The Oracle Paths

The thick metal door blocking access to Compartment A was still standing in their way, but Jake no longer intended to play it polite. He drove his glowing claws into the metal gate, accelerated his Aether Core's rotation, and a discharge of heat from his hands liquefied the door in an instant.

It wasn't the first time his comrades had witnessed this magical feat, but it was as impressive as ever. It was important to know that because of the Aether Density's rising, their bodies were barely superior to those of the natives.

Without the Myrtharian Body Faction Skill and for some their Bloodline, they would have had nothing to be special physically. At best, they could be considered remarkably athletic.

The problem was that these natives were not mere humans. The Fluid Core in the hollow of their glabella was absorbing the ambient Fluid whether they were aware of it or not and that made a big difference. Although these pirates appeared helpless in the face of Jake and his cousins, their strength and agility was clearly not something that a normal human could have matched.

More importantly, these pirates weren't even aware of their Fluid Core, let alone the Fluid all around them. Their physical and martial skills were no more than what could be achieved with conventional physical and skill training, and that meant that such a level of prowess was attainable by any passenger.

The conclusion to be drawn was rather embarrassing: Without bloodline specializing in physical attributes, there was nothing special about their bodies. In particular, women and children of smaller stature could definitely be outclassed in pure strength if the opponent in front turned out to be much heavier and more muscular than they were.

To dominate these natives, even the most ordinary, they would have to rely on their fighting expertise and Aether Skills. Except that with the near total conversion of Aether to Fluid, their Aether Skills had been severely nerfed.

With the exception of Jake, almost everyone in their group had been severely crippled. The only ones whose fighting potential were not impaired at all was Kevin and to a lesser extent Vincent. Of course, it was only under the condition that they were not hiding their true faculties ...

Once the door was completely melted down, Jake walked indifferently through it forming a telekinetic umbrella so as not to dirty his armor. When the molten metal cooled down, it could be terribly annoying to wash...

"What are you waiting for? We don't have all day!" Jake yelled when he saw that his companions hadn't moved and were staring at him with a dumb look on their faces.

It was only after he shouted at them that they came to their senses and ran after him. With the door destroyed, their progress was unhindered.

In fact, they were surprised that there were no souls around. Since this area was reserved for the military personnel of the Titan Pearl, they were expecting to encounter many soldiers on duty, but they did not. Instead, the corridors were desolate and a deadly silence reigned.

After passing through a series of corridors and a few stairs, Jake found dried blood on one of the walls. The nearby camera had also been sprayed.However, he did not find any dead bodies.

"Will." Jake called out to him with a meaningful look.

"At once!" The businessman immediately trotted over to Kevin, who was carrying one of the gagged pirates on his shoulder and started doing his thing, whispering to him in a hypnotic voice.

Within seconds the pirate spilled the beans,

"We stole 17 shuttles to get away to this place. "The man confessed with an empty look, as if lost in some kind of trance. " If nothing had happened to them, they should, like us, have successfully boarded the rest of the ship."

Jake stroked his chin pensively, but he didn't linger too long in useless reflections. All that had to remember was that the whole ship was under siege. No wonder there were no soldiers to greet them.

Jake and his group set off again, this time speeding up the pace and soon they heard screams and gunfire. They started hurrying and seconds later they landed in a hallway where a fight between two groups was raging in a meeting room.

There were so many pirates trying to enter the meeting room to participate in the festivities that those at the tail end of the herd overflowed into the corridor, completely barring their access.

As they got a little closer, the nearest pirates were alerted, but Jake also got a glimpse of what was going on in that room.

The huge metal meeting table inside the room had long since been riddled with bullets and had broken in half. The furniture had been knocked over and then used to form emergency defenses. Five soldiers were holding out at the back of the room against a score of pirates, but two of them were already unconscious, their condition unknown.

At this point, the pirate in the lead pointed his blaster at the soldiers, closing one eye for better aiming, and he pulled the trigger twice in a row.

BANG! BANG!

Two heads exploded immediately.

"Fucking pirates! What gave you the guts to come up against the Titan Pearl! "A soldier with a scar on his face exploded with rage as he pointed a heavy machine gun at a group of invaders. The moment before, his last two comrades had been headshot by the enemy. He was now alone against all.

Jake wasn't the altruistic type and couldn't care less about these soldiers, but it turned out that these pirate morons were blocking his way. As a consequence, the surviving soldier was also a pain in the ass, as the majority of his stray bullets were literally cutting the hallway in half, forming a wall of bullets.

TATATATATATA!

A barrage of plasma fire began to bombard the pirates without regard for the consequences and Jake was forced to spread his arms wide to prevent his comrades from rushing in pointlessly.

The lagging pirates who were foolishly trying to enter the meeting room dived to the side in a hurry to avoid the plasma burst, but of course this meant that some of them rolled straight to the feet of Jake and his group.

The two pirates who had already spotted them and were about to shoot at them were shoved by their allies and fell flat on their faces miserably. When they tried to get up, Jake and Kevin's hard knees were the last thing they saw before falling into a coma.

The other pirates, who were still in shock after surviving the machine gun fire, then discovered their two unconscious comrades and this new group of mismatched looking individuals.

Then, they stared again at their two stunned comrades and noticed the 7 centimeter deep crater replacing the nose of these two pirates, and they paled with terror. Drawing in a cold breath of air, they bounced back as if they had just stepped on a spring and momentarily forgot about the heavy fire behind them.

TATATA!

"Aaarrgh!"

The furthest back pirate stepped back one step too far and was instantly riddled with bullets. These plasma shots created huge holes of cauterized flesh in his body and he died instantly.

Jake was about to ask the survivors to surrender when they all pointed their guns at him and opened fire. Yawning again, he erected a new force field that effortlessly intercepted all the projectiles.

The red plasma bullets frozen in the air were then delicately controlled by his mind and converged towards his wide-open mouth. With a slight sucking sound the incandescent plasma disappeared inside, traveling directly to his stomach. Jake then tapped his belly twice with a full expression and let out a mocking burp.

It was too much for these pirates. That was the last straw that broke the camel's back and their hearts were instantly drowned in terror . A first pirate shrieked in fear and without hesitation abandoned his comrades.

With the first deserter, there was a second, and soon all the pirates in the corridor began rushing with all their might in the opposite direction, leaving their comrades still in the meeting room in the dark.

"Hey! You bunch of shitheads, what the hell are you doing?! Come back, we need you! "A pirate hiding behind a table fragment started insulting them furiously when he saw their rear guard running loose.

TATATA!

And meanwhile, the surviving soldier was still shooting like a madman, determined to trade his life for as many of theirs as possible. Alas, his ammunition was not unlimited, and what was bound to happen happened.

Click !Click !

Realizing that he had just run out of bullets and that, except for a few corpses, all the pirates were safe behind the table and chair scraps they had piled up in a makeshift barricade, the soldier sighed resolutely. He had totally failed to avenge the death of his troops.

Still, that did not prevent him from clenching his teeth as he pulled out a long serrated knife from his belt. He was ready to give it a try, charging blindly to stab one last bastard.

But the moment his heavy machine gun stopped spewing plasma was exactly the signal that Jake and the others were waiting to burst into the room as well.

Less than a second after the soldier ran out of bullets, Sarah, who was tired of being passive, stormed into the room before everyone else, shoving Jake aside and began to slaughter the surviving pirates with her sword without mercy.

Enya and Esya's fireballs arrived just afterwards, incinerating the pirates who were about to shoot with impeccable accuracy. A smell of barbecue quickly filled the room.

The soldier, flabbergasted, unconsciously dropped his weapon and stared at the new arrivals with a bewildered expression. It was too many twists and turns in one day. He just wanted to go back to bed.