Way of the Knights

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"A ritual?"

Raven repeated in a whisper, he frowned and tried to recall if he could remember any rituals that was done by the Mort Family in the past. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tried to recall things, nothing comes to his mind at all.

While he was busy trying to recall some things, the people that came out earlier started walking back towards the entrance of the building. Once he saw this, he stopped recalling about past events. He figured that since he couldn't remember anything, might as well figure things out as he go.

He suppressed his breath to the minimum and climbed to the ceiling as he waited for the people to return. He watched as they went back inside and the iron doors closed. Once the doors were closed, the whole hallway was silent and became dim. This low visibility was used by Raven to it's fullest as he tailed the roaming guard captains as he walked on the ceiling.

"Do you guys actually think that the intruders will come here?" One guard captain asked his comrades.

"Who knows?" One of the other guard captain answered, "And even if they do, there an army of 100 strong soldiers defending this place, good luck going through that."

"Don't be complacent." Another guard captain butted in, "What if the intruders are Golden Knights? Then even if we sent thousands of soldiers to stop them, we will just be sending them to their deaths, they won't even slow down those people!"

"That's ridiculous!" Another guard replied, "You're talking about Golden Knights here, it's not like they have spare time to check this place at all. With how occupied they are with work, it's virtually impossible for anyone of them to be here. Plus, this place had existed for years now and none of those people had any clue that there's even a place like this, and I refuse to believe that they will investigate now."

"Although what you said might be true, I still feel that we should stay alert. Lord Mort is visibly anxious about this whole operation, which means that he couldn't afford to fail now. It would be best to remain alert just in case. After all, Lord Mort said that we could say goodbye to our families if we ever failed. I still want to see my son grow up."

As the guard captains discussed amongst themselves, none of them were aware that the intruders that they were talking about could hear their discussions. Raven followed their patrol routes and listened to their conversations for some more, however he found nothing else about the so-called 'ritual' that they were talking about so once they entered another room, Raven stopped following them and went onto a different path.

The interior of the building isn't that complicated. He imagined that this must be used for extravagant occasions or parties amongst nobles. He saw neatly arranged, high class equipment all over the place. Expensive sofas, couches, chairs, tables, dining equipment, dancing poles, high-grade cloths, gambling equipment and many more. Although the place is deserted by nobles for now, he could imagine that this place must be where Mort hosts his private parties and gatherings.

Raven silently traversed the place, making sure to be very careful not to alert anyone with his movements. He had close encounters with the guards roaming around but thankfully, no one noticed him at all.

He continued combing through the place but unfortunately, he couldn't find where the ritual was taking place. Raven knew that if he tried checking every single room in this building, he's afraid that the ritual would be done before he could finish, so in an old and stereotypical manner, he used common sense to locate where the ritual was taking place.

If there's any important place here where Yael might be doing the ritual, it should be on the top floor right? After all, by virtue of nobility, the highest class of parties should take place at the highest floor. Knowing how conceited and arrogant Yael is, he figured that this was his best bet.

Following his thoughts, he picked up his pace while still maintaining vigilance. He passed by each floor like a breeze and eventually arrived at the staircase near the top floor before stopping dead on his tracks.

Raven stopped because he had to, there's a bunch of guards stationed in front of the top floor and they were keeping close watch of their front. Thankfully, Raven was within the shadows and the Minor Ghost Symbol was still active so no guards were alerted.

A frown appeared on his face, it seems that his conjecture was correct, if it wasn't then there's no way they would guard the entrance to the top floor heavily. The guards stationed in here were those that at least reached the Knight Stage with the strongest being a Silver Knight.

If there's any fortunate thing here, that would be the fact that the entrance was wide open and he could somehow see through the interior. Raven paused and observed each guards from the weakest to the strongest.

The weaker guards were alert while the stronger ones were relaxed. This was probably due to the weaker guards' nervousness, this might be their first major mission ever since being recruited from the ranks, and if that's the case then it would make sense why they were more alert. As for the stronger guards, obviously they were more relaxed since they have more experience, this goes specially well for the Silver Knight over there. Raven was certain that he wasn't even scanning his surroundings at all.

'I can work with this.' Raven thought and grinned.

He then climbed up to the ceiling and slowly made his way towards the entrance. Along the way, he made sure that he was constantly scanning his surroundings in case there are traps on his way.

And just like he thought, none were able to locate him. He just strutted his way over them and went pass through this barricade like it didn't exist. Needless to say, Raven was still nervous all throughout the process, one slight mistake and he's done for, thankfully he didn't mess up.

Raven reminded himself that it's not yet the time to drop his guard, if anything he had to be even more careful this time around since this was the deepest part of the enemy territory.

Sticking to the ceiling, he decided to recover first. He had used up a considerable amount of energy on his way here, he needed to be on his top shape before going any further, his strength and knowledge are the only insurances that he have.

After consuming some recovery medicines, Raven felt better and decided to go on. He restrained his breath to the barest minimum and calculated each step he took, this way it was even harder for anyone to notice his presence.

The hallway towards the main room of the highest floor was a curve, so Raven had to make sure that he wasn't making any noise since he don't know if there's another wave of guards roaming around.

Eventually, Raven traversed the curved hallway by walking on the ceiling and he reached the main room. There, an astounding scene was shown to him.

The huge and circular room was surrounded with black fog, Raven saw several people kneeling and silently muttering some strange incantations. Looking up, a harrowing scene was imprinted on his mind. There he saw several naked people hanging, lifeless with blood flowing down from their bodies.

From what he had seen, there must be at least hundreds of naked people, hanged in the ceiling with ropes around their necks and a huge slit on their stomachs. He saw several men amongst them but mostly it was women and children. The blood from their bodies rained down, each drop were seemingly lifted with a strange and invisible force and were collected in a huge basin in the middle of the room.

All the hairs of Raven's body stood up in sheer anger. He harshly glared and scanned the room, looking for Yael.

He found him. He was there sitting on the middle of the room. There were stage tribal markings all over his body, his eyes were closed as he sat cross-legged and chanted the same strange incantations that Raven was hearing earlier.

Raven wanted nothing more than to take out the Archaic Thousand Arms Hammer and cause havoc in this place but despite his raging anger, he had to pause and study the so-called ritual that's going on.

He used his enhanced senses and took in each detail inside the room. He listened closely the incantations with the intent of decoding them, at the same time he observed the ornaments placed around the room and the tribal markings on Yael's body.

Raven's thought flashed, it didn't take him long before he finally realized just what was Yael's plan.

'Blood Ritual: Devil's Cradle'. A type of evil ritual that requires human sacrifice in order to open up a two-way portal from one place to another despite the distance. There's no doubt in Raven's mind now.

Yael planned on opening up a portal for the Black Curtain Guild to invade the Kingdom from the inside.

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