"Mmm, ready."

After having dealt with the last lizard monsters Lux quickly started administering first aid to Mare, first up was aligning the - bone before it could be temporarily set with black matter, that meant forcing the broken bone, fragments and all, back into its original shape. The way Lux accomplished that feat was as simple as it was utterly pain inducing.

"Here we go… 3, 2, 1."

"MMMMM!!!!"

After fastening her own belt around Mare's thigh and making sure the young beastkin couldn't accidentally bite off her own tongue, Lux tightened her belt around Mare's leg, forcefully aligning the shattered bone before applying black matter to the affected area.

"Okay, it looks like the bone is setting without issue, next up is your arm Mare, show it here."

Striking while the metal was still hot, Lux took care of Mare's hand which had most of its bones shattered a few minutes earlier, that process was rather more simple as all she had to do was applying black matter to the area. After a few more minutes of agony, Mare's pain gradually started to lessen before it completely disappeared.

"Looks like it worked, but stay put. Even if the bone is set and reinforced with black matter it isn't healed, we'll need the bioprinter that's back in the AEHWP transport for that kind of work."

"Okay."

Reluctantly sitting back down after Lux handed over her pistol, Mare took a look around in the room they currently found themselves in for the first time. Located at the very top of central palace building in the middle of Aeth, the roof was a large dome decorated on the inside with some kind of intricate painting, if Eos had been sane and present she would have recognized it as the story of the great calamity, but extended to show what had happened inside Aeth. Not much else other than the numerous monster copses was inside the room where the large monster clearly had made its nest, other than some kind of central obelisk.

"Lux."

"What?"

Lux who was busy firing off a flare in the direction that Alice and Lilly could see it answered absentmindedly.

"What's that over there? It looks important."

"I'll check it out."

Also noticing the obelisk Lux immediately found herself drawn to it, whatever it was Mare had been correct in stating that it looked important. Walking over to the obelisk Lux noticed that the 1 metre wide, 5 metre tall obelisk was completely covered in rune formations, with the centre of it hallowed out and housing a half metre wide sphere.

"... Is that?"

Not able to belive what Mare just had pointed out, Lux did a double check to make sure. The sphere was covered in intricate rune formations all over, which were a magnitude more detailed than the rest of the obelisk, but that's wasn't what had caught Lux's eye, no, it was the fact that the sphere had clear technological components which made Lux think of an anti grav generator.

"This is a mana generator! Nicely spotted Mare!"

Recognizing the mechanism from data Dax had brought back from the lost sanctuary Lux realized what she was looking at, and although there was a large hole through the centre of it, this was still a huge find.

Carrying both the injured Mare and the generator back the AEHWP transport Lux collapsed limply on the floor of the transport along with the rest of her team, setting the auto pilot to bring them back home Lux lazily filled a mission report and set the suspected mana generator to be scanned before pa.s.sing out from exhaustion.

Mission report

Commonly investigated, revealed to be a lost city and or sanctuary. 1 damaged artefact (possible mana generator) recovered for a.n.a.lysis. Markings, statues and other cultural artefacts recorded in mission replay.

Losses as follows:

KIA: 0

MIA 0

Injured: 5 

Note, 1 person sustained deep psychological trauma, the possibility of recovery unknown at this moment.

-

While the AEHWP transport became silent a single scanner still worked on a.n.a.lysing the artefact Lux had brought back with her. The countless, densely packed rune formations were catalogued while every single technological component throughout the artefact was scanned down to the function of each individual transistor throughout the artefact, eventually revealing a few lines of text which had been inscribed in the core part of the machine.

Waking up after a few hours of rest Lux started making her way over to the bioprinter so she could get her body healed, but instead of doing that she stopped in place when she saw the result of the scan.

"... What the f.u.c.k?"

Making sure she hadn't misread the message Lux woke up Lilly and showed the data to her, something which instantly dispelled the elver's grogginess.

"So? Can you read that?"

Looking at the text for a few seconds Lilly realized that some of it was written in an old language which the spirits and some archangels still used, while the other parts were written in some strange looking language she didn't understand, that other language was traditional qiton.

"Yeah, I can… And I'm guessing that part there is in a language you can read?"

Pointing at the first paragraph Lilly suggested that she would read the text in tandem with Lux.

"Yeah, it's the language Dax's race originally used… It says: 'On this day that this device is operational, we, the free survivors of this unjust war which has destroyed our holy garden'...-"

"-'Declare ourselves independent from the G.o.ds that created us, unbound by their rule we reject their garden for we have created our own, just like they made created our world, but unlike those false G.o.ds, we create our own not for something as petty as'...-"

"-'Crude entertainment and the creations of weapons, but for life, equality and peace. Our creators from this other plane of existence will no longer control us.'-"

"-'We are now free, in this city named after our glorious leader: Aeth.'"

Instantly a lot more things made sense to Lux. Before this point, she had often wondered why this world she found herself on had so many different intelligent races when normally, the first one who would rise above the others would make their priority to wipe out those less than itself. It was no longer something strange that this planet she found herself on emitted that strange particle which the inhabitants referred to as mana.

This world, or garden as their creators had called it, was something which had been sculpted by that race of long lost s.p.a.cefarers who created the qiton's and Avoaxian's.

"So this is why that place suffered a ma.s.sacre. I guess those 'creators' didn't take kindly to the rebellion of their creations."

Thinking back to the neatly stacked piles of bones Lux had already figured them strange when she investigated them the first time, but now it made perfect sense. The people of Aeth were one sidedly annihilated by something much stronger than themselves, and all evidence pointed towards the so called 'creators' or 'G.o.ds'.

"Yeah… But another thing that's worrying me is those 'weapons', I wonder if they are those elders?"

"That might be the case, but we won't know for sure before we've killed one of those things and carefully examined the remains."

With a new secondary goal established Lux decided to join the front lines as soon as she had healed up, aiming to be the first one who slew one of the elders and the first one to take one apart to reveal its inner workings.

---

[ICI OVERLORD TO SCOUTING ELEMENT: MISSION IS A GO, INFILTRATE USING POINT GAMMA.]

"... You all heard the creepy voice, let's go."

"""""Yes, ma'am."""""

(Time to get this show on the road.)

Hardening her determination, Terra walked out of the barracks she had spent the last few hours inside waiting to receive orders for deployment. Following her orders were a group of hardened veterans of warfare from every walk of life, everything from mighty archangels to former mercenaries and warbands from the Nothern republic. The job they all had volunteered or was as simple as it was dangerous: infiltrate the elder controlled imperial continent, verify the situation near the former capital and retrieve samples of the flesh and electricity eating fungus which was spreading throughout the area, then return alive, or at least make sure the data made it back, that was all. Such a mission might have been considered a walk in the park for the hardened troops which was to carry it out, if not for the so called 'elders', 4 metre tall constructs of decaying flesh, runestones and cybernetic implants which loathed all life. When the scouting force was eventually discovered inside their territory, the chance of survival would drop to fractions of a single digit, in that event the discovered forces would make no attempt to escape, but instead transmit their data, then distract the elder for as long as possible. 

Terra had volunteered to lead such a suicidal force, not because of foolhardy beliefs or a sense of responsibility or duty, but because she was Dax's first disciple. Having spent the longest time being trained by him and Lux among the rest of the residents of her world, Terra was the natural choice to lead such a force after Dax recognized that he needed to take personal command of the force which was going to raid the lost sanctuary on the moon. That a.s.sumption wasn't out of some sort of pride or superiority complex, but a simple and unbiased a.s.sessment made by both ICI, Lux and Dax himself after such a recommendation Terra felt like she had to volunteer to lead the force.

Since making that decision Terra had spent day and night mastering the new equipment she would need for the operation, mainly the Valkyrie armour developed by Iris which allowed one to fly with manoeuvrability not even angels could match by automatically deploying a flight spell in parallel with a ma.s.s reduction formation and utilizing multiple VASMIR thrusters. As Terra was already wearing the undersuit necessary to interface with the Valkyrie armour she stepped onto a metal platform, placing both her hands firmly on guard the rails on both sides.

"Ready."

[ICI CONFIRMS, SEALING OPERATOR.]

Giving her permission, serval robotic arms emerged from the platform below her, carrying pieces of the Valkyrie to their correct positions before securing them to Terra, locking the dull black armour around Terra.

[CONFIRM INTERFACING.]

"... Ready for interfacing."

Bracing herself, Terra gritted her teeth as the suit drilled multiple needles into her spine, interfacing with unused nerve cl.u.s.ters signalled by a sharp feedback induced pain which spread out in Terra's body, making the armour a seamless part of Terra's body as a pair of metal 'wings' were attached to her hip, folding themselves up on her back.

[ICI CONFIRMS, INTERFACING SUCCESSFUL, OPERATOR SEALED, VALKYRIE VERSION 2.3 INTERFACE ONLINE.] 

As the mechanical arms retracted into the metal platform once more Terra cracked her neck before stretching her body, making the pair of metal wings which housed the thrusters and mana interfaces do the same as they had been connected to her nervous system. Putting on a helmet which would look more at home on a fighter pilot than anything else, Terra confirmed her route of entry into the imperial continent as she took command of her unit.

"This is flight leader addressing all units: I hope y'all have written up your wills, today's leisure trip will take us straight to h.e.l.l and the last chance of backing out was 10 minutes ago... LET'S DO THIS!"