The Oracle Paths

He felt like crying, but it only lasted a microsecond. The next moment, his eyes rolled out of their sockets and he almost shat his pants out of fright.

"W-What the FUCK is that?!" Jake blurted out, aghast with terror.

Once out of the Mana Storm, he finally had a chance to see what was causing it. At first, he thought space was just a little dark and empty, as if some of the stars were missing. Then his brain started to kick in and he realized that there was a huge obstacle in front of him occluding his vision and concealing some of the cosmos.

At length, his confused mind finally pictured the huge thing obstructing his vision and fear struck him.

A hand. A huge hand. Black as a moonless night, devoid of reflection and substance. Dozens of fingers as long as a small planet and ending with the same gas, Mana, Aether and stardust soup fueling this Mana Superstorm. From it thousands, millions of lightning arcs as wide as a skyscraper formed long filaments of light raining down on the electromagnetic storm, strengthening it every second.

Awestruck after realizing this initial staggering truth, he flew as fast as he could out of the ionosphere, dodging the rain of lightning, and then summoned the starcruiser that came with his Purgatory and ignited the thrusters at full blast without regard for the expense of Aether. Between living poor or dying rich, Jake had shamelessly chosen the former.

Despite the cost, it turned out to be a wise decision. As soon as he commanded the ship to speed up, it reached about 50% of lightspeed in a split second, nearly 150,000 km/s.

If he were still on Quanoth, or even in the upper atmosphere, the friction of the particles would have destroyed the ship's illusion instantly. Even if he was ready to restore the illusion as many times as needed with a lot of Aether, his fortune would have been squandered in less than a tenth of a second and he would have died on impact.

Thankfully, this time he was in the sidereal void. The frictional forces were zero and his Aether expenditure was not affected in any way beyond the usual sustaining cost of the Purgatory.

As a matter of fact, the Aether Soul Core that powered the Purgatory was still growing slowly but surely. Although it was not an Aether Core designed to absorb Aether, its development was passively increasing its Aether levels and its ability to harness it.

After a year and three months, the Purgatory could now produce 1.1B Aether points per day. The difference wasn't huge, but over time it would be like night and day.

Seconds after leaving the planet with his ship, Jake turned off the thrusters and turned around to satisfy his curiosity. His jaw dropped to the floor in one look and for the first time in a very long time he felt cold. The freezing chill that ran down his spine was purely imaginary, but in the face of what he had just seen it was understandable.

There was not just one hand, but TWO. A colossal entity was holding the planet Quanoth between its two hands like a basketball. Jake couldn't see the other hand earlier because it was on the other side of the planet.

Beyond those two nightmarish hands was something incomprehensible, gigantic, wrapped in a starry blanket that looked like it had been ripped from the fabric of the universe. This indescribable entity was several tens of millions of kilometers high, its face like an ocean of darkness wherein one would have planted six lightning suns positioned like the 6 of a dice to give it three pairs of eyes.

Where the veil of stars was thinner at the end of its arms, one could catch a glimpse of a dark blue metallic sheen. As for its lower body, its legs were non-existent. The starry blanket drifted through the void like a long cloak, space warping and merging with it, forming a spectacle that exceeded human logic.

[Th-This! Impossible! It shouldn't be here!] Xi stammered in shock. What they had just seen was beyond her wildest predictions.

As he perceived his Oracle AI's turmoil, Jake temporarily forgot his dismay and asked,

"Do you know what this thing is?"

Xi remained silent for a moment to sort out her thoughts, then once she calmed down she disclosed in a trembling voice,

[It's Aurae.]

Jake wasn't as surprised as he thought he would be. In fact, he was relieved when he heard the answer. Only an Ancient Designer could explain this abomination. The amount of power contained in this creature was beyond comprehension.

Without even doing anything, by the mere virtue of being there, space was collapsing in its wake. If Xi had told him that it was just an ordinary pawn, now he would have been truly dumbfounded.

Besides, he had already met an Ancient Designer during his Second Ordeal. Xion Zolvhur was certainly less impressive, but the fact that the entire asteroid was nothing more than a tiny portion of his crystallized Spirit Body was equally impressive.

[You don't understand. It's not a clone. It's the real one. Aurae is here!] Xi insisted, seeing that he was making light of the revelation.

Jake grew serious as he heard the gravity in the young woman's voice, but even then he couldn't see how it was a big deal. Clone or not, it was still an Ancient Designer like any other.

[You still don't understand. This is the Fourth Ordeal, not the Tenth. The number of Fourth-Ordeal contestants in the Mirror Universe is countless. Even if they are the elite of the elite, one Quanoth would never be enough for all those Players. Do you understand what I mean?]

Jake became solemn this time. There wasn't just one Quanoth planet, he should have known better. This was because there were creatures in the Mirror Universe that could not be tested by normal methods. Quanoth might be adequate for small species like humans, but a few hundred meters was probably the limit. Beyond that, and such an alien would break the balance, removing any fairness in this Ordeal.

Imagine a beast as big as Aurae? Even a hundredth of its size, its weight would be enough to disrupt the planet's orbit. Its every step would generate tidal waves hundreds of kilometers high and earthquakes powerful enough to fracture the whole crust of the earth.

If such a beast existed, it could not be tested by conventional methods. That was why there were other Quanoth planets.

Contrary to what one might think, what was really shocking was not that there were other Quanoths, but that the real Aurae had chosen to oversee their Fourth Ordeal in person. This meant that his trusted clones or subordinates were currently in charge of the other planets, leaving him free to monitor the ignorant ants that they were, bustling about pointlessly, oblivious to their own insignificance.

When Jake came to this realization, a shrill grinding sound like a badly oiled gear travelled through the cosmos all the way to him regardless of the sidereal void that was supposed to prevent the sound from spreading. Looking up in the direction of the screeching noise, his face blanched as he saw the huge black hole and the six lightning suns that served as its eyes turned in his direction.

A new wave of terror petrified him and the ocean of darkness suddenly rifted apart, unveiling a world of metal reminiscent of the inside of a hangar, albeit the size of Mars. Even more chilling, this metal crack stretching in the middle of this mass of darkness looked uncannily like a smile...

Then the monstrous mental sense that had just passed over him withdrew and the gigantic entity turned its attention back to the planet Quanoth in its hands, blissfully disregarding its existence.

[Side Mission n°4: Space Exploration: Leave the planet Quanoth and find out the cause of the impending apocalypse: Mission completed.]

Jake was pleasantly surprised by this notification. For him it was free Ordeal credits. He had never intended to solve this huge mystery, but simply to get to the sun.

This unexpected discovery had also given him a new insight.

Wasn't he safe here in space, far away from Quanoth? Its black clouds and Mana Superstorm had no hold on him from up here. Even if he couldn't reach Celestial City or its Divine Academy in time, he still had this escape route to survive.

[I don't think this plan would work.] Xi immediately disagreed. [If you decide to give up and stay here until the end, yeah sure, you'll be fine, although you'll fail your Main Mission. But if you go back to Quanoth and try again to leave the planet in a few months, do you really think it will be that easy?]

Jake's heart sank as he heeded her warning. At the rate Sir Aurae was expanding and densifying its Mana Superstorm, the day it covered the whole planet, Quanoth would become an unbreakable prison.

At that moment, Jake praised his own farsightedness for choosing to visit the sun now and not several months later. If he had attempted it then, just reaching the troposphere would have been impossible.

Refocusing on his goal, Jake took one last complicated look at the massive entity, hoping one day to be able to hold his own against such a powerhouse, then restarting his ship's thrusters, he set off for the sun.

Twelve or thirteen minutes later, the star cruiser began to slow down, before coming to a complete stop a few thousand kilometers above a huge plasma sphere. Switching off the Purgatory, Jake floated into the void, closing his eyes to enjoy the sun's caress.

"We're finally here. Time to get to work."