Way of the Knights

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'There it is again!' Raven exclaimed as soon as he felt that spike. 

He hurriedly stood up and looked around, wanting to see where that spike came from but failing to find it's source. A trace of disappointment and annoyance could be seen on Raven's face. Now that he felt it for the second time, he could definitely feel the familiarity on that but he just can't grasp it since he can't find it's source. And that bugs him to no end. 

The spike of fluctuations occurred so suddenly and disappeared at the same manner as well. Leaving Raven a bit displeased about the situation. 

He frowned and sat back down on his spot, grumbling inwardly and swearing that if he ever gets another chance, he would totally discover what was going on. 

Surprisingly though, as soon as he sat back down, a major change happened to his surroundings. 

Under his astonished gaze, the raging blizzard disappeared without a trace, so as the snow that's covering his vision in white. They didn't melt nor evaporated, they just outright disappeared. 

What replaced it was a rather chilled environment. One that is typical and made perfect sense. Raven was of course, shocked to see this unfolding before his very eyes. Although he was warned earlier that the climate changes very abruptly, he wasn't expecting it to be in this level. He thought that the snow would at least melt or something before being replaced by another climate, not just outright disappear. 

Witnessing this happened caused Raven to be filled with questions. How was it possible and what happened? Raven was currently deducing it and he's not coming up with an answer that satisfies him. 

'Wait...' Raven thought to himself, 'Are the two connected?'

What he's referring to was the sudden spike of fluctuations and the climate change. The idea of these events being connected occurred to him yet still, even though it sounds somewhat convincing since they practically occurred at the same time, it's not quite there yet. 

'That spike of fluctuation occurred first and then the climate changed a few moments after it passed. It's the same as the one happened before it snowed. However, what he wanted to know is that what was the trigger for the change. 

Does it have a pattern? A visible tell? How long does one climate last? How long would one climate last and son on? These are what he truly wanted to know. 

'If that spike of fluctuation occurs and is the sign of a climate change, the I guess that'll be the huge sign then. But why is there a need for the spike of fluctuations to happen? Can't the climate change happen without it? Hmm?' 

Raven was once again immersed on his own thoughts and it stayed like this for quite sometime. Hours passed and the War Gods were still resting peacefully within their tents. Raven has eventually woke up from his stupor and began focusing on something else. 

He stood up from his spot and started walking around. He even went outside of the formation for a brief walk. He wanted to inspect the surroundings closer to see if he could receive more clues that will dispel the covering the veil within this mountain. 

Raven saw that the road was pretty much clear, there's patches of grass at some areas of the path and some trees around. He looked at the sky and saw the clear night sky filled with numerous stars and a few patches of clouds as well as the large moon giving a faint silver brilliance to his surroundings. He could also feel the nice and chilled night winds blowing past his face as well as hear the sounds of crickets nearby. 

All of a sudden however, Raven froze on his tracks. His eyes widened in disbelief as he hurriedly crouched down and touched the grass near him. 

"It's real..." Raven murmured to himself, his voice was filled with slight disbelief. 

He walked right up to the nearby tree and admired it close. He then lifted his hand and traced the grooves of it's bark. His eyes widening even more...

"This one's also real." He whispered, he then looked around and continued saying: "That means, everything I see and hear right now...are real!" 

"But...but...how can that be?" Raven stuttered as he retreated a couple of steps back. He subconsciously swallowed down some spit as he tried inspecting everything around him. And just like before, he could tell that everything around him was real. 

Which makes things incredibly unbelievable to him since...

"These things weren't here before!" Raven uttered with his voice filled with incredulity, "These grass, these trees...the crickets! Heck, these crickets shouldn't even be able to survive that blizzard, yet here they were! Not a single star was visible earlier, yet now the sky is literally filled with them. Heck, the moon wasn't even remotely visible anywhere yet it's glaring down right now! That doesn't make sense!"

It truly doesn't make sense for him to be able to see these things right now when just mere moments ago, everything was covered in a thick, thick blanket of snow. These plants didn't just magically bloomed when the snow disappeared, they just popped out of existence as soon as the climate changed. That's completely unnatural! 

Raven was too focused on his failure to grasp the source of that spiking fluctuation that he was caught completely unaware of these things. 

He felt like he was onto something, yet for some reason he just can't grasp it. It's like on the tip of his tongue but he's on the verge of swallowing it. 

'These plants, even with them appearing right after the climate change, will surely take some time to grow. However they didn't, I am sure of that since I would surely notice something like vegetation growing too fast at a speed visible to naked eye.' 

'They just popped out of existence, as if they've always been here all along. And if I'm not wrong, that should be the case for this vegetation. So then why...'

"Unless..." Raven's eyes suddenly sparkled brilliantly. He then closed his eyes and released some kind of gray tendrils from his body. 

These tendrils were like feelers that allowed Raven to sense his surroundings. They landed onto things near to him and suddenly, Raven started seeing some visions while his eyes were closed. 

After quite sometime, Raven's eyes snapped wide open. His pupils were gleaming with understanding and clarity, there was even an ecstatic expression on his face. 

"I knew it! Haha! I finally understand!" Raven exclaimed as he slowly made his way back to the formation. 

"Parallelism! That's the answer!" He exclaimed once more. "It's not like the climate change, no. What changed is the world itself, not just the climate!"

Indeed. It is just as Raven said. 

The reason why Mount Olympus' climate changes very abruptly isn't because of some weird enchantment place within the mountain itself. It is because the challengers are being transported in different Parallel Worlds where Mount Olympus itself is located in a different place with a different environment, hence upon their transfer, the climate they have to face would similarly be different as well. 

This is why hikers of the mountain hardly encounter each other on the journey. Even though there's quite a number of people who challenged the mountain, the number of Parallel Worlds are almost infinite so their chances of meeting someone was drastically lowered. 

That spike of fluctuations that he felt was in fact the sign that they will be transported in another parallel world, which also means that they'll be transferred on a different Mount Olympus as well. 

In short, the challengers are conquering different Mount Olympus at the same time. 

The reason behind Raven's joy is because Parallelism is another concept of Spacetime Laws. It's the third one to be precise. Upon reaching this stage, once could slowly sense their Parallel World identities and interact with them. They could do so much more past this but still, that remains an absolute advantage since unless all of their Parallel World identities are destroyed, they'll just return from the jaws of death. 

Who would've expected that Raven would encounter this concept here? He'd be a huge idiot if he didn't take advantage if this situation!

No, Raven isn't going to learn the Spacetime Concept: Parallelism just yet, he didn't want to die. What he wanted to do was to at least get some insights about it and slowly incorporate it on his foundations, that way when it's time for him to breakthrough to this stage, it'll be more easier for him.

Raven returned to the formation and began meditating. He opened up his senses and began interacting with the Laws around him. At first he found it quite difficult to grasp traces of the concept yet with his persistence, he eventually sensed them and began etching them to his memories. 

He felt quite bloated even with his mental fortitude but Raven remained steadfast and patient, he did things in moderation and integrated the insights he absorbed carefully. 

Morning eventually, came and the group all simultaneously woke up from their rest.