Way of the Knights

Chapter 330 - Sea Depths

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Six months after Raven left the Gentle Primates Tribe.

Tenrou's Spatial Abode flew within the fabrics of space, completely isolated from the senses of dangerous beasts that were surrounding it. Raven remained inside, constantly sharpening his skills and making steady progress on raising his strength to greater heights in order to ensure his safety in these dangerous area. 

Inside one of the rooms, Raven could be seen fluttering in and out of existence like a ghost. His movements were precise and calculated, free of any excess movements which allowed him to conserve more energy to last longer. 

He was being assaulted by hundreds of arrows, each arrow heads a dipped in paralyzing poison which could render him immobile if he got grazed by one. Nevertheless, the arrows failed to touch even the hem of his clothes. In fact, Raven was dodging these fast moving projectiles while he was blindfolded and he still looked relaxed. 

Raven had been sharpening his enhanced awareness for a good amount of time and his gains were considerable. By default, he could sense everything within 500 meters around him with profound clarity. If he uses it alongside his ocular technique, he could stretch it out up to a kilometer in radius which definitely helped him out a lot. He could also maintain this state for about 30 minutes before starts feeling dizzy and his vision becomes blurry. His absolute limit is 50 minutes for now, but he's been working hard on his stamina as well. 

Raven's also made progress on developing his Time Skin. He had adjusted to the 6th level of Stagnation Zone. This caused him to remain unperturbed by the slight delay in time, enabling him to move unhindered. He only had to reach the 10th level and his body would finally condense a Time Skin. 

He had also started learning another skill from the Spatial Branch. The skill is called Spatial Folding. 

Just like the name implies, it requires one to fold space. While this might sound extremely simple, it is very difficult to achieve. 

Spatial Folding is the basis for many kind of Space related techniques. Teleportation, substitution, isolation, and etc. The concept of Spatial Folding is simple. 

Space could be seen as a piece of Paper, then the distance from Point A to Point B is the opposite ends of the paper. Folding the Paper would cause Point A to overlap with Point B, effectively shrinking or even ignoring the distance that needs to be taken normally. That's Spatial Folding in a nutshell. 

Teleportation could be seen as folding the paper and poking a hole on it. Substitution is taking a piece of paper on both ends and switching it's positions. Isolation is making the gap between Point A and Point B invisible from the naked eye. 

All of these are had simple concepts behind but actually doing it is a different matter. 

Raven's at the step where he could somehow influence space and distort it a bit, but even this required his absolute concentration and focus, he can't even use it in battle yet. But considering that fact that he arrived at this stage even without the Law Baptism of Space, is already commendable on it's own right. 

***

"We're here."

Raven muttered as he stared at the monitoring room of the Spatial Abode. He sighed and placed on a solemn expression. 

The monitoring room had a huge screen made out of light that showed Raven his surroundings even without going outside. 

The Spatial Abode is currently suspended on top of a vast sea that spans as far as the eyes could see. The ocean bustled with activity. Raven saw some regular marine animals and few oceanic beasts jumping out of the surface of the water. The water seems calm for the most part but Raven knew too well that he shouldn't be fooled by what's happening on the surface. 

He placed his hands on the controls and drove the Spatial Abode to dive onto the depths of the sea. His goal is not to sail the expanse of this sea, his destination is its depths. 

The Spatial Abode dove fast. Thankfully, Raven had been preserving solar energy for it since he knew that this trip will eventually happen. In a few moments, he already reached a hundred meter depth. 

This area is still filled with regular marine lifeforms with a few weaker oceanic demonic beasts. 

At 500 meter depths, light started diminishing. Raven could still see well in this dim environment with his acute senses and even if he couldn't, the spatial abode showed him everything in a detailed perspective. Regular marine animals became fewer while the demonic beasts rose up in numbers. 

The scan of the Spatial Abode stretches out to a 10 kilometer radius and from the life signals it picked up, Raven noticed that in every ten living things the scanner picked up, three of them would be marine animals while the rest are demonic beasts. 

At 1000 meter depths, his surroundings became even darker. The atmosphere became very eerie, Raven could feel that he was being watched by something but he knew that he's just imagining things. The scanner hasn't picked any marine lifeforms here, only demonic beasts. That being said, even their numbers are becoming fewer. 

1500 meters depth, and Raven started tensing up. Even if he was confident that the Spatial Abode won't cave in, he still felt apprehension. He didn't even know if he could reach this depth without the help of the Spatial Abode. The water pressure in at this depth is enough to crush a person's body. The life signals around him was too little in numbers, but each existence that could stay at this depth and remain alive, is something that Raven couldn't mess with just yet. 

2000 meters depth, and Raven started hearing some hair-raising sounds around him. Deep bass sounds which carried an ominous intent, echoed everywhere. He started sweating coldly for some reason. How could he not be when he knew that, should he become unlucky here there would be no way for him to get back up?

At 2500 meters depths, the sea was completely dark. It was difficult for him to see anything at all, he could only rely at the vision feed of the Spatial Abode to see things clearly. Things that exists here could be counted on one hand, but all of them are extremely frightening at their own right. Just a slight movement from these beasts is enough to cause massive waves to form and the sea to become extremely chaotic. Still, Raven continued driving the Spatial Abode even deeper. 

And finally, at 5000 meters depth. Raven arrived at the sea floor. 

The life signs scanner of the Spatial Abode shrank into a mere five kilometer radius. And though it is isolated by space, its movements are being hindered by the strong turbulence. Raven drove the abode forward and started his search. If his memories serves him right, then his destination is somewhere around here. 

Raven didn't speak a single word, his focus was in front of him as he drove the Spatial Abode forward. He could not afford to get reckless here or else it would be the end for him. He also paid close attention to the energy consumption of the Spatial Abode. The reserves are still relatively full but the abode is consuming energy at higher rate here compared at the surface. He had to manage this resource well or else he will be stranded at this bottom of this ocean without a way out. 

His search lasted for hours and without any luck. Raven was starting to think that something might've changed due to a butterfly effect and caused the castle to disappear here. But at the same time, something happened. 

The sea floor shook and the turbulence became erratic. The monitoring room was suddenly filled with red lights and sounds of alarm. 

Raven looked at the life signs scanner and saw massive reading not too far away from him. 

Unexpectedly, instead of driving the Spatial Abode away. Raven drove it towards the source of that life signal. After moving for a bit, he finally saw what he was looking for. 

In front of the spatial abode, was a gargantuan oceanic demon which radiated with a malevolent aura. It was a massive squid like creature that has body filled with rough scales. Its head has two pairs of fins, which is strange for a squid but its there for some reason. In fact, it appeared more like horns of a demon instead of fins. There is also a strange shell that is covering it's body, it also has some sort of a beard, each strand of its beard is as thin as the tentacles of a jellyfish. 

It has several sets of teeth, long and massive tentacles with sharp and deadly tips and for some reason, it's body was wrapped in chains. 

The giant squid monstrosity appeared to be laying down, the chain wrapping it's body all congregated into a single place. And on its back, Raven finally saw what he was looking for.

"There it is…" Raven muttered, "The Sunken Ivory Castle of South."