After the lengthy speech Lunax sat down on the top of the arch, and closed his eyes. For a couple of breaths nothing happened, but then he joined his palms in front in a praying position, and his whole body began to glow with a purple hue.
"Get ready!" Roganax, along with the other instructors, commanded while the vanguard forces already stood in neat rows next to the rift gate.
Younglings were more disorderly, but fortunately the lengthy training kicked in and they quickly imitated their older colleagues.
It took some bumping and pushing for the trainees to get in the proper formation, and when Lee could focus his attention on Lunax again, the purple glow around the elemental lord was much more intense. At this point it was almost as if the God burned in purple flames.
The one man performance was an impressive spectacle and the crowd, even the seasoned vanguard soldiers, watched it, holding their breaths. And while initially Lee was more interested in the whole rift concept, even he forgot himself when Lunax slapped his palms on the gate and a large, a dark-purple rift appeared in front of the army.
At first one might've thought it was only an illusion – there was no distinct sound, nor were there spatial ripples.
Contrary to Lee's expectations, there were no indicators of rift appearing, at least he didn't notice any, but there was no time to become disappointed because the vanguard stormed through the gate, and the younger generation of warriors followed.
For a split moment the increasingly annoying Raixoo!!! like a loud explosion deafened Lee, and rushing through the gate blinded him right after. By now he already knew that the first time he went through the rift he didn't experience a brief moment of dizziness – he was actually out for a while, and only regained his senses at the registration point.
This time, though, Lee followed Roganax's teachings, loudly roaring the battle cry along with the others.
He wasn't certain whether it was the lengthy exhale or the vibrations of the sound waves that allowed him to only feel slight nausea instead of loosing consciousness after passing through, but he knew there will be other opportunities to explore the matter.
Right now he had to pull up Olpax – his squad member who was supposed to hold the right side in their formation. For some reason the guy actually passed out and if not for Lee, he would've gotten stomped by the advancing crowd.
Technically Lee was supposed to replace him, becoming the new right wing so the squad could continue to move in an arrow formation without slowing down. But they were in the middle of a large army and their so called formation currently didn't matter – at least to Lee's understanding.
Of course, if he tried to suggest it to the cyclops, he would've been severely punished, but the instructor was at the other side of the gate.
Kilax, the guy to Lee's left, also noticed the problem. While still on the move, he pulled Olpax towards himself, allowing Lee to position the guy between the two of them. Then they put Olpax's arms around their necks and continued to rush forward, basically carrying their buddy while his feet lifelessly dragged along.
There were multiple incidents where the newbies passed out and sadly, in most cases, they were ran over by the crowd.
It was hard to blame the young boys, though.
Not only they were trained to ignore the fallen comrades, few moments ago they were brainwashed and, with loads of adrenaline pumping through their veins, half deaf and half blind they were pushed by an army of a similarly dazed kids into a completely foreign environment.
The air was much heavier and it was hot and humid compared to the Ashland. And the sun was high up in the sky and actually shone with a blinding light. And the armor actually felt heavy.
It took a moment for Lee to register the changes, but when he did, despite carrying another person, he happily took a deep breath. It was almost as if he was back at their home in Costa Rica!
He missed the feeling, and all that was left now was for everyone to run to the beach … too bad the arm around his neck wasn't Lisa's but that of a smelly, unconscious kid … and too bad the roaring crowd Lee was part of was about to bring disaster to a paradise-like place.
Fortunately Olpax wasn't out for too long.
After coming back to his senses, he realized what transpired, but there wasn't much he could do about it. During the short incident he lost his spear and buckler, but at some point he could pick them up, probably on the way back.
Now he took Lee's regular position in the middle of the back line of the formation, and rushed forth along with the others, pretending nothing happened.
While the minds of the younger generation were clearing up, the actual vanguard clashed with the local forces. Lee didn't see the opponents yet, but pretty soon the salty smell of blood assaulted his senses.
'Please let it be the proximity of an ocean or a sea!' Lee prayed, but knew it was silly. Few moments later they were already stepping over bodies of locals.
While on the move he couldn't tell what locals looked like, but judging from their weaponry, the wooden spears that broke like thin branches under his feet, they were not particularly advanced.
The fact that no flame pillars shot to the sky from the front lines also indicated that the scourge overpowered the locals with pure physical force. And that meant that the actual vanguard soldiers didn't suffer any losses at all.
"To the left!" Fenax commanded along with few other squad members, and Lee knew the most disgusting part of the so called conquest began.
His squad of six newbies, along with eight other groups, followed the previously assigned three vanguard squads. The smaller formation of seventy eight soldiers separated from the main force and rushed towards the left side.
In fact, the main army split in multiple similar divisions and each rushed towards their own goal. The defenders turned out to be weak, thus almost no efforts were spent on chasing the escapees.
Finally Lee was able to observe the surroundings.
As expected from the humidity and the temperature, nature here was somewhat tropical. Plants and trees were foreign, of course, but had similarities to the flora Lee had seen in his previous lives.
The lush greenery was a pleasant change to the eye after months in the never ending grayness and a thought this probably isn't too bad place to live in passed though Lee's mind.
Unfortunately at that moment they arrived at a populated area.
They were in the suburbs of a large town or even a city, and continued to run along an actual street. It was a simple dirt road, with clay shacks at both sides, but it was already obvious what horror the invaders brought. The locals, on average five foot tall people with reddish skin, tried to find shelter in their homes or ran away, screaming in panic.
There were few groups of brave local warriors who dared to try to stop the scourge, but the difference in strength was too much. Their efforts were valiant, but also laughable at the same time, and sadly the guys only payed with their lives.
After rushing for a mile, or maybe two, Lee's troop separated again. Now there was only one vanguard squad of six and three newbie squads – twenty one soldiers in total. And from the looks of it, the active part of the invasion was also over – Lee's group, similar to the rest began to patrol the streets of the city.
The buildings were taller here, some even up to three stories high, and built in stone. It seemed they had reached the center of this place and the squads transformed into simple patrol units.
They didn't attack anyone or rob anything. They only patrolled the streets as if it was their own home, causing panic and fear in the hearts of the locals.
At first Lee thought the whole endeavor was beyond moronic. To waste time and resources to bring younglings to foreign place so they could practice marching around was silly. And that was not counting the effort the so called God had to put in for this to happen.
But soon Lee was brought back to reality – for some reason he kept overestimating the sense of humanity the scourge had.
Lee's attention was drawn by screams of pain and despair. They were caused by scourge soldiers organized in the typical squads of six, but Lee was certain he hadn't seen them before. They weren't dressed in the usual armor and didn't carry spears or bucklers.
But these guys were more ruthless than the vanguard. They stomped on the faces of mothers while pulling kids from their arms, killed anyone who dared to look at them the wrong way or even if they simply didn't like someone.