"It is a glorious day for the children of the God, for Lunax has spoken! You, the next generation of our Lord's glorious warriors, have been chosen to join your predecessors for the next conquest! The God has seen your efforts, and is granting you this incredible chance to prove yourselves!"
A person hidden behind a dark purple, almost black, hooded cloak was preaching in front of over thousand kneeling children. Apparently his name was Coulax and he, along with two others, arrived right after lunch and the whole place turned into complete mess.
Surprisingly it was mostly caused by the agitated instructors who rushed to gather their students in front of the Lunax's statue.
The only thing the younger generation managed to learn was that the messengers of the God had arrived and, according to what Lee knew, these guys had almost unlimited authority in the lands of the scourge.
The many months spent on military drills payed off and within twenty breaths of time the square in front of the statue was full of kneeling kids. Their instructors proudly stood beside their groups, fully focused on the three higher-ups.
Lee had spent over six months in the fortress, and it was the first time something like this happened, but he doubted these were good news.
From what he was taught, the so called conquests were the raids performed by scourge in the other worlds and the God usually organized them once a month, sometimes once in two months. They were divided in three types – recruitment, gathering and special.
The recruitment conquests were targeted, as the name implied, to kidnap hundreds upon hundreds of people, mostly children, alongside plundering provisions of the natives. Sadly these were the most prestigious ones where the scourge vanguard had to shine.
The Sunwell's raid was such, although Lee had no clue where all the children were brought to afterwards.
The gathering conquests were organized to hunt beasts en masse and particularly – their sparks. These were the most lucrative ones where almost all the scourge could take part. Since these didn't concern the vanguard warriors, there was not much information about them, but it was said that depending on the performance one could even receive a Divine Gift directly from Lunax's hands.
Lee had no idea what the special conquests were, but the current situation did look such, whatever it meant. But no matter what, he had a bad feeling about it.
After a lengthy session of kowtowing and shouting the annoying Raixoo! over and over, the grand meeting was over. But the kids had to wait until their instructors returned from a more detailed briefing.
It was a bit sad to see all the fired up expressions of the older groups, and the looks full of envy their younger comrades tried to hide. It seemed this was the opportunity most were waiting for, although Lee couldn't understand what good these younglings could do on a battlefield.
He didn't believe the God's forces were so thinned out that he needed to send trainees to the death. At the same time it was unlikely the event was organized to evaluate the next spark owners.
Luckily, the wait wasn't too long. Instructors returned and sent everyone but the two oldest groups of trainees, including Lee's squad, away.
It was obvious his boys got all tensed up – to be able to finally take part in a conquest was all these little sociopaths could dream about. But Lee couldn't blame the kids – they had been brainwashed for years.
Even he, after training for over six months, sometimes caught himself for loosing the sense of reality and felt as if he became one with the rest. Turns out, the drills the six person squads went through even had psychological effect as well.
"This will not be a special conquest, but it's not a recruitment mission either! At least not for you!" Roganax interrupted Lee's train of though.
After Lee was accepted to the fortress, he landed in the cyclops's care, but the guy turned out to be a decent teacher, at least regarding the combat skills. He was not much of a speaker, though, but fortunately was respected enough.
After throwing a glance around, Roganax continued, "The God has seen your performance and it has been decided to advance your training, and let you practice with the vanguard."
Raixoo! Raixoo! Raixoo!!!
The kids couldn't hold back the excitement and began to loudly cheer. Lee couldn't understand why they always had to shout the same annoying battle shout, but those were only his thoughts.
Outwardly, he similarly jumped to his feet and punched the air, while also shouting the damned Raixoo!.
"Calm down!" The cyclops grinned, and everyone slumped back on the ground, "The conquest the God is organizing now is to a low resistance world thus no fighting is expected. You all, on the other hand, are expected to perform to our highest standards!"
Seeing the confusion on every single face around him, Roganax elaborated, "You will go to the Ashland to perform drills with the vanguard warriors, and afterwards follow them through the rift for a practical training!"
***
Lee was positive none of the boys were able to sleep that night. And his group didn't even try.
After the evening prayer, Fenax gathered the rest and began to impart his knowledge by telling the same shit everyone already knew about formations, battle tactics, conquests and soon the boys began to discuss their future prospects, and the glory they will bring to the God.
This was nothing new except it was an all-nighter, but since Lee never took an active part in it, no one found it out of place him sitting together with them, with his eyes closed. Of course, the boys thought he was carefully listening, but Lee used the time to meditate while focusing on the blue spark.
The next day everyone was sleepy and tired, but fortunately Roganax, similar to the other instructors understood the reason and went easy on the kids.
Another four days later almost a quarter of the fortress departed.
The trip turned out to be a part of the training though.
Everyone, both trainees and their instructors, around two hundred people in total, wearing full armor, marched in neat formations towards Ashland – the capital and the only city these lands housed.
Half a year ago, after stepping through the rift, Lee had a brief excursion through it and had to agree, the name was fitting. Although the whole land could be called Ash-something judging by the never ending grayness.
It was good to know it was in a walking distance from the fortress – thus Lee could finally start to plan his escape. If anywhere – the place where hundreds of thousands scourge lived, was the spot where Victoria was most likely hiding.
Initially he was afraid she might've taken a part in a raid to another world, but then he realized that no matter where she went – she would be taken for a monster by locals and would be forced to return.
Lunax always opened rifts to new worlds and the recruits that were brought back were generally of different races.
Lee himself was born in two different worlds populated with humans, though. The first two on Earth and the last two where the Sky empire was established. That could indicate there were more, thus potentially he could use the scourge to get to a normal world after he dealt with the princess.
***
Lee hated marching with passion and marching for a whole day straight, dressed in full armor while carrying a heavy spear, was even worse. Contrary to him, his buddies happily stomped their feet all day long as if they were some kind of robots with inexhaustible batteries.
The armor was heavy thus they couldn't run like Lee did with Butalax, but he couldn't meditate on the road either – not only his squad members, even the cyclops wouldn't forgive him if he stumbled or stepped out of the formation. It was a torture that lasted a whole day, but in the end Lee was rewarded.
They arrived at the familiar warehouse district near the tunnel to the grotto – the place he stopped for a meal with Butalax half a year ago.
That meant – Lee finally knew the direction he was supposed to flee to!
But those were the only good news. The small army camped outside for the night, although using the term camping was a stretch. Everyone simply sat down on the ground, and later fell asleep on the same spot. They had three more days of marching to do.