The Oracle Paths

Jake had also reforged a decent set of equipment for himself. He didn't have time for the usual Aether Symbols enchantments, but the metal's durability and its ability to self-repair and cultivate Lumyst made the effort of crafting his own set worthwhile.

He had just finished donning his new armor when—

"REFORM THE RANKS! YOU HAVE 30 SECONDS!"

Ceythie's thunderous voice echoed across the camp, reaching every division. The conscripts, startled and sweating with fear, hurried to rejoin their squads and platoons in formation. There were a few mix-ups in the process due to their panic and unfamiliarity, but about a minute later than planned, all soldiers were in place.

Ceythie surveyed her new army with a disapproving squint, then with a loud snort exclaimed, "Let the hunt begin!"

The recruits hoped she would deliver a fiery, passionate speech to uplift their low morale, but they had misjudged the character of their Great General. When it came to risking one's life in war, she was always in a rush.

And she expected no less from her troops...

A minute later, the frontline troops finished scaling the last barrier of terrain separating them from the battlefield, with Jake and his squad among these fortunate few.

"Pheeew." Crunch whistled at the sight of the carnage and desolation stretching as far as the eye could see. "This isn't going to help our army's morale. Feels like all these greenhorns are about to wet themselves."

Jake was more impressed that the cat could whistle, but for once, he agreed with him.

It wasn't night, nor stormy like during the Havocspire siege. There was no rain or fog; the sky was clear, and the sun shone unobstructed. The horrors of war were laid bare before them, no whims of the weather censoring their sensory experience.

There were still plumes of dust partially covering the battlefield, likely from the passage of some cavalry or other massive beasts. Explosions of flames and acid bursts occasionally sounded, but compared to their experience at Havocspire, it was relatively mild.

Despite the more newbie-friendly spectacle, soldiers from both camps were still dropping like flies. Every second, dozens of Underworld Barbarians, Light Warriors, and creatures died in agonizing pain.

In the relentless grind of the battlefield, the life of a single inexperienced foot soldier wasn't worth much... Ceythie must have known that as time passed, their courage would deflate, so shortly after, she barked fiercely,

"DIVISION THREE, REGIMENT 3! ATTACK!"

Jake and the others didn't move until Amy's derailed voice cried out just behind them, "Fuck?! But that's us!"

Their platoon's recruits went pale hearing this, but it was already too late to back out, as their division commander had already taken over.

"COMPANIES 1, 2, AND 3. Engage the enemy!"

"Fuck! That's us too!" Ekho cursed in dismay.

"What did you expect?" Scelacabe chided him with a punch on his helmet. "We're literally on the front line. They weren't going to ask us to step aside..."

"Well, fair point..." The alcoholic grumbled joylessly, adjusting his helmet.

Meanwhile, the few seasoned barbarians of their regiment had already launched into a frenzied charge, taking the lead and dragging the rest of their companies along.

"AAARRRRRGGHHHH! DEATH TO THE RADIANT CONCLAVE!" A platoon captain bellowed on his own initiative, his bloodshot eyes indicating he'd already lost his mind.

Jake and the other Players had to exert great effort not to cringe witnessing this corny war cry, but there were two who took it as a challenge.

"MEOW! CLAWS AND BRAVERY! TO VICTORY!"

"GOBBLE! MY BRAVE TURKEYS, CHARGE FORTH! LORD PHENIX IS IN THE HOUSE!"

Before Jake could stop them, the two clowns had already far outpaced him, even outstripping the platoon captain who had just yelled. Seeing the two overarmed small pets zoom past him like missiles, the captain's next war cry choked pitifully in his throat.

"Well... Now we're down to eight." Hephais coughed awkwardly.

"That might be for the best, I guess." Jake responded, struggling in vain to suppress the annoyed twitch of his jaw.

He didn't want to hear from the two creatures for the rest of the day or he might strangle them with his bare hands.

"At least they've opened a gap with their breakthrough..." Thonza praised with renewed enthusiasm, seeing that the enemy's shield wall awaiting them had been cleanly speared through by the two indomitable monsters.

The other conscripts realized this too, as did their commanders. Without being ordered, they had already begun rushing towards the gap. Knowing the window opened by the two beasts wouldn't last, all the barbarians accelerated at once, shifting from a lackluster trot to a full sprint.

In the blink of an eye, their three fear-ridden companies transformed into an unstoppable, frenzied horde. Their momentum drastically shook the Light Warriors struggling to hold their own lines. These weren't the well-trained troops of Havocspire, but scared greenhorns like them.

The poor shieldbearers were already traumatized by being rammed by a turkey wielding a joust twenty times its size, but to make matters worse, the rotund cat galloping with the bird had bulldozed the Pulsar serving as their platoon captain, hitting him in the belly like a bullet. His ridiculous horn, as long as a butcher's cleaver, had impaled the valiant warrior clean through, even the Life Link connecting him to his Lifemancer failing to save him in time.

These soldiers were sadly unaware that since Jake's vicious achievement, the Celestial had significantly redesigned his Life Web, making him its epicenter. Now that everything passed through him, it had naturally lost some of its reactivity. That explained, among other things, why Jake had received so many Contribution Points.

A few minutes later, Jake and his squad, along with the rest of the frontline, reached the range of the enemy's arrows. Those who weren't being cut to pieces by Crunch and Lord Phenix scrambled back into formation, hundreds of bows aiming at them.

"FIRE!" Their commander, a Vitalist, screamed tremulously from hundreds of meters behind them. Despite the gravity of the situation, he seemed in no hurry to join the front.

"SHIELDS!" Their own 1000-man commander also bellowed his order from the rear lines, leaving his terrified new troops to assume all the risks.

Again, one could see the difference from Havocspire. Their enemies were clearly less motivated and disciplined, officers from both armies not readily risking their lives.

Jake quickly figured out that this was how a battle was normally supposed to go. The death of a Lifemancer or a Light Paladin was worth thousands of Light Warriors or Pulsars. If even one of them died, the entire army segment they were in charge of would quickly collapse.

It was easy to replace killed Light Warriors and Pulsars, but Vitalists and stronger Lumyst cultivators took much longer to grow. Adding their expertise as generals, it made their lives even more invaluable.

If this was the case for the Lustra Plains, it was the same for their own camp. So it wasn't that their commanders were cowardly, but that they had to stay alive at all costs, even if all their troops perished defending them.

"In that case..." Jake turned to check the location of the various commanders of both legions, including Ceythie and her elite guards, and confirmed his theory.

The commanders were indeed all heavily protected and separated from the enemy lines by dozens, hundreds of rows of troops and obstacles. The same was true for their enemies.

At a glance, he estimated that to take down a regiment commander, one would need a cultivation stage at least two levels above that of the commander. But if the enemy struck too fiercely, say by mobilizing a Saint, then Ceythie and her guards would immediately target that Saint, escalating the conflict to apocalyptic proportions. In defense, with all their defensive measures, taking down an isolated Saint wasn't impossible.

The whole challenge was to force the enemy generals to expose themselves for easier elimination or to make them retreat. This could be done by eliminating their lower officers one by one until their army became dysfunctional, or by resorting to a more audacious strategy to take down a more important officer directly without using an overly unbalanced force that would alert them and inevitably trigger violent retaliation.

With these new elements in mind, Jake finally saw how he should proceed to accomplish deeds worthy of him without immediately becoming the man to take down.

With an inconspicuous smile on his lips promising blood and massacre, Jake indifferently ignored the arrows raining down on him and silently threw himself into the fray...