cloud Knights moved forward, expertly navigating the rough void between the asteroids and approaching their enemies.

The legendary Cloud Knights all charged into a fierce close quarter combat when their starskiffs crashed into the enemies' ships, they were all trained to fight with the exceptionally resilient Denizens of the Abundance, so their glaives had no trouble in cutting down the basic legionnaires.

"Lieutenant! This area is clear of enemy activity! Yinci's squad is up ahead to regroup!" - One of the Cloud Knights reported to his superior, their armor damaged visibly and they are partly exhausted from all those fighting.

"Regroup with them, if I am right, Judge Fanyi and her elite guards should be close too, locate them at all cost and storm the ship's command deck with them, we will withdraw once this ship has been neutralized!" - The Lieutenant shouted his orders, making sure the few men in his squad all received the orders loud and clear, and once that is done, they all get into the original formation and moved across the hallway of the ship, which is now littered with the corpses of legionnaires and Cloud Knights alike.

"But still, 2 brigades for this assault... Although it wasn't a lot but I still think that this is overkill at this rate, Irontomb from the Ruin Author did little damage to our starskiffs, and if we withdraw quick enough..."

"Do not let your guard down, this is still far from being a fraction of the Lord Ravager's power, that only means... The ones we are fighting here are just the enemies' scouts, or the weaklings to thin our forces down." - The Lieutenant said, and then he stopped in his tracks once he spotted similar silhouettes in the front, it was the other squad tasked to assault this ship.

"You guys alright?" - The other squad's captain rushed over, quickly asserting the conditions of both teams before nodding. "Good, everyone can press on?"

"Where is the Judge from the Ten Lords? Shouldn't she be here?" - The Lieutenant asked.

"Hm? I don't know... I thought her squad was with you?" - The captain said, before a loud explosion shook the entire vessel slightly, it was coming from where the commanding deck is.

"Seems like they got there first, we have to aid them immediately."

"Roger!"

The few Cloud Knights rushed over to the bridge, assuming that is where the elite squad leading the charge is at, on the way they were met with very little resistance from the Void Reavers, it could either be that their fighting spirit was broken, or...

"Judge Fanyi! There she is! We've finally caught up!"

The Cloud Knights stopped rushing forward and approached the elite guards of the Judge casually, after seeing that their ground surrounding them is covered with enemy bodies, truly a testament of just how formidable they are compared to the standard Cloud Knight...

whoosh

Suddenly, a Cloud Knight was stabbed in the chest surprisingly by a swift stroke from the same elite guard, before she retrieved her spear and moved in to kill another one, but her attack was intercepted by the Lieutenant, who with his fast reflexes managed to save a comrade.

"Lieutenant!"

"Stay back! Damn it... Damn it, how can this be... Why and how?! Did the enemy anticipate this too?" - The Lieutenant shouted as he raises his glaive high, keeping himself on edge as the guard standing up again, their flesh slowly rot visibly on the revealed skin, as their armor began fusing with the flesh...

The sign of mara. Was somehow present on a vessel of the Destruction, in a war that does not involve the Abundance. To their horrors, the rest of the elite guards showed up, all have been mara-struck as well, and now is madness incarnation, the biggest stain of shame in the history of Xianzhou now standing against them.

The Cloud Knights formed into battle position, ready to take on the vile creatures of the Abundance, that is until they saw the Judge from the Ten Lords Commission, standing just behind the mara-struck, and with a clap from her hands, the corpses of the legionnaires rises, not by the miracles of the Abundance, but by the incomprehensive arts of the Destruction... Now their body reconstructed anew, ready to spill blood again.

"All soldiers! Retreat at once! Full speed back to the starskiffs!" - The Lieutenant gave out his order, as he blocked another attack from the mara-struck, now running closely behind his teammates to make a run out of this trap...

Clearly, the Legion has somehow anticipated the assistance of the Xianzhou, and what more could be more effective to use against the followers of the Hunt than their sworn archenemies?

"Lieutenant! Up ahead...!"

The starskiffs were being consumed by the ship's hull as well, by the entrance they came crashing in, the metal was becoming one with the living tissues of the starskiffs, another sign of the horror of Abundance... Leaving the strike team with no way of retreating, they were forced to fight their way through the vessel to where there is less enemies... But soon they would fall one by one until they were trapped inside the reactor room, which holds the core that fueled the vessel.

"..." - The Lieutenant exchanged a glance with the other remaining two Cloud Knights, after nodding at each other and letting out a chuckle, they decided to just go with it, and bravely sacrificed themselves by overloading the reactor core and triggered a chain reaction which blew the ship apart.

But still, their sacrifice poses no significant feat in this battle, as the two forces still facing directly in the area, although this is still considered to be a skirmish by many standards, things are soon to turn from bad to worse...

"Admiral, seems like the enemies' vanguard are here. But something is wrong... Both Irontomb and Celenova should have been with them..."

"No, the Lord Ravagers themselves shouldn't be revealing themselves this early as well... Especially for someone like Celenova who is also in charge of several other fronts... Have we managed to establish contact with the main fleet for defense?"

"Yeah, they are almost here... But with this number we should be able to hold the enemy out of the system... That is if their full force doesn't arrive..."

— — — — —

"Huh... What are the odds?"

"Odds of what?"

"That 3 whole new ass Aeons appeared while I'm gone, and Long is still Long-dead." - Akivili said as THEY laid on the sofa comfortably with Rubert beeping in the corner.

"Well... Is that going to be our discussion in this chapter?"

"I'd say so... But first let's take a look at each path... starting with the... nice looking one's Path."

"You mean the Abundance, yes. They are basically a Path that focuses on the nourishment and the blessings of the organics, essentially making the Pathstriders immortal and free from diseases."

"And they are the main enemy of those... What are they again, the Xianzhou people with skill issues?"

"Yes. Calling them having skill issues is a bit overboard in my opinion."

"Why? They lack the mental capacity to withstand the toll that immortality gives them... If that isn't a skill issue, then what is?"

"I think you don't even realize that not everyone has Nous' Memory Card and CPU to process all those things."

"Damn now you remind me of it, I miss the days being able to use Nous to play some games."

—

Around a few dozen Amber Eras ago.

Aha : Akivili! My dear friend! Let's go play some games!

Akivili : sorry gotta head over to Idrila

Aha : we can play Smash on Nous!

Akivili : alr now or do you wanna prepare?

Nous : I hate you guys. And since I am a machine incapable of emotion, that speaks volume.

—

"I mean, aside from that, couldn't they just shrug it off and be cool with the Abundance? I mean the Aeon was benevolent enough to grant them their wish for immortality, like if it was Aha they were asking for, he would have probably given them cancer instead." - Akivili said.

"Calling Yaoshi true. But telling the Xianzhou to stay out of this is... A bit too hard, considering they are in pursuit of vengeance. Because aside from their Aeon, the Denizens of the Abundance is particularly not that chill and benevolent... In fact they are some of the most vile factions in the current Cosmos, at least according to the information I managed to gather."

"Break it down for me, tin head."

Rubert beeped a bit as he sighed, but then beeped once again. "Imagine being immortal-"

"I already am wym."

"... But then realizing all of those who you know are very evil and racist are now immortal as well."

"Oh."

"And since there is no need for them to try and speedrun their evil deeds... What would they do?"

"Take their time and... oh." - Akivili now realized what Rubert was hinting at.

"Yup. And it could be added that the whole going mad thingy after living for too long... Which pretty much makes sense why the followers of the Abundance would turn out to be that evil, because they lost their humanities after so long and have became evil beings."

"But what if there are still good followers of the Abundance out there?"

"The narrative forces me to say they are all evil for now. Anyways, as I was saying, they are not particularly good, many of the races within the Denizens of the Abundance are actually mutated beings that lust for blood and slaughter which automatically made them bad in the eyes of Xianzhou and the IPC."

"[Trailblaze profanity] IPC you mean."

"The best example I have for this might be Shuhu the Emanator of the Abundance, although the actual lore has little information about him at the time being, but all of which has his hand in it all suggested him to be on the bad side of the narrative."

"But then again... Those narratives mostly came from Xianzhou's side right. Like when the High Cloud Quintet fought against him when he attacked Luofu."

"That is correct. In fact this reminded me of a particular occasion, Celenova one of the Lord Ravagers actually did offer to the Xianzhou a truce in order to join hands to eliminate the threat of the Wingweavers, a race of the Denizens of Abundance that has the ability to travel to distant worlds in a blink of an eye with the use of their homeworld which shaped like a tree, Muldrasil, making them pretty much resembles the Swarm in the aspect of striking fast in unpredicted areas. Not much is known about this confrontation but the Xianzhou accepted the truce and went to join forces with the Lord Ravager to assault the Wingweavers' homeworld and successfully killed the Wingperor, who is believed to be an Emanator of the Abundance."

Akivili chuckled and then gradually sat up straight, laughing and slapping THEIR knee. "What kinda name is that... Win- Wingperor... Hahahaha..."

"..."

"Hahaha... Wing- Wingperor... Hahahaha...."