The Oracle Paths

"... And that, essentially, is what happened," Siri concluded on a somber note.

A palpable silence followed the end of her tale. Jake stood frozen before her, fists clenched tight, his expression as icy and terrifying as a winter tempest. His face was so pale with fury that the android could only be grateful for its lack of eyes.

Eventually, Jake snapped out of his stupor, exhaling deeply as he unfurled his fists. With an effort that seemed colossal, he forced himself to ask in a voice as neutral and even as he could manage, "Is that it? You don't know what happened next?"

Even though the android was incapable of empathy in the strictest sense, she had learned to distinguish the subtle nuances of emotions. Jake, who had just posed a question, was undoubtedly affected by the news.

However, where others might have responded with despair or desolation, all she could perceive in his barely restrained voice was a simmering rage teeming with spite, all directed at the culprits.

Painfully aware that her potential restoration depended on her savior keeping his sanity, Siri carefully reviewed her last fragments of memory. Then, with a hint of hesitation, she began,

"I hid my consciousness in my motherboard to erase my presence completely, hoping to keep those Sinewshades from showing too much interest in my remains. After Ulfar was slashed by Lucia, my memories are hazy at best, except that Lucia did not continue her assault on him. I am truly sorry."

"My senses were limited, but I do remember another oppressive aura emerging from one of the corridors. I am fairly certain it was a Digestor, but the malevolence and cruelty radiating from it momentarily distracted Lucia from Ulfar. Maybe the presence of a greater threat allowed her to regain her senses, or perhaps her combat instincts drove her to fight it. I cannot be certain. But one thing I am sure of is that Ulfar did not attempt to save her. Instead, he made a decisive escape, dragging Syrbarun with him. The passage they chose was opposite from Lucia and the new enemy presence, as well as the entrance he had been defending since the onset of the battle. Quite the lucky streak, wouldn't you say?"

Jake seemed to calm down after hearing these additional details. Ulfar had managed to escape, indicating that his luck hadn't yet abandoned him.

However, according to Siri's account, the King of Beskyr's luck was dwindling as they delved deeper into the Magnetic Resonator. Who knew how long it would keep him alive before it failed him fatally.

Out of precaution, he checked his own Luck Attribute but found nothing unusual in his Aether, Spirit Body, or Physical Body.

'It appears the adaptive abilities of my bloodline haven't been overwhelmed yet, he reasoned inwardly. 'Or perhaps the Dungeon Digestor itself emits a counter-power that neutralizes the expected effects of luck to a certain extent.

[Speaking of your bloodline...] Xi gloomily brought up, deciding to broach the dreaded subject.

'What about it?'

[Don't you find anything odd about what happened to Lucia? Thanks to the Faction Skill, she also has your Cosmic D Starfeyrves Body, albeit a weakened version. Her body should also be able to adapt to this virus. Unless we've greatly underestimated the virulence of this pathogen, she shouldn't have fallen so quickly.]

Jake stiffened as Xi pointed out this unsettling detail. His brows furrowed in thought, seeking a plausible explanation, and soon a reasonable hypothesis formed. The more he contemplated it, the more he felt confident in his deduction.

""The Faction Skill may grant them the benefits of the Cosmic Starfeyrves Body, but that does not imply they truly possess it," Jake shared his deductions with Xi, who agreed. "Their DNA likely remains largely unaltered. The changes aren't as profound as the original ability would suggest."

[Hmm... if that's true, it means that once the virus has found its way into their DNA, there's no going back. The Cosmic Starfeyrves Body, granted by the Skill Faction, acknowledges the virus's coding DNA as part of them.] Xi elaborated on her initial reasoning, her voice bearing a serious tone. [It's the reverse of your case. Unlike Lucia, your DNA will fight tooth and nail to incorporate that of the Virus, even after your immune system fails to fend it off. Lucia's mistake was in relying on her vitality to heal. In her belief that she was boosting her immune system, she was actually hastening the virus's replication speed, since her DNA had already been compromised.]

"The real question," Jake interjected, "is whether Lucia can still be saved. It would break my heart to put her down."

[...]

Xi didn't have the heart to lie for the sake of comforting him. Sensing his dark mood transforming into a maelstrom of wrath and madness, tinged with a chilling killing intent, she knew that the truth would be more harmful than advantageous at this moment.

So, with a soothing, tender voice, she responded,

[I can't guarantee if you can save her now. But the Mirror Universe is vast, and what lies beyond even vaster. As long as it's conceptually imaginable, then it's definitely achievable.]

Upon hearing this sugar-coated untruth, Jake chuckled sadly.

"I know you are lying... but thank you. For everything."

He was no longer a naive greenhorn. Even if he managed to restore Lucia to her original state, her Corruption level would never be within the safety threshold. She would become one of the Corrupted.

Despite the risk, he still intended to save her. Or, at least, avenge her if need be.

As his mind finally found the light amidst the darkness, his face hardened, a sinister glow burning in his pupils. His gaze fell coldly, unknowingly, upon the Dungeon Digestor's Nexus hundreds of kilometers below.

"I only wished to protect my friends, but now, I come to take your life," Jake stated, his voice seemingly calm on the surface, but beneath, something far more ominous threatened to rise.

A devouring, entropic hunger.

"I WILL DEVOUR YOU ALL! VIRUSES, DIGESTORS, DUNGEONS! AS LONG AS YOU ENTER MY STOMACH, YOU WILL BE MY PREY!"

As his fiery roar of hatred erupted from his mouth, it came from the depths of his heart. A dark spiritual shockwave, akin to the black hole they orbited, spread at superluminal speed around him, penetrating the supposedly impenetrable Voidsteel walls of the Dungeon Digestor.

In that instant, Jake manifested for the first time the immense power of his spirit, rivaling that of an Oracle Guardian, fusing killing intent and True Will of Destruction. Only such murderous rage, such an impulse to obliterate his enemies, could achieve this.

This was the kind of emotion a typical Digestor constantly felt, its mind perpetually twisted by its degenerate instincts over which they had no control. No wonder the True Will of Destruction was so spontaneous for them.

But for an Evolver like Jake, it usually meant something else. He had become one of the Corrupted, his mind irreversibly corroded by Corruption.

It wasn't that an Evolver could not awaken their True Will of Destruction through training, but never would their soul entirely synchronize to conjure such a malevolent intent. It was because channeling their entire Soul Strength, and thereby all of their Soul Power, would mean that destruction had become the very definition of their existence. Their raison d'être. In other words, a True Will of Self.

Wherever this spiritual ripple traveled, the walls began to twist and groan as if in agony. The presence that had imbued them all this time retreated instantaneously, beating a hasty retreat. This subtle change surprised Xi far more than it did Jake.

"AAAAAHHHH, stop, I beg of you! You are going to kill me!"

Siri's terrified cry of pain did not, unfortunately, take long to echo next, emanating from her electronic chip, still clutched in Jake's fingers. The destructive wave had also struck it, and the chip, thought to be impervious to psychic intrusions, had begun to disintegrate, directly corroding the android's soul within.

[Jake, stop.] Xi uttered calmly, aware more than anyone that he hadn't lost his mind yet.

Jake persisted for one more endless second before reluctantly retracting his aura. With a snort, he finally shifted his gaze from where he thought the Nexus hid and finally noticed the state of Siri's chip.

"Oops, sorry," he instantly apologized, scratching his head in embarrassment as if nothing had happened, but only Xi knew how much he was holding back.

Inside the Spirit Dimension, a dull monochromatic psychic space where Jake housed his various fairy spirits, Xi slumped onto a couch conjured from Spirit Energy with Jeanie in her lap and sighed mournfully.

"The old Jake no longer exists. I do not know what to think. On one hand, I am happy, because it means he won't let himself be chained by his limiting moral thoughts. But on the other, I am also very sad. There was a charm to the introverted, inferiority-complex-ridden Jake who distrusted everyone. But that's the way it is. Evolvers have to grow up sooner or later. Right, Jeanie?"

"Mmmm," The little fairy hummed cheerfully. "Even if he changes, he'll still have us."

Xi tightened her grip around the waist of the little fairy on her lap as if to reassure herself, then answered with a beaming smile, "You're absolutely right. Even if the Oracle dies and the entire Mirror Universe abandons him, he'll still have me."