Way of the Knights

---

"Okay...I'm back here."

Raven murmured as he stepped inside his pocket dimension. Seeing as he's now no longer surrounded by water caused him to fell a little bit elated. 

Atlantis was a cool and unique place but being constantly underwater doesn't really make Raven comfortable. He left after his talk with Lorenzo, he trusted that their conversation brought some light to his situation and that his relationship with his little brother will improve and that Elias would eventually be able to awaken to his true potential since it would be such a waste for him not too. 

When he returned, Raven went to his room to lay down on his bed. He isn't really tired but being on his own bed is certainly more relaxing. Raven also has no plans on going to the private chambers since he didn't need to do so. If something requires his immediate attention, his Avatars can give him a notice. 

He also didn't need to watch over the documents since he also had Avatars taking care if those as well as Kyrie and his loyal men. 

In short, Raven has some rare free time on his hands, and since he became busybody recently, he somewhat forgot what it feels like to have one. 

'The sect is going on a right direction. The disciples are mastering the necessary skills in order to bridge the gap between us and the enemy forces while also taking advantage of this time to increase their personal strength.'

'The enemies hasn't caught on yet thanks to my preventive measures. Basically, I could more or less take the next few days off in order to relax. For some reason though, having nothing to do puts me at a loss.' Raven sighed in defeat. 

'...should I go bother the War Gods?' Raven thought for a second. He allowed this thought to marinate on his mind before he eventually shook his head and thought: 'Yeah, no. I can't do that. They're busy and would certainly wouldn't want someone to bother them. I bet that they'd get annoyed at the fact that I get some day off while they're hard at work, I'd annoy them even more if used my day off to bother them instead of resting.'

Raven stared at the ceiling while lost as his thoughts, he thought about things he could do right now but none of them felt right, therefore he could only sigh and say...

"Well, I guess it's an idle day for me." 

Raven waved a hand and closed the door. He then stood up from the bed, took of his uniform and wore plain white silk robes. He then went back to bed and tucked himself in between the sheets while thinking...

"Well, I'm not really hungry nor do I need to do something. Since it's like that, then I might as well get some real rest since who knows when I'll be able to have day-offs again?" 

Raven adjusted his position to a more comfortable one. He then closed his eyes and not long after, a light snoring sound could be heard from him.

As it turns out, this was the correct choice since things were about get really hectic once more.

---

"Young Lord, urgent report." 

Raven looked back at Kyrie as he was personally dealing with some documents. He saw the worried look on her face and that alarmed him ever so slightly. Raven passed the documents back to his Avatar and faced her, he then asked:

"What's the problem?" 

"It's the moles, Young Lord. They received some orders from their superiors." Kyrie reported, causing Raven to frown. 

Raven didn't say anything, he just gestured Kyrie to follow him and they walked towards the private chambers. With a wave of Raven's hand, the seals on the private chambers were lifted and they went in. Raven sealed the chamber and walked towards the Avatars who's monitoring the situation there. 

He took his seat and asked Kyrie to do the same. He then clasped his palms together as he asked her: "What did you receive?" 

"They received a coded order. We translated it and it said: 'Thin out the herd'. It was direct simple and the connections was terminated right away." She replied. 

Hearing her words, Raven wore a stern expression. He didn't expect this move from them. 

Raven had tasked his people to monitor the moles and report to him any kind of contact between them and their superiors. At first he didn't have many hopes of this since the connection was mostly one-sided. It only works when the moles are sending them intel, not the other way around.

However, it was clear that Raven underestimated their ways. He didn't know how but their superiors managed to give all the moles orders but they managed to do it. And their task is going to be a pain in the ass to deal with. 

Things got riskier this time around. Raven even had this impression that the other party managed to catch-on that the sect already knew about the moles and had this order to test the waters. 

'Thin out to horde', this order means that they want the moles to assassinate some potential cannon fodders or some important personnel of the sect in order to ensue chaos amongst their ranks and to bring drag them down even lower.

"This isn't good." Raven murmured, "These moles will definitely go in for the kill but in secret. After all, they don't even have free will, they're just mere puppets using humans skill to blend in." 

"Their superiors also didn't give them any concrete amount either, nor did they tell them how long they have to do this, this means that this will go of for the next 50 years. Great, another headache from these people."

Raven bit his nails as he tried to think of ways to remedy this. He had to do something in order to minimize the casualties. 50 years might be short to some people but the amount of opportunities they could get to assassinate people under our noses will be plenty. The casualties will pile up and by the time that the 50 years are up, the sect will be missing a lot of it's human resources..

This is undoubtedly a sinister move, but at the same time if he was in their shoes, Raven would've done the same. Not only could they confirm whether the sect knows about the moles or not. They could also weaken their forces at the same time, 

Raven initially thought that this 50 years will be pretty straight-forward but with this, it would a miracle if he won't have aneurysm by the day of the war since this wouldn't be the last time that they will give out orders to their minions. 

'It's going to be tough but, I think we have to tolerate some losses here. I personally didn't want to resort to this but at this point, I have to.'

'Still, I'd talk to Senior Brother about this, but knowing him, he'd probably agree with the counter-measure I have. It won't make everyone happy but it needs to be done.'

'Ugh, I don't like this at all but...' Raven scratched his head before placing a determined expression. 'We might have to sacrifice some lives for the greater good.'

The biggest problem with this is that, no matter what the order was, the sect can't just magically respond and enforce safety pre-cautions after knowing about it since that's practically the same as admitting that yes, the sect knows about the moles, and that would ruin most of the plans they have in mind. 

The best outcome of course is for them to remain oblivious about it, but if they can't do that, then they'd have to at least keep them guessing. That's the only way for them to postpone the war until they're ready. 

The same applies now. Even though Raven truly wouldn't like to sacrifice the lives of the disciples if possible, the enemies are too cunning and decisive. They're pushing him to a corner and Raven didn't like that even one bit. 

'We can't let them confirm the fact that we're aware who the moles were. For that, they need to see some success on their mission and which they could report back positively, which also means that they need to kill someone. The more the merrier.'

'If I follow this plan, then we would lose a few lives at first. But once they reported back seeing how things are going, they could wait for some time before reacting and the enemy camp will think that we would blame the devils for it.'

'We can give our orders to not let them go out while we investigate. That way, the suspicions will ease up. And we can maybe neutralize this.'

'That being said, these people will most likely made their move once they're out on the battlefield. They should know that I've modified the seals and lowered the risks of getting killed in action. There might be casualties but it shouldn't go beyond the absurd levels of loss. Thankfully, I was prepared.'

"Continue monitoring for now Kyrie. If there's an emergency, tell me right away.. I'll go talk to the sect master."

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