Chapter 45: Chapter 45 : Understanding The Board (Part 5)

William Lancaster, Soren Austenus, Mira Ishida, Micheal Ascania, Dimitri Drazan, Dantry Drazan, Ciel Trenton, Alois Astor, Rose Ipsen, and Elsa Iventain; these ten, technically nine due to the fact that Dimitri possessed both twins bodies, were the members that made up the legendary band of psionics known as Raven Tail.

The start of this group's creation could be traced to two weeks after Kai Fawkes' death in Brenton. The one who got the ball rolling was William. He was a son of one of the noble families who made up the ninety percent that was scrambled. He was forced into a life of hardship and strife as he endured the Great Scramble’s many dangers.

Very useful in avoiding these dangers was his Unique ability, Soul Sight. By activating it, William could observe souls. Through this special vision, he could examine others' 'power level', and even the type of gate they had. This allowed him to avoid danger many times. But over the years, William grew sick of this lifestyle of constantly running away. Like countless others who lived in that time, he wanted to see the Great Scramble come to an end. However, he was too weak. He couldn't do it by himself. While he was teetering on the brink of despair, news of Kai's shocking prowess reached his ears, and with it, a possibility arose in his mind.

If he alone was unable to make the change, then he should just gather a collection of powerful individuals and have them work together to do so. Thus, the idea of Raven Tail was born. With this in mind, William's steps began filling with purpose. Using his Unique ability, he sought out the most powerful souls he could find while also assessing whether their character and personality were suitable for carrying out the grand mission.

Not long after, the former noble struck gold as he ran into one Soren Austenus, the future 'Heaven’s Shaker' and most powerful psionic of that era.

The Soren of that time was a hollow husk of a person. After losing his mother and father, he was jaded and aimless, but not for much longer. After hearing about William's grand goal and intention, Soren was freed from this dreary state. Eyes once again radiating bright light, Soren agreed but had one condition and that was to call their group, 'Raven Tail'. William agreed, and the two went on to recruit the other members.

The next person to be recruited was Mira. She had the Unique ability of foresight, though, she didn’t just 'see' into the future, she experienced it with all her senses, just as she would normally experience the world. She could spam it over and over, and according to Micheal, she could see as far as ten days into the future.

Her power was astounding. Had it not been for William and Soren's combination, tracking her down would be impossible. But they did. Hearing them out even before they could state their intentions, Mira agreed and subsequently joined up in the hunt for the next members.

Next was Micheal. At the time, he was a Society of Sages’ Junior Sage. He was a strange case. Micheal’s power wasn’t known to others or himself. It was a Unique power that required a certain condition to activate, and because of this, it remained dormant for several years. Still, useless as he was back then, he was recruited and subsequently joined up.

Next was the Drazan twins. On the surface, they were both Uniques, whose powers greatly resembled normal Combat Telepaths. While not as spectacular as Mira's or Soren's, they were recruited nonetheless. For reasons still not well understood, Dimitri agreed to join up and had his two vessels become Ravens.

With all the Uniques accounted for, the Mimics followed.

First was Ciel, the wind Mimic. He wasn’t a fighter by any means, in fact, he was the exact opposite. While the Great Scramble had toughened up most, he wasn’t one of them. Thanks to his famous parents sheltering him, he felt none of the ill effects of the Great Scramble. He stayed in their comfy manor, pursuing his art- well until the Raven Tail came and ‘snatched’ him away.

Next was Alois Astor, the lightning Mimic. Even before joining Raven Tail, Alois’ name was famous. First, as the first prince of Saures and later as the unbeatable Lightning King. The situation in Saures played out in a similar manner as it did in Brenton.

Alois, after awakening his power, brought order to his land. At the time of recruitment, he was considered the strongest psionic alive, with only Kai's recent stories calling this notion into doubt. As such, Raven Tail was very eager to recruit him to their cause. He didn't come easily, but he came in the end. After losing a 'flashy bet' against Soren, the royal agreed to join Raven Tail.

Elsa was next. Her situation was similar to Alois'. Like him, she was a noble. But instead of the royal family, she was from a third-rate noble family. When things went belly up, she stepped up. Using her overwhelming power, she dispelled the chaos rocking her nation and took the helm under the moniker, 'Ice Queen'. The teenager didn't like being a ruler though, so when the eight Ravens showed up and made their recruitment, she happily left with them.

The group then flew thousands of kilometres westward to meet the tenth and final Raven, Rose Ipsen. If Ciel was unfit for battle, she was even more so. She was a kind soul, known for her selfless and thoughtful nature.

Growing up in the barren desert plains and seeing all the pain and strife brought upon by water shortages, she took it upon herself to use her power to end such conflicts entirely. After leaving her village, she moved throughout the Western Region. Using her water Mimic powers, the water scarcity issue was eliminated by her actions alone - no, she didn't just stop there. Her activities caused the region map to become bluer and bluer with dozens of great lakes forming at her fingertips. This wasn't surprising when one understood that she could conjure a lake's worth of water in an instant.

It was believed that if she expended all her aura every day for fifty or so years, the sea level would rise enough to submerge all continents. And this was an estimate of her power before joining Raven Tail. After reaching Ascendance, the time frame dropped to a few years at most. Her power was just that great. Rose didn't make a spectacle of her deeds. She moved silently and mysteriously. Without a name to call her by, people began referring to her as 'Water Maiden'.

Using William and Mira’s powers, the group quickly found her. After hearing them out, she agreed to join, to the delight of a certain wind Mimic.

Once fully gathered, Raven Tail set out on its mission to quash the chaos plaguing the world.

And quash it, they did. Raven Tail was a Juggernaut, their unparalleled might smashed through all obstacles. If the Kai versus Brenton’s forces was akin to an adult against a child, Raven Tail’s dominance was akin to an adult against a zygote; they were simply unstoppable.

Starting with the Western Region, they zigzagged at breakneck speed, putting out the Great Scramble’s many fires one by one in quick succession. Finishing their Western Region campaign, they headed to the Central and Eastern region and repeated.

In merely two months, the Great Scramble was brought to an end. The goal which appeared nigh impossible to achieve turned out to be extremely easy to accomplish for the group. While completing their mission, the Ravens grew closer, with three romantic pairs forming; Dimitri and Mira, Micheal and Elsa, and Rose and Ciel.

You are reading story The Silver Path at novel35.com

Dimitri and Mira were frequently working together due to their roles in Raven Tail, with him being the brains of the operation and she the information provider. Due to this, they 'naturally' drifted closer to each other and eventually became lovers.

Micheal and Elsa’s romance wasn’t well known at the time. Had Micheal not mentioned it in his account, no one would suspect the two of being a couple. The same couldn’t be said of Rose and Ciel though. The two were greatly enamoured with each other.

After quelling all conflict, Raven Tail hadn’t rested on its laurels. Brute force wasn’t the only thing going for it. They began establishing the Pillar factions.

With the Radiant Church's great fall from grace, humanity had lost its pillar. The Raven Tail sought to correct this. The purpose of the Pillar factions was to bring stability to the world and prevent another Great Scramble from occurring.

The Psionic Association and the Society of Learning were the first two Pillar factions. The former was to act as the world's police of sorts and keep the various powers in check. In modern times, the criteria for joining is very strict, but in the initial recruitment, nearly every psionic that applied was accepted. Raven Tail wanted to give psionics a positive identity to latch onto and allow them to rid themselves of the 'demon' label they had been forced to wear for so long.

The second faction, the Society of Learning was just the Society of Sages under new management. Danwal Erikson, their new head, changed the name as the faction changed its stance from knowledge for knowledge’s sake to actively helping the world. He returned the faction to what it was during Caelus' rule.

The Merchant Association came shortly after. The Great Scramble had tanked the world’s economy, and the Merchant Association was made to correct this, while also funding the other factions.

With the Raven Tail’s backing, these three factions rose to prominence and were soon directing world affairs.

The most significant thing these factions brought about was the existence of the worldwide telepathic networks. With its establishment, Inis became fully connected. Raven Tail made extensive use of this system, for important things like announcing the Psionic Association's opening day and recruitment, but also for unimportant things like showing videos of them battling monsters or showing off their flashy attacks.

Yes, videos.

Rei was shocked to find this term present during his reading. He asked Ralf about it and was given this answer:

Technically, it's called a Psi video, but with the Psi being redundant, people just call it video. In short, there's no electronics involved, just psionics. Naturals are able to record all their experiences perfectly. They can also cut and chop these recordings as they like, thus creating clips. With a Telepath's assistance, they can then stream these clips into others' minds…

…It's not just short videos either, movies can be made using this method as well. Mom and I visited a theatre once. It was amazing. You enter a dark room, your mind is connected to a local telepathic network, and then you and others collectively have a movie projected onto your mind. It's wild. You have to experience it for yourself...

Hearing this, Rei grew excited.

Unlike Caelus’ tales which one had to just trust was real, Raven Tail’s legendary exploits were recorded extensively. At museums and certain institutions, one would be able to view these recordings. Not just them either, pretty much everything; since the first batch of Naturals came into existence, there have been tons of footage of all sorts of events.

The Great Scramble, the Burning of Brenton, Raven Tail’s Rise and Fall, the War of the End, etc. Tens of thousands of videos exist depicting these events clearly, from many different perspectives.

The desire to see these videos for himself was one of the things Rei was looking forward to most. The written word was marvellous, but it couldn’t compare to experiencing it from a first-person perspective.

‘After this Red Star business and the delicacy tour, we should do this next.’

Agreeing to this course of action, Rei returned to Raven Tail’s story.

With order being brought to Inis, Raven Tail and the Pillar factions were in the process of dictating the direction the world would go in. The darkness that was the Great Scramble was behind them, now they would bathe in the warm light of peace and progress.

Unfortunately, this was not to be. Humanity was beset by another tunnel, one much darker than the previous one.

The aresian invasion arrived.

You can find story with these keywords: The Silver Path, Read The Silver Path, The Silver Path novel, The Silver Path book, The Silver Path story, The Silver Path full, The Silver Path Latest Chapter