The Oracle Paths

Back in the present...

"Looks like we're stuck," Hephais muttered, watching his boss struggling to push their vehicle forward with his mind.

Jake only groaned in response, refusing to admit defeat so easily. The only silver lining was that the Treant Puppet seemed surprisingly indifferent to the presence of a steel sphere embedded in its chest.

Shortly after their makeshift submarine had violently crashed into Treant Corvac's bark skin, they became aware that the rear half of the vehicle was still submerged in water. Consequently, it continued to shed its layers of armor one after the other at an alarming rate, escalating their sense of urgency.

"Fuck, if only I could get out and take it down myself," Jake cursed, realizing he was almost out of Lumyst Force. The purity of the water outside had already reached a critical threshold, making exiting, even for a brief moment, out of the question.

To conserve his Force Lumyst, he applied his telekinetic properties to the internal walls of their submarine to prevent it from being consumed upon contact with the Lumyst Water outside. Indeed, as long as the Lumyst was under his control from his Lumyst Core, he didn't have to worry about losing it and could even recall it.

To a lesser extent, Jake could also control the vehicle by tapping into the Metal Lumyst infused in the still intact steel walls, but it was significantly less effective. Mainly because most of the Metal Lumyst produced had reverted into Black Lumyst Steel, just another metal.

Ironically, Lumyst was needed to control a material derived from that same Lumyst...

If Jake had been able to infuse a monstrous amount of Metal Lumyst into the freshly condensed Black Lumyst Steel, his control over it could have rivaled, or even surpassed, that with his telekinesis, at least at short range. Regretfully, the rapid evolution of the situation had not afforded him the time.

[You could use the rest of your Lumyst Force to forcefully penetrate the enemy's bark armor, but that would mean running out of Lumyst to seal the breach behind.] Xi suggested with moderate enthusiasm.

Clearly, that was the problem. Their goal was to shelter from the water, not to turn Corvac's body, in which they sought refuge, into a municipal pool...

"Or we could use my flames..." Lord Phenix suggested, raising his hand, er, wing.

"At the risk of setting our salvation ablaze?" Hephais shook his head. "Forget it."

"I meant as a means of propulsion, damn it!" The bird squawked out. "For God's sake, you really take me for a turkey!"

"..."

The ambiguous and heavy stares from his companions immediately made him regret his last words. Crunch's trembling lip, holding back a laugh, was unbearable...

Shrrrrrrrrllllinnnng!

A deafening scraping noise suddenly came from the uncrashed side of their steel ball, followed by a jolt that propelled their vehicle forward without resistance. They were unstuck!

"Huh? What the heck was that?" The black cat's back arched in surprise, its senses on alert. The others were also on the lookout.

Jake frowned, then said coldly, "Sounded like a sword scraping against metal."

The state of the outermost armor when he probed it with his mental sense confirmed it. A long scratch scarred their rear hull, but not deep enough to damage a living metal capable of self-repair. Something had clearly hit them.

Yet, more concerning was that the force of the attack wasn't sufficient to penetrate the bark armor, or they would have resolved the problem long ago. Following the impact, their vehicle had cleary resumed moving without resistance.

Jake was certain it wasn't the bark that had given way, which could only mean one thing. For some reason beyond his understanding, Corvac had decided to let them enter his body.

'Did we make a mistake in wanting to use his body as refuge?' Jake doubted his judgment fleetingly before curling his lip in ridicule. 'In any case, if we don't accept the invitation, we'll perish once our vehicle is consumed.'

His senses were telling him that only four layers remained on their submarine. Hephais also had a clear reading of their plight thanks to his Shadow Lumyst.

"We're inside Corvac," Jake announced solemnly, not liking what his Oracle Scan feedback was now reporting, now that they were out of reach of the enchanting water.

"Jake, I need you to destroy the last layer of armor so I can see what's happening outside," the assassin requested, believing he was the best suited for the job.

The last layer of armor was indeed no longer under Jake's control after enduring a baptism. If it was just a baptism, he was confident he could overcome it without too much effort.

"Sure," Jake nodded before grimacing. "Seems my intervention won't be necessary..."

He didn't need to explain further, as his three companions also heard the sounds of friction and constriction rapidly enveloping their significantly thinned steel shell. At this rate, let alone the last layer, the entire vehicle was about to implode under the pressure.

"If we were in the wild, this situation would remind me of a giant snake's hunting method," Hephais ventured, unable to confirm. "But considering what we've fallen into, I'd bet we're dealing with roots. Big roots..."

The four companions put on a wry smile listening to his assumption. They had to face it: They had jumped from one trap into another.

Corvac had let them enter his body to digest them. Not just to kill them, or he would have let the water outside take care of it. Otherwise, why take such risks?

'But puppet implies someone pulling the strings, though,' Jake rationalized calmly.

Neither his companions nor he were nervous. Rather than being at the mercy of the waves outside, they much preferred facing this new, more tangible threat.

Creeeak!

About a minute later, the outermost layer of armor snapped like a porcelain vase, and Hephais finally got a glimpse of the new threat wanting their skin.

This was the kind of situation he had produced Shadows with his Lumyst for. The Egaean could move and project his senses into his shadows, but they normally had to be connected to each other, at least by a thin filament of darkness.

The Shadow Lumyst allowed him to overcome this weakness by enabling him to project his senses into his Lumyst and move through the shadows infused or emanating from it.

As soon as the armor gave way, the layer of Shadow Lumyst underneath serving as a coating became a screen revealing the external situation to him.

As expected, huge roots were constricting their vehicle with the firm intention of crushing it, but that wasn't all. Further away and all around them, he could see humanoid forms suspended from a damp green wooden vault. Roots were wrapped around them as around their vehicle, but these corpses had long since succumbed.

How was Hephais so sure? Blood everywhere, non-existent lifeforce, but above all, a root as wide as a beam was deeply lodged in their brains. To say their corpses were drained like mummies would be an understatement.

They couldn't be deader.

"Good. At least we know what awaits us if we're not careful," Crunch yawned, sharpening his claws against each other after hearing the detailed description of the situation from the assassin.

Crack!

Another layer of armor broke, and Jake could finally probe his surroundings by projecting the Force Lumyst trapped between the two layers. The telekinetic blast repelled the hungry heavy roots around, sending splinters of wood in all directions.

Immediately after, Jake took advantage of this to manipulate the remaining layers of black steel of the vehicle with his Lumyst to open a door for them. The quartet then cheerfully emerged through the opening created, walking into the new prison of roots with a childlike curiosity evident on their faces.

However, as soon as their group finally got a clear view of where they had landed, their relaxed demeanor vanished instantly. A giant in dark wood armor, with an impressive flamberge standing peacefully on his shoulder, awaited them with a cruel smile.

At the same time, they noticed one of the suspended humans was familiar to them. Her spiritual aura was like the flame of a dying candle buffeted by winds, but its owner was still clinging to life. Though not for much longer.

A glance at her damaged helmet allowed them to determine to whom it belonged: Ceythie.