Chiara departed into the skies. Aerona felt herself compelled to follow after- not too close, but not remaining down below on the planet. It was a risk. But if there was some sort of trick, it was only one that Aerona had done to herself. If she was taking this risk, she was going all the way- and her intuition told her that this was the right call.

The angel flew up to her divinity, her face radiant. Unnaturally so, as Aerona judged it. "Divine Adelardo of the fiercest flames! I am freed, and once more fit to return to your service!"

His reaction was wrong. Sensing one so clearly of his own style, he should not have responded with hostility. However, even from a great distance- nearly double for Aerona- the weight of his anger descended. "We have no need for one who consorts with filth."

His words and anger gave a sufficiently long stretch of time that anyone could see his intentions. He didn't even rush to gather his power. Yet even so, when the flames came for Chiara she clearly didn't even have a thought to defend herself. She just lingered, dumbstruck.

Aerona could do little more than to trigger the woman's reflexes. It wasn't an attack. Her true intentions were for the woman's own good, but even so she would have been rejected by Chiara's defenses… if they had existed at all. It was partially because she had been subjected to long term energy suppression, but she had enough energy to form her angelic wings and fly- which had little to do with the wings. Surely she could raise some defensive energy.

Four wings crossed over each other. They barely blocked anything, but they withstood fiery wrath for long enough that the pressure built momentum, flinging Chiara back. Aldara shielded her with her own energy as much as possible, pulling her back through the planetary barrier, such as it was while under attack.

"...Why?"

The single question from Chiara was a million different questions. Why had she even been allowed to go? Why had she been attacked by one she trusted with her whole heart? Why had Aerona bothered to protect her? There were more, but Aerona picked those out most easily.

"There's not a simple answer to that," Aerona admitted. "But I think you know most of the answers regardless. What does your heart say?"

"... nothing."

"Then ignite your energy."

Chiara did so, flames spreading outward from her heart. They covered her body, and then her wings. But as soon as her energy reached the end of said wings, they burned away from the tips, leaving nothing but ash.

Pitched battles were not always the best time to resolve emotional trauma, but Aerona still felt this was the right path. She caught Chiara in her arms as the woman fell.

"He no longer cares about me."

"Oh honey," Aerona shook her head. There was no time for subtlety. "He never did. They never cared about any of you."

Chiara couldn't even cry. Perhaps the fire inside of her burned away her tears, or her body simply couldn't remember how in the moment. She just stared at Aerona. "I wish I'd never seen it."

"It would have been easier, wouldn't it?" Aerona agreed. Chiara was completely defenseless. Aerona could work her full abilities on the woman- but she would never use her skills to harm a friend. She instead did her best to put together shattered pieces of her heart, barely dull embers. "But things aren't always that nice."

"Your Unity cultivators…" Chiara began, "They… really care?"

"You'll feel it, once you are one of us. Though I wouldn't rush. It can't be good for you to bond your soul so quickly."

The battlefield was not a good place for a heart to heart conversation. That was true even when behind a planetary barrier. A sudden surge of power and killing intent. Aerona felt death coming for the two of them.

Isiah of the Divine Meteor Sect dove towards them. Lev had his hands and every single bending limb of his tree quite full. Anton was still some distance off, attacking as he could from the domain of the local star. He couldn't stop a charge.

Aerona never wanted to make Devon sad, but she had already drawn attention to herself. It was too late. And despite how foolish the woman was, Aerona couldn't simply abandon Chiara. They were both targets anyway. Aerona pulled the other woman around behind her, directing all of her energy in front of her. No, at a slight angle- she wasn't dumb enough to take on someone like Isiah head on. She could only hope to be deflected off to the side, and hopefully survive the impact with the planet.

Aerona didn't have enough energy- and Chiara's cultivation had just collapsed. There wasn't much hope of an Enrichment cultivator not even specialized in combat standing up against any of these divinities.

The impact was stronger than anything Aerona had ever felt. Not even Anton's serious archery carried so much power- though his was far more condensed and precise. Aerona felt herself evaporate until there was nothing left of her body. The only thing she could feel after that were Chiara's arms around her.

No, that wasn't true. Those were just the strangest sensations. The newest ones. Because Aerona had certainly never had her body burn away while still existing before. And she also hadn't touched others while formless. If she was merely a soul, Aerona expected to be directly heading towards the cycle of reincarnation- but that was not the case. Instead, her body was now insubstantial flames. Aerona hadn't expected that the Burning Hearts technique would work on others, and she also hadn't fully believed that Chiara would even attempt it for her sake.

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Not before that moment. Now, she felt Chiara's heart and mind. The woman had finally opened up… and in turn Aerona had naturally empowered her. Otherwise, Chiara wouldn't have been able to save even herself such a short time after being released from her shackles.

Aerona felt surprisingly calm for everything that was happening. Her only thought was that now that she wasn't at risk, Isiah couldn't be allowed to impact Enduriel below. She would gladly give all of her power to the people there to protect them, but her history told her it wasn't that simple. Her power simply wasn't the right source to stop a great kinetic impact without a proper catalyst.

A moment later, Isiah crashed into a city with the shockwave of his impact spreading hundreds of kilometers. That distance was fairly condensed. He should have had enough power to destroy the planet. The only reason there would be a shockwave on the surface was if… his momentum was stopped.

Then the divinity was flung back, out of the planetary barrier. Not by Lev, certainly not by Anton. Nor was it Aerona herself… but instead the people of Enduriel through her. Unity. Devon and Anton said she had natural potential for it, but she certainly hadn't expected the results she got. She couldn't effectively wield the power herself, but the combined knowledge of Enduriel was surely sufficient.

"Death is strange," Chiara commented, perhaps unable to believe her technique had been successful.

"It sure is, isn't it?" Aerona smiled. It was the only appropriate response. Aerona was the last person that expected to suddenly advance in the middle of a battle, even if she'd been gradually approaching Unity day by day it could have been centuries yet- if ever.

-----

Catarina had many complaints about timing. The great powers had been causing trouble for a while, so why did they have to do so at the same time as the Holy Stars? Within the same span of years was one thing, but they escalated their assaults within a number of days. Yet there was no connection to be drawn between them. Was it a cosmic coincidence? Perhaps so.

It would have been nice if Anton could have been aiding Runa in the Little Alliance. If Everheart had waited a month, the Scarlet Alliance could have crushed the fleets now duking it out in front of Catarina. They would likely still be annihilated- the Exalted Quadrant was quite happy to take an opportunity to weaken the Trigold Cluster. But it was very inconvenient that she had to make certain it continued, instead of fighting alongside her husband.

Timothy was strong, but Everheart was full of tricks. He had seen many of them, but Everheart always had more- Catarina's adaptability would have helped with that. She could have multiplied the power of Xankeshan's formations, everything throughout the system. Once this was over… she was teleporting straight there. She hated only having a vague idea of what was going on.

-----

Timothy could easily fight against one weapon at a time. One style. A few styles. It didn't matter. But Everheart's constantly shifting weaponry made it rather difficult to latch onto any sort of clarity. The man was hyper aggressive in some moments, and then was seemingly content to spend several minutes almost taking a nap halfway across the system. The turtle was trouble too.

Everheart hadn't gone easy on Vari. His 'beloved niece' was barely three dimensional, with more breaks than she had bones. Not nice clean breaks, but the kind that put shards of bone inside your vital organs. Timothy had experienced many of those… and successful recovery relied on a swift victory. Or simply disengaging. He had forced Vari to go get treated- her combat prowess would only be helpful if she wasn't about to die and weaken their ranks.

Everything was going rather terribly except perhaps Chidi and Rahayu, where it was more of an unknown. And then things got worse.

All of a sudden, the flow of energy from many Alliance cultivators changed. Timothy had to suddenly form barriers in the middle of their fleets, as many of their cultivators suddenly attacked other ships. Though some portion of the seemingly intended attacks simply didn't happen- the ships themselves refused to fire upon the rest of the fleet. Uzun's engineers hadn't been skimping on safety, it seemed.

"Dammit," Zazil said. "I think I recognize this energy signature."

Timothy nodded. "Deal with it."

"And leave you with Everheart?"

Timothy shrugged. It wasn't like he liked the idea either. But he would at least survive for a while.

-----

The Heartbound Palace suddenly appeared at a battle around Xankeshan. Zazil had known that was a possibility, in the broad sense, however that particular threat had been living on the backburner of everyone's minds. But here, they seemed to have taken over many people from diverse sects. It was far different from the infiltrations of hivemind sects that had happened before.

Sudden, without a clear trigger. It had to involve actual cultivators pulling the strings- and the thin sense of their energy confirmed that.

Zazil began throwing ring blades everywhere. It seemed like a reckless tactic, but she was never going to hit an ally. It might be a bit difficult to cover half a system with attacks, but she could try.

And more relevantly, she could check for energy fluctuations that might indicate her attacks passed near someone that didn't want to be sliced to ribbons. What appeared to be a chaotic mess was actually a well coordinated search pattern. Timothy entrusted her to handle this, so she would. The only way she could handle those that were currently controlled was to kill them, though, so their fleets would have to deal with that for a while.

But that was what they had everyone else for, wasn't it? They even had some void ants now- though Zazil had to admit they would have been in a better place if they'd had them in the core Scarlet Alliance centuries earlier. Their timidity might have led to trouble that could have been better avoided.

Ring blades expanded to cover vast stretches of space, but of course they had a hole in their center. Zazil had the discs fly about, but she also had them flip around, spinning in odd ways. Just another way to sense energy fluctuations. Her true foe wasn't as subtle as he seemed to want to make himself out to be. She was narrowing things down a little bit at a time. Soon, she would flush him out.

Or kill him. Zazil wouldn't mind that, if she could. But Yann had taken a lot out of her- even with help. She also had to watch her back for Everheart and his people- or even the Alliance's own cultivators. So an instant victory against her hidden foe was likely not in the cards.

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