Way of the Knights

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"How are you guys holding up?" 

This was Henry\'s first question as soon as he saw Unit-17. Him and the other two War Gods had already finished dealing with the threat, Logan and Theo went back to their office since they have other matters to attend to but Henry decided to stay and look after his juniors. 

"Other than feeling traumatized by what happened, we\'re mostly fine. It was thanks to Raven but he…"

"How\'s he doing?" 

"I\'m fine guys." Raven\'s voice sounded from inside the shuttle. His silhouette then appeared before them after he exited the shuttle. He\'s still somewhat pale but there\'s no traces of injuries on his body. 

Seeing him fine caused everyone to sigh in relief. Henry walked over to him and patted his shoulders, saying: "You did well. It\'s good that you\'re fine."

Raven nodded and asked: "Have you dealt with it?"

"Yes, we did." Henry nodded, "This is not the place to discuss it so let\'s return to your base first."

Raven and the rest of the team nodded, they followed Henry towards the base. 

Upon arriving, they all went to the meeting room and waited for Henry to speak about what happened. The one\'s who remained at the base tried asking the rest about it but they couldn\'t get a straight answer since everyone was pretty shaken about the whole ordeal. But now that the threat has been dealt with, they can finally know what\'s going on. 

"Before I start…" Henry stated, looking at Raven. "I first want to know how you were able to contact me while you\'re in the Devil\'s Cradle. As we all know, transmissions aren\'t working properly there."

Many were surprised when they heard this and all collectively looked over to Raven - who didn\'t answer first but instead took something out of his spatial ring. The item was a small table filled with runic symbols and gemstones, it looked antique but also strange. 

"I\'m rather knowledgeable at tinkering things, something that I inherited from my Mom." Raven stated, "This is something I made on accident. By engraving runic lines and using a unique arrangement of gemstones circuit cores, I am able to connect to someone through the help of a medium that contains their genes."

He then flicked his finger towards Pyra, who\'s sitting on the opposite side of him and gathered a strand of her hair. After receiving it, he tied it to a knot and placed it on the middle of the small table. He then made some hand seals and channeled his energy to table. 

And to everyone\'s surprise, a screen of light appeared above the small table and another one appeared in front of Pyra, showing different perspectives. A gleam appeared an Henry\'s eyes as he witnessed all of this. 

"Hair, blood, spit, skin - anything that contains your targets gene will work for this. It\'s also not considered as a transmission but a telepathy of some sorts, so it could hardly be blocked by interferences. However, this has some limitations."

"The length of the communication is limited based on the amount of medium you have. A strand of hair can last for at least seven minutes. Of course, the more medium one has the longer this can go on. Another thing is that, this can\'t be used while moving. The one making contact is not allowed to leave five meters away from this object. As for the one being contacted, it\'s ten meters."

"The contact can be refused if the receiver doesn\'t want to, that will consume the medium and will require more for another attempts. So long as there\'s a medium, this can work. But I never really ventured it\'s limits so far."

"I managed to contact you since I collected a strand of your hair during your last visit. Thankfully, I was on time or else…"

"I see. Good thing that you have this then." Henry nodded in praise. 

"Oh and by the way…" Raven interjected, taking out yet another item from his spatial ring. This time, it\'s slab of rock which is almost entirely black in color but the aura it released caused everyone\'s blood to boil, more specifically the Body Refiners. 

"Dude! Is this…" Jason stood up from his seat due to shock. 

"I\'m not sure, I just felt that it\'s similar to what we\'re supposed to harvest." Raven replied, "I got when I was blocking the boulders being thrown at us. It doesn\'t look like a Bloodstone but it feels like it…"

"That\'s because it is a Bloodstone, Raven." Henry stated, a discernable smile of praise was present on his face. "The depictions could sometimes be wrong since we don\'t usually harvest something this big but there\'s no mistaking it. This is indeed, a Bloodstone Slab. Great job. You rendered great merit to sect by bringing this back."

Raven sighed in relief as well as the rest of his teammates. Thank god Raven brought it back with him. With this it could be said that they all profited from that disaster. 

"What\'s going on. Why do I feel the need to eat this thing? Am I going insane?" Jonathan asked while clenching his hand. 

"Fool, you too? You guys better put this away or I\'ll take a huge bite out of it." Floyd said in a gritted teeth. Everyone was weirded out by their reactions, thankfully Henry swooped in and took away the bloodstone slab. 

"Let me put this away before you guys go out of control." He said as he took the Bloodstone away. Once it\'s gone, Jonathan and Floyd visibly calmed down. "That sensation is something that occurs to Body Refiners. Although bloodstones are condensed from different sources of blood essences and grows up in a place filled with almost no nutrition, the vitality is contains is a unique delicacy for Body Refiners."

"However, it is poisoned. It needs to be filtered before consumption. Don\'t worry, you guys will most likely receive something like that once I hand this over. Now, we shall move on to the more important matter of this meeting."

Henry\'s voice sounded solemn by the end of his statement, causing a strange atmosphere to descends within the meeting room. 

"All of you were lucky that Raven managed to contact me before everything went awry. If not, who knows if Tartarus will remain standing under the siege of that creature." Henry spoke, his words were heavy and foreboding, causing everyone to feel a stifling feeling on their chest. 

"The creature that Raven was patrolling the 1000 mile depth, was something that\'s not meant to be there." Henry stated causing Raven\'s eyes to gleam since his guess was right. "In fact, it shouldn\'t be possible for it to escape the pagoda since it\'s situation pretty high-up."

"That particular creature was something you\'ll only encounter on the 82nd floor of the Devil Emperor\'s Pagoda." 

Henry\'s words caused everyone\'s heart to fiercely be shaken. All of them looked at their Senior Brother incredulously, not daring to believe what they just heard. 

"It\'s a unique creature. A cognizant devil we call as Centurion Lancer - the 13th Army Commander of Wrath\'s Sin. You guys don\'t understand how lucky you were that Raven was able to block it long enough for us to arrive. If he failed on doing so, Tartarus would probably be in shambles right now."

Such a thing was incredibly unbelievable to their ears but Henry doesn\'t seem to be lying. What does a War God like him would get from lying to them? That\'s right, nothing! 

"I take it that you and the other War Gods killed it?" Jason asked, just making sure. 

"Yes and no." Henry replied, "Yes, we indeed killed the Centurion Lancer. The other War Gods have taken it\'s carcass back to our main office. But you have to know that, even if we \'technically\' watched it die and even brought it\'s carcass back. It truly didn\'t die. Devils of this caliber are practically immortal, meaning that they won\'t remain down for long."

"The \'Sin of Wrath\' - Centurion Lancer\'s creator, will sense that it died under our hands. If it wants to, the Sin of Wrath could call back it\'s soul and place it on another vessel in order to revive it. Unless we kill the Sin or Wrath itself, the Centurion Lancer will just keep on coming back."

Everyone was silent. This is the first time that they came across something like this. An enemy such as this could directly break a person\'s will and fighting spirit. It was painfully obvious just how big the gap is and how heavy their responsibilities are.

"A Sin\'s Army Commander possess a unique skill that makes them an important piece for the devil army. However, they all posses a skill that\'s the same for every other Army Commander and that is the ability to summon the entire army they command."

"An Army Commander leads a minimum of a hundred thousand devils of different kinds. And upon summoning them, the Army Commander receives a great boost of strength depending on how many of it\'s army is left."

"That\'s why believe me.. If that thing was left unnoticed, it\'s capable of eradicating the entirety of Tartarus."