The Oracle Paths

Ruby collapsed like an ice cube to the ground with a loud clang, while Jake remained stoic in the same invincible and stalwart posture. The blinding light gushing from his entire being dimmed rapidly, its scorching temperature returning to an acceptable level in a scant few seconds.

His cells greedily absorbed the excess heat and radiation and quickly returned to near normalcy, but on a microscopic scale they had tripled in size and looked like they were about to explode after being stretched to the limit.

Jake frowned as he achieved his victory. Strangely, he didn't get the expected thrill and gratification out of it. Did this mean they were even and he was giving up his revenge?

Not quite.

Ruby's last burst of fierce resistance had postponed the inevitable, but his plan remained the same.

'She won't stay unconscious long.' He refocused his mind on his goal.

At their level, their vitality was formidable. Once her body temperature normalized, her brain would turn itself back on. It was a different matter for her mind, worn out by all those Aether and Soul Spells, but Ruby had not yet reached her psychic limits. This loss of consciousness was strictly physiological.

At the same time, the two adventurers Jake had rescued along with Ruby were now covered in purulent blisters and frostbite. They needed medical attention immediately and were only able to stand because of the Digitization, their powerful Souls and the potion they had downed.

Elduin and Bhammod, who had scrambled more than a hundred meters away and hid behind a nearby shop to survive their clash, could barely open their eyes, but they did open them just in time to see Jake reach for the unconscious woman's wrist.

Indeed! There was only one thing more precious than an Aether Artifact or liquid alloy that Jake could wrest from Ruby. And that thing was her freedom.

Jake wasn't a big fan of Slave Contracts, but how could he willingly obey the Oracle System and save the life of someone who had betrayed him in the past and even tried to kill him on several occasions?

If the Oracle System could give him such a mission once, then it could happen twice, and then a third time, until one day Jake would be knifed in the back by the same ungrateful person he had worked so hard to save. As open-minded and forbearing as Jake could be, he wasn't a sucker for anyone to sacrifice at will.

'Fine. You want me to save her? No sweat. Want me to be her bodyguard or her soul mate? No problem. But I need a guarantee.'

That was roughly the line of thought that was running through Jake's mind at that very moment. His arm flashed at prodigious speed towards the wrist of the oblivious young woman, counting on exploiting this narrow window to force her to sign a Slave Contract against her will.

He had acted with decisiveness and nerve, his arm even generating a supersonic bang as it stretched out, but just as their wrists were about to make contact, an energy barrier came between them.

CLANG!

The pure white energy film enveloping Ruby grew brighter as Jake tried to shatter it with more strength. As he pressed on, Jake suddenly felt a painful tingling in his fingers, then a sharp pain, and he was forced to pull his arm back.

"An Oracle Shield? That must be her Oracle AI that took over." Jake understood at once.

He'd seen her use it extensively against Laudar, so he wasn't surprised.

"You shouldn't have much Aether left after this fight though." Jake smirked derisively.

'Oracle Shield, activate.' Jake ordered with no hesitation.

His wrist tried to reach out to Ruby's again and a bright energy film also began to glow strongly as it clashed against the young woman's identical one. Feeling no pain or tingling this time, Jake pushed hard with his arm to bridge the remaining millimeters of distance.

His wrist progressed extremely slowly, but the radiance generated by the clash of the two Oracle Shields escalated until it was as dazzling as Jake had been a few seconds earlier. At that moment, Jake's arm became unable to move any closer.

'This isn't working.' Jake quickly observed.

The two Oracle Shields were living up to their reputation of indestructibility. He had hoped that with equal weapons, his physical strength would have allowed him to prevail, but that was not the case. The more force he put into it, the more the Oracle Shield responded by raising its energy levels.

' Now I just have to wait for one of us to run out of Aether, but I can't afford to wait.' Jake deduced solemnly. Turning to the two surviving adventurers, he said bluntly, "I'm leaving. Do you want to stay here or come with me?"

As he made this offer, he used a Soul Spell in an attempt at weakening Ruby's unconscious mind and preventing her from regaining consciousness, but the Oracle Shield did its job by blocking even his spiritual fluctuations.

'How troublesome...' Jake complained with a terribly frustrated grimace.

Suddenly, he turned his head toward the hyper-resistant steel dome a few meters behind him confining Laudar and his pegasus, before abruptly turning his head again toward the southwestern gate of Lodunvals.

'This sucks. An alien army armed to the teeth is marching straight towards Lodunvals from the south, and Laudar has already destroyed half of the ramparts I erected to confine him.'

Jake had stopped fueling the illusions with his Aether and they were no longer repairing themselves.

Giving up on the idea of recruiting the two adventurers, Jake grabbed Ruby by the scruff of the neck like a recalcitrant puppy, then proclaimed without looking back,

"I'm leaving."

Elduin and Bhammod exchanged a look, taken aback by his change of behavior, but after a heavy nod of understanding they yelled,

"Wait for us, we' re coming with you!"

Without answering, Jake took off into the air and with an absent-minded wave of his hand he encompassed the two adventurers with his telekinesis, sweeping them into the sky with him. The sound barrier was broken in the blink of an eye and he reached the location where Trash and Jeanie were anxiously awaiting him.

With his telekinesis, he picked them up and flew like a shooting star to the northwest, fading into the clouds in the direction of Laudarkvik.

Thousands of meters up, the illusions created by his Purgatory Dream dissipated in one fell swoop as Jake and his Artifact moved out of range and Laudar's furious roar shook the entire city.

"You two, I will find you! Meanwhile, wash your neck for me!"

Jake and the rest of his group, who were rocketing along at a speed well beyond the speed of sound, never heard his threat, but they did get a glimpse of the huge alien army covering the plain southwest of Lodunvals. At a glance, he reckoned at least a hundred thousand.

These aliens were no strangers to him. During his second Ordeal, he had already encountered this humanoid species: The Wengols.

The Wengols, back then, were aliens three to four meters tall with two pairs of arms and a mushroom-shaped skull. Their skin was red-brown and looked slimy and soft like that of an octopus. Their technology was quite advanced, and they had a constitution and intelligence far superior to that of humans.

A scan revealed to him the presence of several Players hidden in the middle of this huge army, but it didn't concern him anymore. He didn't know if the mess he and Ruby had made in Lodunvals had triggered this invasion or if it was just a coincidence, but it didn't matter.

If Jake had to speculate, he would say that the Oracle had sent them here just as this alien invasion was about to begin to add a little spice to their ordeal. A day too late, if he had chosen to take it easy and enjoy the city's attractions, and he would have been faced with a siege.

Several Wengols emitting terrifying spiritual auras raised their eyes to stare coldly at them, but none of them went after them. Elduin and Bhammod, who had never flown, especially not that high, were aghast when they saw this huge army.

"My-my family!" Bhammod stammered in despair.

Jake refused to slow down but assured him that all the civilians had been teleported north of Lodunvals and that he had not injured any guards. Aside from a few adventurers and a handful of knight-mages, the military forces of Lodunvals were virtually unscathed.

A holographic view of the approaching army had also been broadcast by his Purgatory just before it was disabled. As long as the city's military was doing its duty, ensuring the evacuation of civilians shouldn't be too complicated. This was his last gesture of selflessness for a city that had tried to kill him within a day.

What Jake didn't mention was that the chances of survival for these soldiers would be extremely pessimistic. Their numbers were not even a tenth of the Wengol army and their standard was undoubtedly lower.

The dwarf was not really pacified, but he settled down after drinking a flask of rum. Northeast of Lodunvals was the province of Kelenden, the second most heavily fortified province in the empire after the capital. If the civilians could find refuge there, they would be safe for a while.

Seconds after they left, Jake felt Ruby squirm on his shoulder and he tightened his grip. Ruby's claws and harpooned limbs tried to skewer his torso again, but against his Oracle Shield she was completely helpless.

She tried to struggle out of his grip, but soon realized that her physical strength was no match for his.

Minute by minute, Jake swallowed the kilometers and Ruby kept burning her Aether to power her Oracle Shield. As a dark and chaotic city straight out of a steampunk fantasy loomed on the horizon, Ruby's Oracle Shield went out, not because of an overload, but because she had finally run out of Aether.

Her fate was now in the palm of his hand.