I hope you enjoy the 3rd chapter of this story!
Some time had passed, Jason didn't know exactly how much, since he had started leading the fifth, first and second cohorts. By now it was dawn, so the battle had been going on for several hours. Jason realised that he was getting tired and unfocused from the constant slashing and stabbing. He had already made several mistakes in the fight, which fortunately had not led to any damage so far. But for some time now, his sword arm had been aching and he noticed that his comrades were not feeling any better, which was why they were only advancing slowly.
Finally, however, they had managed to join up with the other two cohorts. They were now only a few metres from the entrance to the black fortress and the remaining Dracaenae had gathered in a semicircle around the entrance and were surrounded by the 100 or so remaining legionaries. The scorpion cannons could not now be used for fear of hitting legionnaires as well as monsters, so Gwen and the other ten legionnaires who had been operating the cannons had now rejoined them. On one side, next to the fourth cohort, Hannibal was also fighting, but most of the serpent women managed to escape before he could trample them flat, which seemed to make him very angry. Reyna and the eagles continued to fly attacks from the air, but the dracaenae were now better prepared for them and few of them were pulverised by these attacks and the ranks were replenished directly without chaos. Moreover, the dracaenae were now so good at defending themselves against the aerial attacks that two eagles had already been lost and Scipio was also injured in places but could still continue to fly.
On the ground the five cohorts were fighting side by side against the dracaenae, each cohort being led by its centurions. Jason was glad that he now only had to lead his own cohort and that side by side with Gwen. He hoped he could avoid the praetor's job after all. In his mind, he shifted himself. He should focus completely on the battle now and not waste his thoughts on any possible happenings after the battle. After the battle he would still have enough time to think about it.
So he focused on the battle again and noticed that the entire legion was barely moving forward. These last remaining dracaenae were clearly visible, the best fighters and the legionaries were all already partially or even completely exhausted from the battle so far and could no longer fight with all their might. They were barely advancing and more and more legionnaires were dying or lying injured on the ground. Jason realised that this was probably the defenders' plan. They were to wear down the first dracaenae so that they could then no longer fight with all their might against the dracaenae directly in front of the fortress, which they could then defeat because the legionaries were exhausted and these dracaenae could fight better than those who had been defeated before. Desperately, Jason realised that this plan was about to be fulfilled. He had to do something. But what?
Gwen, who was fighting next to Jason, had the saving idea and called out to him: "Jason, you have to summon lightning. Otherwise we'll lose this battle." Jason felt his brain reactivate. Of course, Gwen was right. He had to use his powers as the son of Jupiter. So he gathered his power to summon a bolt of lightning. During this process, which lasted several seconds, a loud cry of pain suddenly cut through to the air. Jason wanted to stop the process and rush to the aid of the demigod who was the source of the cry of pain, but he knew he couldn't really help. He had to destroy the dracaenae first now.
His stomach tightened as a bolt of lightning shot downwards and Jason directed it with his gladius of Imperial Gold at the enemies, of which only small piles of ash remained. The few dracaenae who survived knew they had no chance of surviving this battle at the entrance to Othrys and ran away in panic, into the palace, some of them still being sent back into Tartarus by the archers.
The world blurred before Jason's eyes. Summoning the lightning had taken so much strength from him that he now sank to the ground and blacked out. As he lay on the ground, he heard Gwen's voice cursing, "I should have known it would take too much strength for you to summon the lightning." "Gwen, it... it's not your fault!", Jason contradicted her in a croaky voice. Then he heard nothing from Gwen for a brief moment, but he could imagine her shaking her head at his behaviour. After all, he was exhausted on the floor and still wanted to look after her wellbeing. She ordered him, "Open your mouth!" Jason obeyed and already he tasted the flavour of fresh brownies from the bakeries of New Rome, his favourite food, on his tongue. He ate the brownies and Gwen scarfed down more. Jason noticed his strength slowly returning. His thoughts became clearer again and he realised that he had just eaten not brownies but ambrosia.
After about half a minute, he opened his eyes again and looked into the face of Gwen, who was looking at him worriedly. Shortly after Jason opened his eyes, she smiled at him with relief, "Is everything okay again?" Jason nodded with a grin, "As much as anyone can be okay in a battle!" Gwen had to smile, too and then held out a hand to him, which Jason gratefully accepted, and pulled him up. Jason's legs wobbled briefly, but then he had regained his composure and was standing upright. There was nothing left of his tiredness and he felt almost as strong and vigorous as when the battle began.
After he had finished with himself, he grasped the situation around him. He was still on Mount Tam right in front of the entrance to Othry's fortress. Most of the legionaries were standing around indecisively. There was a lot of monster dust on the ground and there were also some injured and dead legionnaires on the ground that could only be partially taken care of. Some of them were still quite young, maybe eleven or twelve. The sight almost broke Jason's heart. All these legionaries did not deserve to die. They were all still young and actually far too young to die. If they were mortals, their most important worries would be any unimportant everyday worries and not whether they would still be alive tomorrow. Jason wished once more that he could just be a normal mortal and not a demigod. Demigods usually died far too soon.
He pushed these gloomy thoughts away and continued to look around. Gwen was standing in front of the legionnaires of the fifth cohort and was just explaining to them that everything was fine with Jason. To confirm this, Jason went to his cohort and stood next to Gwen. The legionnaires looked at her indecisively. "What should we do now?" asked a younger one. Jason could not answer this question himself, so he looked questionningly at Gwen. The latter explained, "Praetor Reyna has not yet told us, the centurions, any plan for further action. We will have to wait and see how John is doing." With that she pointed to a circle of several people, consisting of Reyna and some centurions, directly in front of the first cohort. Jason swallowed. He didn't know what had happened to John, but he could still remember the shrill cry of pain he had heard just before the lightning had been summoned. He hoped that John had not been hit as badly as the intensity of the cry of pain had suggested.
After a few minutes, that hope was dashed as the crowd around John slowly dispersed. John was lying on the ground, apparently unconscious, with a large, blood-soaked bandage around his right shoulder. Where his arm should have been, only the end of the bandage was visible. Jason was shocked. John had obviously lost his right arm. Almost more disturbing than the fact of the missing arm, however, was the fact that smoke was rising from the presumed wound through the bandage. This was definitely not normal and most likely not good. Next to John, Jason spotted a blood-soaked spear of imperial gold. Jason knew that Imperial Gold was exceedingly deadly to demigods. Was that why the wound smoked? Was it even possible to save John? These questions buzzed through Jason's mind as he, along with most of the other legionnaires, watched silently as a short-term stretcher was produced for John, John was placed on it, and an eagle brought the stretcher with John into camp.
Jason tracked the eagle until it was no longer visible. Then he turned to Gwen, who had been silently following the removal beside him. "Will he make it?" asked Jason more to himself than to Gwen. "Hard to say," Gwen replied. "With a normal wound, I would answer that question in the affirmative immediately. But Imperial Gold wounds are extremely treacherous and highly lethal to our own." Jason nodded, for of course he knew that, too. He tried to distract himself from worrying about John by once again surveying his surroundings. In front of him was still the entrance to Othry's fortress, barred by two massive black doors. In front of this door, between the two bronze braziers, all the cohorts had gathered side by side in rows, and in front of each cohort stood their two centurions, except for the first cohort, which Michael led alone. Jason therefore stood upright in front of his cohort, right next to Gwen. Hannibal had also joined them on the edge.
Reyna sat on Scipio, about halfway between the fortress and the 80 or so remaining legionaries ready to fight and looked at the legion. After a few seconds she began to speak, "12th Legion Fulminata, we have fought well and have already come far. We have defeated an army of enemies of Rome!" Short cheers erupted from the ranks of the Legion, but quickly died down as Reyna raised her arm. "But this battle is far from over. We want to and we will destroy this palace of the Titans, the enemies of Rome!" Again cheers blazed up. "However, there are other enemies waiting for us in this fortress. We know that the Titan Krios has been ordered by Saturn himself to watch over the fortress of Othrys, and perhaps there are other enemies waiting for us in this fortress. So we have more battles to fight and more enemies to defeat! And we will win those battles today and destroy the enemies of Rome along with their palace!" The cheers that now erupted in the legion were even greater than the previous ones and Jason could understand the enthusiasm. He, too, was desperate to eliminate the Titans' threat to his home Camp Jupiter and win this battle with as few casualties as possible. And it was precisely this hope of victory with as few casualties as possible that Reyna gave the legion with this speech. Jason could literally feel waves of determination, strength and hope wash over the legion and take hold of him as well. As Reyna now shouted "Senatus Populusque Romanus!" this call resounded loudly across the battlefield, filled with the hope and determination of every legionnaire.
"12th Legion Fulminata, advance!" The legion followed Reyna's command and under her leadership the five cohorts and Hannibal together entered the Lion's Den, Othry's palace. They entered a room about the size of a school gymnasium. The walls, floor and ceiling were made entirely of polished black marble, in which were depicted many scenes of battles between huge people, some of whom Jason could identify as gods thanks to their weapons, probably from the First Titan War. There were bronze braziers with green fire as light sources on the walls of the room. But since there was nothing in the room except these braziers, Jason guessed that it was an entrance hall.
Jason was jolted out of his admiration for the entrance hall when Reyna bellowed, "Continue the march!" It hadn't even occurred to Jason, but the entire legion had stopped to admire the depictions in the marble, himself included. Reyna's command jolted them all awake and they continued their march towards a slightly lighter, but still grey-black door that was difficult to see. They marched through several rooms that were also made of polished, pitch-black marble. In one was a huge dining table that could easily have seated the entire legion had it not been much too high for humans. Other rooms seemed to be lounges for monsters. Jason shuddered a little at the thought that not so long ago these rooms had been filled with monsters that had craved demigod blood. Jason wondered where all the monsters were. They should be in all those rooms defending their fortress. He had a bad feeling. What if this was a trap? They were in the lion's den and the monsters could surround them relatively easily. Had they perhaps already done so without the Legion being aware of it? This was not unlikely and it would be very difficult for the Legion to escape such a trap.
On the other hand, they had no choice but to penetrate deeper into the palace. They would have to destroy the palace of the Titans and in order to do this undisturbed, they would have to get all the defenders of the fortress out of the way. Therefore, they had to find and eliminate the defenders, otherwise they could entrench themselves in the fortress and wait for supplies. Since this supply would probably include several Titans, including Saturn, the Legion would surely be defeated in this case and the camp would be lost. In short, Jason hated the situation they were currently in. "Think positive!" he admonished himself in his mind. After all, they had already come far. They had defeated a Dracaenae army and were now facing the decisive battle in the Palace of the Titans.
But now he concentrated on his surroundings again, because the legion had stopped. Jason also saw the reason immediately. They were once again standing in front of a closed, gigantic door made of black marble, which led into another room. Although Jason had seen several examples of such a door in the last few minutes, he still found it impressive. Jason knew that a new room was waiting behind this door and that they could meet the remaining defenders of the fortress there, so he sharpened his senses. However, he felt a little ridiculous, as no danger had lurked behind the previous doors. He wondered if the monsters were just making fun of them. They were probably laughing at the fact that the legionnaires were too stupid to find them and were cluelessly walking into their trap. Jason pushed these thoughts away. He couldn't allow himself to be distracted now. No easy task for an ADHD demigod.
As with the previous doors, Reyna dismounted Scipio to open the door. As she did so, she carried her spear of imperial gold in her right hand and pushed the door open vigorously with her left.
The door revealed a huge room, much larger and higher than any room before. It was also made entirely of black, polished marble, like the rooms before, but it was also supported by Greek columns, which were also black.
Jason would have been amazed by this enormous room if he had not had to concentrate on the huge army of dracaenae in front of him. For in the new room was a vast army of serpent women, probably even larger than the one before the fortress they had already destroyed. The Dracaenae had obviously been expecting them, for of all the Dracaenae in the room there was not one that did not turn towards them. Nevertheless, they did not attack the Legion. This was good, for the entire Legion was momentarily shocked by the great mass of monsters that awaited them, and they would thus have been easy victims for them.
Suddenly the monsters moved, but not towards the legion, instead they split in half and a small path was created between the dracaenae. At the end of this path stood a man who was about three metres tall. He wore black armour on which Jason could make out some stars and in his hand he held a massive sword, also black. He also wore a helmet that looked like a ram's head with horns sticking out of it. He had to be a Titan and since there was only one Titan in the palace, this had to be Krios. Before Jason could speak his realisation aloud, Krios began to speak, "Welcome to the main pavilion of Othrys Palace, Romans!" He paused for a moment. "I must admit that I underestimated you. I didn't think you'd get this far. But it matters not, for now you will be destroyed." His cruel laughter echoed throughout the room, freezing the blood in Jason's veins.
Jason just wanted to run away at that moment. Krios was right. They had no chance of winning this battle. They had already lost more than half of the legionaries in the battle against the first army and now they had to fight another Dracaenae army at least as big as the first one. And even if they defeated that army, they would end up so few and so exhausted that Krios would have an easy time defeating them all. Jason looked around the legion briefly and saw fear and doubt in the faces of most of the legionnaires as well.
At that moment Reyna stepped forward. She was now less than a metre away from the nearest Dracaenae, but they did not move. "You will have no chance to defeat the 12th Legion Fulminata. The gods are on our side and Rome will never be completely defeated!" Jason admired her for her courage, but Krios only laughed more horribly in response. "Reyna Avila RamÃrez-Arellano, praetor of Camp Jupiter. I already knew you were brave, but I didn't think you were so naive. The gods have never been on your side. The gods don't care what happens to their children. They're just using you demigods. Explain one thing to me: why are you fighting for them?" Reyna interrupted him angrily: "We are not only fighting for the gods. We fight for Rome and for our camp! But you don't seem to have understood that, Krios." Jason was impressed. He didn't know where Reyna got the courage to say all this at that moment, but he knew that she gave new strength to the whole Legion by doing so. She reminded the Legion what they were fighting for. Jason's fear disappeared and was replaced by determination to fight with all means for his friends and the camp.