The Oracle Paths

Standing in the heart of Lodunvals, overlooking the rest of the city from its hilltop, was a spacious manor house halfway between an impregnable fortress and a typical aristocratic summer castle.

Usually at this early hour of the morning, the manor would have been quiet with the only hint of activity being the occasional patrol of royal guards. This manor, which also served as a palace, was minimally defended, but not for lack of means, but because it was utterly superfluous.

Indeed, Laudar Vikien, the Baron at the head of Lodunvals, was also the only S-Rank Adventurer in the city and co-chairman of the Guild of Mages and Adventurers of Lodunvals. With a foot in each guild, his authority was undisputed and no one would even dare to overthrow him.

That was why, despite the growing chaos and war knocking at their doors, Lodunvals remained an imperturbably peaceful and safe city. Alas, this morning was destined to be different.

"A G-GUILTY!"

This amplified woman's shriek had, in a single word, reduced the town's unyielding tranquility to nothing. The royal barracks had immediately dispatched a company of knight-mages to solve the problem, and their captain had then sent a valet to inform his superior, who had himself urgently notified the Baron and the other aristocrats co-ruling the city with him.

The Baron's mansion had been specially treated and enchanted by the Baron himself to be perfectly isolated from the outside world. There were sound-based offensive or bewitching spells, and as a Battle Archmage with many enemies, he had made sure to take precautions against any eventuality.

Therefore, short of directly using a special magical artifact to contact him, the only way to inform him was to dispatch a messenger to notify him. As a direct result of these defensive measures, Laudar did not hear Ruby's cry, leaving his army to deal with it.

As Baron Vikien calmly read his morning report while sipping his cup of coffee, the ground beneath his feet suddenly began to shake and crevices cracked the walls and timbers of his mansion, causing fine dust to fall and cover his hair, making him look as if he had just aged 30 years.

Simultaneously, out of the corner of his eye, Laudar saw the sky change color and geysers of lava erupt from the earth like fireworks. The familiar mountains in the distance were still there, however, reminding him that he was still in Lodunvals.

The valet in his office who brought him the latest news was scared shitless that the apocalypse predicted by the prophecy had come, but the Baron was not lacking in composure and reacted as one would expect from a battle-hardened warrior.

The cracks soon spread through the walls, inevitably causing the ceiling of the room they were in to collapse. Laudar squinted his eyes gloomily, then raised an arm above his head as if he wanted to support the weight of his entire castle with a single hand.

Eerily, a foreign, intangible force field was emitted from it, spreading through the walls until it encompassed the section of the manor he was standing in. The destruction caused by the instantaneous earthquake came to a halt, and then magically the cracks in the beams and walls subsided, the debris resulting from the cave-in returning to their original position to reform the intact structures and furnishings they were once part of.

Still, Laudar was in a foul mood, sporting an ugly grimace. His faithful valet who had followed him for decades had suddenly disappeared, his whereabouts a mystery. The Baron spread his mental sense throughout the manor and his mood deteriorated further.

With the exception of the one wing of the manor he had just saved, the rest of the castle was in ruins. In place of the hill, a huge volcano almost a thousand meters high had sprouted from the earth, shattering the millennia-old building foundations of the palace that had never been designed to withstand such stress. His only consolation was that there were no casualties among the staff present. The problem was that they were nowhere in sight.

"WHO DID THIS!"

With a kick, he uprooted the huge steel door, the only remaining intact vestige of his fortress, and blew a long pure gold whistle. A few seconds later, a black pegasus with the proportions of a small boeing landed heavily next to him, each flap of its wings doing even more damage than the previous earthquake.

"Long time no see Actalaus." Laudar chuckled sinisterly as he stroked the enormous snout of the beast whose hooves were as wide as his former desk.

The creature's intelligent eyes, which glowed like inextinguishable lanterns, fogged over slightly and the pegasus snorted loudly to communicate its glee.

The scene might have been touching if the man and beast were not giving off such dark and overpowering energy. As the giant winged horse curled its lips, huge sharp teeth that had no business being in the mouth of a herbivore showed up in the daylight.

"You know why I summoned you. I have two bastards to kill." Laudar declared with a shaking voice filled with fury.

His beloved city that he had protected for decades had been wrecked in a matter of minutes by a shameless bitch and a fucking Guilty!

Right, Ruby had made an unforgivable mistake in announcing the presence of a Guilty so loudly. Contrary to what she thought and although the Guilty were very badly regarded by the natives of Quanoth, Laudar did not hate them. He didn't fear them either.

What he did fear was an accident like this one ruining the tranquility of his city when he hadn't asked for it. He knew that an all-out war was inevitable and that Lodunvals would sooner or later be forced to enter the war if it were to claim a place in the Celestial City.

To this end, Laudar had long since begun his preparations, recruiting the most loyal and talented adventurers and mages to swell his ranks. The seemingly safe citizens of Lodunvals had long since been discarded by their Baron, who already considered them as good as dead.

Yet! Even a doomed person had his use! These millions of citizens also had a Soul-Class and they were the perfect cannon fodder for his army. His initial intention was to protect them for a while, letting the rest of the world slaughter each other to near extinction, before telling them that if they wanted to survive this apocalypse, they had no choice but to slash a bloody path with him to the Celestial City.

If it had gone as planned, his chances of success would have been much brighter, though still uncertain. With this incident, the deceptively quiet atmosphere of the city had been shattered. After that, it was inevitable that a portion of the inhabitants would flee the city and take refuge deeper into the Empire's lands where the security and military presence was of a whole different standard.

"Damn it! Ten years of preparation down the drain!" The Baron shouted one last time before taking off on the back of his lumbering pegasus Actalaus.

Everywhere in the other palaces of Lodunvals, the Mage Guild, and even the mansions of other independent warriors, a similar scene was playing out. The city's airspace was soon obscured by dozens of flying beasts serving as mounts, as well as hundreds of mages and other warriors.

Their targets: Jake and Ruby.

*****

With the Purgatory Dream activated, Jake knew everything that was going on in his territory and immediately detected the monstrous Soul Signatures belonging to the Baron and the other renowned warriors and mages.

He immediately relocated the innocent citizens to a safe area and isolated the weaker warriors who might be tempted to interfere. The stronger natives, on the other hand, he could do nothing against. Their spiritual auras were too strong and no illusion nor magic could impinge on their dominion.

"Some of these natives really do have an overwhelming spiritual presence..." Jake had a hard time staying calm as he discovered these individuals. "I better get the hell out of here as soon as possible, but not before I get my revenge."

If he had stuffed the inhabitants' souls into the artifact, he could have locked them up and moved them around at will, including those souls beaming with power, but the danger was that his real body would have been a sitting duck. When the Purgatory was deactivated, his real body would have been in the exact same spot, just like his enemies'.

If he wanted to flee, he had no choice but to summon the Purgatory into reality.

"J-Jake it hurt." Jeanie's feeble voice rang out several dozen feet above him.

When Jake had been forced into his true form, the little fairy had been lethally irradiated and given third degree burns. If she wasn't a half spirit entity and wasn't digitized, she would have died in a second. Instead, she was hovering between life and death, her single HP barely scraping above zero after drinking three potions.

Trash's situation was even worse. Although he was half-leprechaun, he was still a human made of flesh and blood. His body was tougher than the fairy's, but he already looked like a charred piece of meat. He had been able to gulp down the contents of a potion in time and that was the only reason he was still alive.

All the human adventurers who had calmly watched Jake's acrobatic prowess didn't realize it, but they had been so badly irradiated in those few dozen seconds that most of them wouldn't survive the next month without treatment. Even with Digitization, their destroyed DNA would cause their cells to die, resulting in a continuous and increasing loss of HP over the next few days.