Way of the Knights

Chapter 914: Here They Come

The Rivers of Time continued flowing for every living being in the Divine Realm. As such, the natural trend of development continued as well.

Being occupied really makes slightly unaware of how much time passes. With Divine Realm’s citizens busy doing their own thing, time flowed steadily and soon decades passed before they realized it. And it brought many things for them.

The realm remained prosperous and it did not show any signs of letting up. It’s just unfortunate that time doesn’t just bring forth the positive ones…it also bring the negatives.

With each decade that passed, more and more people are starting to sense the upcoming calamity of their lives.

The very first ones who felt it were the Divine Knights, then the Empyreans…

After them, it was the Knight Monarchs, a decade later it was the Knight Kings’ turn and so on…

With the increasing number of people who are sensing the arrival of their destined foes, Dawn Council could no longer allow them to remain ignorant about it. They can no longer hide its existence.

Because of that, despite of the positive trends still steadily rising at the realm, Divine Realm still entered the war preparation phase.

Everyone is now informed of the upcoming calamity. Well, a lot of people are aware of it at least. The Dawn Council didn’t bother letting those who lived on the lower planes know since they will most likely not going to participate in the war anyway. They are too weak to be drafted even if they wanted to, they’d just add up to the number of casualties.

Besides, if Divine Realm’s army truly fell, those lives in the lower planes wouldn’t be able to handle the Abyssals anyway. Which is why instead of letting them participate in this war, the council has other plans for them.

In the event that the war started, all Lower Plains/Worlds will be sealed and hidden away from everything. They’ll be detached from Divine Realm and be kept in a secret place where they could remain safe.

If Humanity failed to defend their home and got annihilated by the Abyssals. The Divine Realm will be destroyed and wiped out but at least, there’ll be continuity in the form of the humans they kept away.

They hoped that the humans who were exempted from the war will stay hidden, bid their time to re-build their forces and establish a new Divine Realm to continue the lineage of Humanity.

They won’t ask them to avenge them, just for them to live and prosper. And for that, Divine Realm already established a plan to mobilize a great inheritance for them should the need really arises.

This plan is created by none other than Raven and only the supervisors of the Dawn Council are aware of this. They kept it from the rest not because they didn’t trust them but because it’s better that way.

Nobody knows if the Abyssals had the ability to scry their memories but if they could, then there is a high-chance that they will go out of their way to hunt down the remaining humans. Raven wanted to prevent this from happening so he kept it a secret only a few select people.

Of course, there’s also the possibility that the Abyssals will be able to extract it from their minds but Raven already has a counter for that.

He planted a seal on everyone that will erase their memories completely of this knowledge in the event that they think they will be captured. Actually, he himself isn’t spared from this so there’s that.

At this point, only time can tell if his paranoia was a good thing or not but right now, at least they’re prepared for the worst of the worst.

As Divine Realm entered a war preparation phase, it is only natural for people to be afraid and also skeptical.

Some people are still in-denial at this point even though they themselves could feel the threat coming.

Such reaction is normal. After all, this kind of threat is on a scale they’ve never seen nor experienced before, of course they were being skeptical. What if it’s not real and this is just all false?

But at the same time, deep down in the depths of their mind, they know what’s coming. This is as real as it can get, everything is pointing to the same source and no matter how much they tried to deny it, it’s useless since it won’t stop the abyssals from coming.

Most of the people are now squeezing out the last bits of potential they still have, trying to make last minute breakthroughs if possible. Of course, the stronger they are against the upcoming calamity, the better their chances of survival will be.

The authorities are already formulating plans and building up armies. A lot of factions already enlisted and expressed their desire to participate in this war. They are ready to report to duty at any given moment but right now, they’re still on stand-by.

The Dawn Council members are busy. They’re running left and right to make sure that the arrangements will be done in time and their preparations would be set according to their plans.

The Supervisors themselves had been discussing strategies with other leaders to make sure that their efficiency won’t fall-off.

Days continued to pass and as time went on, more and more people are becoming away of the threat closing-in.

The feeling was horrible, they’re not even here yet but they could already feel them breathing down their necks. It’s stifling and it made them severely uncomfortable, additionally, this isn’t something that would just go away. It doesn’t work like that.

By the time they approached the 200 year mark that Raven deduced, a large disturbance was felt by everyone.

The feeling was crystal clear. It was like waking up one day only to discover that someone was sleeping right next to you. Everyone felt their arrival at the same time and at this point, there’s no denying this.

No, the Abyssals are still clueless about their exact location. They’re still fumbling around. For those who lived in the Divine Realm, they still hasn’t seen what they new neighbors looked like but they are acutely aware that they’re here.

Their arrival was right on time, Raven nailed the deduction. And since new neighbors are looking for them, Raven’s paranoia also paid off.

The Abyssals are having a hard time pinpointing their exact location due to Raven wrapping-up the whole realm with a cloaking mechanism.

The outposts that he had set up ages ago are now scouting for them and giving them real time reports of their activities,

Apparently, they plan on patrolling the area to search for the Divine Realm. They sent out droves of Abyssals to roam around on ships, spreading their forces thin but also expanding their area of reconnaissance.

Since none of their enemies discovered the Outposts just yet, Luna – the temporary Leader in Raven’s absence, gave out an Order.

“Send out teams of Counter-Guardians to neutralize their forces. Spread them out to make sure that nobody can track them down. If we can take down stronger Abyssals, make sure to bring their bodies back here so that the Heavenly Order could produce more Counter-Guardians for us.”

And just like this, the sparks of war were ignited.

Under Luna’s orders, teams of Counter Guardians were sent out on a mission. They had ships with impeccable sturdiness and high-cloaking functions to hide their tracks.

They ambushed forces at random. If the forces they encountered were composed of the weakest ones, the Counter Guardians wipes them away completely before taking a confusing path to scatter their tracks and make it harder for their enemies to pinpoint where they’re coming from.

If they encountered a stronger foe, the Counter Guardians charges on using everything they have to eliminate them and bring back the bodies. Of course, they have to make sure that they can’t be tracked first before returning.

It a span of another decade, small skirmishes occurred at a random instances. The Counter Guardians sporadically made their attacks and they coordinated them so that the trend remains confusing for their enemies to comprehend.

While the Abyssals are still trying to pinpoint the exact location of the Divine Realm, the Heavenly Order is already creating a batch of new Counter-Guardians, stronger ones, for them to use.

It’s going to take some time to produce a lot of them but by using resources, of which Dawn Council has a lot of, they can increase the speed of production.

At the same time, the enemies aren’t aware of the fact that there were outposts that already infiltrated their camp and is now sending valuable intel to the Divine Realm, which in turn, are being used to device strategies to make it even more difficult for them to find Divine Realm.

This is how they decided to start the war. It’s just a small scale skirmishes for now but make no mistake, things will escalate.

Which is why, at the very depths of the Throne Room, Raven who sat upon his throne opened his eyes for a long time and sighed.

“I guess it’s about time to pay them a visit.” action