The Oracle Paths

A weighty silence fell over the room in the wake of such brazen arrogance, punctuated by the panicked gulps of Rigel and to a lesser extent, Syrbarun. The latter found a thin veil of security in the fortified glass walls of his cage, thus allowing him some semblance of self-control.

Jake's eyes fastened on the tantalizing remains of the Voidshifter. He barely held back a slaver, but he nonetheless asked Cekt,

"Master... Can I have these bodies?"

The green alien cast him an askew, dubious look, which the audacious disciple met with an innocent smirk. The wrinkled creature's facial muscles twitched as if suppressing a sharp retort, but eventually, the Wendok offered an indifferent nod, "Sure.. Enjoy yourself."

"Thanks, master." Jake flashed his most charming smile, then, with a wave of his hand, made all the bodies vanish into his Space Dimension. He hastily spat back out all the Sinewshades, realizing that most of them were still breathing.

"Fuck, they're alive ?!" Jake cursed as he scanned the zombie Digestors one by one.

Upon hearing his remark, Cekt's creased face smoothed for the first time, and he explained, "I knew some of the employees working on this base, hence the choice of this Magnetic Resonator for your test. I'm willing to let them live here, corrupted and self-sustaining, rather than kill them myself."

Jake understood his master's reasoning, having had the same thought concerning Lucia, yet he felt the gremlin was holding something back.

Suspicious, he began examining the alien's appearance, paying no heed to possible rebukes. Before long, he found what unsettled him.

"Master, are you infected too?"

A bitter smile distorted the little alien's face as he realized his disciple had seen through his deception in a heartbeat. He had no intention of concealing it, however.

"Hehe, I can't hide anything from you. I had a Grade 9 broad-spectrum serum for this kind of situation, so you don't need to worry – my symptoms are stable. It gives me plenty of time to research a vaccine against this Digestor Virus."

Jake studied the alien's expression for any trace of falsehood, but his master was behaving as usual. Recalling that the Wendok was a renowned Rank 3 Aetherist, he thought he might genuinely mean what he was saying.

Still, a Grade 9 all-purpose serum for this Digestor Virus seemed somewhat wasteful. Anytime 'Grade' was used as an adjective, it usually referred to either a bloodline's grade or the level of Aether compression. Both were closely related but didn't mean the exact same thing, depending on the context.

For instance, his Cosmic D Starfeyrves Bloodline was above Grade 10, but his Aether stats, having only recently breached the 100,000 mark, were only at Grade 5 in terms of quality.

Jake doubted that the reference to the Grade 9 Serum indicated its efficacy on Evolvers mastering Grade 9 Aether, or else Cekt would have healed instantly in the first place. He knew little about this Digestor Virus, but he was sure an Evolver with an Aether Constitution and Vitality surpassing a billion had absolutely nothing to fear from such a viral entity.

Hence, the 'Grade 9' likely referred to the estimated grade of the virus's bloodline, which Jake suspected to be significantly higher given its capacity to infect nearly all organisms indiscriminately, including beings like Epsilom and Lyra with purely energetic physiques.

"If it's an effective vaccine or serum you're after, I can provide one," Jake offered immediately. "I've already created one using my antibodies to cure Lucia and Ulfar, but I can't do anything about the lingering Corruption."

Cekt looked at him in astonishment; this unexpected news was a pleasant surprise.

"Then, by all means, thank you." The gremlin coughed awkwardly before adding in a somber tone, "But not right now. We still have one last issue to address."

"What is it?" Saros grumbled, crossing his four arms in comfort.

As if to answer him, the space above the Nexus began to distort before being torn open to reveal a black curtain: a spatial rift. At the sight of this, an understanding smile lit up Cekt's face and he chuckled,

"To welcome our guest, of course."

A slender white arm with golden nails emerged from the spatial rift, followed swiftly by a body of equal angelic and inhuman beauty.

Jake's blood ran cold at the sight of a Digestor Seraphim, his encounter with Verxes still fresh in his memory, but he quickly regained his composure upon realizing it was not the same entity. If it had been, he would have been far less optimistic about his master's chances of teaching it a lesson.

At the time, Jake had relished the safety of his Oracle Shield, confident it would shield him from any harm. Yet, with Lure's death, that certainty had faltered. The trust he once placed in the Shield seemed more like misplaced faith now, causing him to question whether he'd fare as well this time around.

Would Cekt, he wondered, prove to be the kind of warrior who permitted his enemy a dignified entrance? His mentor's subsequent action forced an answer, as much as it forced blood from Jake's mouth.

The unidentified Digestor Seraphim had barely squeezed its folded wings through the narrow spatial rift before multihued Aether rings materialized, forming a lengthy barrel aimed directly at the interloper. Within this cylinder of arcane energy, the end of Cekt's cane glowed with an unworldly light.

"DIE, you wretched spawn!" Cekt's usually jocular demeanor was absent, replaced with a frosted rage that hung in the air like winter's breath.

BOOM!

The arrival of the Digestor Seraphim had been expressionless, its features unchanging, until the threat of imminent death made its chitinous skin bristle.

Without pause, its golden irises, previously casting a soft glow, ignited.

Stretching out its hand, it murmured,

"Time Rewind."

The thin beam of multicolored laser, poised to vaporize the creature, retreated as if reversed by an unseen hand. As it vanished, an invisible field bloomed from the Seraphim, its epicenter.

The confrontation might have concluded there, yet Cekt sneered as his ultimate attack was thwarted. The Aether ring nearest his cane, spectral in color, began to rotate, emitting a peculiar aura opposing the enemy's mysterious field.

Suddenly, the rings and multicolored laser reappeared, events continuing their natural course. The Digestor Seraphim suffered a backlash from its technique, coughing up a stream of golden blood. Quickly, it conjured a black energy screen just in time to face the condensed ray of light emitted from Cekt's cane.

Jake anticipated the Digestor being impaled or incinerated by the energy beam, or, at the very least, for its black screen to halt the attack. Instead, the space fractured at their collision. The open spatial rift became unstable, the Seraphim caught between the distorting rift behind it and the rapidly fissuring space ahead, both impeding any teleportation attempts.

Unmoved by the chaos unfolding, the Digestor called upon his command over Time and his fierce Destruction Intent to obliterate the spatial fractures in their infancy. Amid the chaotic dance of the ever-nearing rifts, this creature of supreme allure invoked a sword of sheer golden brilliance. This divine instrument was then bathed in a halo of somber gray and pitch black, a manifestation of a uniquely hybrid destructive force. With it, he proceeded to methodically cleave and dissolve each threatening spatial crack, dancing a deadly ballet on the edge of existence.

In the end, the Digestor Seraphim still cast an annoyed glance at Cekt. With an almost inaudible snort, it folded its wings -which it hadn't even fully extendedand dived back into the spatial rift it came from, disregarding the distortion.

Deep, bloody gashes marred its surface as it made contact with the spatial cracks, yet it remained stoic, keeping its trajectory unflinching.

When it was already inside, and the spatial rift on the verge of closing, its angelic voice, tainted with resentment, echoed softly in the Nexus' devastated chamber, "I will remember this affront."

Cekt remained vigilant. Indeed, right after, the gem serving as the Nexus shot towards the closing spatial rift as if trying to escape. The old Aetherist snorted at the sight, attempting to halt its flight, but to his surprise, someone beat him to it.

An immense invisible hand clamped down with overwhelming force, not on the Nexus, but on the spatial rift, mere inches from the Nexus. Turning his head in intrigue, the Wendok found his disciple also clutching at the air, a sinister expression etched onto his ethereally beautiful face. The surge of True Will and Cosmic Force radiating from him like a tidal wave was utterly blasphemous to a post-fourth-Ordeal Evolver.