The Oracle Paths

"What next?" Jake urged him to continue. This suspense was not good for his mental health.

Will's face contorted as he explained the rest of the story but failed to hide his perplexity.

"And then... Bhuzkoc caught his head in mid-air with the arms of his headless body, then reconnected it to his neck... I'm sure Kyle's Spirit Body witnessed the scene."

"So the bastard survived?!" Jake cursed, paling with anger. He clenched his fists so hard you could hear them grinding from a hundred meters away.

Will stood in silence for a while, then sighed.

"No. Hecate blasted him with a flick of her wrist before he could even take three steps. Then she pulled some kind of lantern out of nowhere, and the souls of Kyle, Bhuzkoc, and the other recently dead Evolvers were sucked into it."

"And that's when I made my entrance." Garrow nodded, corroborating Will's version of events. "I saw her use her lantern too. It's a Silver Aether Artifact capable of storing the Souls of the dead as well as the living. I don't know what she does with it, but it is a formidable weapon. In addition to the energy she draws from it, which is practically inexhaustible, this lantern can spawn other demons. The army it can mobilize in an instant far exceeds that of Nelekai.

"I'm afraid your friend's soul will not be the same if you wait too long. If it is what I believe, Kyle's soul must be ravaged by guilt and hatred after killing his sister and failing to avenge her. Conversely, I am pretty sure that Bhuzkoc believes that he failed to kill Kyle and was killed by him. These kinds of illusions and theatrics are child's play for Hecate. Almost second nature. Sowing chaos is her specialty.

"I'm sorry I was too late." Garrow apologized solemnly.

Jake and Will fell silent for a long moment after that, their minds in turmoil. It was hard to tell what was really going through their minds, but the urge to save Kyle was pitted against an overwhelming sense of helplessness and failure. Both of them knew that they were not up to the task as it was.

Without them realizing it, Maeve, still on Jake's back, had woken up. In order not to interrupt the conversation, she had restrained herself from moving, but upon learning the truth about her brother and Bhuzkoc, she unexpectedly began to struggle, going so far as to bite Jake's neck to free herself.

The problem was, Jake's neck was so hard that she cracked her teeth, but more importantly... she was tied up.

To be able to move and fight freely, Jake had long ago tied her tightly to his body. To make sure she didn't fall out during a high-intensity fight, he'd done it thoroughly. Without using his powers, Jake himself would have found it difficult to break free of those bonds.

"Get off me! Peeh! I must avenge Bhuzkoc! Kyle, you bastard! I hope you rot in hell!" The young woman began to scream, even spitting hatefully at him.

Jake was not Kyle. He didn't feel an unconditional affection for this girl. As soon as that ingrate spat at him and insulted her brother who had sacrificed everything for her, he saw red. His Apex Predator Glyph activated immediately, and a deadly aura that turned the air as thick as oil shut her down.

Undoing her restraints with a thought, he threw the insolent woman to the ground and glaring darkly at her, he said distinctly but icily,

" Do you want to die ?"

It was quite the cold shower for Maeve. Her mind still brainwashed by Bhuzkoc's latest abuse and instructions momentarily took a back seat, her survival instinct vigorously taking over.

She was used to dangerous and unstable people. Bhuzkoc was clearly one of those people, but after the initial conditioning phase he had done no harm to her, although she had believed many times that he would act on her, especially in his ogre form. His anger, his desire to kill was directed at everyone.

But Jake... She clearly felt that despite his respect for her brother, he would not hesitate to kill her if she crossed the line. This kind of killing intent was laser focused on her and there was no ambiguity about his resolve to carry it out.

Faced with this near death experience, Maeve gasped nervously for half a minute, but she managed to calm down with a lot of deep breaths. Then at long last, she coughed,

"No..."

"I didn't hear you." Jake turned a deaf ear.

"No!"

"Do you hear anything? I still don't hear anything."

"NO! I want to live! Damn it..." She screamed in rage.

Then she burst into tears. She realized once cold headed that she had just lost her brother by her own fault. If she had been less foolish and helpless, if she had resisted a little more, if she had not lost hope, she would have noticed the brainwashing that the Slave Contract was gradually subjecting her to.

In the end, without being aware of it, she had developed a real Stockholm syndrome. Cherishing the rare moments of kindness that Bhuzkoc showed her, confusing his lust with affection, the times when he didn't beat them with kindness. Worse, when he sadistically killed and tortured other women, she had come to feel satisfaction in thinking herself different.

It was only now that Bhuzkoc was dead and his soul imprisoned far away from her that she was slowly regaining her lucidity. The brainwashing due to the orders received under the authority of the Slave Contract was still there, but the orders that were still effective had lost their compulsory quality.

She could now ignore them and make a distinction between her own emotions and desires and those that had been instilled in her without her knowledge. And the contrast was so great, so striking... That pain, shame, guilt and despair overwhelmed her in an instant, her recently restored lucidity melting into nothingness.

Her face became lifeless, frozen in a deathly pallor, her arms hanging limply along her waist. If it weren't for her heart still beating at a slow and steady pace, they might have thought she had just died of a heart attack.

Jake, Will, Garrow and Cekt watched the scene with a constipated expression, but made no attempt to console her. The little alien even gave a thumbs up to his disciple's eloquence.

"Oh my... It seems we have a lady-killer among us... Literally, haha..." The gremlin continued with his tasteless jokes, earning himself a dark look from his disciple.

"Where were we?" Jake refocused the conversation with a straight face, decisively leaving the young woman to mope around by herself. They would have time to console her once they were safe.

"What happens next after Garrow arrives and Hecate leaves." Will recapped spiritedly.

The sequel was just as they had imagined it, but with one subtlety.

Garrow had indeed chased and battled with Hecate from the Fourth to the Sixth Floor, and had even seen her assassinate the colossal flying whale Crygo with a cryptic and uncanny technique. After grazing it with a gentle caress of her fingertips, the enormous cetacean had collapsed unconscious, its carcass sinking down into the vortex leading to the Nexus Floor.

Having been delayed by the miasma from the Sixth Floor, the swordsman had wasted almost a minute in locating and then traversing the wormhole and the fight against the Dungeon Digestor's avatar was already in full swing when he arrived.

The subtlety was that even before Kokoon arrived, Nelekai, Hecate and the group of hooded individuals serving Lost Divinities were already taking a nasty beating.

The Avatar was immature, but it already had the power of a Rank 10.5, with Aether stats close to 500,000 points. On top of that, it wasn't the result of a failed evolution, nor an evolutionary dead end, but a humanoid Digestor combining and surpassing their powers that had only one drawback: its bulky size.

"Our only advantage was that the Dungeon Digestor is unable to copy our Souls and the Glyphs, Soul Classes and Spells that come with them as long as we don't deliberately use those techniques against it." Garrow revealed with a shudder at the mere thought of it. "Although its Aether and Body stats were well above ours on paper, we had the advantage of numbers and our Aether Artifacts to rely on."

"Even if you had used those techniques, he wouldn't have copied them." Cekt corrected absentmindedly. "Only a Rank 5 Aetherist or higher can dabble in the Soul. Dungeon Digestors have an innate talent for it, but everything they create comes from their instincts.

"The True Will of Destruction or their Soul Classes such as Mirror Universe Destroyer or Eater may seem terrifying and unfathomable to us, but it's something that all skilled Digestors naturally awaken by atavism once their evolution passes a certain threshold.

"If however, the possibility of your Soul and Soul Glyphs being copied worries you, then it means you're trapped in a mature Rank 15 Dungeon Digestor and in that case believe me... That's the least of your worries."

Garrow didn't overreact, obviously privy to something, but to Jake and Will it was premium information capable of shaking their convictions. Even Maeve, whose soul seemed to have already left her body, became alert again upon hearing this.

She realized that even if she was saved, she was not yet out of danger. If she wanted to survive, she would have to do much more than rely on others.

"Oh, silly question." Jake asked Garrow, deliberately changing the subject to dissolve the depressing atmosphere installed by his master. "Why are you chasing Hecate if it's not too intrusive?"

The answer, though shocking, turned out to be logical and self explanatory.

"Because of my Soul Class. I'm a Demon Slayer." Garrow stated with a sparkling smile.