The Oracle Paths

Unfortunately, it seemed that this time, the virus had met its match. The rampant spread of the virus within Ulfar's body could no longer be curbed by mere strokes of luck.

Jake observed Ulfar's immune system rapidly losing the internal struggle that had started with the warrior's blood-curdling scream. Initially, he suspected that the level of infection had crossed an irreversible threshold, but his opinion changed when he checked his friend's Oracle Status.

Ulfar's luck, whether his Body Luck or corresponding Aether stat, had plummeted into the negatives. The King of Beskyr had lost his guardian angel that had been with him since birth! Jake had noticed that his own luck had been largely inoperative since he entered the Magnetic Resonator. He attributed this to some sort of countermeasure by the Dungeon Digestor.

After all, they were technically within its body, and despite its seeming cowardice, the colossal creature was at least a Rank 13 Digestor. Its ability to tamper with their luck did not seem so inconceivable.

However, this didn't suffice to explain the severe inversion of Ulfar's luck. Another Evolver might not have recognized such a symptom, but this wasn't the first time Jake had witnessed such a phenomenon. Ulfar was cursed!

And if his hunch was right, Ulfar had been cursed by none other than himself! Or rather, he had overdrafted his own luck to survive until now.

Jake knew that it was one of the core abilities of the Beskyrian Bloodline. The Beskyrians could literally manipulate their luck to satisfy their desires, but they could also sacrifice it to maximize their success chances. When this sacrifice exceeded a certain limit, or all their Luck Aether was spent, they then entered a period of vulnerability.

In that case, they would soon suffer a backlash, otherwise known as the Curse of Misfortune. Regardless of their Luck Stats, they would turn negative for a while.

This was an ability that Jake greatly envied. Thanks to Tim's Blood Essence, Jake also possessed the Body of Luck, which grew in tandem with his other body attributes. However, unlike most Beskyrians, he couldn't harness it.

He had tried time and time again. It wasn't a problem of will, but rather of Perception. Perhaps even more so than with his Space Manipulation.

Luck was an intangible concept, perhaps even nonexistent from the perspective of science and the most skeptical. His extrasensory perception, high as it was, struggled to detect the presence of something most didn't even believe in.

It was a kind of abstract power, like his new Life Element. Since he had awakened it, he could quantify/transmute an individual's vitality and lifespan into Lifeforce, Life Aura, or Life Energy, but for other Evolvers not versed in this element, this conceptual life energy didn't really exist.

The only thing they could truly perceive were its tangible effects on them and the environment. It was the same with luck. Jake knew it helped and guided him passively in each of his actions, but he didn't know to what extent it saved his skin, offered him new opportunities, or facilitated what he undertook.

Regardless, the fact was that Ulfar had finally run out of luck. "That explains why he's in this state. If I'm not mistaken, he must have risked everything either to escape alive from his enemies or to find me before they caught up with him," Jake concluded thoughtfully, not hiding his admiration for the warrior.

The King of Beskyr was a notorious rake, indolent and self-serving, yet he was reliable when it mattered most. "Since you've labored so fiercely to stand before me in the flesh, allow yourself to be healed," Jake muttered, a finger placed upon his forehead.

A surge of Lifeforce shot straight into Ulfar's brow, his body convulsing as if subjected to a shocking voltage. "Don't do this! It won't work!" Siri, who had remained hushed until now, erupted in sudden horror upon seeing this cascade of life energy purer than her own Vitality Aether flood into Ulfar's body.

In her mind's eye, she was replaying the calamity that had befallen Lucia when she had mistakenly circulated her Green Aether into her own body, intending to expedite the healing process.

She wanted to stop Jake, but it was already too late. As she prepared herself to witness Ulfar's metamorphosis into a Sinewshade any moment now, something utterly at odds with her prophecy transpired.

The white beam of invigorating energy twisted abruptly into a sullied black, as if the original holy light had been tainted by the vilest miasma of anti-life. Upon contact with this ashen-gray luminescence, Ulfar's every crevice of his body unleashed billows of black dust smoke, taking her by surprise.

Momentarily, Siri assumed this was merely the result of the black beam's interaction with the wounded man's flesh, and she wasn't entirely mistaken.

Indeed, an interaction took place. But upon contact, the virus-infected cells had instantly withered, disintegrating after being drained of all vitality. This black smoke was all that remained.

"Life and Death are two sides of the same coin," Jake clarified aloud, dispelling the android's confusion.

Siri's mind reeled at his words, inching closer to believing there was nothing beyond this man's reach. Could the difference between two Evolvers truly be so vast?

Life was outrageously unfair! Well, she wasn't exactly alive, being a humble android and all. Wait! Not anymore...

"Are you a necromancer?" she asked, flabbergasted.

"Make no mistake," Jake rejected outright. "Anyone with the power to manipulate life can indirectly wield death. It's as simple as draining their vital energy, and that's it. They're dead."

"But that's not exactly what you're doing," Siri contested steadfastly. "This black beam is not life energy for sure. It's death!"

This time, Jake didn't deny but simply flashed her an eerie smile. "You're right. It is indeed the Death Element. My bloodline allows me to adapt to anything and everything. I accidentally consumed an Undead in the past. Once my understanding of Life reached a certain mastery, reversing the concept came naturally. A similar process helped me grasp the concept of Cold. Except back then, the path was a lot more arduous, hehe."

Siri absorbed his nonsense, her mind numb, no longer seeking to debate. It all sounded so simple when he put it that way, but she knew that whatever method he employed, she couldn't mimic it.

As for who the Undead was that Jake had accidentally consumed? It was, of course, Trash Runt. Trash Runt had been slain and turned into an Undead by Vhoskaud's powers during the Fourth Ordeal. Jake had stored his corpse in his Space Storage until everything inside was digested during his evolution.

On reflection... Trash Runt had originally been a Leprechaun, a creature from Irish folklore associated with good fortune. Perhaps he had other ways of using his luck. He just hadn't realized them yet.

However, after mere seconds, both Siri and Jake noticed a problem. Jake's Death Energy had done its job, but Ulfar's carcass at his feet was now nothing but a skeleton riddled with holes and fissures, on the brink of crumbling at any moment.

"Well, at least the virus is purged, I guess," Jake quipped with a wry smile while inspecting his handiwork. It wasn't his fault that more than 95% of the Beskyrian's cells were infected.

Before injecting some of his vitality into his friend's body, Jake observed with slight surprise that the gashes on Ulfar's back had somehow held firm, the rotten flesh in question not disintegrating with the rest. Flaps of skin and tissue floated in thin air at their expected positions, as if anchored to his Spirit body rather than his physical shell.

"Now this is problematic," Jake murmured, lips pursed in dissatisfaction at this unexpected twist. "Anyway, I should first assist him in regenerating the rest of his body before he crumbles in my hands."

Unlike Lucia, Jake had superior control over his Aether, high perception, and an understanding of human biology that was up to the task. He quickly circulated his Life Energy in Ulfar's body, ensuring it never made contact with the virus.

The situation was currently more precarious due to the misfortune curse that the Beskyrian was suffering from. On numerous occasions, Jake was distracted and nearly lost control of his Life Energy, which, each time, tried to merge with the virus during these improbable moments of inattention.

Fortunately, his luck was also quite high. He couldn't control it like Ulfar, but it provided him relative immunity against the latter.

In the end, after a few minutes, Jake managed to heal his companion's body enough to bring it back to a state similar to when Lucia had just scratched him.

Now, the final task was to figure out how to permanently rid him of this virus.