Way of the Knights

Chapter 344 - Encounter

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Two months after Raven left the Sunken Ivory Castle.

The Spatial Abode is on auto-pilot and currently heading towards his next destination and its travelling at a constant speed even though he's in a tight schedule. 

Raven's inside the Stagnation Zone and is currently practicing Time Skin. He was sitting in the middle of the room and enduring the unpleasant feeling of the Stagnated Time. There is a serious expression on his face as he focused on maintaining his consciousness intact at all times. The level of stagnation here is at Level 8, in other words the erosion of time feels like a strong gale. 

Raven didn't take any breaks in sharpening his skills even after reaching the Golden Knight Stage. On the contrary, he needs to place in more effort since it's only going to get harder from here on out. Making any progress from this point forward will be even more difficult even if he were to actively cultivate. The next barrier that would take him to the Hero Realm requires tons of preparations and a great deal of resources, and from here on out, anything that would damage Raven's foundations will prove to be lethal since there's no going back from here on out.

During this past two months, Raven had been focusing on his new understanding towards his Destruction Laws and Tenrou's Inheritance. 

With the recovery of his soul plus with the help of the 'Breath of Flowing Water', Raven's attunement with nature had risen by a considerable degree. This allowed him to explore and understand more profound meanings and truths about his laws. 

This allowed him to raise the amount of times he could take advantage of the Fragile Signs.

Fragile Signs are the 'faults' of the world represented by marks, points or lines. Should Raven apply his Destruction Laws on these areas, he would be able to do more damage to his surroundings. Previously, he's only allowed to take advantage of these 'Fragile Signs' three to five times each day, but in his recent practice he was able to push his limits to 10 times.

For Tenrou's Inheritance, he was very close to condensing the Time Skin, he only need to pass two more levels in the stagnation zone and he'll be able to have another life-saving defense. 

His practice of Spatial Folding was also seeing some improvements. He could fold a space of at least 10 inches. It's not much but considering that he didn't experience the baptism of Space Laws, this is quite commendable. This doesn't give him any sharp advantages in battle though since it requires him a good amount of focus to fold that much space. He could only do some neat tricks, like transferring a rock from one hand to another without actually throwing it, and that's about it. 

Needless to say, as time goes on, he'll eventually be able to do much more with this but for now, he'll have to remain patient and don't give up on it.

Aside from that, his breakthrough massively expanded the range of his senses and the distance of which his ocular technique could see. Now, he could sense anything around a kilometer range, and if he activated his ocular technique, he could see up to five kilometers ahead of him. 

His battle techniques are also greatly strengthened. Now, he could endure the whole weight of a Golden Hand, which weighs at least 1000 tons, with ease. Though he could only condense three each day, before running out of energy, if he decided to used the 'Bounty' he's collecting, he could condense two more which makes it five, and that's his limits…for now.

***

*Beep!*

"Hmm?"

Raven just finished taking a bath and was in middle of putting on clothes when he suddenly heard a beeping sound from the scanner of the Spatial Abode. He finished dressing up and walked towards the control room to check the scanner. He sat on the seat and analyzed the readings he got. 

"Oh?" Raven raised his brow in surprise, "There's human's nearby?" 

This was an unexpected news for him. He wasn't expecting any humans to reach this place at all. This is still the depths of the Red Zone, an uncharted territory to humans. It is filled with dangerous beasts that could easily wipe them out.

"It's been a while since I've seen humans." Raven muttered, "But something tells me that I shouldn't get too excited."

Raven pursed his lips but still decided to get off of the Spatial Abode. He took Venus with him, who's currently on her scarf form and sleeping. 

After getting off, he inhaled fresh air and his expression suddenly turned listless. At the same time, his presence disappeared. He perfectly concealed his presence that not even the insects could feel him nor see him at all. 

Raven then started walking and going towards the spot where the scanner picked up human activity. It took him a couple of minutes before he eventually arrive at the spot. Unfortunately, he didn't see nor felt any humans nearby so he activated his ocular technique and instantly scoured everything within five kilometers around him.

As his vision expanded, his brain rapidly processed everything that he was seeing. It only took him five seconds before he saw what he was looking for, and what he saw really dampened his excitement. 

"I should've known…" Raven sighed in disappointment, "If there's any people that could possibly endure being this deep into the Red Zone, it would be them."

He referring to none other than the Black Curtain Guild. And just like his instincts told him earlier, he really should've seen this coming, yet he still can't help but feel disappointed for some reason. 

A sigh escaped his mouth, he had thought of letting them be and just continuing on his way but decided against it. He watched their activity from where he was and the longer he observed, the more suspicious he got. A frown eventually appeared on his listless face, their movements are incredibly shady and he couldn't help but feel slightly irritated. 

"What are these people up to again?" He muttered, "And how can I ruin it?"

He shook his head and dashed like a phantom towards them, still isolating his presence. He stop upon reaching a kilometer away from them and he once again observed their activities. 

These people are in their usual uniform, all black clothes with masks and black veils across their faces. Their movements were quiet and slow, they walked with bent backs, some of them were even outright crawling. They were wearing some type of a back pack that is filled to the brim, looking like it's going to explode at any given moment. All in all, they look much like a turtle for reasons that completely eluded him. 

"Spatial Rings are a thing people…" he groaned to himself, "Why not place it there to make your lives easier, you guys wearing one each for pete's sake."

"But you guys shouldn't be that dumb." He continued, "Meaning that what's inside those bags are things that cannot be placed inside spatial rings. My senses can't penetrate those bags, which also means that you're carrying something very important…and shady. I don't like that…"

Raven sneered and observed his surroundings even more closely. He scanned every single entity that he could see aside from these human turtles. 

Once he completed his detailed scan, he came into conclusion that there's nothing here that could threaten him. With this in mind, he disappeared from his location and appeared like a phantom near these people. 

Upon seeing him, they were stunned, shocked, baffled and confused. And these things were the last things they felt before they lost consciousness - even that process didn't register in their brains yet. 

After making them lose consciousness, Raven snatched them all at once and took them inside the Spatial Abode and into the Stagnation Room. He set the stagnation level to 5, just in case they wake up in the middle of his inspection. He's completely unbothered by the stagnation of this level but the same couldn't be said about them. 

Once he did all of that, he walked towards one and carefully took of the bag. After that, he carefully placed it on the ground and opened it. 

And upon gazing at the contents of the bag, he couldn't take his eyes off of it anymore. 

"W-what…" he stammered as he looked at the thing. 

It was a piece of a rock that has a very rough surface. He ran his hands and felt it's rough texture, he could feel something stirring inside of him as he touched the rock, causing him to take his hands off of it. He gazed in wonder and asked himself:

"How did a piece of an Atlas Star ended up in here?" 

This wasn't the only question that he was asking himself, he had so much more that he was started to feel a headache, the flashbacks of his previous life also didn't help him with that. There was so many things that he wanted to ask but more than that, he felt a great sense of glee and excitement rushing on his body. 

"Hippity hoppity!" Raven hummed in glee, "This rock is now my property, haha."