"So how far is your den?" Lucius asked, trying his best to make out his surroundings.
Without his solar crux, he didn't have access to his night vision. So he was relying solely on his sense of smell and hearing.
"It's beside the water, a distance away from Shavak's den," Avankor replied.
~He's probably referring to the river... then it's this way,~ Lucius thought to himself before turning the cart. He could just barely make out the sound of water gushing in the far distance.
"Sigh, I don't think we'll make it back to the Chames den if we take a detour," Lucius said as he moved the cart in between two horrifically contorted trees.
"Then we can go there tomor-" Avankor was about to say before Lucius shushed him. He had heard the sound of footsteps coming a short distance from their left.
The single set of footsteps quickly became a horde of them, until eventually, it became like that of an army.
"Avankor, pull the cart and keep going straight. You should reach the river if you don't go too off course," Lucius said before jumping off the cart.
"Where are you-" Avankor was about to ask, before going silent. It seemed he could now hear the footsteps as well.
"Will you be able to take on so many alone?" he asked, already cloaking himself in his mystic mantle.
Meanwhile, the chief looked around, trying to see what exactly Avankor and Lucius were talking about.
"I don't have a choice, this is the best we can make of the situation," Lucius replied, preparing himself for battle. "Go. I'll try to make sure nothing attacks you while you're moving," he added, before moving towards the sound of the footsteps closest to them.
His mind felt cold from using the Kumulipo for so long, which, strangely enough, allowed him to think more clearly.
After running for a short distance, he came face to face with the advancing horde. There were around 20 dark figures, and from what Lucius could tell the smallest among them was an arachnid -just a few centimeters shorter than he was with its legs stretched out fully, and the largest among them was a 2-meter humanoid owl with massive glowing eyes.
His chilled mind quickly inferred that the owl creatures had to go down first, what with them seemingly having access to magic due to their glowing eyes. Of course, he couldn't be too certain, but he wasn't willing to take the risk.
The creatures moved like a single-minded mass toward him, some even trampling over each other to get to their meal.
Lucius quickly let out a cloud of poison, using its fourth form to quickly take down any low-leveled creatures. With that, only 4 creatures were left conscious.
One of the creatures -the owl humanoid- began flapping its tattered wings, sending gusts of decayed dirt into the air. The particles burned at Lucius's eyes, poisoning them and blinding him.
[Foreign substance detected.]
[Processing...] his system notified.
However apart from the pain the poison caused, it didn't change much. It wasn't as if his vision had been helping him much anyway.
Using the sound of flapping wings to detect the owl, he thrashed his tail out to impale it. However something stopped it midway, and he heard a squelch sound right as he felt a sharp pain emanating from it.
~Bastard,~ he thought to himself, using his tail to wrap around whatever had caught it, before squeezing it to a paste. Usually, the pain from all this would've been enough to hinder his thinking a little, however, the chill from Kumulipo continued to keep him calm.
He only wished that he could've used it to deal with these creatures quickly. Sadly all its spells required him to inject energy into his opponents, making it unsuitable for use against large numbers.
And even if he wanted to, it was currently preoccupied with making sure that the ground beneath him wasn't reclaimed by the decay. A process that in itself took a large chunk of his concentration.
There was no movement for a moment, it seemed that the creatures were shocked at how easily Lucius had turned their comrade into pulp. Though that shock was quickly outlived as he heard two of them approach him from behind.
He thrust his tail out wildly toward the sound of the noise, grabbing the two attackers before slamming them to the ground. He felt their rotting vessels turn to juice under the impact.
Now only a single enemy remained -the owl that had blinded him. He thrashed his tail out wildly in an attempt to find its location, though in the end, its cowardice gave it away.
He heard the creature flap its wings once more, no doubt in an attempt to run away and warn the necromancer. Sadly for it, there was no escaping this.
Lucius' tail shot out towards the sound, goring through the creature, before dragging it back down and burying it in the ground.
Once all that was done, he used his tail to kill the creatures he had knocked out with his poison before quickly moving on to the other horde that had been advancing toward the cart.
The sharp pain he had been feeling from his tail now felt more like a cold chill. And even the pain in his eyes had subsided a little bit, no doubt the work of Kumulipo's effects.
Running through the forest blind proved to be less of a hassle than he had initially thought. He used his tail to feel around in front of him, and with his vision gone his sense of hearing felt slightly stronger than before.
~They're already on Avankor's tail,~ he thought to himself, realizing that the sound of the horde was coming from near the cart.
[Analysis complete.]
[Decay poison attribute has been added to the skill tree.]
[Minor resistance to internal decay has been added.]
[High Resistance to external decay has been added.]
His system notified him and with that, his vision began to clear up. Of course, the pain from the particles in his eye still irritated him, but it was enough for him to bare through.
~The Shrikillian mission might've been the best thing I've done since coming here,~ Lucius thought to himself, before recalling his crux.
