"What's going on?" Pagan shouted from the back of the group, annoyed that he had to be so far away from Lucius, and impatient because he had expected to have killed something by now.
~What the hell was that?~ Lucius thought to himself, ignoring the questioning gazes that surrounded him.
~Was that a Morrentor?~ he wondered, trying to rationalize the immense energy signal he had just sensed. Sadly though, he was acquainted with earth sense well enough to know that the owner of this energy signal was a sentient being and not some beast.
~It's more powerful than the necromancer... or at least the version of the necromancer I fought back in the last war,~ he realized.
Sure, if he put all his cards on the table -counting Belladona and using kumulipo to its full sadistic potential- he was probably slightly stronger, but what really worried him was that the creature was emitting this much energy at base level.
Usually, there was a huge discrepancy between the energy readings someone gave off when they weren't in battle and when they were. For instance, even Eiknyr wasn't this powerful before they had engaged in battle.
To make matters worse, there was the fact that his earth sense may not have accurately measured its energy readings since it was still so far away. This mission was starting to look more and more dangerous.
However, Lucius already knew the consequences of shying away from dangerous situations. Enemies only grew stronger, and if he wasn't willing to put things on the line every now and then, they would surpass him at an exponential level.
"No, we're moving on. We'll just avoid the pathways that creature is in," he announced, before explaining the situation to the others.
Pagan didn't seem bothered in the slightest, no doubt in his mind nobody could overpower the lighted one, especially if he was there by his side. He already doubted the claims that Lucius had lost to the necromancer, suspecting that there was some sort of foul play at hand during their duel.
As for the Argonauts, they seemed to be in a similar boat. They understood the words that came out of Lucius's mouth, but could not fathom that the god creature in front of them could be bested by anything these tunnels had to offer.
After all, he had already proven himself by slaying Eiknyr, an enemy that they had once thought unslayable.
Ursa however had a more realistic response to the information, understanding that strengths shifted every waking moment -one couldn't claim to be the strongest person in existence. Still, he seemed excited at the prospect of fighting against a strong opponent -which made Lucius suspect that the old bear had a few tricks up his sleeve.
"We'll be taking this opening," Lucius announced, pointing to one of the mine entrances to their left.
"Our mission is to find the Aternite and leave, avoid any unnecessary encounters," he continued, as he walked towards the entrance.
"But if something does stand in our way, don't hesitate. Knock it out immediately... remember though, I want a few captives, so don't go around killing everyone you find," he finished, before going through the entrance.
The inside of the tunnel was quite spacious, reminiscent of the tunnels back in the Shrikillian labyrinth, though at least these ones weren't constantly shifting.
There were a series of light runes lined along both sides of the wall, making it seem as if it were daytime, even though they were underground.
After walking for just a few minutes, the group came across the first of the precious minerals the mines had to offer. It was an ember-coloured rock embedded within a huge bolder where dozens of other similar rocks were trapped.
Judging by the way the boulder protruded from the side of the wall, it was likely that the furtong could not use their abilities to interact with it. Still, Lucius turned to look at one of the furtong to confirm whether it was what they were looking for.
The elder furtong replied with a disappointed shake of his head.
~Well, that would've been too easy, wouldn't it,~ Lucius thought to himself, before venturing on.
The deeper in they walked, the more prevalent the ember rocks became. At one point he used the crystal chunk they had extracted earlier to test which was harder -the crystal won, though just barely.
So, using the crystal chunk, he began hacking away at one of the ember ores, extracting several large pieces.
Realizing that his sack would be too small to store it all, he Elmando to morph the tunic he was wearing into a knapsack, in which he stored the minerals he had extracted.
As they explored deeper within the tunnels, the earth walls were beginning to showcase patches of crystalline material. It was the same sort that the crystal pillars were made from, though here they seemed to be growing more like fungal mould -laterally along the earth instead of upward.
Once they had gotten deeper, they found that most of the tunnel walls had become completely infected by this crystal growth, giving the illusion that the earth around them was made from glowing glass -as the crystals had absorbed the light being emitted by the light runes.
It was a magnificent sight, to say the least, like walking under an aquarium tunnel, only instead of aquatic life, the shimmering kaleidoscope internals of the crystals were the ones on display.
"Hold," Lucius whispered, gesturing towards a fork in the path up ahead. There were three possible paths they could choose from, and only two of them seemed to have creatures in them.
"Are we taking the empty one?" Ghost asked, standing only a few steps behind Lucius. Even though he had ordered her to take rest, based on her positioning and stance, he could tell that she would join a fight as soon as it broke out.
"No, we'll take this one," Lucius replied, gesturing towards one of the populated paths.
Ghost turned to him in confusion, not understanding the reasoning behind his decision.
