The Oracle Paths

Hovering rather inconspicuously a few hundred meters above Jake, two Soulmancers were shaking like leaves, their ashen complexions as if they had just seen a ghost. Their silence was paralyzing them into stupidity, unfortunately, just the most benign symptom of their terrified stupor.

They had seen everything.

From Hephais's dreamlike executioner talents to his admirable resilience in the face of an ambush by a gang of enemies as formidable as he was. Each of their powers was unique and impressive, and they wielded them all with mad skill, though for some reason that eluded them, their spells were slightly lacking in punch. This contrasted all the more sharply with their physical and mental prowess, which were top-notch, putting them on par with their finest Generals.

Yet, even considering their suspicious restraint, these Players were still horrendously powerful. The number of these foreigners they had encountered this night who could whack them in a blink if they hadn't had their enchanted artifacts was probably in the thousands.

So, what would happen if they were given proper gear? They'd become invincible...

The very thought sent shivers down their spine. Individuals this unjustly strong, properly outfitted, could easily conquer their world if given enough time. It wasn't a question of how, but when.

Regardless, despite this series of shocking surprises that toppled everything they believed about what was possible or not, the two Soulmancers had never given in to despair. Soulmancers were tough-minded and steely-willed individuals after all.

They hadn't despaired when Glutton had smashed Hephais with a paw swipe for kilometers; Bones could do much better.

They hadn't quivered either when Lord Ooom blew up the entire river, forcing them to gain altitude hastily to avoid being blasted into the troposphere; some artifacts could do that, too.

Nor had they faltered at the entrance of Iaoth, who merely by her presence seemed to visibly twist the space around her. They weren't sure if an artifact capable of that existed, but they had seen the Lumyst Aura of some Great Generals produce a similar visual distortion effect. The primitive physics knowledge of their civilization had spared them that trauma.

Until Jake intervened.

Now, they realized how oblivious they had been to deal with him as if he were just another dangerous outsider. All these powerful Players had scattered like rabbits at his arrival, not even trying to resist.

A white shark in a swimming pool!

In far less time than it took to understand what was happening, Jake had made one flee, killed fourteen (at no point did they imagine Sokal or Quilo surviving such a blow), and captured two. As for the last...

The dismal fate of the hideous alien cetacean had left them eternally shaken. It wasn't so much the fact that it had been killed or devoured that was the issue, but the manner of it. That insatiable gluttony, sucking everything into its endless stomach like a black hole, was almost more terrifying than the fate of those it was intended for.

If it had been just that, they could have accepted it as some sort of ultimate move, but what was most unsettling came after. Not only was the digestion instant, the opposite of other massive beasts that often needed long days of rest to metabolize so much energy at once, but its spiritual fluctuations had also jumped substantially and had not subsided afterwards.

"Ahem... Meribelle... I've got a bad feeling about all this..." Giso coughed with a forced smile and a striking pallor. "Should we keep tailing him? I've got a feeling he's already spotted us..."

That was his gut instinct as the expert spy and assassin of their group. He had never failed in tracking his targets, but there was a first time for everything...

Meribelle seemed to share his opinion as her eyes flickered quite a bit before responding, her expression just as conflicted and shaken as her colleague's. Finally, she announced in a hesitant voice as if she sensed she might regret it,

"If he's spotted us, he's acted like he hasn't noticed... We keep following him. We've seen enough to get ourselves killed a hundred times. What difference does it make if we keep monitoring his actions a bit longer? The Soulmancer King relies on our report. And even if we fail... This guy could be the next one. You wanted to know which of the two foreigners deserved our full support, right? I don't see a better chance."

Remembering that it was indeed his original goal for the evening, the last of Giso's hesitations left him, replaced by determination.

"Let's see the mission through then. No regrets."

Words he would regret less than a second later when Jake shot headfirst into the lake, his blurry outline skimming beneath the surface like a shooting star towards the Lustra Plains. A blink later, he was deep in enemy territory, speeding up the tributary at a breakneck pace.

The two gobsmacked Soulmancers hadn't even picked up their dropping jaws when they had no choice but to launch themselves flying after him in a panicked panic for fear of losing him. Only once well embedded in the Lustra Plains, the cold spectral energy permeating the atmosphere replaced by the warm, user-friendly vital energy abundant in this opposite half of the continent did they fully realize what they had just done.

"Oh shit! We're doing something completely insane." Giso rattled off, readjusting his hood as if it would make a difference.

Meribelle, for her part, had already regained her usual composure, although she was still a bit pale. Right now, her steady eyes were locked in an expression of extreme seriousness on Jake's underwater silhouette, her brow so furrowed she looked like a different person.

"What, you got nothing to say about this?" Her companion grumbled, mistaking her focused expression for snobbery.

"Shut up and watch." Meribelle silenced him, pointing to the unfolding scene below.

Giso swallowed the sharp remarks he had at the tip of his tongue reluctantly, and strained to see where she was pointing. Squinting to see better in the pitch-black night, it took him a while to make sense of what she wanted to show him, but when he did, his eyes bulged like saucers.

"HOLY SHIT! Is he fucking crazy?" he exclaimed in shock, his voice suddenly squeaking in a higher pitch.

*****

Below them, Jake had suddenly slowed his swim speed, even surfacing just enough for his shimmering outline to be clearly discernible in the water. This put Mirabelle, who was watching him with rapt attention, on high alert until, snapping out of her focused trance, she became aware of the multitude of spiritual signatures swarming in the vicinity.

'Light Warriors? No. Players.' Jake smirked after analyzing their fluctuations, while the river's downcurrent flowed around him as if he didn't exist, in a supernatural display of hydrodynamics.

Instinctively, the expected knee-jerk reaction might have been to immediately take them out without batting an eye, but Jake hesitated briefly, considering the possibility that these Players could also be from his own camp.

A less scrupulous Player would have attacked indiscriminately, while one with too rigid morals would have refrained, fearing the killing of innocents or affecting their own rating. Luckily for him, Jake was neither. His moral compass had been swimming in murky waters for quite some time, yet he hadn't reached the point of shooting everything that moved without thought.

Instead, Jake simply leveraged the privilege his superior mental prowess bestowed upon him, meticulously sifting through each vital and psychic parameter of every living being within kilometers to determine who was an ally. Although the only real difference between two Players from different Mirror Universes was still undetectable to him, as it affected the Aether on a level of compression too subtle for his senses, there were plenty of other clues at his disposal:

Their thoughts, their Lumyst Aura, their gear, body language, conversations, hacking their Oracle Devices... Determining with a high degree of certainty who was an enemy was a walk in the park.

And indeed, when using his own body as a giant Oracle Device through his Artefact Incarnation Skill, hacking Oracle Devices was totally within his grasp provided he jammed the signal connecting them to the rest of their Oracle System and Aether Network. Only those with a considerable amount of liquid alloy, a high Oracle Rank, and substantial spiritual strength could resist him for more than a few seconds.

Some, mentally more sensitive, noticed his intrusion and attempted to resist, while those even stronger decisively chose to flee. Alas, whether it was the oblivious weaklings or those Players higher up in the food chain, none escaped.

Once his analysis was complete, Jake immediately set into motion again, ignoring the Life Enchantment +3 that had just popped up in his status, and with a flick of the wrist, he sent thousands of unstable water bullets over the surface, each homing in on its target like a heat-seeking missile. It took quite a few words to describe, but it all happened in an instant.

Swooosh!

With a mastery far surpassing that of Lord Ooom whom he had just absorbed, the water bullets maintained in a delicate balance evoking a Yin-Yang of Spirit and Life Lumyst Water fused at his signal just before making contact with their targets, detonating upon impact.

BOOOOM!

All enemy Players within a ten-kilometer radius were taken out on the spot, disintegrated by a botched double enchantment. Those beyond who miraculously made it out turned tail and fled without looking back, throwing in the towel for the night.

As for Jake, he resumed swimming up the tributary even faster than before, repeating the same procedural destruction all throughout his swim session.