Way of the Knights

---action

"...alright, let's try this again."

Raven took a deep breath in and gathered his thoughts in a single point. All of a sudden, the air around him turned stifling, a massive and overbearing pressure erupted out of his body. The sheer weight of his astounding pressure caused the earth beneath him to shatter. 

Behind him, numerous ethereal lights appeared, blossoming like a lotus flower. Each light transformed into arms which numbered exactly one thousand. At each palm that appeared behind him, a rune could be seen etched in them. No rune on each hand were duplicated, each on was unique and has it's own uses. 

The Brush of Wisdom appeared on Raven's stern face. As beads of sweat rolled down beside his face, he raised the brush with trembling arms and drew a single horizontal line. There was an audible sound as he did so. 

Right after he finished the stroke, the one thousand arm behind him converged into one, forming a single rune which form could not be seen with the naked eye. Even with any ocular techniques, most people would only see it's outline, not the entire picture. 

The rune wasn't big, but the power it exuded certainly was...

It appeared in front of Raven, rotating slowly. As it spun faster, light coalesced and it began illuminating everything. The earth shattered some more and once the rune spun at it's top speed, Raven harshly stabbed it with the brush and yelled:

"Armageddon!"

A massive explosion occurred in front of him. Chaos ensued and debris flew everywhere. The winds howled. Light, space and time were twisted into a disordered mess and total annihilation occurred. The muffled sounds of explosion and chaos lasted for several minutes, revealing a massive crater in front of Raven. 

As clouds of dusts settled down, Raven slumped on to the ground, pale faced and completely drained. His chest rose and fell as he tried to catch his breath, he felt dizzy and disoriented. Nevertheless, the brightness on his eyes remained as he wiped the beads of sweat from his face. 

"That was an improvement..." He whispered after calming down, "As expected though, it drains the hell out of me, but at least I have an addition trump card now." 

'Armageddon' is a move that he had been experimenting for quite sometime now. It is created by condensing every single Empyrean-ranked Rune imprinted on his Archaic Thousand-Armed Wheel. Although in reality, the runes he carved on each palm on the wheel were the basic ones out of all, each were refined to its utmost level, making it reach the Empyrean-ranked level. 

On paper, this sounds simple, after all it's just combining one thousand runes into a single one, Raven has done something like this before and it shouldn't be hard to replicate it, however thinking about it that way is wrong. 

Although it is true that Raven has done something like this before, it isn't really the same. The idea behind it was similar to how one would set up arrays and formations, and while that can be described as 'condensing multiple runes into one' it would just ended up forming an array or formation in the end. Once the array or the formation is broke, the union of the runes will also end. 

What Raven did was more of a 'fusion'. He fused one thousand rune into a single one, creating something that has never been seen nor heard of before. The result of that is a total chaos, in a sense that even after the attack was over, it truly wasn't over. 

See, with this fusion, Raven also used the unique ability that the Brush of Wisdom bestowed to him, the freedom to casually imprint his 'Intent' or 'Will' to whatever creation he has as long as he used the brush. This rune, aside from being the result of the fusion of 1000 Empyrean-ranked runes, it also carried Raven's insights on Destruction Laws, Spacetime Laws, and Slaughter Intent. 

Aside from annihilating everything in front of him, this rune will also caused the area affected to recover in a slower state, it also distorts time and space, preventing anyone who survived the blast to use any kind of temporal techniques. If someone's lucky enough to survive the blast, then they won't escape the Destructive Intent and the Slaughter Intent that will gnaw at them from the inside. 

This Armageddon Rune, is created to annihilate Raven's enemies through and through...

That's what really set's apart this technique above everything that Raven has so far. 

After having some decent rest, Raven stood up and dusted himself. He left the destruction he caused behind him since it will recover on it's own anyway and he went back to the tent he set up for himself. 

He returned just in time for his meal to be done cooking. The alluring scent of it caused his mouth to water and his stomach to churn. He quickened his steps and got himself a bowl. He then chowed down his meal and finished the entire thing in just a few gulps, it was evident that he was really hungry. 

Letting out a few burps of satisfaction, Raven patted his stomach and went inside the tent to rest. Laying down on the soft bed he made for himself, his thoughts ran amuck for a while. 

For one, Raven is currently inside the Cultivation Eden, training in seclusion once more. Due to his busy schedule during the past few months, he didn't have time to go here but the recent changes allowed him to free-up sometime and he even got himself a day-off. 

Raven relaxing absolutely didn't mean that he's no longer worried about the enemies. He still is, it's just that his plans worked beautifully and the enemy remained complacent. The sect continued to increase it's overall strength with renewed passion, Raven didn't have to consistently be hands-on since too much intervention will just provoke the ire of others. 

The sect is going to be just fine, everything is moving along smoothly. Raven was at ease and he trusted that the officials will do their best even without him being constantly there so he's relieved. 

It is also thanks to that, that Raven has now some free time to focus on his own training. Just because he's the leading figure behind the sect, it doesn't mean that he could excuse himself for being weak, in fact that's all the more reason for him to become even more powerful on his own. 

Once again, Raven's just too invested in this and he can't go back down. He needed to make stand here and win this war since if he couldn't, then his future plans will be ruined. 

Currently, Raven's cultivation is going along rather well. Thanks to the temporal difference inside the Crown Space, he was catching up to the powerhouses rather swiftly without risking his foundations. The avatars are helping him with his enlightenment and Laws Control. 

As for any breakthroughs, well he's still ways off. But Raven's isn't in a rush. Although he might be a late-stage Saint Knight Realm right now, he his own ways of bridging the gap and making himself useful. 

That being said, there were many times when Raven was tempted to forcefully increase his cultivation through elixirs and stuff, in the end his logic preventer him from doing so. He just can't risk his future like that. 

At most, he would use elixirs to recover his Cosmic Energies but as for raising his cultivation level, he didn't want to do that. 

Raven never relied, nor will ever rely on heavenly resources to increase his cultivation realm simply due to the fact that it will ruin his firm and solid foundations. He will only use resources to aid on his recovery and breakthroughs, that's it. As for the rest, he will achieve it through natural accumulation.

"Speaking of resources, it's about time I increase the number of my Avatars as well as practice the higher levels of the other technique..." Raven murmured.

The two techniques Geezer gave to him; [Myriad Incarnations Scripture] and the [Voidwalking Manual] had been a tremendous help on Raven's cause so far. If it weren't for the fact that he couldn't just rush through the stages, he would've already done so by now since resources had never become a problem to him.

Though these techniques are heaven-defying, it still poses some degree of risks, which is why Raven remained careful whenever he's advancing on either of the techniques. Again, if it weren't for this risks, he would've already reached the consummate level for both techniques already. 

"There's also this place..." Raven said softly.

Right. He could still remember the previous Heir's telling him that there's more to the interior of the palace, it's just that he hasn't reached the requirements just yet. 

As for what those requirements are? Raven has no clue, the only thing he could do right now is to walk forward and follow what he think is the correct path. As for when he'll be able to unlock the other areas, there's no rush. 

Thinking about it this way, Raven's eyelids eventually turned heavy as he soon fell asleep.