Way of the Knights

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Today, all of Raven's accomplices are gathered in his abode. 

They were summoned without any prior notice and while they were still in the middle of their duties. However, since Raven was the one who summoned them, they didn't hesitate to come since he probably has something very important to tell them. 

The people who arrived weren't many. The Sect Master and his wife is here, the Grand Elder and his wife was also here. Henry, Theo, Charles, and Logan were here as well. These people were guided by Kyrie towards Raven's private study and were gathered there to hear him out. 

Once everyone was seated, Raven stood up and said: "Thanks for coming everyone. The summons were abrupt, please excuse me about that. It's just that a surprising development occurred and its something I have to inform you right away."

Everyone remained silent but they were all wondering why they were summoned to. They waited for Raven to speak about the important matter but instead of telling them, Raven took out something from his spatial ring. 

It was an array disc which is protected with several layers of privacy seals. He placed it on top of the table. 

Raven then looked in the room and snapped a finger. Several runes glittered with light and everybody felt that the room became isolated from all manner of detection. 

"This is just pre-caution. We can't have anyone else spying in this conversation." Raven informed in order to pacify their suspicions. 

Once everything was ready, Raven deactivated the seals on the array disc, he then said: "Before I explain any further, I want you all to watch this first." 

Raven then activated the array disc and it began showing them information that these never thought they'd be able to get their hands on. 

The very first scene that the array disc showed already captured their attention. This was the scene of the Allfather and his meeting with his loyal followers. The audience saw and heard everything, the array disc even replicated the feeling that Raven got from witnessing the scene himself. It also revealed the presumed identities of the followers.

There was a slight pause in there before the array disc showed another shocking revelation. This it time, it revealed the amount of spies that Raven managed to place within the ranks of their enemies. The diagram listing all the locations of the branches was also revealed. Raven made a collective report about the estimated strength and numbers of the enemy forces and compared it to what they have just to give everyone an idea as to what they were dealing with. 

The array disc finished there, and to say that the people around him were shocked would be an understatement. 

"That guy...the Allfather." Logan muttered after a brief silence. "He's bad news. Very, very bad news. See this?"

Logan raised his arm, looking at it closely it was actually trembling: "I can't control this. It's been like this since the first time I laid eyes on that guy." 

"Must be love at first sight then." Henry snorted on the side, causing some people to snicker softly and for Logan to glare at him. 

"Alright, all kidding aside..." Charles gave the two a knowing look as he continued: "I similarly agree to Logan. That Allfather, whoever that is, is a very dangerous man. We would be placed in a very difficult position if he decided to move, and it was clearly implied that he's going if needed be. So we have to do something about him."

"Don't forget about the presumed identities of his followers. If that's their true identity then we will be in a more difficult spot. They rooted themselves very deep into the Divine Realm's forces so dealing with them would be really complicated." Theo stated. 

"And we're completely outmatched in terms of man power as well. We have serious catching up to do but our hands are tired since we are keeping the spies to serve as baits." Henry added. 

"The problem here is time." The Grand Elder commented. "Even if we know all of this, we simply don't have enough time to catch up. Additionally, since our hands are tied, if we are careless then the spies would catch wind of our plans and reveal it to them. Knowing that, they might not give us any time to grow, they might start the war pre-emptively. That would be the worst case scenario for us."

"That's right." Lady Hera, the Grand Elder's wife nodded her head. "It would be great if we could at least have some estimations on how much time we have left so that we can refer to it for our future plans."

"But then again, what do we do about the spies?" Alwina asked, "They're too close and we can't keep anything a secret forever. We need to do some serious brainstorming here." 

"Actually, we already had a plan for that. We had a discussion three days ago and Raven here made a plan that works well and would also allow us to keep the spies from knowing anything." Theo announced. 

"Right. We planned on using the Trials in the Hall of Gods as a cover to discretely teach disciples on how to use offensive formations created by Raven." Henry stated, "We planned on having the disciples of the other War Gods who are leaving for the Celestial Ascension Platform first to test it out. Once they get an appropriate level of skill at driving the formations, Raven would seal their memories about it until the time is proper."

"I see." The Grand Elder nodded, "This is a good plan. Doing this can make things discrete indeed. Have you guys implemented this already?"

"Not yet, Grand Elder." Charles replied, "Raven is still working on building the formations themselves, we still have to modify the Trials as well in order to slip this in without raising any alarms." 

The became silent for a bit. Everyone looked at the Sect Master, asking for his input but it would appear that he's distracted about something. 

"Before I say anything, Raven is there anything else you would like to add?"

"Yes, I would like to add some things, Sect Master." Raven nodded, alerting the rest. 

"Feel free to speak then." 

"For starters, I kept this information from you for quite sometime. I didn't want to but I didn't want to give you additional headaches if I could help it. I resorted to relying on myself to find solutions for this problem and I'll admit it became rather stressful."

"Still, I wouldn't have revealed this information to you if I could solve it alone. It's not that I didn't trust you, its just that I feel like its my responsibility to do so."

"The reason why I revealed all of this to you ties to the very reason I summoned you on a short notice today. I received news about a special development occurred pertaining to the war that I would like to share to you since I believe this could at least give us a chance to turn the situation around."

Raven kept the array disc and took out a replica of the diagram that marked the location of each branch within the divine realm. He then continued:

"I've been monitoring them closely and I got this news that an announcement was made amidst their ranks." Raven lifted a hand and said: "50 years..."

"Apparently, the Exiles are planning to begin the war within the next 50 years." Raven's announcement surely caused everybody to be surprised. "At first I thought of this as just an alarming rumor, but once I did more investigations, I came to the conclusion that it's more or less confirmed that they plan to wage war on us during the next 50 years."

"The reason I can say so, is because of this diagram right here." Raven lifted the replica of the diagram and showed it to them.  action

"This diagram doesn't just reveal the locations of the bases of the Exiles. It serves more purpose than that." Raven stated, "This diagram is also a blueprint of a massive formation that the exiles wanted to use in order to destroy the seal on the Devil Emperor in order to free him."

Everyone inhaled sharply as he heard his declaration. To prove his point even further, Raven made some changes on the diagram and showed it to them once more. 

"If you look at this closely, you can see that it is an elaborate formation with the Sect located at the very center. These worlds and planes where their bases are located, were placed in a strategic spot. I'm currently now sure how exactly they are going to accomplish this but they've been preparing for a long time already."

"The links are already connected, that much I can confirm. A formation like this would require a ton of resources but that's not really a problem to them since like I said, they had been preparing for a long time."

"50 years, that's the time left for us according to my estimates.. That means that whether the sect survives or fall, all of it will be decided 50 years from now."