The Oracle Paths

The Nullifyer crouched down to check Jake's condition, then upon confirming that he was still alive a comical expression appeared on his face.

BOOOM!

The god cast his gaze in the direction of the commotion and saw a blast of pure Aether spreading like a ring for miles around. The wave of energy dissipated as it hit the unseen domain around him, but everything in the vicinity and beyond was irreversibly disintegrated.

"The fight should be over on this side as well." Lost Divinities' leader muttered pensively.

Swoosh!

A drop-dead gorgeous alien woman with the same pale blue skin and dark blue stripes as the Nullifyer appeared silently beside him.

"How did it go, Disrupter? Did the Player pass the test?" He asked to strike up a conversation.

The young woman's eyebrows twitched, but she answered the question more tartly than she meant to,

"Stop calling me Disrupter when we're alone, Ael. I think our nicknames are ridiculous."

She remained silent for a moment as she stared at jake's unconscious body and frowned,

"Did he pass the test too? What a shame... That means we won't be able to steal all their liquid alloy."

"We won't indeed, but those are the rules, Felphi." Ael retorted placidly. "We could if you wanted to bend the rules at all costs, but that little gain isn't worth it. 10% is the maximum allowed and we won't go beyond that. It would be different if we could kill them permanently, but now that they have attracted the Oracle's attention it will be very complicated to destroy their souls under its watchful eye. I would rather have them as allies in the Ordeals to come. You know very well that even the chosen ones like us are not safe from an unforeseen death in these bloody inter-universe games.

"If they try to take revenge though, we will be allowed to kill them with no repercussions."

The woman named Felphi grinned in anticipation and spoke up,

"Then let's hope they're stupid enough to seek revenge. The moment they start making plans, my Shadow Guide will immediately cue me to kill them. Let's hope our companions were luckier than we were. I hear that the Replicators, The Demiurges, Anti-Life, and The Mirror Vanguard have also taken action. By the end of this day, all those inferior factions that had the gall to oppose us will be decimated."

"But so will our factions." The Nullifyer refuted her dispassionately. "Such are the rules. Only the top 10,000 Players are allowed to board the Celestial City. Our subordinates are not exempt from this. If these Players pass their test, they will survive. At least, as long as they know their place."

At that moment, one of Jake's fingers twitched.

"Hm, looks like you didn't mess him up enough?" Felphi teased sweetly.

Ael rolled his eyes but in the end, he ignored his comrade and quietly phased away. If he hadn't deactivated his Nullification domain how could Jake have woken up so quickly. Seeing that he had abandoned her callously, Felphi harrumphed unhappily, then her body dispersed in turn, merging with the Aether.

***

Jake opened his eyes a few moments later with a terrible headache. His eyes looked haggard as if he had trouble remembering who he was or what had happened. Then the memory of a huge and terrifying eye flashed through his mind and he sprang to his feet, drenched in cold sweat.

Everything that had happened in the last hour came back to him at once. The Nullifyer, his crushing defeat, Xi's intervention, and his final stand to save her from annihilation.

Then he noticed the uneasy silence in his mind. His heart sank and a bad feeling flooded his mind.

"Xi? Xi can you hear me?!"

" ... "

"XI?!"

"Oh Goddamnit! Yes I can hear you, stop yelling like a retard!" The young woman's hologram cringed in front of him.

Tears came to Jake's eyes and he laughed out loud. The worst-case scenario had not come true.

"I-I thought you'd been... You know..."

"Reformatted? Nope. Not today." She replied cheerfully, struggling to rein in her own disbelief.

"Was it Xion Zolvhur's Will fragment that saved you? Jake asked curiously.

"I wish it was, but no." She admitted with a stiff smile. "The fragment burned up in a blink of an eye. It was the Oracle System that spared us of its own accord. It's beyond comprehension."

A flash of realization struck Jake's face.

"Without Xion Zholvur's Will fragment that means..."

"Yeah. The Oracle knows that our souls are partially fused and that I can disobey the rules. I don't know why the Oracle System spared us.

"Anyway! You managed to mobilize your True Will to save me and for that I owe you a huge favor..."

Jake blushed slightly as he received the lovely and grateful look from the gorgeous AI but very soon he realized what had happened. This Nullifyer was really too strong. He had not understood his ability and was not even strong enough to resist. It was only when Xi's survival was threatened that he finally exploded with his full potential.

"This god was really powerful. Is it even possible to defeat such an opponent?" He asked dejectedly to Xi as he sprawled on the ground again at the bottom of the crater, staring up at the black sky.

The Oracle AI lay down beside him and took his hand. The hologram's hand passed through his, but it was the thought that counted.

"If it's you, I'm sure one day you'll be able to do it." She confidently declared. "Life isn't always fair. This Nullifyer, whether he's a god or something else, may have been endowed with amazing abilities since birth, but I'm sure he's also tasted defeat in one way or another. You could see it in his hopeless eyes."

With her words of comfort, Jake's eyes regained their fighting clarity and he proceeded to think about the unfolding of this duel against the Nullifyer more critically. With his mental faculties restored to full power, it was obviously much simpler and within mere fractions of a second he found an inconsistency.

"You already told me he was nullifying himself when he used his abilities." Jake calmly recapped. "But I can't help but notice that there is one thing he didn't dare to nullify: Aether and Soul.

"I know he probably didn't intend to kill me, but I can't help but think that he just couldn't do it."

Xi pondered his words for a while, then concurred,

"You are right. Without Soul, your physical body, your brain would still exist, but your True Will would vanish with it. Inevitably, it would be like dying in a way. Even if he survives his own technique, he would end up in the same state as you. To be quite frank, I don't think he ever uses his powers in such extreme ways in a normal duel. Depriving someone of their intelligence or senses is more than enough to win. It was obviously to test you. In a way he was training you.

"As for the Aether, nullifying it would mean momentarily ending up with Aether stats of zero. If he casts this ability, he disappears forever and it's tantamount to committing suicide. So we can effectively conclude that no matter how cheated his powers are, his abilities are still constrained by the primordial laws of the universe. This means that at every stage of the fight, your Soul and the basic Aether density circulating in your body were unaffected.

"What I am certain of, however, is that he does have a number of restrictions."

Jake agreed, but he couldn't help but think he'd lucked out this time. This Nullifyer wasn't trying to kill him, but more importantly he was also affected by his own technique.

What would happen if he ever met an enemy who could nullify absolutely everything but itself? Could such an opponent even be defeated? In the future, he would prepare himself by considering the possibility of such a scenario.

After a moment, Jake heard footsteps approaching him and as he turned his head he saw a seemingly uninjured Hade, but the dried blood covering his "rags" revealed the outcome of his own battle.

"You lost too?" Jake teased him with a laugh. Seeing the venerable Fluid Grandmaster bite the dust too had cheered him up more than any speech Xi could make.

The black-haired man grunted in response and lay down beside him. After a few minutes of silence, he said,

"I couldn't do anything. That woman was just too strong."

Jake was surprised to hear the sincerity and helplessness in his voice. How bitter had the defeat been that he spoke of it with such bitterness? Sensing that his friend was intrigued, Hade sheepishly explained,

"She called herself the Disrupter."

Jake's eyes widened.

"Don't tell me her power was to disrupt?" He asked, dreading to hear the answer.

"Hmm? How did you guess?" Hade wondered, "But yes, that's exactly what it was. It disrupted my abilities, my bloodline, my stats and even my memories. It wasn't until I realized I was forgetting my son's memories that I was able to defend myself, but I still lost miserably in the end."

Jake stared at his friend strangely.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Hade frowned, wondering if there was something on his face.

"No nothing. I just realized that we've been through practically the same thing. I don't know why but it puts me in a good mood." Jake smiled as he closed his eyes.