While the others slept, Lucius used this time to prepare himself for the fight to come. He knew that there might come a time when he would have to make a difficult decision, where a sacrifice could be the only right choice. He loved everyone like his children, but one of them may have to die today, and even for him, such a task would take mental preparation.
An hour passed, and the moon was directly overhead. If anything, now was the time to strike.
"Everyone, wake up!" he shouted. though that wasn't necessary, anxiety had kept most of the group up. Perhaps the only ones to have slept were Pagan and Hannibal. Hannibal out of pure exhaustion, and Pagan because he knew no fear under his lord.
As everyone gathered in front of the Radiant tree, Lucius inspected them. The grim expressions on their faces felt comforting somehow.
Something about sending his children into war had not been sitting right with him. But with these expressions, perhaps it became easier for him to fool himself into believing they were just like his army buddies.
"Ahem. Hannibal, continue trying your best to convert solar satellite into its radiant index counterpart. Don't stress if you don't end up accomplishing it, there's a chance that it isn't a possibility anyway," Lucius started off, turning towards Hannibal.
He hoped that Hannibal would be able to create the technique by the time they began luring the enemies back to the camp. And though he doubted it would help much, he had left Hannibal with images explaining how the moon and sun interacted.
"Alpha, you remember what I said when you're using this, right?" he asked, now looking toward Alpha.
Fastened on Alpha's back was a massive wooden bulwark shield crafted through the Radiant Tree's Elmando. Its front was covered by several wooden spikes, with a very long one protruding from the center.
"If the enemy gets too close I should run through them with this to let the others escape," Alpha replied.
"Exactly. Don't hesitate. You're the fastest and strongest amongst everyone here, if anyone can make it out of a tight situation it's you. And even if you can't, fall knowing you did everything to save your brethren," Lucius said in a serious tone.
To this everyone's face became even more serious, the weight of the upcoming task pushing down on them even more.
"The chieftains have already left for their stations. By now, the entire area should be clouded with dangerous poison. Asclepius show them what you made," he continued, before gesturing for Asclepius to come forward.
"This should be able to give you guys a few minutes in even the toughest poison. All the herbs are fresh and have been grown under the Radiant Tree's effects, so they're even better than what's usually possible. Though I can only guarantee safety for a few minutes, I didn't have a lot of time to test these," Asclepius announced, holding up a mask made from animal hide, leaves, vines, and mushrooms.
Based on the hazmat-like design, it was obvious that Lucius had been the one to create the vessel using Elmando. Inside it was a bunch of different herbs, all glowing faintly according to their individual colors.
Asclepius passed the masks around, and once all the Internal Security folk had donned them, Lucius continued.
"Pagan, are you ready?" he asked, before turning to Pagan.
"Of course, Lighted One," he replied, before closing his eyes. Both of them pulled out their cruxes simultaneously, before morphing them into their eased-up forms. Soon, streaks of blue light began circling around them before coalescing to a single point.
The single point began growing, till eventually, it was the size of a soccer ball. Almost three times the size of Lucius's crux, which was now the size of a tennis ball.
"Miniature moon," Lucius whispered, and a bolt of blue light shot from the Radiant Tree, before violently linking with the miniature moon that orbited his primary crux.
Pagan did the same, and now two bolts were emitted from the tree.
~I have to say something to them,~ Lucius thought to himself. As it was now, they looked prepared, but not riled up enough.
"I'll tell you this, death is not something we should fear. If anything it is eternal rest. True and brilliant eternal rest. If you must fear anything, fear that you may never get to spend time with those around you," he said in a strained voice, as more and more energy poured into his auxiliary crux.
"Today we will rage. That thing tried to steal our forest from us, this forest that is rightfully ours," he continued.
"Who else could rule it except The Supreme One? Who else except his subjects could have dominion over it?" Pagan interrupted, his voice hollow, as blue energy filled his very being.
"Answer me!? Who else apart from us could dare to spread our influence? If not us, then who will protect our God's lands?" he continued. Though Lucius did not like to be deified, he could see that it was working. The others seemed angry... bothered.
"Us," Alpha replied.
"Then, why do you not show your anger? Why do you respond to the anger of our God?" Pagan asked, the blue bolt of energy that had been linked to him suddenly severed.
"I vow, and make no mistake, I will not break this promise. If anyone here dies before my God has had victory, I shall hunt you down wherever the dead are laid to rest," Pagan said, his whole body shimmering in blue.
There was a fire in everyone's eyes. Even if this was the last time they would see each other, it would be a good enough last image to have.
"Then let us march," Lucius whispered, the bolt of blue that had been linked to him severed a few seconds after Pagan's.
*
Lucius and Pagan led the group, moving forward at unnatural speeds. To everyone else, it was almost as if they were flickering. Even Ghost with her agile body struggled to keep up.
~If they're this fast without the Radiant Index, I can't imagine how fast I'll be if I can grasp this power,~ she thought to herself.
As planned Lucius and Pagan reached the enemy lines first.
"Try not to use any energy from solar satellite," Lucius said, his voice kind of hollow from the effects of being powered up.
A split moment later, two super-powered solar beams were let loose, causing dirt and vegetation to shoot into the air.
The necromancer's minions were in disarray as a fire began to erupt.
Lucius recalibrated the spell, giving it a higher energy than penetration quality before firing another volley.
"Ghost, use your vision to take out the hidden creatures, we'll cover you," he shouted from atop a tree. A moment later, a black figure zipped past him, maneuvering its way through the confused minions toward the darkness.
"Let's go," Lucius shouted to Pagan, before storming into enemy lines.
As Ghost went deeper into the darkness, she began to sense more and more creatures silently stalking her. Until eventually, they reached close to 100.
Fear crippled her, for a second she was not running because she want to penetrate deeper into enemy lines, but because she was trying to run away from these faceless apparitions.
"Pagan, take them all out," Lucius ordered, and Pagan shot past him.
"Solar burst," Pagan whispered, finding that the situation was too stressful to try silent casting.
A large amount of radiant energy was dispersed, destroying a good dozen of the unseen enemies that had been following Ghost. However there were many more, and they had just realized that Ghost was not alone.
"Where are the others? At this rate, they'll all crowd around us," Lucius whispered to himself, before dropping a few meters away from Pagan, casting a solar burst of his own.
Solar energy conservation was key, already their normal solar reserves were about to be depleted. And using the solar satellites before they got to the temples would mean that the mission was all for naught.
The problem was, even with his radiant vision, for some reason he couldn't see the creatures. He could see that something was giving off radiation, but it seemed sort of mixed in with the surrounding. Like camouflage.
"Bursting Trace," Pagan whispered, sending shockwaves of superheated air around him. The squeals of unseen creatures could be heard all around them. Though even as they died, it seemed that their camouflage was not deactivated. This wasn't just some trick of the skin, these creatures were truly invisible.
"Back in my day we never had to deal with invisible enemies," Lucius whispered to himself, before gesturing for Ghost and Pagan to come close to him.
"They're approaching us," Ghost said, her unseen eyes noticing the irregular shifts all around them.
"Tell me when they're right on us," Lucius replied, keeping perfectly calm. The only part of him moving was his tail, instinctively swinging around him to prevent sneak attacks from behind.
"They're right on u-" before Ghost could finish that sentence, a massive hole appeared on Lucius's torso. Sap spilled from the wound, revealing a blade-like limb protruding from the site.
