At first light the next morning, inside the sitting room, Sona carefully folded up a bedsheet. Every movement was gentle, and as her watery eyes rested on the sheet, a sweet little smile curved at her lips.
"I'm going back for a bit."
She turned and looked at Luke, who was coming downstairs with a sleepy expression, and her clear, melodious voice rang inside his mind.
It seemed that because a connection had been established between them, she no longer needed her Etwahl to act as a medium for her voice.
As long as Sona wanted to, Luke could hear her anytime.
"Mm." Luke answered, then looked at her. "Are you still sore?"
At that, Sona's face reddened a little. She gently shook her head. "Not anymore."
Luke glanced at the bedsheet in her arms, thought for a moment, and said, "You don't have to go back just for that. Leave it here. It's pretty cold outside."
But Sona stubbornly held the neatly folded sheet tighter. "No. I'm keeping it hidden away forever."
Since she insisted, Luke had nothing more to say.
Sona left the courtyard with the bedsheet in her arms, heading back toward her home in an obviously good mood.
Luke sat down on the couch in the sitting room, stretched lazily, and stared into space in boredom.
Two straight nights of hard fighting had left him mentally drained.
At that moment, he did not even have the energy to stand up and do a round of Vitality Arts.
Fortunately, they were about to set out, and he would be able to rest for a while on the journey and recover a bit.
Around seven in the morning, Lux and the others arrived too.
After breakfast, everyone took their packed luggage and headed out of the capital.
By noon, Luke and his group had reached the same port town they had departed from last time.
There, ship after ship had already been prepared.
The five hundred personal guards had already boarded, along with two hundred logistics personnel responsible for watching over the large quantity of supplies.
Several cargo ships stood out in particular, and the goods loaded inside them had quite a few people at the harbor looking curiously their way.
Once Luke and the others boarded, the fleet set off toward its destination not long after.
At a glance, the scale was even larger than last time.
Since this trip's destination was not the coastal waters along the border, they were not sailing toward the sea.
To reach the southeastern border, traveling by water was still the most convenient option, as well as the fastest and least exhausting one.
Demacia had a main river called the Silverrun River, and on the other side was another river called the Silverseek River.
That river almost stretched from the far west of Demacia all the way to the southeast, and even crossed beyond the border.
Winter had only just begun, and the temperature was not yet low enough to stop travel by water.
In a little while, when the temperature dropped further, the river would freeze over, and traveling by ship would no longer be easy.
Their destination this time was a port city called Terbisia.
Standing at the bow as the ship rocked gently and moved toward its destination, Luke looked over the shimmering river ahead and felt a strange sense of familiarity.
He actually quite liked riding on ships, as long as he ignored the way the deck would sometimes sway noticeably with the waves.
After boarding, Kahina and Lux were both visibly excited. It was their first time on a ship, and they were headed all the way to the border.
So everything on board, along with the scenery passing outside, filled them with curiosity.
But as the wind gradually picked up and the sailing speed increased, Luke, who had been watching the scenery with a drowsy sway to his body, suddenly noticed Miss Crownguard stumbling toward him with a pale little face.
When she reached him, she dropped to her knees with a thud.
Luke paused. "No need for such a grand salute."
"To hell with you..." Lux glared at him with the last bit of strength she had, then collapsed weakly forward.
Luke caught her, and from her feeble expression and dizzy eyes, he naturally understood what was going on.
She was obviously seasick.
"Urgh..."
As the ship rocked twice more, Lux opened her mouth. She had barely started gagging before Luke clapped a hand over it.
Her eyes widened as she glared at him, but soon shut again in discomfort.
In truth, she did not really want to throw up. It was just that every time the ship rocked, she got dizzy, and once she was dizzy, her chest and head felt so awful she could barely stand it.
Seasickness was normal enough, but from the look of it, she was the kind who got hit especially hard.
Luke had not prepared any seasickness medicine in advance, so for now, all he could do was ease it a little.
He reached out and placed a hand near her temples, gently massaging them, then moved to several pressure points at the back of her soft white neck and kept kneading them.
Lux did not resist in the slightest. As she felt Luke's slightly cool but very comfortable fingers working over her, a faintly blissful look gradually appeared on her woozy little face.
The moment Luke saw that, he was instantly a bit annoyed.
He was exhausted himself, but somehow he still had to take care of this girl first.
It was obvious that part of how bad she looked right now was an act. The silly little smile tugging at the corner of her mouth had already sold her out, and naturally it did not fool Luke.
So he put a bit more force into his hands.
Lux gave a couple of soft little sounds, frowned, and said, "A little gentler."
Not only did Luke not ease up, he pressed harder. "Do you think I'm your personal masseur?"
This time Lux opened her eyes and looked at him in dissatisfaction. "I'm a patient right now. You're supposed to treat me gently. What you were doing to my neck felt really nice, keep going a bit longer."
"So now you're really enjoying yourself, huh?" Luke reached out without ceremony and pinched both of her soft, dewy cheeks, forcing her lips into a pout.
Her face was unbelievably soft. Pinching it felt way too good.
"Let go of be!" Lux struggled at once, protesting through squished cheeks.
Luke released her, and she immediately sat up, rubbing her face while glaring at him.
Pretending not to notice, Luke casually asked, "Still dizzy?"
Lux tested it out. Even when the ship rocked again, the spinning feeling really was gone.
Her face lit up with surprise. "I'm really not dizzy anymore!"
"That's only temporary. Wait here, I'll go make you some seasickness medicine."
Luke yawned and got to his feet.
Lux's little face instantly fell. "Huh? I still have to drink medicine?"
It was not like she had never had Luke's medicine before. The last time, when her tooth had hurt, the stuff had been so bitter it had nearly made her pass out.
The second she heard she had to drink medicine, she was against it with every fiber of her being.
Luke looked back at her. "You don't have to, as long as you can handle feeling the way you just did."
Lux hesitated, then blinked at him. "When I get dizzy, you could just massage me again."
Luke gave a dry laugh. "Nice try."
They were going to be on this ship for more than a day or two. There was no way he was going to spend the whole journey waiting on this young lady hand and foot.
Seeing her little scheme fail, Lux let out a sigh.
In the end, she could not escape her fate of drinking a bowl of bitter medicine.
That said, Luke's medicine really did work absurdly well.
After drinking it, Lux was no longer seasick.
Instead, she was sick from the medicine.
The moment that horrifyingly bitter bowl went down, Lux immediately felt like her whole world had turned dark. Her face visibly paled a few shades, and she honestly did not look much better than when she had been seasick.
After that, she flopped onto the bed in her room and had no strength left at all.
Over the past few days, she had actually learned a fair amount of pharmacology, and she was pretty sure medicine like that was not supposed to be so bitter.
She strongly suspected that Luke had secretly added some irrelevant herbs just to make it taste worse.
But she had no proof, and no strength either, so she could only let it go.
After eating a little lunch, Luke was so sleepy he could not take it anymore, and he lay down and fell asleep.
When he woke up again, the sky had already darkened. The sun was sinking westward, and golden-red clouds rolled across the horizon, swaying beautifully above the lamps lit one by one along both banks.
The fleet was passing a riverside town that seemed to be holding some kind of festival. When the young men and women on shore saw the ships, they warmly crowded along the bank and tossed fresh fruit and beautiful flower garlands up toward the deck.
Children ran along the riverside chasing after the fleet, full of laughter and cheer.
The scene moved Luke a little, and he found himself especially drawn to that kind of atmosphere.
Lux stood on deck too, enthusiastically waving back at both shores as if she had joined the celebration herself.
Under the sunset, Miss Crownguard seemed to sparkle, and more than a few people were left staring.
Luke glanced at her and confirmed that she was no longer seasick.
The fleet traveled quickly. By the time night fell, they had already passed the riverside town and kept moving nonstop toward their destination.
At three in the afternoon on November 23, at the foot of Verdant Peak in the Argent Mountains, Jarvan IV led twenty-five hundred soldiers onward in the direction of Trevale.
At that moment, seated atop a fine horse, Jarvan IV looked at the letter in his hand, and his grip tightened without him realizing it.
"So the Gates of Mourning fell after all."
He looked toward the Gates of Mourning, and he had already more or less expected this result.
The Gates of Mourning stood on elevated ground amid steep terrain, backed by the mountains themselves. It held a natural height advantage and was an excellent location, easy to defend and hard to attack.
For many years, it had been one of the main places contested by Demacia and Noxus.
Ever since Noxus had withdrawn more than a decade ago, control of the Gates of Mourning had remained in Demacia's hands.
Because of how distant it was, Demacia had assigned allied forces to hold it.
This time, with Noxus launching a fierce assault, and with refugees, bandits, and savage tribes providing cover, Demacia's allies at the Gates had ultimately failed to hold out until reinforcements arrived.
A lieutenant at his side asked, "Your Highness, what should we do?"
Jarvan IV tucked the message away and looked ahead. "Keep moving. If I remember right, the lizardfolk territory is twenty-five km ahead. We'll go there first and see."
Their line of attack was aimed at Trevale, which lay south of the Gates of Mourning.
And ahead of them was the territory of one of Demacia's allies, the lizardfolk.
The lizardfolk were a people with bodies like humans, though their physical features resembled lizards. Their intelligence and way of life, however, were much the same as humanity's.
And the lizardfolk were not a warlike people.
Many years earlier, they had willingly placed themselves under Demacia's protection and become one of the kingdom's loyal allies.
They liked living in this kind of region, so the race had never migrated and had lived there year-round.
They produced a resource known as lizardhide, an excellent material for Demacia's soft leather armor.
Once the order was given, the force continued onward.
After they had marched another thirty li, Jarvan IV looked at the rolling column of smoke rising in the distance through the forest, and a bad feeling started to creep over him.
"Full speed ahead!"
Without the slightest hesitation, he shouted the order. The horse beneath him immediately surged forward, racing toward the lizardfolk territory.
Behind him, all twenty-five hundred soldiers followed at full speed.
As they drew nearer, the sounds of battle, roars, screams, and crying grew clearer and clearer out of the haze.
The lizardfolk territory was on fire, black smoke rising into the sky without end.
Within that smoke, black-armored soldiers moved back and forth. Beneath their helmets, their faces were as savage as demons, and the bloodied blades in their hands fell mercilessly on one defenseless lizardfolk after another.
Women, children, young men and women, no matter how they begged, none of them could escape the enemy's slaughter.
They set the lizardfolk homes ablaze, making the fire spread even worse.
Blood dyed the ground red, and against the uncleared snow, that red was all the more vivid.
Some of the lizardfolk who could fight kept resisting, but before this army, they looked weak and powerless.
One lizardfolk corpse after another fell, and in their eyes before death was only despair and helplessness.
Against such a scene, the laughter of the butchers sounded even more piercing.
A merciless massacre was unfolding right before Jarvan IV and his men.
In an instant, towering fury flooded Jarvan IV's eyes. He raised his long halberd high and roared, "Kill!"
The word had barely left his mouth before he was already charging into the lizardfolk territory at the head of the attack, unwilling to waste even a moment.
"Kill!"
From behind him came the thunderous roar of twenty-five hundred soldiers replying as one.
Jarvan IV had already plunged into the territory, riding straight at a Noxian soldier with unstoppable force. Before he even closed the distance, the halberd in his hands was already swinging.
The soldier did not even have time to react before the weapon crashed into him. Cracks split through the hard armor on his body as he was hurled backward, smashing into his own allies.
He was dead before he hit the ground.
Jarvan IV leaped from his horse and swept his halberd at several enemies ahead, the weapon carrying the full weight of his rage.
"Ahhh!"
Amid the burst of screams, in that brief instant alone, he had already taken several Noxian lives.
Behind him, the rest of the soldiers arrived and launched themselves at the enemy force occupying the territory.
The Noxian troops were too scattered and failed to react in time, suffering heavy losses.
But they were still battlefield soldiers in the end. They recovered quickly, rallied together, and launched a counterattack against Jarvan IV's army.
There were a great many of them, six or seven thousand in all, a warband with no little strength.
Very quickly, the two sides crashed into each other. For a time, the sounds of fighting filled the air, and the clash of weapons rang out from every direction.
But the advantage remained firmly with Jarvan IV.
Though he had fewer men, each of the twenty-five hundred soldiers who had marched with him had been carefully trained and were fierce, battle-hardened warriors.
Even before the campaign began, they had already forged excellent teamwork.
All the brutal daily training had been for this day.
No matter what formation was needed, all it took was a single order from Jarvan IV, and it could be assembled at once.
By comparison, even though the Noxian warband had numbers on its side, the strength of its soldiers varied wildly. It was obvious at a glance that the force had been cobbled together, and before taking the field, it had not even undergone unified training.
But that was indeed the Noxian style. Their ability to absorb new blood into their ranks was too strong, and fresh soldiers joined the army in a constant stream.
As a result, quality had become secondary.
That style of fighting, overwhelming the enemy by sheer numbers, worked well enough against weaker tribes and small kingdoms.
But against Demacia, their advantage in numbers all but vanished.
In the early days, Noxus had underestimated Demacia on exactly this point, and paid dearly for it.
Under Jarvan IV's leadership, the battle quickly tilted into a one-sided advantage for his side.
Once the Noxian commander was suddenly killed, the warband, still three to four thousand strong, immediately lost all cohesion and broke apart in panic, fleeing in every direction.
"Leave three hundred men behind to secure the area. Everyone else, with me, kill!"
Jarvan IV's furious eyes shone with merciless light as he gave the order and took the lead in pursuit.
There was no way he would allow a Noxian warband to butcher his allies like this and simply walk away.
The ruin of the lizardfolk lay right before him. This peace-loving race had almost been wiped out.
Damn Noxus.
He ground his teeth, the fire in his heart burning hotter and hotter, and he swore to himself that he would make them answer for what had been done to the lizardfolk.
Jarvan IV led his troops in relentless pursuit, dead set on wiping out the fleeing warband to the last man.
And at that moment, the fury of those twenty-two hundred soldiers was the same as his own.
They were determined to make Noxus pay.
So they chased on and on, not knowing how far they had gone, cutting the warband from three or four thousand down to two or three thousand, and finally to only one thousand.
It still was not enough. Every last one of them deserved to die.
"Brother, on this campaign, you have to be careful, and then be even more careful."
With rage clouding his mind, Jarvan IV suddenly heard that voice in his head.
In an instant, he snapped awake.
He yanked hard on the reins. His horse let out a shrill cry and skidded to an abrupt stop.
Looking up, he realized it was already nearly evening, and darkness was close at hand.
He raised his head and shouted, "All troops, halt!"
At the order, the soldiers behind him immediately came to a stop.
Jarvan IV took several deep breaths. The cool thin air of the woods cleared his mind even further.
He looked ahead. Under the dim evening sky, the road taken by the fleeing remnant force looked dark and eerie, enough to set anyone on edge.
Of course, he was not afraid of that.
But he suddenly realized he had no idea how far he had chased them, or even what direction he had drifted into.
It was regrettable that some of the enemy had still escaped complete extermination.
But his instincts told him he could not keep chasing.
Their army had been moving toward Trevale, which meant toward Noxian territory, and right now he only had twenty-two hundred men with him.
The rest of his forces were elsewhere, leaving his strength spread thin.
If he kept charging ahead recklessly and Noxus had an ambush waiting in front of him, the consequences would be disastrous.
"Your Highness, I believe not pursuing further is the correct decision. Once it gets dark, the road will be hard to see. If the enemy has set an ambush, we may not be able to react in time."
A lieutenant stepped forward and finally voiced the advice he had wanted to offer earlier.
"I know. For now, we return to the lizardfolk." Jarvan IV's face had regained its calm, but the fire in his heart still burned.
As he turned his horse around, his grip on the reins tightened further.
There was no way he would swallow this outrage from Noxus so easily.
And so he led the force back toward the lizardfolk territory.
For some reason, the unease in Jarvan IV's heart gradually faded.
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