The Oracle Paths

"Let's get this over with." Ulfar let out a deep sigh. "I'm sorry for what's coming next. I wish you had given up sooner. I have no control over this weapon. If I may give you some advice, don't let that blade cut you."

Jake remained unfazed, but his wary gaze lingered for a fleeting moment on the ordinary sword wielded by Ulfar. He had seen what his bow was capable of. If he was advising him not to get hurt by his sword, then he wouldn't.

Ulfar was clearly not as bad a guy as he wanted to make out. During the whole fight, he had been relatively friendly and courteous. This was in perfect contrast to his hostile and conceited attitude before the fight.

"I am going to attack." The King of Beskyr warned him solemnly as he raised his sword in an attack stance.

"Come." Jake beckoned him in cool fashion.

The plasma had cooled enough for two outstanding Third-Ordeal Evolvers like them to move normally. The oxygen, though, had been entirely depleted, or nearly so, inside the arena. The rest of their duel would be fought in apnea.

Ulfar had clearly anticipated this scenario, as one of his concoctions allowed him to dispense with air. For Jake, all that vaporized rock was far more revitalizing than any breath of oxygen. In this environment, he was completely at his advantage.

Having long since given up on the idea of saving himself, Jake activated the Myrtharian Warrior and Spiritual Trance at full throttle in addition to his Myrtharian Eyes and Bloodline Ignition. His aura didn't change all that much, but his eyes became like two stars and his fighting sense reached its peak.

Jake usually used these abilities subconsciously, but only during decisive moments. These techniques were great, but they took his toll on his mind and body. They were also very dependent on his mindset at the time. In a fight, it rarely lasted more than a few seconds at a stretch.

Ulfar didn't make him repeat it twice. He sprang forward, the clatter of the next six steps sounding like they were overlapping. The king of Beskyr then lunged forward toward Jake, jabbing his blade straight at his heart. Jake swung his torso slightly and deflected the piercing blow to his own right, pushing gently but firmly with his left palm protected by his Furnace Gauntlet.

A strange feeling of bad omen gripped his heart as he touched the ordinary blade, but he ignored it momentarily.

Simultaneously, as he deflected the sword strike, he sidestepped briskly and swung his own saber upward in an ascending slash aimed directly at the enemy's stomach. He too did not want to kill his opponent.

The imminence of his victory caused a rush of exhilaration in him, but when Jake should have felt his serrated blade shredding his opponent's intestines, it only hit empty space and he toppled forward despite his cautious posture.

He tried to balance himself with his reflexes, but his foot slipped on the only part of the arena where the lava had not yet cooled down. This would not have been a concern, if Ulfar had not taken the opportunity to wave his free hand at his face in a strange mudra with his fingers.

"Stay still." Ulfar shouted while slashing at him again with his other hand while holding his sword with a reverse grip.

Jake, whose concentration had been impeccable up to this point, found himself briefly distracted, feeling inclined to let the blade slice his throat. The dizziness lasted mere fractions of a second, but it was enough to cause his demise.

A Persuasion Spell that had a remote chance of working had worked wonders on him.

[Jake!]

Xi's cry of alarm, whose consciousness was tightly entwined with his own, snapped him out of his daze, and biting his tongue, he urgently parried with his saber. The impact generated a flurry of sparks, but his Snoworm's Fang withstood the brunt of the impact. The strange sensation of foreboding did not manifest itself either.

'I must not touch this sword.' Jake repeated to himself like a mantra as he continued to fend off and fight back.

The next few seconds were particularly intense. Ulfar was an outstanding swordsman guided by his unparalleled luck, but his physical abilities were still inferior to Jake's, even after drinking all those potions. Still, he had mastered a strange one-handed sign magic and his sword fighting style incorporated all of his skills and attributes, including luck.

Jake, on the other hand, had to deal with a series of "unfortunate accidents" that threatened to cost him his life at any moment. When he wasn't slipping on ridiculously smooth and polished cooled lava, he would screw up his parry or dodge in the direction of his opponent's attack every time he tried to take an initiative. It was as if his instincts, built on his abundant experience, had become completely dysfunctional.

Rarely, however, did Jake have such an opportunity to fight against a swordsman of his level. His proficiency with weapons was limited to his brief experience as a gladiator, when he was just an ordinary human. The rest he had inferred with his intelligence and guts.

At that time, Lu Yan, who only had a few more Intelligence and Perception points than he did, had shown off her prodigious talents by quickly assimilating the technique of their instructor Khazus, yet second only to Gerulf as a ludus champion.

If the Lu Yan of that time was a true genius, the Jake of today was a heresy overshadowing the greatest prodigies of humanity.

With each passing second, Jake became engrossed in Ulfar's technique like a bottomless sinkhole hungry for knowledge. He had long since buried calculation and strategy in the recesses of his head, letting his reflexes and quick decision-making take over.

Luck conferred a kind of foreknowledge to his opponent, guiding his every move, but Ulfar was no less influenced by his own personality, background and education. There were many moves he was more fond of than others. Deconstructing his old patterns and reflexes established over a lifetime would take much more than a few days.

First, Jake copied his technique. He mimicked his stances, his moves of slashing, chopping, jabbing, slicing, upward, downward, sideways, oblique, feints, parries and dodges like a fine mirror. Every detail of his movements was reproduced with sickening accuracy.

At first, Jake still made a lot of unnecessary moves, but as he refined his battle technique, he gradually began to reconcile with his poor luck. He entered a true Warrior Trance for the first time, becoming virtually unflinching.

Luck needed a medium, a window of opportunity to express itself. At least at Ulfar's level. When Jake became as unwavering as a rock, his legs deeply rooted in the ground, even his bad luck lost its grip on him.

You want to make me slip on lava? Fine, I'll take control of all the molten lava around here.

You want my heart to stop beating "accidentally". No problem, I just have to use my telekinesis to restart it.

Do my attacks always miss? If I only use area-destruction attacks, I'm wondering if I'll still be so inaccurate.

Are you anticipating my moves? Too bad, then I won't move. Let's see how you screw me after that.

Ulfar tried to destabilize him with more probing magic handsigns combined with aggressive sword strokes, but Jake had already wrapped himself in a thick, half fluid, half solid magma armor.

With each blow, a portion of the armor was chipped away, but the shattered rock was immediately replaced by an endless stream of lava pouring from underground. It would take more than a blast of wind and a timid electrocution to break his guard. In fact, even if Jake let Ulfar sink his sword to the hilt into his armor, he would still be a meter short of his belly button.

But when Jake decided to counterattack, that bulky lava armor would become the best thruster, the ground beneath his feet becoming as bouncy as a trampoline. Ulfar soon found himself in a bad position.

Their duel dragged on for several more minutes, until blisters began to appear along Ulfar's skin. His previously inhumanly fast movements slowed down to a crawl, while his face became cyanotic from hypoxia.

The effect of his decoctions was coming to an end and he was slowly becoming an ordinary mutant again. Grimacing with pain and having difficulty concentrating because of the asphyxiation, Ulfar brought out a small tank connected to an oxygen mask and pressed it against his nose before taking a deep breath.

"You even planned this." Jake said with admiration.

"When luck isn't enough, I have to be prepared. Ulfar replied with his eyes closed because of the risk of blindness from the burns. "Lucky people, are people who prepare for all eventualities. Often a disaster is just a matter of perspective. It can also become an opportunity."

"Shall we continue the fight?" Jake shrugged with indifference.

The atmosphere enveloping Ulfar became grim and taciturn, but he did not answer immediately.

"You are much stronger than I imagined. If this wasn't a friendly fight, you might have killed me already."The king of Beskyr admitted honorably.

Jake wasn't the type to rub salt in the wound of a foe humbling himself either. Yes, humbling. Ulfar didn't want to kill him either. What his adversary said next confirmed his doubts.

"You have passed my test and I accept to join the Myrtharian Nerds. But I don't admit defeat. I didn't use my Bloodline Skills, nor my Pandora Box for very obvious reasons, but if I use them the consequences will be absolutely unpredictable. I prefer to save them for my true enemies."

His creepy tone spoke volumes about the dangerousness of these moves. The term Pandora Box didn't bode well either.

"What was the danger I felt when I got too close to that sword?" Jake asked suddenly. Now that he had the opportunity to satisfy his curiosity, he intended to take advantage of it.

Ulfar lovingly stroked the plain iron blade with his fingertips and whispered,

"Death Embrace. That's the name of this sword. If it cuts you, it has a very small chance of causing instant death."

A shiver of cold sweat drenched Jake's forehead. 'And you would use a weapon like that against me? I thought you didn't want to kill me?'