Lucian's plan was to escape by passing his dagger to Luna so that she could activate her skill and poison the tree that had tied them. As simple as his plans may seem, it wasn't that easy; Luna was far away from where he was tied up, and the only one close to her was Marta.
'This is going to hurt Marta; she might end up having her life and magic sucked out of her if Luna doesn't act fast enough, but there's no other way around this.' Lucian thought. He needed to act fast before the brothers returned.
"Marta, I'm going to throw this dagger. I need you to activate your earth elemental magic and use it to get the dagger to Luna so she can kill this tree."
'Where did the dagger come from?' Soren thought. Trying hard to remember if Lucian had a dagger with him before they were captured. Their system allows them to summon certain weapons due to a merit gain by leveling up and fulfilling a task required by the system, but even at that, their system mostly just gave them a long sword, and that was it. Other weapons weren't offered easily. Seeing the finely made dagger that Lucian got through his stolen knight skill raises Soren's respect and admiration for him; although he didn't know the true source of the blade, he thought that Lucian must have done something extraordinary for his system to gift him such a reward.
"Soren. I don't know if this is going to work, but I need you to try and use your magic, summon a weapon, pretend to attack, or something. Let's see if that can lower this damned beast's attention from Marta; that way I know that she will make it." Lucian lowered his voice at the last part of his words.
And then the plan begins. Marta used her earth magic to capture Lucian's dagger the moment he let go and it touched the ground. The tree beast vibrates strongly at the presence of another meal it wasn't going to lose. Soren joined Marta in activating his magic by summoning his weapon that could barely stay in his hands without him using his nightmare spells; the tree didn't have much magic to take from him, unlike Marta, who was on the verge of passing out before she could get the dagger to Luna.
"You can do it!" Lucian shouted. The tree wrapped an angry vine around his mouth, displeased with the noise Lucian was making over its meal.
Marta felt encouraged from Lucian's words; she struggled and was able to use her earth magic to get the dagger to Luna by forming a sandy, inhuman hand. Quickly, because Marta's life was in danger, Luna stabbed the tree hard, using all her strength and using her magic to make her poison more toxic. It was worth it because immediately after the tree vine fell down, as it died and let go of the magic it was stealing from Marta, Luna's hidden skill got leveled up.
"We don't know where we are, but we know where the brothers went; we will go the other way and try our best to move as quickly and as quietly as possible." Lucian's teammates nodded and followed him closely.
'I'm not going to die today.' Lucian thought. 'I didn't struggle to keep myself alive for so long only to die in the hands of two ugly beasts.'
Marta stumbled in her step, struggling to keep her eyes open. She had confirmed to the others that she was okay because she didn't want Lucian to be worried about her, but the truth is that she was far from okay. The effects of almost being eaten alive by a tree beast still affected her; Marta's mana flow felt like a mess. It wasn't flowing freely around her mana core anymore, and it will take a while for her magic to settle down to its original state.
Marta lost her footing and fell down, breaking her ankle.
"Are you okay?" Luna tried healing her ankle only to find out that Marta's mana was unstable and was messing with her body; if she kept pushing herself, she was going to die. "Why didn't you say anything?" She scolded Marta and told Lucian and Soren what was wrong. A steady mana flow wasn't something that Luna magic could heal; Marta needed to rest.
'We can't stay here and wait for Marta to recover.' Lucian thought.
"Put her on my back." Lucian bent down. "I will carry her."
"See, brother." Atlas said, "I told you that something was wrong." His sharp ears heard the noise Marta made when she fell.
Joel dropped down the ancient book that he was holding on the ground; it contains dark magic. "If you hadn't killed that damned tree, I would have killed it myself." He got ready to attack Lucian; this time around he was going to kill one of Lucian's teammates in order to make sure that Lucian behaved. It wasn't time to kill Lucian yet, not until they have gotten what they want out of him.
Lucian thought of fighting; he looked at Marta's unhealthy state, her eyes were badly fighting to stay awake, and he knew that if he put up a fight someone would die, and Lucian didn't want that on his conscience.
"We are sorry; we aren't going to try and escape anymore." Lucian fell on his knees with his hand up; his teammates followed after him.
'What's wrong with him?' Luna clenched her jaw in anger. 'This isn't like him.' She didn't understand why Lucian easily gave up.
Lucian and the others were back to being tied up again. The Achiloq brothers had used the dead tree vine as rope to tie them. Although the tree beast was dead, it was slowly withering away and wasn't fully gone yet. The Achiloq brothers were sure to be done taking what they needed for Lucian before the tree withered completely.
"I have searched this book. I don't know how you have my little brother's magic, and it seems like the only way to get it back is by eating you." Joel glared at Lucian, who fearlessly stared back at him. Although he wasn't sure if eating Lucian would give him and his brother the powers they needed. There was still a lot of research he needed to do so that Lucian's fragile human bones won't be another useless meal in his mouth. "How did you get my little brother magic?" Joel asked; he didn't want to ask before because Lucian looked like the stubborn kind of human that was willing to take his secret to his grave, but seeing how easily Lucian had given up means that he cared a lot for the lives of the other humans around him, most especially the human girl that had passed out. "If you don't tell me, I'm going to kill her." He looked at Marta, who was now awake.
Lucian gritted his teeth; the only one in his team that knew the truth about his magic was Luna. If the others found out about his deceit, they would never trust him again. His team would fall apart and move back to square one again. He sighed and moved his eyes to Marta and Soren, who had questionable looks on their faces, except for Luna, who was paler than usual because she was anxious.
"Fine." Lucian forced out, hesitating. "I will tell you the truth." He spoke out the truth about his abilities. Marta and Soren both had conflicting expressions on their faces.