Way of the Knights

Chapter 882: Qlipoth’s Reappearance

Inside the Throne Room, Raven could be seen sitting on his throne with his chin resting on hand and his legs crossed. His eyes were closed and his breathing was even and rhythmic. One might think that he’s sleeping but in truth, he’s not. 

‘…this one’s a dead end too.’ He murmured inwardly. 

He sighed mentally and proceeded to clear-up all the sigils that were formed inside his consciousness, wrapping them up in a single orb. He placed it in the deepest recesses of his mind-space and conjured another bunch of sigils to work on. 

It has been four months since him and the rest of the Dawn Council members entered their seclusion. 

While the others are still immersed in their own state of enlightenment, Raven on the other hand continued his research. 

It wasn’t easy. Looking at his mind-space, you could see a lot of discarded orbs at the far corner. All of those were ‘ideas’ that Raven theorized all this while, most of them lead to a dead-end so he decided to wrap them up for now and place in there. 

He didn’t want to get rid of them entirely since, who knows? Maybe he could use them as reference in the future. But for now, since he has no uses for them, they could remain there. It wouldn’t be too late to discard them later when he truly realize that they’re useless anyways. 

Raven formed his ideas by using sigils – another facet of runes and seals, his specialty. 

Using sigils, he could form ideas and compile them. He could even simulate them using the right combination which will allow him to see if the path was viable or not. 

He hasn’t had luck yet, but nobody said this would be easy. If anything, all of his efforts will be rewarded in due time so he just have to keep on pressing on. 

Raven was in the middle of preparing for another batch of sigils when all of a sudden, one of his Avatars contacted him. 

“Hey, Boss. What’s up? I hope I’m not disturbing you much. Listen, if you receive this, please come out for a bit. There’s something that needs your attention here.” 

Raven raised a brow at that. He sighed and withdrew from his consciousness, he opened his eyes and grumbled:

“This better be important.”

He looked briefly at his team and saw that they were still in the state of immersion. He vanished from the throne room quietly so as to not disturb them and appeared at his own office.

There, the Avatar that contacted him was already waiting. 

“What is it?” He asked, straight to the point. 

The Avatar’s expression was solemn as he passed a document to him. Raven received it and started reading its contents. 

“Son of a…” 

Raven groaned and pinched the bridge of his nose. He just received a particularly troubling news. 

“I thought we already eradicated the Qlipoth and all of its roots?” He asked his Avatars. 

“Yeah that’s what we all thought too but it seems to not have been the case as you can see in the documents.” The Avatar reported to him, “It wasn’t eradicated, it even reached it’s full maturity. It has devoured five Lower Planes so far and it’s appetite is just increasing, so does its production of Abominations.” 

This was a terrible news, and his Avatar did the right thing by reporting straight to him. 

The Qlipoth is the creation of a cult that is lead by a wanted criminal of the Divine Realm. 

Initially, this criminal was already apprehended, personally by Mark even. He also made sure to eradicate the smaller cults which were tasked in nurturing the Qlipoth. 

Mark was the one who signed-off this mission and with his personality and dedication to his work, Raven had no doubts that Mark checked every nook and cranny of the Divine Realm to make sure that they’re completely gone before he signed it off. 

Raven didn’t doubt Mark’s work, which only means that this Qlipoth was nurtured and matured not too long ago. 

But that doesn’t make sense either!

Qlipoth, in all of its forms, takes a long time to mature. We’re talking about thousands of years here. It hasn’t been that long since Mark was in this mission so it doesn’t make sense that a fully matured Qlipoth would appear. 

Time dilation doesn’t work on the Qlipoth either. If it was, then there will be no end to them and that would plunge Divine Realm into chaos, something that the Heavenly Law Order wouldn’t allow. 

So how did this thing appear? Did Mark really missed one? 

“…no, whether Mark missed one or not isn’t really important at this point.” Raven murmured, “What’s important is that this thing needs to disappear before it does some serious damage.”

Raven stood up from his seat and placed the document on his table. He summoned the Realm Door and entered the coordinates of the last sighting of the Qlipoth. 

He opened the door and he instantly appeared right on top of the thing. A visible frown appeared on Raven’s face the moment he saw it. 

Raven didn’t attack right away. Instead he kept himself hidden and decided to gather intel first. 

While it’s true that the longer he kept this thing alive, the more dangerous it gets, his men already restricted its movements. The immediate area is already under containment and since he’s personally in this case, this thing will soon meet its end anyway so there’s no need to rush. 

What he wants is know how this happened so that he could prevent it from happening again. This is why there’s a need for him to observe first. 

Unbeknownst to the Cultists and the Abominations lurking around and within the Qlipoth, Raven already infiltrated the area. Unless they were as strong as him, there’s no way for them to sense him at all. 

From what Raven observed so far, the Cultists around here discarded their humanity altogether. They don’t resemble human qualities anymore, now they appear like a mix between an Abomination and something else he can’t quite put a finger on. 

As for the Abominations themselves, they still look hideous and just wrong. There’s nests of them here and there isn’t any signs of their reproduction slowing down. 

Much to his dismay though, Ravens still hasn’t figured out how thing came to be. 

It’s a little concerning since this is the Main Qlipoth Network. If there’s any place here which should contain some clues, it should be this area. 

‘Hmm? Who’s that?’ 

Raven saw someone on his peripheral vision but he only saw a shadow before it disappeared. Raven frowned and decided to go after that shadow, making sure that he’s not making any noise as he does so. 

Raven managed to catch-up with the shadow and it seems unaware of his presence which is better. 

He followed it deeper and deeper to the Qlipoth. For a measly shadow, this one surely knows how to navigate the confusing labyrinth that his the Qlipoth, which means that this isn’t the first time it came here. 

Eventually, the shadow and Raven appeared at the very base of the Qlipoth. The shadow stopped in its tracks and Raven stayed still. Then the shadow suddenly shimmered and all of sudden, a face started materializing from it.

‘Oh! It’s this guy.’ 

The man that appeared from the shadow was tall. His complexion was pale, eerily pale. His eyes were bloodshot and his hair was jet black. He’s wearing a pitch black armor hidden by an even darker cloak. He was holding a book as he stared above.

Raven was surprised to see this person here. This is Empyrean Blackwing, he had seen him attending the banquets the Dawn Council arranged and even talked to him once. 

He didn’t really have any kind of impression from this guy since he’s very anti-social, they only shared pleasantries once or twice and that’s it. Raven was wondering why this guy was here. 

“…the council has been alerted I see.” Blackwing murmured, “No matter. As far as I know, containment is all they could do. My men informed me that they’re out on an important mission, they shouldn’t send anybody here. I still have time.”

‘Oho…’ Raven smirked and almost sneered upon hearing that. Thankfully, he managed to prevent himself from doing that.

While he still didn’t know the intricacies of what transpired here, Blackwing’s words alone already confirmed his involvement. 

“Ah, a magnificent sight it is.” Blackwing shuddered as he spoke passionately. He sounded fanatical. “Oh, glorious Qlipoth. It wouldn’t be long now before the birth of the King!”

“Once you give birth to the King, I shall assume its flesh and we shall fuse into one! Only with that, will I be able to truly claim what’s rightfully mine!”

“…I will be a True God! I shall stand above everyone else! Not that young fool Vendrick and his measly crew of misfits! I shall be the one True God of the Divine Realm. Everyone shall kneel before me!! Ahhh!” 

Raven pursed his lips as he started speechlessly at the shuddering Blackwing as if he was in the middle of his orgasm. 

‘So…’ He mused inwardly. ‘I guess he’s a nutjob.’