Way of the Knights

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'Ugh, geez. I overdid it...again. A shocker really...' 

This was Raven's initial thoughts upon regaining consciousness. His head throbbed painfully and he could feel his entire body sore. 

He opened his eyes to see a rather familiar ceiling. It didn't take long for him to realize that he was back to his own room. He spread his senses out and felt Kyrie's presence nearby, she was sitting on one of the desk while sorting out some paperwork. He also saw his army doing drills on the fields.

Raven retracted his probe and sensed his body. He sighed in relief as he saw that aside from the soreness of his body and his nearly emptied Cosmic Energies, he didn't sustain any injuries. It shouldn't take long for him to recover from this. 

With that said, Raven summoned the Brush of Wisdom and sealed the entire room. Before doing so however, he made sure to send a voice transmission to Kyrie, telling him that he's awake and fine, he also told him that he needed some time to recover properly so he ordered her to not allow anyone to disturb him. 

Kyrie followed his orders and after that, Raven went inside the Crown Space for the first time in a while. 

A comforted smile appeared on his face as he appeared in the Cultivation Eden, feeling the abundant energy source in here. He scooped some Equinox Waters and drank it, after that he sat down to recover his missing energies while also healing the soreness of his body. 

With the aid of Equinox Waters, his recovery hastened. The soreness of his body also disappeared immediately, making Raven sigh in comfort. 

'Ah, how nice. I truly missed being in this place. I still can't believe that there was something on Mount Olympus that could block my entry here. Well, doesn't matter anymore I guess. It's all in the past.'

Raven continued drinking Equinox Waters until he fully recovered from his Cosmic Energies. After that, Raven stood up and took the time to check how much Divine Spring Liquid he had managed to collect so far. 

Majority of the Divine Spring Liquid that he received from the Sect Master to him was preserved by Raven as he planned on making more through converting Equinox Waters. So far, there is a large glob of it at the very core of the Equinox Waters Nebula. If Raven were to harvest it now, he could easily fill at least twenty potion bottles with them, which is a lot considering that he initially only had a mere handful of it. 

Seeing this brought a smile to his face, he decided to let it be for now as he had other matters to attend to. 

He sat down on the largest Star Gazing Mat and began integrating with the insights his Avatars prepared for him. Once again, Raven found himself swimming in a sea of profundity as his knowledge about the Mysteries of Heaven and Earth became richer. Although he's still a bit far from making another breakthrough, he could still feel himself getting stronger. 

It took Raven a whole month to integrate with the insights of his Avatars. Once he woke up from his meditation, he was surprised to see four blurry silhouettes of people sitting in front of him, and they clearly weren't his Avatars. 

"Yo! Finished integrating with the Insights of your Avatars?" 

"Inos, Astrid! It's been a while..." Raven then looked at the two people beside them as asked: "And these are?"

"Previous Heirs just like us. Poppy and Myleene." Astrid gestured while to waved hello to Raven. 

"Nice to meet you." Raven greeted. 

"We finally met, 9th Candidate." The woman with a short stature smiled at him. "The name's Poppy!"

"Nice to meet you too, 9th Candidate." The tall woman with pointy ears and beautiful green dress greeted back, " I am Myleene."

"Raven Valorheart, well I guess you already knew that." Raven chuckled and shook hands with them, not like they could physically interact with each other but it's the thought that matters. 

"Yes, we know you. We've been watching you closely ever since you fused with the Ancestral Divine Crown." Poppy informed. 

"We are also gratified about your progress. In fact it was thanks to you that we could at least finally move around." Myleene told him, which caused Raven to feel a bit surprised. 

"What do you mean? How did I do that?" 

Poppy chuckled and said: "I am an Earthen Elf, also known as a Dwarf." 

"And I am a Forest Elf." Myleene smiled at him. 

Raven was still relatively confused about that so he couldn't help but frown. The gears on his head then finally moved and he immediately discovered the connection. 

"The World Tree!" 

"Exactly." Poppy and Myleene nodded and said at the same time. 

"Cool, but...how exactly did it happen? I didn't know that just helping the World Tree Seed sprout could allow to you be uh...freed? I guess."

The four heirs laughed at his confusion but it was Inos who explained how it worked first.

"Partner, the Ancestral Divine Crown isn't just something you own. It became a part of you once you entered the Palace." 

"Our remnant wills are preserved by the Crown and is connected through it. We can't take a step out since once we do, our residual 'Will' will immediately disperse since we don't have physical forms anymore and we are way past our era." Astrid followed up. 

"Inos had the closest connection to you since he's the one who's been discretely guiding you, he's also the one responsible for sending you back in time, so he was freed the moment you appeared in the Palace Grounds. Astrid appeared after you fought with the residual wills of failed candidates since she's the one who established that." Poppy explained further. 

"Poppy and I had no close relation to you but we received some form of relief when you integrate with that man's blood, Tenrou I mean. Still that wasn't enough to completely free us, the real deciding factor was if you could foster the World Tree Seed properly, and since it's you, then we didn't have any doubts that you would be able to do it, so we only needed to wait." Myleene wrapped up the explanation for everyone. 

"I see..." Raven murmured, he wasn't expecting such a revelation but he didn't mind it. He had the urge to ask what it would take for the other heirs to be 'freed' as well but he didn't do so in the end. He realized that they would tell him that right away if possible but since they didn't then that means he needs to figure it out on his own.

"Still, who would've thought right?" Myleene chuckled as he looked at Raven in wonder. 

"Indeed. So young yet he already managed to nourish a World Tree within him." Poppy nodded in admiration as well. 

"Ah, that reminds me!" Raven suddenly remembered something. "From the records I saw in the past, it said that there was some bad blood between the Earthen Elves and Forest Elf in the past, I wonder if it was true?" 

"Ah, that..." Poppy smiled, although Raven could tell that her smiled appeared rather cramped. "Yeah, it has been so long that I actually almost forgot about it all." 

"Indeed." Myleene nodded but she expressed sadness instead. 

"Sorry, I didn't mean to remind you of unpleasant memories." Raven felt slightly awkward seeing how they reacted to his question.

"Don't sweat it, Youngster." Poppy waved her hands, "We already let go everything, we're dead remember? There's no use for us to hold on to something stupid." 

"Something...stupid?" 

"Indeed. It was truly stupid..." Myleene whole-heartedly agreed. "Because of that stupidity, both of our races went extinct."

Raven's eyes widened in disbelief. Extinct. The Forest Elves and Dwarven Race were extinct. Raven didn't know what to feel about that sudden revelation. He initially thought that these races migrated somewhere and hid themselves, he didn't know that they were extinct. 

"We shed too much blood, sacrificing out very lives into these so-called 'Holy Wars' that brought us nothing but pain in misery. It was stupid how willing we are to sacrifice our very lives to prove that our 'History' was the correct one, and not the others." Myleene's mouth twitched in annoyance as she recalled some memories. 

"Right? Just imagine our despair when news that our 'History' was fabricated by someone, reached our ears?" Poppy said sarcastically. "It turns out that someone was manipulating us from the background. That entity managed to convince us to oppose each other and kill each other to the point that we were crippled. Then they swoop in and robbed us of everything while also making sure that none of us will remain."

"Seeing how they easily eradicated us without even using real effort must've given them a few laughs. What's worse is that, when we asked why us, they told us that they found our existence rather unpleasant, which is why they decided to eradicate us." 

"See? Isn't it stupid?" Poppy asked sarcastically.