They are prepared to die. But they are not foolish. They are also prepared to win. So when the entire kingdom of life froze by the divine Will of the god-king, they were prepared. The previous gods of darkness activated the marks that the rebels have on themselves.
The kingdom of life had frozen. The air itself became amber. Both the dust in the air and the soil in the ground had frozen. Nothing except the Origin gods could move at all because of the power that the tree father exerted on his domain.
The tree father was ready to fight but he had to stop when he noticed the activation of an external influence in his plane. Some people who had remained hidden from him before shone in his awareness.