The Oracle Paths

With a wave of his hand, he beckoned the group to attack and Wyatt bravely took the initiative. He had already been defeated once, but seeing Jake persevere so long in such a dire state he finally understood what he was missing.

Unluckily for him, Nylreg now had the abilities of the Myrtharians after devouring Jake's leg. A blinding flash of ultraviolet light erupted forth from his body and both Vampires immediately began to howl in pain.

But this time, Wyatt didn't run away like a coward and gritted his teeth as he charged headlong toward the enemy, shrouding himself in a thick halo of Blood Energy. His strength, speed, and fighting skills had always been above Jake's, and once his fears were quelled and his scruples discarded, he was at the end of the day the rightful descendant of a Vampire Progenitor.

SLASH!

The scarlet blade of his ceremonial sword cut deep into Nylreg's armor and he felt a hostile energy seep into his veins. Hidden behind Wyatt, Carmin appeared with her numerous crystallized Blood Chains and with a deft somersault looped them around the enemy's neck before continuing her run behind him.

Nylreg's head immediately snapped back, but a simple telekinetic impulse was enough to counteract that force. His right hand calmly clutched Wyatt's blade caught in his armor, while his left hand passed between the Blood Chain and his neck and with a sharp tug broke it clean off.

Yet, in that meager instant, Kyle had managed to come in from above, letting himself be centrifuged by another chain of Carmin to which he was firmly clinging, and he fired without hesitation with a futuristic bazooka he must have unearthed somewhere on the station. At point-blank range, the missile hit Nylreg right on the top of the skull and the shock wave stunned him for a tiny moment.

Carmin took the opportunity to condense a Blood Halberd and with a 180° spin on herself, thrust forward straight through his back. Only the tip managed to crack the chitin, but the impact sent him reeling forward, breaking the telekinesis that was about to lock Kyle down.

Simultaneously, Wyatt drew back his blade and, by contracting the muscles of both arms he tore away the chitin plate damaged by his sword, revealing the flesh beneath. Without hesitation, he sank his fangs into the vulnerable flesh and greedily sucked up the silver blood like a hungry leech. Following his example, Carmin jumped on Nylreg's back and also sank his fangs into his nape after fracturing the chitin with repeated blows from a Blood Chisel.

Kyle, who was drifting away in space because of the explosion's backlash, widened his eyes and stammered in pure disbelief,

"He's... weak."

That was what each of them thought, Jake included. No matter how much he became a Digestor, no matter whether he had acquired his Bloodline, and no matter how strong he had become physically, Nylreg had somehow become weaker.

The world was rejecting him, plunging his luck to abysmal levels while he seemed to have exhausted his True Will of Destruction in his previous attacks. His previous fighting style, once based on the foreknowledge and precognitive instincts of the Fluid Wielders, was completely gone, and it was plain for all to see that without those "cheat codes", Sigmar's son was a very poor fighter.

Right now, he only had his tough body and brute strength to work with and the damage he had accumulated in previous fights, first against his father Sigmar, then Jake and now Wyatt and the others, had finally taken its toll on his endurance.

After Wyatt had drained a liter of blood from him in a split second, Nylreg managed to pull himself together and let out a rabid roar reminiscent of a wounded lion. With a hard jerk of his torso, he threw Wyatt off balance and with a sharp elbow punctured the top of his skull. With his other arm, he grabbed Carmine by her hair and pulled hard, swinging her over his shoulder as if in a judo grip.

With no ground nor air, both Vampires were launched into the cosmos without a chance to shift direction and as he opened his mouth a huge ultraviolet laser shot out, instantly charring the two Vampires to a crisp.

Wyatt erected a wall of crystallized blood to shield himself and Carmin, but it was flickering away brightly, dispersing a huge amount of Blood Energy every second to withstand the deadly rays. Seeing their situation, Kyle who had finished reloading his bazooka fired again and Jake whose head had finally regenerated used his earlier Soul Arrow to interrupt the enemy.

Nylreg spaced out again for a fleeting instant and just as he was about to unleash a huge technique, an untimely piercing pain petrified him again. Turning his head behind him, he found himself face to face with a jaded lizard man whose blueberry scales didn't seem very healthy.

That same sickly blue color was gradually spreading through his entire body from the claws sunk into the same spot poked by Carmine's halberd a little earlier.

"Peter!" Jake and the others were shocked when they saw him alive.

"Did you miss me?" Peter chuckled telepathically into the comlink because of the lack of air in space.

"... "

"Damn it, at least fake it..." He grumbled with a falsely saddened look. "If you have some coke, a relaxant or even a cigarette I'll be happy to forgive you, kay?"

Disregarding Wyatt and Carmin, Nylreg bared his fangs at the junkie and with a 180-degree turn of his head and upper chest he brutally embraced the lizard man and with a sharp twist broke his back. Instead of squealing in pain, Peter spat out a jet of greenish acid right into his face and his thick silver chitin began to dissolve on the spot.

Yet Nylreg was not stumped for long. Sensing Wyatt and Carmin coming back, another burst of ultraviolet light shot out of his body to stop them in their tracks and as he held Peter down with his left arm, the half-dissolved chitin on his skull cleared up and his jaw suddenly stretched nightmarishly until the opening was over 50cm.

With a loud snap of his jaw, Peter's upper half was severed in two, his head and torso ending up in Nylreg's stomach. Except that the scenario with the titanoboas did not repeat itself. No sooner had he swallowed it than the Digestor immediately spit out its carcass to avoid indigestion.

He was right to do so, for what came out of his mouth no longer looked like a lizard man, but an abomination. This thing was indeed a humanoid reptile, but it had two heads and a pestilential black venom was dripping abundantly from its fangs, claws and even from its spikes and scales.

"What a shame..." Peter whined in disappointment as he watched his new baby feet grow back at a speed too slow to be of any use.

The druggie closed his eyes, determined to be killed, when a high-pitched, shrill howl ripped through Nylreg's eardrums despite the lack of air. His very soul showed signs of instability and he thought his brain was about to explode.

Alarmed, he turned his head in all directions in search of the culprit and was surprised when he saw the Banshee woman looming up. He assumed she was a Player, but her eyes reminded him of a completely different person.

"Minerva!"

"Hehe, you didn't think I was going to let myself be killed so easily, did you?" Ostrexora chuckled with an ominous twinkle in the eye. "Just so you know, I hold grudges. I always settle my scores!"

Minerva no longer had her Fluid Core, nor her body, but she still had her experience as a venerable Fluid Grandmaster. By joining forces with Ostrexora, both of their minds could develop remarkable power. Normally, the Banshee woman would have fought hard to regain control of her body, but it turned out that Nylreg... was a man.

And not just any man! Long before Tim, he was the one who had brought about her miserable situation. Without him, Minerva would still have her body, and without him, she would never have had to team up with male Players she despised, much less make gross mistakes as a result of the Corruption. Nylreg was the one to blame!

"I'll kill you bastard!" Minerva suddenly screamed in Ostrexora's high-pitched, wacky voice, her eyes bloodshot.

A thumping heartbeat resounded in the heads of everyone within hundreds of meters and Nylreg felt a strange pressure in his chest as if he was struggling to breathe even though he didn't need to. Looking down, he saw that the energy in his cells was beginning to leak out of his body, converging into a sort of invisible river flowing towards Ostrexora.

"Life Drain!" Nylreg frowned as he recognized the technique buried in his hereditary memory.

Digestors didn't get their energy from primitive exothermic reactions based on the metabolization of carbohydrates, fats and proteins. Neither did Jake for that matter, since he could even get his sustenance by eating rocks. As Jake had recently learned during his epiphany, his cells could actually hold a fair amount of Aether, Fluid and other more functional types of energy, including the precious life energy that kept his body running normally.

Reflexively, Nylreg opened the pores of his skin and spirit to absorb more Aether to counteract the drain on his life force. Forgoing the idea of killing Wyatt or Peter, he looped in the opposite direction and charged straight for the Minerva-Ostrexora duo with the sole intention of eliminating them.

Jake, regenerating as fast as he could, squeezed another spiritual laser into his left eye and fired at Nylreg before it was fully charged. He again felt the splitting headache and the stinging pain of his soul being partially ripped out of him, but the regenerating flames of the two sisters immediately soothed the feeling of discomfort.

As for Nylreg, just before reaching Ostrexora, he was hit by the invisible, inescapable laser and the unexpected mental clash drilled a mini hole in his Spirit Body near his temples. Dizzy again, Jake who had recovered faster this time immediately broke through with his consciousness and telekinesis and with a cruel thought made his brain implode.

Ostrexora had not moved during all this time and smiled sadistically as she saw the chitin of Nylreg's helmet getting gorged with gore and brains. With a exultant Banshee scream, the ghost-like body of the young woman threw itself body and soul into the breach left by Jake and a few seconds later the weakened Spirit Body of Nylreg started to shudder and distort as if it was in the throes of some terrible nightmares.

Wyatt and Carmin didn't miss the chance and counterattacked with clenched teeth. Carmin was almost half dead, but Wyatt had tremendous vitality. In a flash he was in front of Nylreg's body and ferociously sank his fangs into his flesh to siphon off his silver blood.

This time Nylreg took longer to recover and by the time he let out his second beastly roar, his movements had become haggard and slow while his silver chitin had turned gray and dull with the complexion of rotting wood.

However, the closer he was to death, the more his Digestor instincts were taking over. His golden eyes shimmered like two beacons in the night underneath his chitin helmet and a blink of an eye later Minerva let out a ghastly scream of pain before being blasted out of his skull with only half her head.

Unlike Jake, it was not her physical body, but also her Spirit Body and Soul that had just been amputated. Both Minerva and Ostrexora could not even remember their first names after having 90% of their memories ripped away.

Jake was also suffering from mild memory loss just like he had at the end of his Second Ordeal, but he knew that it would eventually return as long as an intact version of his Aether Code existed within him.

However for Minerva and Ostrexora this was the end. With a backhanded slap, Nylreg smashed all the bones in Wyatt's skull and sent him flying into the void, but not in time to dodge the third bazooka shot Kyle had prepared for him.

His previous very human grunts gave way to a sinister, low, throaty growl that was no longer human, and after glancing murderously at Kyle in the distance, he grabbed the half of Ostrexora's head with one hand and gobbled it whole.

Not attacking immediately after that, Nylreg glared at them hatefully with his yellow eyes and waited patiently for his wounds to recover. The process was no longer instantaneous after Wyatt had pumped out most of his blood and life energy. Ostrexora's Life Drain and her previous mental attack had also hurt him badly.

Carmin's and Kyle's attacks could at best be considered nuisances, but Jake was by far the most destructive. Their protracted battle had wasted a lot of energy after the long fight with his father and these last two psychic attacks combined with that almighty telekinesis had caused extremely severe damage to his Soul.

Right now, Nylreg was also having trouble remembering his own name. Using the techniques buried in his memories was obviously out of the question.

" Are you done? You' ve used up all your trump cards?" Nylreg found the strength in him to cackle as his wounds ended up regenerating before those of his enemies.

Jake and Wyatt gave him a funny, somewhat pitying look. They both looked up and stared at a point behind him. Following their gaze, Nylreg turned his head and froze.