Way of the Knights

Chapter 272 - Rematch

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The next following days were spent by Raven through resuming his usual lifestyle.

He resumed his duties as an Instructor of the Academy and caught up with his students' progress. After each day, he will attend the meetings with his fellow instructors to see whether they could improve at something and after each meeting, Raven would spend time with his friends and some alone time with Luna before going home and entering the Crown Space to resume his daily training.

Days passed like wind and eventually, it had been three weeks since Raven's enlightenment. Since then his control over his Laws reached another level, which made his prowess even more frightening. 

Enabling himself to integrate his Laws with his Hammer Techniques made him an even more frightening enemy. At base, Raven had reached the Hammer and Man Unity realm a long time ago which caused his fighting capabilities to soar, now that he also learned Laws to top all of that, it was safe to say that he could now put a decent fight against a Golden Knight with his current state.

With this in mind, Raven decided that it was time to take down that blonde Chakram user. 

It still feels a little weird for him to know that these people that he faced are once owners of the Crown. Astrid told him that she kept a piece of them here to use as foot soldiers when the ultimate showdown occurs, and according to her this plan was a complete failure. Which eventually left these souls wisps to remain trapped in here. She also said that it was Inos who created the pocket dimensions for them in order to use as testing zones for the next candidate, which happens to be Raven.

Though he's confused as to why he experienced Soul Rebirth, something tells him that this matter concerns the more private information about the Crown, and it's too early for him to know about those matters so its best for him to forget about it for now.

Raven eventually arrived at the pocket dimension. 

While he was in the middle of manifesting inside the battlefield, he was already looking for his enemy. It didn't take long before he found him, and when he did he prepared himself to face him.

As soon as he materialized, the blonde Chakram user attacked, Raven managed to avoid his attacks and throw one of his own. 

Fist shaped pillars descended from the sky with violent momentum, attempting to reduce the blonde into a pulp, unfortunately the blonde was too nimble on his feet and managed to narrowly avoid Raven's attack. 

Raven wasn't expecting his initial attack to work anyway so he kept up the pressure and threw more attacks. The blonde handled Raven's attack easily and charged towards him to engage in a fearsome melee. The Chakram he was holding was divided into two curved swords, glowing with a dirty yellow glow. 

When he saw the blonde attacking him with two curved swords, Raven took a deep breath in and prepared himself. On his arms, a strange crack marks appeared. It covered his arms all the way to his fingertips, these marks also appeared on the surface of the hammer as well. 

The blonde raised both of his sword and performed an overhead slash at Raven. The latter brought his hammer up and defended himself. When their weapons met, sparks flew everywhere. At the intersection of the weapons, something incredible happened. The sharp edges of the two curved swords that he blonde used suddenly chipped upon contact. 

The blonde was taken by surprised upon seeing some parts of his swords streaked across the air. But before he could react, Raven did a follow up attack by planting his feet deeply onto the ground and releasing his Destruction Laws to the part where the blonde stood. 

Surprised by the sudden destruction of the land beneath him, the blonde lost his footing which caused him dearly as Raven struck him with a powerful blow that sent him flying for quite far. 

The blonde coughed up blood but Raven didn't give him anytime to recover as he rushed towards him as he streaked backwards. The blonde somersaulted in the air to disperse the remaining force that he received and regain his balance, unfortunately even though he managed to stop himself from flying away, Raven's attack wasn't so simple. 

His hammer was covered by Destruction Laws. At the moment of its contact with the blonde's body, traces of the law remained on his body and seeped within. Not a foreign energy was wrecking havoc at the abdomen of the blonde, though made attempts on dispelling it, any of his efforts would only end up in failure. So now, the blonde had to endure a painful injury and suffer with the continuous effects of Raven's laws while also repelling his follow up onslaught. 

In just a short exchange, Raven already managed to gain an immense advantage towards the blonde. This situation is a far cry from all of his previous attempts.

Knowing that he gained an advantage, Raven was determined to not let it go. He removed the Resistance Seal which greatly boosted his mobility. With his sudden burst of speed, he placed an immense pressure towards the blonde and forced him into a defensive end.

Each of Raven's attacks contained his laws. It would be unwise to defend against such attack since the aggressive nature of the Destruction Laws will spread at the moment of contact. But Raven cleverly layered his attacks to force the blonde to receive the full force of his destructive attacks. 

Pillars with shapes of fists and palms manifested on their battlefield, causing the ground to shatter and become chaotic. There were multiple times when the blonde lost his balance due to the destruction around him but Raven never did, not even once. Due to that, the injuries that the blonde received kept piling up until his body was filled with cuts and bruises.

Pushed to edge, the blond revealed his trump card which is the Petrifying Light. This is was the blonde's last ditch effort to at least alleviate some of the pressure on his shoulders. 

If this was his previous attempts, then Raven would've been screwed the moment this Petrifying Light appeared. But now that he gained enlightenment towards Destruction Laws, he could now resist this light. 

At some point, all laws would try to resist each other. Just like how Fire and Water mutually resist each other. The same concept apply to whatever's facing the Destruction Laws. 

As its name suggest, Destruction Laws had an innate nature to destroy anything it makes contact with, which includes Laws themselves. If Raven's enlightenment was high, then it would very simple for him to just destroy this Petrifying Light and move on, unfortunately he was lacking for now but this doesn't mean that he's hopeless in defeating the blonde.

In the end, his laws is already resisting the petrifying light since it's trying to invade his systems. All he had to do is to keep supplying laws to resist the petrifying light and he will remain unaffected. 

And this is exactly what happened. 

The petrifying light had no power over Raven anymore. His mobility wasn't hindered at all, he used this to his advantage to catch the blonde by surprise once again. 

Raven acted as if he was affected by the light, he deliberately slowed down his actions and placed a difficult expression on his face. The result worked like magic, the blonde saw his reaction and immediately funneled the rest of his energy towards casting is ultimate attack, which was the Petrifying Sun. 

Raven sneered inwardly, he kept his act until the blonde was about to finish preparing his attack. Once he saw the condensing light at the center of the Chakram, Raven's eyes gleamed as he immediately dropped his act and threw his hammer with a massive momentum.

The Archaic Thousand Arms Hammer streaked through the air like a blazing black shooting star, carrying an incredible momentum as it flew. It struck the dumbstrucked blonde, causing him to explode into pieces of flesh and gore. The Chakram fell on the ground and shattered at the moment of contact. What's left of the blonde's body turned into streaks of white light that merged with Raven, signifying that he succeeded in defeating him.

Raven jerked his hand and the hammer returned to him. He caught his breath and let out a smile. 

"As expected, this battle became easier now that I am equipped with Laws." Raven then recalled the battle and figured out some places where he could improve. "The Chakram he held must be a Growth Weapon, similar to my hammer. Which means that my Destruction Laws could damage them, given time I should be able to destroy them easily."

"If I could concentrate the power of laws, then the corroding effect on the enemy's body shall increase as well. I should also increase the Breaking speed of the law, but how do I do that?"

Raven then started reviewing his previous battle while the space around him warped and returned him to the familiar sight of the Palace Grounds.