The Oracle Paths

Using his metalmancer talents, Jake seized control of the liquefied steel beneath him and his body suddenly began to sink as if he had just fallen into a lake. Vhoskaud, who didn't expect Jake to handle his machines in this way, was caught off guard and didn't have time to reorganize his defenses.

BAM!

Jake landed heavily on his intangible shield, but due to its properties he passed through it, reappearing on the other side to the robot's utmost relief. However, although he did not charge back, he steadied his position a few feet from the spherical force field, becoming the android's unwanted roommate.

"Get the fuck off of me!" Vhoskaud ranted from inside his bubble.

"No." Jake shushed him with a sneering smirk. "I feel great and my parents always told me that a guest should always honor his host."

"I didn't invite you!"

"Oh?! Thanks by the way for inviting me here." Jake continued to spout nonsense, ignoring his whining. "I thought all necromancer robots were bad guys, but you're really nice. So much for appearances."

If the android had a body made of flesh and blood, his blood pressure would surely have shot up so high that his heart might well have exploded. In the end, all he could do was grind his knuckles to vent his pent-up rage.

Now that Jake was inside his machine formation, Vhoskaud had plenty of ways to tackle him. If he put his mind to it, he was 40% confident he could one-shot him.

If only that Mana Storm didn't restrict his movements. He was afraid that if he attacked Jake, he would go berserk and resort to a suicide attack.

The Ordeal was virtually over. He only had to survive a few more seconds and it wasn't worth taking such risks by sacrificing his precious ammunition for a short-lived victory.

"I hope I won't meet him in my next Ordeal..." The android sighed as he embraced the harsh reality.

Jake had no intention of pestering him either and the two Players, one human, the other android, waited in silence for the end of Ordeal notification to be issued. One second, two seconds, three seconds ticked by...

Digestor Ruby and her victims' screams grew scarcer and scarcer, until they stopped altogether. Could it be that everyone else was dead but them? This end of Ordeal was much more anticlimactic than he had imagined.

Seven or eight seconds later, even without using his mind sense Jake knew something was wrong when he saw Vhoskaud stand up grimly, his robotic face plastered with an expression that looked very much like human fear.

"What's going on?" Jake asked with a deep frown.

Vhoskaud was in no mood to answer him, but remembering that they were in this together he said gloomily, "The Ordeal should be over by now. With the exception of Psykow and Neri and a handful of elites, the Anti-Life Players shouldn't be able to survive more than a few seconds in this Mana Storm. I'm sacrificing 10 times as many machines per second as when the Mana Storm arrived, and the spells in it are starting to get more complex."

This was no lie. Jake could feel with his mind how eerie bolts of multicolored Mana were running through the network of machines surrounding them, causing a chain of reactions with random effects.

At one point, the metal making up the army of androids and machines suddenly turned into water, then into sand snakes before blowing up into a cloud of glittery butterflies.

Further on, the machines had abandoned their tight formation to kill each other as the metal in them vaporized, spawning a rain of acid. Nearby, the robots collapsed in on themselves as if they had entered an invisible steamroller before shattering into particles that smelled like freshly cut hay.

This was the greatest danger of the Mana Storm: the unpredictability of the spells it housed. The very reason why, despite his toughness, Jake had never dared to touch it directly.

If he knew what he was dealing with, he could produce countermeasures, but in this case the problem was that he had no way of predicting what kind of spell would hit him.

"If you think they're dead, why isn't the Ordeal over?" Jake asked solemnly as he took in the gravity of their plight.

Vhoskaud sneered at his nemesis' courteous tone, but he wasn't in the mood to mock him either. His electronic chip and Jake's brain began to mull over possible explanations by tacit agreement, and they both came to the same conclusion a tenth of a second later.

"There are 10,000 buildings in this city. One for each of the victors." Jake recalled, his face lighting up.

"The Mana Storm will not disappear as long as this planet exists." Vhoskaud calmly echoed. "In that case, the role of these buildings is to protect us during the destruction of Quanoth. If we find the right building for us, we should be able to get in."

A gleam of smugness and gloating flashed in the android's eyes and awarding Jake a dismissive snort he vanished, teleported away. As he left, the mountain of discarded machinery collapsed, swallowed up in less than a third of a second by the Mana Storm.

"Tche, he could have at least walked me back to my building." Jake tsked as he teleported in turn to the location of his presumed building that he had memorized upon reaching the surface.

It wasn't hard because he could feel it calling to him in his mind, as if they were destined. Even if he couldn't see anything in the Mana Storm he would be able to find it as if he had his very own compass.

He had already turned on his Purgatory, but when he saw 7B Aether points go missing as soon as he activated it he couldn't help but insult Aurae with every name he could think of. This Ancient Designer really had no manners.

The building that appeared in front of him was a rectangular block of black metal with lava veins and black lightning that wasn't there before. The ground around it was lower than the rest, as if a gravitational field was squeezing it. Undoubtedly, it was his building.

The only hitch was that there was still no door.

"What am I supposed to do? Have faith and dive right in?" Jake winced as he knocked on the walls looking for a mechanism to no avail.

Losing patience, and refusing to waste any more Aether at the risk of damaging his Purgatory, Jake rammed his head down into the wall, praying that it would just open.

His instincts were right! Without even having to say "Open Sesame," he went through the wall as if it didn't exist. It was as simple as that.

At that very moment, he received a welcome notification from the Oracle System:

[Main Mission (completed): Find a way to board the Celestial City. If you fail, you will be left to suffer the Purge with the rest of the damned. Rating : Perfect]

"That's it? I fulfilled my main Ordeal objective just like that?" Jake blurted out, finding the end of this mission far too easy.

Then he mused a bit more earnestly about what he had just gone through and realized that this end of Ordeal was in fact anything but easy. He had come close to death many times and the slightest mistake would have been fatal. In fact, he had even been spared once by the Nullifyer.

Besides, most of his subordinates had not managed to make it... Thinking of them, his face broke down as he realized something.

If there is a building for every victor, what will happen to the Players in my Portable Fortress?

Xi hurriedly answered in his head with a speculative tone,

[I have no way of backing up my words, but knowing Aurae and the Oracle's methods I'm willing to bet a ton of liquid alloy that they will be disqualified and their main mission will be considered a failure even if they do survive thanks to you.]

"Fuck." Jake facepalmed.

He had barely made it to safety and already had to leave the building.

"Xi, please show me the Celestial City map I captured earlier with my Oracle Scan." He demanded in a weary voice.

[Right away.]

Jake inspected the appearance of each of the ten thousand buildings and with Xi's help identified those that might match his friends'.

Currently, he had Lucia, Enya, Aisling, her mother, Carmin, Wyatt, and several other Myrtharian Nerds and Pureblood Vampires hidden in his Portable Fortress. Their condition was worrisome, but if he could still feel their spiritual fluctuations that meant there was still hope.

Just when he thought he was done, he sensed movement in Aisling's bloody crimson hair, or rather what was left of it. Having smashed her skull, her sleeping face had none of the glamour expected of a Succubus.

Two pairs of translucent pale blue wings popped up from the mass of hair, followed by a lovely tiny familiar head.