While holding the king hostage, Draven finally reached a study door made of metal and flanked by two black armored soldiers with spears. The soldiers were poised to attack the moment they saw Draven holding a blade against the king's throat. However, just like the others, they were stopped by the king's personal guard.
"Your majesty!"
"Open the damn door," Draven coldly said, looking at the two black armored guards,
"They can't," King Richard growled,
"Go stand with them," Draven ordered the two black armored soldiers in front of him. They hesitated at first, but when Michael pressed the sword against the king's sweaty skin, they dropped their spears and ran to join the soldiers following Draven.
"Place your hand on the door," Draven ordered the king, but the king didn't move his hand,
"I am not letting you in that room. Go ahead kill me," King Richard threatened Draven,
"I told you, I'm not going to kill you," some soldiers heaved a sigh of relief. They relaxed a bit until they heard Draven's next words,
"I am going to kill your precious little princess. If you want to bet on her life, be my guest," Draven coldly said, showing no remorse.
"You heartless freak," the king cursed while moving his bloody palm towards the door.
The servants and the soldiers didn't move their eyes an inch away from the king. A few moments later, Draven noticed a glowing chakra on the copper door and radiated a light blue light. Following the appearance of the chakra, the door let out a low-pitched whistling sound as the door slowly moved inwards, revealing the inside.
Draven slowly pushed the king towards the room. Step by step, Draven got closer to the Etherian power generator room, where every vital place in Veland received the power from. No defense arrays or mechanisms would work without Etherian power, which was created by converting the energy extracted from the etherian crystals by the device in the room.
As soon as Draven stepped inside the room, he turned back to look at the soldiers who tried to follow him into the room,
"Close the door," Draven ordered the soldiers,
They hesitated to close the door because if they did, they wouldn't be able to open it again. But, on the other hand, the soldiers couldn't let their king disappear from sight.
Looking at the reluctant faces, Draven punched the king in the rib cage,
"Argh," the king growled in pain,
"Grrr," the king growled again as Draven punched him in the same place once more,
"I said,"
Draven punched the king with enough force to make the king cough up blood. Draven showed no mercy as he repeatedly punched the king until he broke one of King Richard's ribs,
"STOP!"
"STOP!"
"DON'T HURT HIS MAJESTY!"
"WE WILL CLOSE THE DOOR!"
The soldiers panicked and the sight of their king getting beaten in front of them caused chaos among the servants and the soldiers alike.
King Richard wanted to curse his incompetent soldiers, but he was in pain too much pain to utter any word. The room turned darker and darker as the soldiers were closing the door. After the door was shut entirely by the soldiers outside, the room had only one light source; the giant contraption behind Draven.
Crack!
"AHHHHHHHHH!" Suddenly the king screamed as loud as he could in pure agony. Draven let the king go but the latter just collapsed on the ground, holding his broken knee.
Draven wasn't a fool to let the king go. If he had, the king would run to the door the first chance he got. Draven had other things to worry about than watching the king like a hawk.
While the king was wailing in agony, Draven stared at the majestic device capable of producing pure Etherian power. The contraption had two main parts; the giant glass orb where Draven noticed dazzling blue crystals swirling inside.
"Are those the etherian crystals?" Draven heard MArgoth's question in his mind,
"Yes," Draven walked closer to the contraption. The contraption was silent for a contraption that stood almost fifteen feet tall and occupied half of the hall. Even standing a few meters away, Draven could barely hear any sounds from the generator.
The radiance coming from the crystals inside lit the entire room. Draven could feel the pure etherian energy coursing through his energy veins.
It had been so long since he felt like this. When his powers were taken away, he used to experience the sensation he's currently feeling.
The second major component of the contraption was the metal foundation under the glass orb. The foundation had a dashboard containing various levers and buttons to control the mechanisms built within the generator to control the process of extracting etherian energy from the crystals.
In case Draven wanted to destroy the generator, he could simply destroy the dashboard with enough force. However, since Draven only wanted to power down the server substation in Veland, Draven simply pulled down the levers one by one.
"Sarah," Draven placed his hand on his ear and asked,
"Still waiting,"
"Tell me when the power goes out,"
There were five levers in total, each controlling a prominent place in Veland. Draven pulled down the first lever as the energy crystals swirling inside the glass orb slightly dimmed,
"The power is still here," He heard Sarah,
Draven pushed the lever up to restore power to the place that just lost power. Then, he pulled down the second lever,
"Now?"
"No,"
"Draven," Margoth called out for Draven. Still, Draven had already noticed King Richar limping towards him in the reflection on the dashboard.
Draven remained calm, letting the King get closer to him. Meanwhile, Draven pulled down the third lever,
"Draven, the power is out," Sarah quickly responded to him.
"Finish your work and gather everything you can about the place I asked you,"
Since Draven planned to hunt down the supervillains and spread his legend throughout Etheria, he needed a base that could travel from place to place.
What could suit his needs more than a state-of-the-art latest model warship built by the Layne family?
Unfortunately, the Laynes had their own power generator to power up their warehouse. So Draven couldn't power down the warehouse from here.
"ARGHHH" King Richard let out a battle cry as he leaped at Draven,
Bang!
However, Draven simply swayed his body to the right, grabbed King Richard's right arm, and pushed him to the ground.
"What was your plan, your majesty? Fight me barehand? We both know you have no chance against me,"
"I know," King Richard snickered,
"I'm just distracting you,"
As soon as King Richard uttered these words, the ceiling above exploded. Draven quickly disappeared from where he was standing and appeared behind King Richard.
But the moment Draven appeared behind the king, he was hit by a shuriken that exploded when it made contact with Draven. The explosion sent Draven flying several meters backward.
"What the fuck just happened?" Margoth screamed in his head as Draven growled in pain. One moment they were standing near the dashboard, and the next moment, they were blasted away from the levers.
His blurred vision slowly cleared up to reveal a tall dark armored figure standing beside the king.
"The Black Knight," Draven mumbled. At last, Michael met the protector of Veland, The Black Knight. The minute Draven started killing in Veland, he knew he would eventually meet The Black Knight. Once upon a time, The Black Knight was Draven's inspiration. To be exact, The Black Knight was kind of Draven's hero. But now, The Black Knight was just another incompetent hero who lacked the will to do what was necessary in Draven's eyes.
The Black Knight wore dark gray armor mostly resembling the one Draven wore except, the Black Knight wore a cape and a cowl to cover his face.
"What took you so long?" Draven slowly picked himself up from the ground and snickered. Thanks to the armor, he suffered no major wounds but a few cuts and scrapes. Draven spat the blood in his mouth and brushed the dust off his shoulder.
On the other hand, instead of responding to Draven, The Black Knight threw another shuriken at Draven. But this time, Draven caught it before it could hit him.
Zzzzzzrrhhhhh
Draven felt a bolt of electricity running down his spine as he saw tiny bolts of lightning enveloping the shuriken. Draven tried to teleport yet he simply couldn't. The shuriken electrocuted him, preventing Draven from using short-distance teleportation.
Since The Black Knight fought and defeated Harvey several times, The Black Knight knew all about Harvey's strengths and weaknesses. Harvey was vulnerable to lightning bolts. When in contact, he couldn't teleport. The Black Knight exploited his weakness to throw him in prison. Therefore, when The Black Knight learned that Draven absorbed Harvey's power somehow, he used the same tactic on Draven.
"Surrender yourself," his voice chilled like frosted razors. It sounded harder than steel that would strike fear in his enemies.
Draven wasn't afraid of The Black Knight, not even a bit. In fact, Draven could make The Black Knight shudder with one word but Draven chose not to. He had to keep the power down until Sarah could breach the sub-server station, plug the copper coin into a server crystal and safely return back to their temporary lair.
"Make me," Draven cracked his neck before dashing towards The Black Knight.
Finally, the battle between Draven and The Black Knight began while General Barton and the soldiers were trying to break into the room.