Lishia considered his audacious proposal with her mind instantly weighing the potential risks against the massive potential reward his strategy presented.

It was insane. But it was also brilliant. If it worked then it had the potential to outright end this stalemate in a single night.

"Infiltrating their main camp… well, it's incredibly risky," she said slowly, thinking her thoughts aloud.

"We don't know their exact layout, patrol routes and what sort of defenses they might be having. And especially at night since the visibility will be almost zero."

She shook her head. "And we don't have any trained assassins with us at the moment. None of our scouts have that kind of infiltration skill."

Allen met her gaze with his expression being unreadable in the dim light. "Don't worry about that," he said with his voice quiet but firm.

"The night won't be a problem in fact it would rather work out in our favor," he stated.

He pushed his chair back slightly and stood up having made a decision.

"I'll go."

As those words came out of his mouth the tent fell into silence. Luna and Eunice stared at Allen and were clearly surprised by his sudden decision. Lishia's expression remained unreadable but her sharp eyes narrowed slightly.

"Are you aware of what you're saying?" Lishia asked. "You'll go alone into an enemy camp full of soldiers who want us dead, in the middle of the night?"

"Why not?" Allen replied with a casual shrug. "Like I said, the night works in my favor. I'm used to moving in the dark because I had to do a lot of it while escaping those 'friends' of mine back home. I have my methods."

Lishia studied him for a long moment, with her gaze fixed on him but his expression didn't flinch even a bit.

She didn't doubt his power after what he had done today. But infiltration was different. It required skill and wasn't something just anyone was capable of.

That was the entire reason they trained assassins, after all.

It wasn't a matter that could be dealt with just brute force.

"Are you sure about this, Allen?" she asked, this time her voice was quite serious. "This isn't a game. It's incredibly dangerous and if you get caught…"

"I'm sure," Allen interrupted, his voice being firm and leaving no room for doubt. "I can do it."

Lishia went quiet again while her mind was busy clearly weighing the risks and deciding what was the better option.

Sending him alone was insane. But it would be a lie to say that the potential reward wasn't appealing, taking out Randolf could end this fight tonight.

It was a gamble. A huge gamble, but maybe it was their only chance after looking at the way things were going. After a few long and tense seconds she finally gave a single and sharp nod.

"Alright," she said. "We'll go with your plan."

"What?!" Luna immediately objected, stepping forward. "Lishia, no! This is even more reckless than my idea! Sending him in there alone? That's a suicide mission!"

"I understand your concern, Luna," Lishia said calmly while turning to face her. "Which is why you'll be going with him."

Luna stopped short with her mouth half open as she was caught mid sentence. "Me?"

"Yes, you," Lishia confirmed. "That's the only condition under which I will approve this mission. You will go with him and provide backup and support him in all conditions."

She looked from Luna to Allen, her expression stern with the commander side of hers taking charge. "You heard that too right, you can't go alone you have to take Luna with you. And let me be perfectly clear about this as well. Your primary objective is survival.

"If you encounter anything unexpected, anything that seems too dangerous or anything you don't recognize, you abandon the mission immediately and return to base. No exceptions. Your safety comes before killing Randolf. Is that understood?"

Allen gave a simple nod. "Fine by me. No problem with the conditions."

Yeah why the fuck would I even try to prioritize the mission over my life when I've just met you? Allen remarked sarcastically.

Luna hesitated for a second, looking from Lishia's determined face to Allen's calm one. "…Fine," she finally said, letting out a sigh.

***

Amidst the silence that had spread on the plains the only sound present was of the galloping produced by the horse Luna rode, with Allen sitting behind her.

Leaving the relative warmth and dim light of the outpost the world outside was filled with the cold darkness of the plains.

The only light came from a pale sliver of a crescent moon hanging high in the sky with countless stars. It cast long and distorted shadows across the land, turning familiar shapes into strange and unsettling figures.

A cold wind swept across the open ground carrying with it the metallic tang of old blood and the faint, unsettling smell of burnt earth from the crater.

The battlefield which had roared with the sounds of combat just hours before was now eerily silent.

Allen held onto Luna's waist with his body close to hers as the horse galloped smoothly beneath them. He could feel the cold metal plates of her armor through his simple tunic.

"Sorry about this," Allen said with his voice quiet near her ear and barely audible over the wind and the horse's hooves.

"Still feels weird not knowing how to ride," he added.

Luna let out a small and quiet laugh, the sound was surprisingly light compared to the heavy darkness.

"Really, it's fine," she replied, her voice was soft but focused on guiding the horse. "It's… unexpected, sure. But riding together is faster. And if we run into trouble and need to escape then one horse is better than two anyway."

"Thank you," Allen replied quietly.

They passed through the area where the main fighting had taken place earlier. Even in the dim and unreliable moonlight the signs of the brutal battle were everywhere.

Dark and still shapes lay scattered across the ground like discarded dolls which in reality were the bodies of fallen soldiers from both sides, with their armor shining faintly.

Broken swords and dented and useless shields littered the earth. Further off in the distance the glassy black scar of the crater painted a huge and unnatural void in the landscape as it reflected the pale moonlight like a sheet of dark and shattered pieces of ice.

It felt like riding through a freshly dug grave.

Luna kept her eyes fixed straight ahead and her face set while ignoring the grim reminders of the day's terrible losses.

Allen, however, was seeing something entirely different. The grim landscape held no emotional weight for him and was just terrain data at best.

Which he didn't have any use of for the moment, so it was pretty much useless.

"Are you sure we're going the right way?" Luna asked quietly after a few more minutes of silent riding. The darkness made it hard to keep a sense of direction.

Allen looked off to the side with his eyes being focused on the translucent screen only he could see, floating at the edge of his vision.

"Yeah," he confirmed while his voice was calm and certain.

"Keep heading straight," he added.

On the screen before his eyes the world wasn't dark at all. It was bathed in a clear and almost unnaturally bright and ghostly green light.

The Black Hornet drone hovering about two hundred meters above and slightly ahead of them was feeding him a perfect and real-time night vision view of the terrain.

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