The road was quiet for the first hour. Too quiet, as it turned out.
Lucius felt it before he heard anything. His senses had been running clean since the integration notification, steady and reliable in a way they hadn't been before, and somewhere between one step and the next he caught it.
A feeling in the air, like pressure building before a storm. Three distinct presences spaced apart, moving parallel to the road through the treeline on their left.
He didn't break stride, kept the same pace, but lowered to inform Seraphine.
"We're being followed," he said quietly. "Left side, three of them."
Seraphine's pace didn't change either. "Scouts or fighters?"
"Fighters. They're already in position." He kept his eyes on the road ahead. "They've been waiting for us."
"Heaven moves quite faster than I expected."
"They had time to get ahead of us. We weren't exactly sprinting out of the forest." He flexed his right hand slowly.
The solar energy was there when he reached for it, warm and immediate, fuller than it had felt before. Steady, like standing near a hearth rather than the uncontrolled heat he'd been managing before the integration.
"When they move, stay behind me."
"I'm not an invalid Lucius."
"I know, still stay behind me."
She didn't argue, which told him more aboht she was feeling than anything she had said all morning.
They came out of the trees thirty metres ahead, stepping onto the road in a clean line that blocked the path entirely. Three of them, armed and armored in the pale silver of heaven's field units.
Each of them carried something luminous about them, a faint divine radiance that his senses read immediately.
The other in the center raised his hand.
"Lucius of no house." His voice carried easily across the road. "By heaven's authority and jurisdiction, you are ordered to surrender and submit to divine judgement. This is your one opportunity to do so."
Lucius stopped walking.
"You found us quite faster," he said.
"Heaven's reach is long and well equipped with information." The lead warrior's eyes moved briefly to Seraphine. "The apostate comes as well. Both of you will be—"
Lucius was already moving before he could finish his sentence.
He closed ten meters before they finished processing his speed, the solar energy rising through him naturally, less like summoning power and more like removing something that had been holding it back.
It came clean and immediate, flooding through his limbs as he hit the lead warrior with a shoulder check that sent the man skidding backward across the dirty road.
The other two reacted fast. The one on the right came in low with a divine blade that trailed a bright light, and Lucius twisted sideways, catching the forearm rather than the edge, using the momentum to spin the warrior off balance.
The third came from the left and he ducked the first swing, took a glancing strike across the shoulder that burned, and drove his elbow into the gap between helmet and gorget hard enough to feel the impact up to his teeth.
Not clean enough, but it bought him enough space.
He reset, putting distance between himself and all three while they regrouped. His shoulder was hot where the divine blade had grazed it. Not deep but the holy energy in the cut was already irritating his system, a specific unpleasant friction where his absorbed divine core met the standardized heaven issue blessing in the wound.
The lead warrior was back on his feet. All three cae this time, more coordinated than the last time.
'Tch! Fine.'
He let them come to within five meters and called the solar energy up in a way he hadn't tried before. Not a push, not a strike either. He pulled it up from his core and simply let it out, expansiva, a ring of solar force that expanded outward from where he stood and hit all three simultaneously.
The effect was immediate and severe.
All three warriors staggered. The two on the flanks went down to one knee, their divine radiance flickering as his solar output clashed against their blessings and won. The lead warrior took a step back, genuinely surprised, his composure dismantling for the first time.
[Skill Activated: Blazing Sun]
The notification arrived alongside a wave of heat that rolled outward and washed across the road. The air shimmered visibly. The divine radiance on all three warriors guttered and dimmed the way a candle does when you open a window against it.
But the drain hit Lucius immediately after, a sudden pull from his core like the ground dropping under him. His legs harld but only just for a while. His vision swam at the edges for half a second and he forced it clear through sheer refusal to let it show.
'Tch, an expensive mistake.'
The lead warrior recovered fastest, which meant he was either stronger or more stubborn than the other. He drove forward with a charged strike, his divine blade blazing white and Lucius caught it on his forearm rather than his palm, letting the force angle away rather than absorbing it full.
He used the redirect to put himself inside the warriors guard and hit him twice in the body, hard and precise, targeting the gaps in the armors plate coverage.
The warrior went down on one knee.
From behind him, Lucius heard Seraphine.
She moved up on the right flank warrior, the one still struggling to rise. Her voice was low and sharp as she called up her ability, the corrupted divine energy manifesting differently than heaven's clean blessing, dark at the edges, less radiant.
It cost her visibly. He could see the effort in her stance, the way she braced herself as she used it, legs planted wider than normal to compensate for her weakened core.
But it worked.
The flanks warrior collapsed, her ability cutting through his diminished blessing and dropping him hard. She stepped back immediately after, breathing controlled but deliberate.
The third warrior was still on both feet. He had used the chaos to regrouped and was circling towards Seraphine now, reading the situation correctly, going for the weaker target.
Lucius intercepted him before he covered half the distance.
He didn't use blazing sun again. He couldn't afford the drain twice in one fight, not yet, not until he understood the stats of the fight better. He used his body instead, getting between the warrior and Seraphine, taking a strike to the side that cracked something or nearly did, and hitting back with a focused burst of solar energy that wasn't an ability so much as raw output, direct and sharp, aimed at the center of the warrior's chest.
The divine radiance on the warrior went out like a lamp.
All three went down.
Lucius stood in the road with his arm screaming and his core running lower than expected and the residue of blazing sun still dissipating into the air around him, making the road shimmer faintly in the morning light.
He inhaled deeply, letting the air circulate inside him before letting it out.
[Absorbing Defeated Targets...]
The system worked through all three in sequence, the familiar sensation pulling through him like current running through water. He stood still for it, letting it finish, keeping his weight balanced between both feet so Seraphine wouldn't see him favouring his side.
Then the second notification came almost immediately.
[LEVEL UP: 3 → 4]
[All attributes upgraded. Core stability increased. Skill ceiling raised.]
[New Skill Available: Enhanced Solar Output — passive. Blazing Sun efficiency increased by 30%. Drain reduced.]
He read the message carefully then let out a slow breath. 'For a second there I thought….'
"You're bleeding." Seraphine said from behind him.
"I know, I can see that."
"Your arm."
"I know that too." he turned. She was standing five meters back, one hand braced against her knee, the other pressed flat against her sternum. The moment she caught him looking she dropped both hands to her sides.
"Are you hurt in any way?"
"No." He said immediately.
"Seraphine."
"I just used my ability twice, I'm tired." She met his eyes without flinching. "Not injured in any way, just tired. There's a difference."
He looked at her for a moment longer than necessary, studying her before coming to a conclusion.
"Okay." He said.
She straightened. "What happened at the end? The heat, the shimmer. What was that?"
"Well, its just an ability I got… or something like that." He looked down at his hand, where the solar energy had already settled back to its resting state, quiet under his skin. "I call it Blazing Sun. It radiates outward and hits everything in range." He paused. "It's effective."
"I noticed."
"Its also expensive to use." He closed his hand. "My core dropped significantly. I need to understand the limits before I use it as a primary."
Seraphine was quiet for a moment, looking at the fallen warriors in the road. "They'll send more. This is not the end of it"
"Yes, that is to be expected."
"Heaven doesn't stop at three scouts."
"No." He started walking again, stepping around the nearest fallen warrior, angling back to the road proper. "Which means we need to move faster than we planned." He glanced back at her. "Can you manage faster?"
She pulled herself upright and walked past him with her chin level and her jaw set. "Try to keep up."
She was pale. Her steps were measured in the way of someone conserving every unit of energy available to them.
But she was moving.
Lucius fell in beside her, adjusted his carry so the pack weight sat on his uninjured side, and said nothing about any of it.
The valley road ran northwest. The hills on either side were quiet. Somewhere behind them, or ahead of them, or both, Heaven was already updating its reports.
He reached for his core, checking its new limit carefully.
The increase was there, real and solid, every attribute sitting higher than it had two minutes ago. His solar energy felt less strained than it had mid-fight. His Divine Sense had a slightly longer reach.
The Blazing Sun drain was already better than the first use. The passive skill had kicked in immediately.
'This is getting genuinely good.' he managed a smirk.