185 Ritual (2/2)

The weaker guards were alert while the stronger ones were relaxed. This was probably due to the weaker guards' nervousness, this might be their first major mission ever since being recruited from the ranks, and if that's the case then it would make sense why they were more alert. As for the stronger guards, obviously they were more relaxed since they have more experience, this goes specially well for the Silver Knight over there. Raven was certain that he wasn't even scanning his surroundings at all.

'I can work with this.' Raven thought and grinned.

He then climbed up to the ceiling and slowly made his way towards the entrance. Along the way, he made sure that he was constantly scanning his surroundings in case there are traps on his way.

And just like he thought, none were able to locate him. He just strutted his way over them and went pass through this barricade like it didn't exist. Needless to say, Raven was still nervous all throughout the process, one slight mistake and he's done for, thankfully he didn't mess up.

Raven reminded himself that it's not yet the time to drop his guard, if anything he had to be even more careful this time around since this was the deepest part of the enemy territory.

Sticking to the ceiling, he decided to recover first. He had used up a considerable amount of energy on his way here, he needed to be on his top shape before going any further, his strength and knowledge are the only insurances that he have.

After consuming some recovery medicines, Raven felt better and decided to go on. He restrained his breath to the barest minimum and calculated each step he took, this way it was even harder for anyone to notice his presence.

The hallway towards the main room of the highest floor was a curve, so Raven had to make sure that he wasn't making any noise since he don't know if there's another wave of guards roaming around.

Eventually, Raven traversed the curved hallway by walking on the ceiling and he reached the main room. There, an astounding scene was shown to him.

The huge and circular room was surrounded with black fog, Raven saw several people kneeling and silently muttering some strange incantations. Looking up, a harrowing scene was imprinted on his mind. There he saw several naked people hanging, lifeless with blood flowing down from their bodies.

From what he had seen, there must be at least hundreds of naked people, hanged in the ceiling with ropes around their necks and a huge slit on their stomachs. He saw several men amongst them but mostly it was women and children. The blood from their bodies rained down, each drop were seemingly lifted with a strange and invisible force and were collected in a huge basin in the middle of the room.

All the hairs of Raven's body stood up in sheer anger. He harshly glared and scanned the room, looking for Yael.

He found him. He was there sitting on the middle of the room. There were stage tribal markings all over his body, his eyes were closed as he sat cross-legged and chanted the same strange incantations that Raven was hearing earlier.

Raven wanted nothing more than to take out the Archaic Thousand Arms Hammer and cause havoc in this place but despite his raging anger, he had to pause and study the so-called ritual that's going on.

He used his enhanced senses and took in each detail inside the room. He listened closely the incantations with the intent of decoding them, at the same time he observed the ornaments placed around the room and the tribal markings on Yael's body.

Raven's thought flashed, it didn't take him long before he finally realized just what was Yael's plan.

'Blood Ritual: Devil's Cradle'. A type of evil ritual that requires human sacrifice in order to open up a two-way portal from one place to another despite the distance. There's no doubt in Raven's mind now.

Yael planned on opening up a portal for the Black Curtain Guild to invade the Kingdom from the inside.