Chapter 262 Gravenovarish's Weapons [II]
~Hopefully, one of them knows something about Rena. Or at the very least, they may be able to teach us new spells,~ Lucius thought to himself.
"A-As you wish, Lighted One," Pagan replied hesitantly, clearly disappointed with the way things were going to turn out.
*
A minute passed, before Ghost's figure appeared right above Lucius's shadow, four of the eight spider legs that spawned out of her back slowly lifting her off the ground.
"You were right Luci, they have several guards hidden behind the trees. They covered themselves in this... stuff," Ghost reported, blotches of blood on her face.
Lucius turned to look at one of the four front legs she kept raised in the air, and found a Venari warrior impaled through the skull.
"And you're certain no one heard you?" he asked, as Ghost slowly brought the body to the ground.
"I wasn't spotted. The guards are spread out quite a distance, and I didn't see any reactions from the others when I took this one down," Ghost replied, as Lucius began to strip the Venari of his camouflage armour.
It was a green tunic, with dozens of leaves attached to the back and sides.
"Put this on," Lucius commanded, holding the outfit out towards one of the Furtong.
As the Furtong tried to get into the camouflage, Lucius furrowed his brows in thought, trying to figure out what the best course of action would be.
"How many guards are there?" he asked a moment later, now regarding Ghost.
"From what I can tell, they span the entire line," she replied.
"Use your poison to disable the guards positioned from here-" Lucius instructed, pointing at a spot just a few meters to their left, "-all the way to there," he continued, drawing an imaginary line that spanned towards the right. This content originates from n0v3lbin•
It was about a 20-meter line he wanted disabled, just large enough for them to sneak past under the cover of vegetation without risking being spotted.
"Bring back the bodies. We need their gear," he added.
"Done," Ghost replied, her body flickering with light for a split second before completely disappearing.
Several minutes passed between each body that she brought back, hinting at the fact that she was taking her time with each strike. A fact that Lucius was happy to discover.
Each time they stripped the guard of their armour and gave it to one of the members of the entourage.
At this point, Pagan and the others had already made it past the line and were no doubt waiting for Lucius to catch up.
~Huh? What's this?~ Lucius wondered to himself, slightly annoyed.
It seemed that something was pulling at his crux, obstructing him from properly completing his final 『Gluttonous Distortion』.
~You?~ Lucius realized, noticing that his True Elmando tail was glowing.
~It's for the commune. We can't let Helios go to waste,~ Lucius explained, before pushing through the tail's Elmando and draining the final guard of his energies.
All in all, he had absorbed 60 million Helios and had grown to 1.6 meters. He could feel that his evolution was close; it was an edging feeling, as if he were about to lift off into the sky but a small string were keeping him tethered.
~Hmm, if I use this again I'll probably evolve... not ideal right now,~ he realized, before putting away the kumulipo.
He took a moment to change from kumulipo back to solar crux, and with this, he could feel the branding that marked his skin begin to warm up. It seemed that this process required Rena, which hinted at what type of energy it could be.
As far as Lucius could tell, Rena may refer to the mental energy involved in spells. For instance, he had been blamed for over-using his Rena only after his mind had overheated.
However, something told him that mental energy wasn't all there was to it.
After he had managed to successfully switch over to the solar crux, he accessed his helios reserves.
[(Current Helios: 62,316,000)]
~This should be enough to buy sobriquets for the entire commune. A bit more, and I might even be able to complete the evo-points quest~ he thought to himself, waves of euphoria still washing over his body from the cores he had ingested.
*
After dragging the corpses into some nearby vegetation, he made his way towards the rest of the group.
His camouflage wasn't as good as it used to be, what with his body being covered in obsidian marks now. However, with his greatly enhanced senses -which seemed to have gotten even better with the absorption of those cores- he could just make out the sound of the guards breathing in the close distance, better yet, he could smell their scent.
In fact, in conjunction with his newly enhanced earth senses, it felt like he could even tell where they were currently looking, even though that made no sense to him.
After a few minutes, he made it through the lines and slowly snuck his way towards one of the hills in this new blue rock landscape.
"Good job, everyone," he said promptly, before looking out into the field ahead.
The place smelt of sulfur, a putrid smell that clogged his throat if he breathed too deeply. And the gusts of wind that blew towards the forest felt warm and dry, a stark contrast to the moist cool air of the forest.
From here on out, the only cover they would have were rocky hills, which weren't very many to begin with. And with the rough rocky texture of the landscape, moving stealthily wasn't going to be the easiest endeavor.
"Keep your guard up, things are only going to get more difficult from here," he warned, before gesturing for them to proceed.