Way of the Knights

---

"Hehehe..." Raven chuckled to himself. It was fortunate that no one could see him right now or else they'd definitely think that he's losing it. 

It had been a few hours after the War Gods visited them, the reason why he was laughing is because he could still remember how teasing Henry received when Raven revealed that he has a residual scent of a female. 

As expected, Logan, Theo and Charles were ruthless. All they needed was one push and they went all out into teasing Henry who almost wanted to dig a hole on the ground and hide in there, never to resurface ever again. 

'Well that was his mistake for not being careful. Still, what a guy. I bet they just finished a round of love making before he decided to visit me. He didn't even bother to take a quick shower. Unbelievable.' 

In the end, their little talk ended with a lot of teasing. They soon left after that, leaving Raven to his devices since he has already fully recovered. 

Raven mostly spend the rest of his day catching up with the recent developments within the Sect. He had integrated with the information from the clones he tasked to finish the paperwork and got pretty much updated through those information. 

During the two and half years that they were gone, nothing much had changed in the Sect. Aside from the Realm-wide recruitment period which only happens once a year, the hunt for the devils remain pretty constant. 

That being said, there are some improvements in terms of performance, and most of this was closely related to Raven. 

First and foremost, the seal he placed on the Broken Floors within Asphodel remained intact. There had been some reports saying they found some traces of attacks on the Seals but nothing too serious that placed it at risk. The seal was intact and was working as intended, weakening the devils who chose to descend and roam the lands of Asphodel. 

Thanks to the seal, hunting higher levels of Devils became easier. Additionally, since the devils are weakened, the survival rate of the teams hunting them similarly rose as well. 

But what really caused the survival rate to increase was the formations created by Raven. 

At this point, having the formation was pretty much a necessity to a Unit or Team, even for those who chose to go Solo. The formation was simply a life saver, not only does it provide absolute security is also provide comfort. Staying within it is like entering a safe haven where no one can harm them.

Thanks to this formation, the disciples can choose their battle wisely and can retreat at anytime necessary. It is just that useful. 

Sadly, the formation could only work up until Asphodel. Taking it to any Hunting Grounds which are more advanced than Asphodel will greatly diminish it's uses. 

To that, a demand was raised, addressed directly to Raven as he was the one who created this formation. Now, some disciples want him to create a version of the formation that can be used on those dangerous Hunting Grounds while also providing the same level of absolute security and comfort. 

This gave Raven a mild headache since this is one of the tasks that he can't refuse, especially if he want to increase his credibility as the next Heir of Chronos. 

The problem is that, if he wanted to neutralize any dangerous elements somewhere, he had to experience it first. Sufficed to say, although he could visit those other Hunting Grounds as well, he didn't have plans to before since those places still pose a certain degree of risk even for someone like him. Yet at the same time, he also can't just simply ignore the demand for it. Which makes things slightly complicated. 

Since he returned from the True Olympian Climb, Raven of course had some plans to improve the situation of the Sect. He wanted to visit each floors of the Devil Emperor's Pagoda to see if he could revise the seals placed on them. He want to see if he could fix the Broken Floors, he wanted to visit the other Hunting Grounds and etc. 

Additionally, he also have to pay attention to his duties as the next Heir of Chronos. Which he could easily fill in with Avatars, but he ventured that a time will come where not even his Avatars would be enough to handle it. 

There's just way too many things he had to do but so little time. Which is why Raven felt like he's having a massive headache thinking about all of this. 

...he'd be lying if he said that he's not regretting his decision to accept the Sect Master's offer. 

---

"...I see, it turns out that my gut feeling was correct...those damn old coots." 

Raven clicked his tongue as he saw the recent document that came, pertaining about a certain case he left for Kyrie to keep tabs on while he was in the middle of the hike.

Franklin and Edward were executed for colluding with The Exiles. 

These two were once Raven's unit-mates back when he's still at Unit-17, under Henry's guidance. They were the chosen representatives of Twin Star Academy as exchange students/disciples as per the agreement. 

Though they were executed, the matter was kept under the rags and weren't announced since the sect knew that they were similarly victims. 

It turns out that the Empyreans who founded the Twin Star Academy had some connections to The Exiles. In exchange of insider information, the Empyreans receive blessings from The Exiles which 'supposedly' make them stronger. 

Franklin and Edward were sent as their representative without their knowledge. A malicious technique was used to them in order for them to directly send sensitive information to their Empyrean Masters who in turn use it as a token in exchange for power. 

Still, there was no way that the Sect wouldn't be able to figure this out. And as soon as they were busted, the Sect didn't waste anytime and sent people to apprehend them. The operation was quite fruitful, not only the Sect manage to recover the information, they even apprehended the culprits and killed five official members of the Exiles. 

Sadly though, even though Franklin and Edward were mostly innocent, sparing them was out of the question. If other people can decipher information that they were unknowingly sending and provide it to the enemies, then other people could similarly do so. They executed due to a simple reason like that. 

Raven couldn't blame the sect for it's decision. Risking the lives of millions in order to save two people was unacceptable, specially if those lives were lives of the Sect Disciples who fight in order to ensure the safety of the Divine Realm. The sect can't afford to make that kind of mistake so they had to go. 

Quite fortunately however, the execution was discrete. It wasn't announced and it was masked as an accident since the two were executed whilst in the middle of a patrol. 

Raven had a hand on this since he was the one that caused them to be exposed. Before he left for the True Olympian Climb, he handed out some tools to Jason who then passed it on to the rest of the Unit. The Sect had some suspicions before so he decided to lay a trap. 

Within those tools he passed was a tracking seal which he made Kyrie pay close attention to before leaving. Several days after he left, Kyrie deciphered what's wrong and immediately reported it to the Sect Master who wasted no time to apprehend the criminals. 

Still, even though they had gotten rid of the potential threat, Raven couldn't help but feel slightly guilty. Franklin and Edward were mostly innocent, they were just used as a tool by twisted people who were hungry for power.

That being said, he too couldn't allow such risk to exist for long so he could only feel sorry for their fates. Hopefully those two can have a long and fulfilling next life. 

After receiving this report, Raven decided to visit his previous teammates in order to check on how they were doing. 

Well, it had been quite sometime after it happened so they had adjusted to it by now. They were admittedly shaken up at first since they were the first casualty, and although they didn't know the real reason how they died, losing some people this early surely had some effects on them. 

Thankfully, Jason was there and became their pillar of support. It was thanks to his efforts that they managed to pick themselves back up from all of that and push themselves to work even harder. 

Compared from the last time they met, these people had improved by leaps in bounds. Their hard work wasn't for nothing since the sect answered their passion by nurturing them, allowing them to swiftly improve. 

Currently, they were a far cry from how they were two years ago. They were plenty powerful and because of that, they managed to become the first Unit who were promoted as Inner Sect Disciples, it wouldn't take long before they ascend to Greece which made Raven really proud. 

'They're going to be just fine....' 

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