Once inside Riviera, Li's group and everyone else split off. Leonid and his blood legionnaires marched to the western side of Rivera where the great lake was. By the lake side, a massive military encampment had been erected, their war tents packed together with countless torches lit between.
Normally, Riviera's lakeside was the epitome of calm and peaceful. Sunlit waves shimmering at the gentle call of slow winds. The perfect scene for a romantic getaway, and that was what it was mainly used for, various benches and tables set along the water's edge with food carts nearby.
Now, though, all those signs of peacetime were gone, the grassy lakeside completely bereft of everything but tents, racks for weapons, and mana crystals linked to the lake's magic rich waters for mages to draw from to recharge their reserves and form mana crystals with which they could consume on the battlefield.