The Oracle Paths

Once safe, Ingranus collapsed from exhaustion. Gritting his teeth in pain, he watched as Kelly and Khal stood there like a rock instead of helping him dress his wounds.

"Fuck this... Why have I become their nanny?" The old knight ranted under his breath with a brooding face.

An honorable warrior feared no enemies, but dreaded pig teammates. The two retards were certainly in that category. If not for his uprightness, he would likely have ditched them long ago.

His bandages done, Ingranus sprinkled some dirt on himself, sat cross-legged and closed his eyes to see if he could recover. Too bad they couldn't get out of that trunk, nor light a fire or they would attract a flock of enemies. Otherwise, he could have used his partial Myrtharian Body to boost his vitality and feed his cells.

Without the other Myrtharian Bloodline Skills to work with, the result would inevitably be inferior to Jake's, but it was better than hiding out here and fretting about when they would be flushed out. And it was clear, sooner or later, that would happen.

These Goblin Digestors hadn't shown much flair so far, but their mounts had. He hadn't come across any of them in this forest, but he remembered the hideous canines that the ten goblin generals rode during the previous assault.

The goblins were not the only danger in this forest anyway. They had come across several species on the way, and all of them were extremely ferocious. The good thing was that the goblins and these beasts seemed to be enemies, one serving as food for the other. The Digestor beasts they had encountered so far had skittish characters, avoiding unnecessary confrontation.

If his intuition was right, these Digestors were derived from the herbivorous creatures and other harmless birds that made up the previous herd of scurrying beasts. His argument was that for the moment they had not come across any serious carnivores. Oh sure, these beasts wanted to eat them, but their morphology was not cut out for this kind of diet. Despite their hatred and aggressiveness, they were easily frightened and couldn't stop themselves from eating the grass and worms underfoot.

Reflecting on this, Ingranus tore a piece of rotting bark from the dying tree they were hiding in, exposing several silver bugs anatomically similar to termites. Although they forsook the timber to prey on his fingers, their hunger pangs were flimsy. As soon as he let go of the piece of bark, they resumed feasting on the rotting trunk, which was much more accessible.

This could be considered good news. Yet the old man was unable to smile.

Only a naively optimistic or unconscious fool would forget that they were currently in the domain of a Dungeon Digestor. It was objectively legitimate to think that the latter was privy to all their movements.

"I hope Svara makes it..." He muttered as he turned his worried gaze in a certain direction where a battle beyond him was drawing to a close.

*****

"I underestimated her..." A monstrous ogre measuring over four meters growled hatefully as he grimaced in pain, one knee shamefully laid on the ground. His huge axe stuck in the ground served as a crutch, preventing him from staggering.

His eyes were currently bloodshot, not because of rage, at least not only, but because of excruciating pain. His thick, leathery skin was covered in gashes as a pool of steaming black blood formed beneath him. Against all odds, his wounds were still bleeding despite his absurd Vitality and they were even slightly purulent.

Compared to his lightning defeat by Jake, this crushing setback against Svara was far more bitter. At least Jake was still a man, his ego could accept that. But earlier, he a glorious Fourth-Ordeal Nawai Evolver had just been brutalized by a woman of his own kind with inferior stats and no Soul Class.

Bhuzkoc may have been fearless and unreasonably aggressive, but his brain was pretty much functional. When he had no choice but to use it, he was still able to coolly analyze events.

Replaying his fight with the young woman in his mind, he concluded that all of her Aether and Body stats were overall inferior to his own except for her Agility, which was clearly superior. He was unable to appreciate how stupid and clumsy he was compared to her.

It was inevitable. His Ogre Bloodline boosted his Body Strength, Constitution and Vitality by a factor of 20, but Agility was sadly not one of them. Add to that, with his heavy and sluggish build, he wasn't really cut out for speed.

He had hoped to compensate with his higher Aether stats, but he had been puzzled to discover with a scan of his bracelet that even on that field his advantage was minor. Clearly, she had access to Grade 2 Aether Encodings, and her faction was not poor.

His ego refused to consider that a lone female Third-Ordeal Evolver could secure the Aether needed to fund the upgrade of her stats to Fourth-Ordeal Evolver standard. As for the young Nawai woman's skills, he shuddered subconsciously as he replayed them.

Those Shadow Wolves were annoyingly vile, bursting out of his shadow to chomp on his ankles and genitals with devilish timing. Her martial skills were significantly inferior to his, but the young woman somehow managed to thwart his techniques every time, disconcertingly dodging his most lethal attacks even when Bhuzkoc attacked her blind spots.

But if he had to name the MVP of their fight that had completely ruined his chances of a sure victory, it was the weapon she had summoned towards the end of their fight that was responsible for all his wounds.

In addition to being incredibly sharp and durable, her blade had managed to slice through his supposedly inviolable Spirit Body. Every time she slashed his skin, his Soul also suffered damage his Vitality could not do much about.

His mistake had been to take on one of these slashes with his own body. From the first scratch, his soul was set on fire, his mind going blank with pain. Unable to string together any coherent thought, let alone control his Aether or use his Skills, Bhuzkoc had completely suffered the rest of the fight.

If they hadn't been so deep in Digestor territory, his Oracle Device's Shadow Guide would have saved him from this misfortune. But now, it was too late to regret...

Even though Svara was not as weak as he would have liked, deep inside, he felt that this victory should have been his. His Ogre Bloodline Skills were outrageously wicked, while his Berserker Soul Class also boosted his stats as his body accumulated injuries. If the fight had gone on much longer, he would have undoubtedly won.

Except that this was the moment Svara had chosen to fly away on one of her heinous Shadow Ravens. This luck...

"Damn it!" Bhuzkoc roared, his angry voice echoing for miles around. "Don't let me meet you again if you want to keep your head on your shoulders!"

Inwardly, he added grimly, 'I won't kill you right away, though. First, I'll make you wish you were dead... I'll ravage your body in my Ogre form until you're half dead, then I'll eat you alive and laugh at your desperation! At this point, you'll beg to become my slave so I can spare you. Let's see then, who is the real winner!

*****

While Bhuzkoc was rehashing the frustration of his defeat and his loathing for Svara by cooking up numerous plans for revenge, each more despicable than the last, the one occupying his thoughts had just landed on the top of a tree, pale-faced and gasping for breath.

After having let herself slide down to the foot of the tree as silently as possible, her legs wobbled with exhaustion and then gave way under her modest weight. Sensing no enemy, she slumped against the tree behind her and closed her eyes.

'That was a close call... If it wasn't for my Luck Aether and my Bram sword, my teeth would have joined Bhuzkoc's collection.'

As she sat down, the adrenaline slowly left her body and the muffled ache of her wounds erupted all at once, electrifying her nerves.

"Guh..." she couldn't hold back her pain-filled groan this time.

A glance at her Oracle Status informed her that most of her bones were broken. Her tendons and muscles were also badly damaged. She could barely move her arms. Dealing with the brutal onslaught of a Strength Expert was definitely not as easy as she had tried to make it seem.

Fortunately, Bhuzkoc was just as the rumors said: Brutal, and simple-minded. She bested him in Aether Control, and with the Myrtharian Body passive her reaction time and intelligence clearly outclassed the barbarian. It was the only reason she was still alive.

Her Bram sword was a trump card, and she would never have used it if she didn't have to. It was a legendary sword from the First Ordeal World where she had obtained her Valkyrie Bloodline. She had only been able to redeem it after her Third Ordeal.

As Bhuzkoc had guessed by experiencing it firsthand, this sword could slice through the Soul. Its inherent hardness was at 10,000 points without even including the Aether density and the blade was so sharp that it could slip between two atoms without any resistance. It was a natural counter to those tanky Evolvers relying on their immense Constitution.

She hoped to have a few hours of respite to stabilize her wounds, but it seemed that she had exhausted her chance against Bhuzkoc. Shrill squeals sounded not far from her, and the ground shook slightly under the lumbering gait of a huge creature.

Limping to a bush, she scrambled to hide until she could see what she was up against, but her eyes bulged with shock as she saw twenty goblin Digestors with silver bows and daggers streaking past her in complete panic. These fearless monsters were actually running from something!