Lake Nemi, once known as "Diana's Mirror", is still known as such. The town of Aricea, which has lasted from classical times to the present, was built on the north side of the lake, and further north is the sacred grove of the Temple of Diana, the Moon Goddess.
The low and huge buzzing roar of the pulse detonation engine scared away the water birds on the lake, and even the nearby Seismological Observation Bureau received the signal of the detonation. But they immediately received orders from higher-ups to delete the signal records.
A dark shadow passed over the town, dropping a series of parachutes. The black shadow then suddenly accelerated and pulled up, pulling out a sonic boom cloud in the distant sky, and continued to sprint towards the dawn of the horizon, leaving behind a series of intermittent knots of condensation smoke.
The legionnaires on the ground immediately set off and rushed to the scene of the parachute. When they arrived, several human-shaped black figures cut the parachute rope from a height of 50 meters, ignited the recoiling rocket, and slammed to the ground in the light and dust.
Lu Huaiyang patted the dust on his knees and looked at the legionnaires surrounding him. Accompanied by the centurion, the person who came out to meet was a technical officer. After confirming each other's mission commands, the two sides greeted each other with military salutes.
"Io Triumphe, friend of Cathay. Welcome to Rome. We are gathering the other team members, do you need them to assemble here?"
He directly communicated with Lu Huaiyang in Mandarin. Since there are only two world languages that are necessary to learn, and you can travel around the world if you learn them, there are actually quite a lot of people who "can speak Mandarin here in Rome" and "people who can speak Latin over there in the Ming Dynasty."
"Io Triumphe, friend of Da Qin. Yes, bring the others to my place to gather."
Lu Huaiyang didn't want to say anything more, but those inexperienced students seemed to be a little crooked, even more crooked than the luggage. But here are all friendly forces. If it's crooked, just crook it. It's not a big problem.
"Okay." The technical officer from Rome confirmed the order, "I know you have a very important mission here. I have no authority to represent the Roman people, so I would like to express my gratitude to you on behalf of my family. The people of Cathay have traveled thousands of miles. Come and help, the problem here is really shameful. Then, according to the instructions of the Senate, we can only be responsible for gathering you, and we cannot go further. After that, we will evacuate to a safe area for observation, and we will be accompanied by internal guards. You guys got the job done. Take care."
"Um."
"In addition." He pointed to the south, "We are stationed there. A division-level artillery group is deployed there, and the First Army Corps stationed in Rome ten kilometers away can also come to support at any time. If necessary, please send a signal at any time .”
The assembly took half an hour. The first to arrive was Titus 123, followed by 456, who parachuted in groups of three. Shangluo and Lu Liang stayed behind, while Wen Yuan and Han Xingzhi arrived last.
"Why so slow?" Lu Huaiyang looked up at the time, "Although you are not paratroopers, you have already timed out."
He looked at Wen Yuan subconsciously. He was usually blamed for such things.
"No, no, no, it's really not my fault this time. It was this guy who hung up on the tree."
"I asked you to look at the luggage, not him."
"Then you can't blame me! Who can say for sure about parachuting? We shouldn't use parachutes next time. We should glide down directly and use rockets to land. Just like Wang Lingguan, it hit the ground with a 'bang'. "
"You can design this kind of movement yourself when you take care of your apprentice in the future. Okay, are everything ready?"
He took a visual inventory and found that everyone was here. The luggage was loaded into the car and followed not far away.
"Okay, then put on the cloak first and cover it outside the armor. Cover your head with the hood, like a guard."
Titus explained on the side: "Cloaks and windproof hoods are the attire of travelers in foreign lands, and they are required to be worn in many ceremonies. So please do not take off your hoods until the welcome ceremony is completed."
Shangluo and others nodded.
"So, although the branch-breaking part will start tomorrow, the ceremony actually starts today. We will enter the town of Alicia later, and the local elders will come out to greet us and arrange accommodation for us. The town will treat you to a meal It’s a sumptuous dinner, and I invite you all to enjoy it. But even if you don’t have an appetite, you must still eat some. The reason is this.”
He pointed to the sacred grove in the north:
"According to the ancient sacrificial rituals, we need to offer 'strangers' to the Forest King as sacrifices during the ceremony, and only the sacrifices are qualified to fight with the Forest King. The 'strangers' here are you, before it was Others from Delphi. In short, they must be strangers to complete the ritual. This is the rule. But even strangers cannot be sacrificed out of thin air. You must first owe some karma."
"Is that the meal?" Shangluo asked.
"Yes, that's that meal. Just like Persephone ate the red fruit from the underworld and couldn't come back, you also have to eat 'foreign food' at today's dinner so that you can owe the karma of this meal. , and these karmas are the key to initiating the branch-breaking ceremony. However, although it is part of the ceremony, this meal was paid for by the inner guards and used a lot of high-end ingredients. There was also a red symbol of 'Zhu Guo' in the ceremony. Apples, please eat at least one per person, they are apples from the Royal Orchard of Slovenia, they are delicious.”
"Why does it feel like we should have a good meal before going to the execution ground?" Wen Yuan muttered.
"That's right. In theory, the last meal provided by the prison to the prisoners on the execution ground is also to eliminate some karma during the ceremony. After all, the sentence and the crime have nothing to do with the prison itself. The prison is just the executioner. If your If you have learned mysticism well, you should have discovered it in advance."
"About this." Lu Huaiyang came over and said a few words to him.
"Oh, that's right. So you originally had an introduction to the occult class on Saturday morning? That's just right. Let's combine that class with the mission briefing. Today's schedule is dinner and rest. There will be breakfast and mission briefing tomorrow morning - And the merged course of Introduction to Occultism. There are free activities until dinner, and after dinner the ceremony begins. Someone in the town will lead the way with a lantern and take you to the sacred grove. We can only stop here, There will be another team of internal guards in the sacred forest to respond. You should have seen Shangluo? It's the team that gave you the old branches."
"The ones dressed like extras?"
"No, you were dreaming at that time. They were dressed the same as me, but they were in sympathetic camouflage, so you couldn't tell when they were dreaming. In short, relax before the ceremony begins. Lake Nemi is in front of you. Known as 'Diana's Mirror', this is actually a famous resort spot in Rome, and the dinner hosted for you is actually a catering service provided by a nearby resort hotel. Eat more, I remember there are Veron oysters from the Bordeaux coast."
(End of chapter)
