The Oracle Paths

Jake had barely taken a few steps when he suddenly turned back with an annoyed scowl towards the spot where he had left the Mumaks and the rest of the conscripts, and stretched his arm out in front of him.

"Damn, they really don't know when to quit."

A torrential downpour of greenish acid and plasma projectiles was currently crashing down from the sky like divine judgment for the third consecutive time in a short moment, with no one to stop it. The target of this aerial strike was precisely the conscripts and the Mumaks left behind to spare them from danger. Though he had promised not to protect them directly anymore, he apparently had too soft a heart.

His powers were too suppressed to deploy telekinesis of such magnitude over such a distance, but with his Lumyst cultivation growing by the second, he was no longer completely powerless in these situations either.

Suddenly, dark bluish Lumyst burst from one of his Lumyst Cores, lighting up his fingertips. Several hundred pulses of Cosmic Lumyst, casting tree-like lightning, split the air in the blink of an eye, invisible to the naked eye, smashing every enemy projectile raining from the sky. Upon contact, the Cosmic Lumyst exploded, producing hundreds of tiny big bangs that tore through space. A curtain of darkness replaced the fragmented blue sky, swallowing the falling projectiles just after.

Among these precise shots of Cosmic Lumyst, four more pierced the foreheads of four individuals retreating from the scene, flying towards the top of the hill where they were located: Four Lifemancers.

"That should keep us in peace, but these bombardments will continue as long as those Grenadier Bugs are still alive." Jake analyzed with a bored tone.

At that moment, Hephais, who had vanished without a sound, reemerged from Jake's shadow, his scimitars covered in the disgusting creatures' greenish blood.

"We're in the clear now." The assassin nodded calmly as he sheathed his scimitars.

"That's why I like teaming up with you." Jake praised, then turned his attention to the thing that had just crashed violently to his left, to the general indifference.

Amy and the other Players in the group had already taken combat stances, expecting another overpowering spell like the ones that hit Crunch and Lord Phoenix. But upon inspecting the newly created crater, they found the broken body of Meribelle inside.

For a second, they thought her dead, until she began to stir, wincing.

"Still alive?" Jake asked while casting a quick healing spell. Unlike Lord Phoenix, her body instantly knitted back together.

The young woman remained on all fours for a moment to catch her breath, then whimpered painfully as she stood up, "Those Grenadier Bugs... With the two other Soulmancers secretly protecting our regiment, I managed to shield the surviving recruits, but the Lifemancers we were facing seized this chance to strike at our heart. If we don't intervene, they will all die!"

Jake and Hephais exchanged a blasé look, then said, "You don't have to worry about them anymore."

Meribelle's eyes widened stupidly upon hearing his confident statement, until she remembered what this human aberration was capable of. In the end, she surprised herself by realizing how much her perspective had changed in just a few days of associating with him.

'I guess there's some truth to the saying that our personality is the average of the five people we spend the most time with...' She mused internally as she stood up, surprised by the absence of pain.

Even the old, indelible scars from past cultivation accidents had been completely erased.

'What a terrifying healing spell...'

Noticing that the Soulmancer woman was back on her feet, Jake nodded inwardly, then said,

"Let's move on."

Without further ado, his silhouette blurred again with speed, followed by Hephais and the Players from Amy's squad who had chosen to continue following them. The hill they were climbing might have been as massive as Mount Everest, but Players like them could scale it in the blink of an eye.

Only an unavoidable countermeasure could guarantee the safety of the HQ erected at its summit. Crunch and Lord Phoenix had triggered one, but as soon as Jake became the spearhead of the offensive, charging dangerously fast towards the summit, even more lethal and unimaginable traps were triggered in response.

*****

"General Corvac, are you sure about this..." The giant in shining armor asked darkly, seeing Jake collide with an invisible force field encircling the summit of the hill.

Rather than seeing it, he had mainly felt the cataclysmic shock that cracked the immense hill at the moment of impact. The barrier protecting their command center was supposed to withstand the full power of a Titan for several minutes, but at that moment, they felt it waver.

The assailant was a true monster!

With slightly trembling hands, the old general suppressed the fear engulfing his mind through sheer willpower, then, as if resigned, he ordered, grimly,

"Have our Radiant Mages sacrifice another Anthace seed to buy us some time. In the meantime, order the nematode tamers to open the aquifer..."

The stoic officers, thinking they had seen everything in their long years of war, paled upon hearing the second instruction.

"G-general! Have you lost your mind! Our troops are also here!" A respected Radiant Lord exclaimed in horror, drawing his own sword out of reflex. His only son was also among them.

Seeing this, a ruthless glint flashed in Corvac's eyes, and with a look that needed no words to his right-hand man, he ordered the execution of the dissenter. Without betraying any sign of murderous intent, the giant turned abruptly and sliced the eminent officer diagonally in two, from shoulder to opposite hip.

"Anyone else object?" The merciless General asked in a chilling voice as he swept his gaze over his trusted officers.

No one responded.

"In that case, do as I've said." Corvac growled sharply, taking out his third and last Anthace seed from a jewel box radiating abundant life force.

After grasping the seed contained inside in his palm, he clenched it until his knuckles whitened with a solemn expression. The officers around him, who had doubted his motivations at that moment, also became resolute, finally understanding the gravity of their situation.

Their General was also going all in.

*****

BANG!

Jake was abruptly stopped by an invisible wall a few hundred meters from his objective and violently thrown backward. The impact was so brutal that the talented Light Warriors still alive on the hill after the previous light strike were blasted away for kilometers, their skeletons shattered, leaving them on the brink of death.

No Light Warrior within a kilometer of the blast below the level of a Light Paladin survived. Those more powerful, mainly experienced regiment and division commanders from the Corebearer realm, were injured to various degrees, rendered incapacitated.

Somewhere, that was a good thing for them, as it gave Corvac and his personal battalion of Radiant Mages the clear field to use his second celestial strike directly on Jake. This time, they would be able to unleash themselves without restraint.

The only catch was the proximity of the barrier enveloping their HQ. A single mistake, and they would become collateral victims of their own spell. Yet, not for a single second did the chief Radiant Mage of this battalion question the order received.

With a fanatical gleam in his eyes, he bellowed at the top of his lungs,

"FIRE!"