The Oracle Paths

1052 What A Pity

An oppressive silence succeeded Jake's revelation, quickly replaced by a rising tide of fury.

"How brazen!" One of the Soulmancers erupted in indignation, his soulful energy releasing a shockwave that sent the tipsy rookie and Sank-Uk staggering backward.

The drunkard, already looking worse for wear, began to bleed more abundantly from his nose before collapsing to the ground. Before Jake could even assess his condition, another Soulmancer loomed overhead, a massive black steel scythe in hand, ready to cleave him in two.

"Die, heretic! No one is allowed to disrespect our king, even if he's-"

Jake, still debating whether to dodge at the last second or let the scythe shatter against his skull for a dramatic effect, was suddenly robbed of his choice. Twelve of the other thirty Soulmancers mercilessly impaled their furious comrade with their weapons.

Much like Sank-Uk earlier, the airborne attacker was abruptly halted in his tracks, skewered by half a dozen spears, two scythes like his own, three harpoons attached to long chains, and a serrated lasso wrapped around his neck. He was beyond salvation.

As the fiery light in his eyes dimmed, giving way to confusion and a profound sense of injustice, Jake tried to piece together what had just unfolded.

Soulmancer Meribelle, who had remained unmoved and expressionless throughout the brutal execution, cast a disdainful glance at her colleague's suspended corpse. She wagged her finger at him in disapproval.

"Tsk, tsk. You shouldn't have done that," she chided with ridicule sorrow, as if they had just slaughtered a mere chicken.

The Soulmancer, who had labeled Jake brazen while leaking some of his spiritual pressure, was left dumbstruck. His face paled in horror, audible gulps escaping him every second or so. He had been scared out of his wits.

The fact that another dozen of his so-called colleagues had him dead to rights, their weapon's sharp edges barely grazing his throat, certainly didn't help matters. Just by the look on his face-half shocked, half as if he'd swallowed a hornet-you could tell that he had never once imagined such a plot twist.

Jake was equally stunned.

'What the actual fuck?' He thought, striving to keep his cool. It would be a shame to mar his grand entrance over some petty Soulmancer beef that wasn't even about him.

Turning to the immobilized Soulmancer, the young woman who appeared to lead the traitorous group locked her soulless light gray eyes onto the condemned man, forcing him to meet her gaze.

The unseen Lumyst Aura, hugging the sensual curves of Meribelle like an invisible film, then bolted towards the prisoner at a dizzying speed, wrapping around his Spirit Body like a shroud. Before he could react, all of this highly compressed spiritual pressure, teeming with thousands of submissive souls, infiltrated his face, quickly saturating his entire head.

Before his horrified expression could morph into screams and pleas, the captive's face went slack, his eyes glossing over completely. He might still have been alive, but perhaps that was an even crueler fate.

The four Soulmancers who weren't part of his group but had managed to remain silent until now wore disgusted expressions, feeling stifled and deeply unsettled after watching two of their peers be taken out by their supposed friends. In their circle, many of them had known each other for years, and such treachery seemed unimaginable-until it unfolded right before their eyes. But they couldn't deny what had just transpired.

Neither could Jake, for that matter.

Because unlike them, the sheer absurdity of this whirlwind of events was baffling. If this young woman and her Soulmancer posse were traitors, they could have offed those two hotheads way earlier. Why wait for them to throw a fit to do them in?

Needing valid excuses to act was something that only made sense in the bygone eras of imperial courts and monarchies, where moral high ground and honor outweighed all else. In a wartime setting like this? It just seemed utterly pointless.

"Why did you kill them like that?" Jake asked with genuine curiosity, his tone much like a schoolboy quizzing his teacher. "Don't tell me you bought that crap I just spewed."

He'd thought twice about switching gears so suddenly, but what had just gone down was straight-up bizarre. If these Soulmancers were indeed traitors, he'd have to ice them to make sure they didn't snitch about his existence as the second Soulmancer King. Enemy or not, getting such news out would undoubtedly bring a world of trouble he'd rather not deal with.

The young woman, who had yet to react to his bold proclamation, glanced back at the fleeing army not so far behind them, staring at something or someone. She then signaled to one of her comrades.

The hooded figure, armed and garbed like a shadow assassin, nodded in return. Joining his hands in a peculiar mudra, his black cloak began to stretch out, spreading on the ground like a spill of liquid tar. In a flash, the ground in a fifty-meter radius was completely blanketed by this reflective void, giving Sank-Uk the creeps despite his vast experience as a commander.

In contrast, Jake and the other Soulmancers, who were more attuned to the paranormal, especially noted that this shadowy area was totally insulated from the outside world. The rustling wind that had previously graced his face, carrying with it the smoky scent of the blazing Havocspire Citadel, had suddenly gone mute.

"No one can eavesdrop on our chat now," Meribelle informed him, a

sly glint dancing in her grey-blue eyes.

Jake kept mum, his bafflement having peaked long ago. The unfolding events made less and less sense, but he was all in, ready to see where this wild ride would go.

"Speak." he urged with a regal gesture, his voice firm, and his demeanor dripping with haughty arrogance-fitting for the mighty king he was playing at.

'Let's see how long you can keep this act up, he smirked inwardly, tingling with anticipation. He'd much prefer a good old-fashioned brawl over these serpentine plots.

The corner of the young woman's mouth twitched hearing his commanding tone, but her brief moment of rebellion was quickly replaced by a flirtatious grin.

"Your Majesty, I was unaware you had another double. I knew it was impossible for you to get taken out so easily by those conniving bastards from the Radiant Conclave," she flattered with over-the-top ecstatic admiration, all the while her pupils concealed a deep reservoir of disdain.

In a matter of sentences, Jake had gleaned a torrent of information. The Soulmancer King had been ambushed, and those smoke plumes rising from Havocspire Citadel hinted he might've bitten the dust.

The Soulmancer who had been offed was on the brink of spilling this news to the public, the rest of the army not being that far, hence the immediate take-down. As for the second one, Meribelle and her crew decided to jump the gun due to his shady intentions.

To Jake, this sounded like a bunch of nonsense. There was no way to verify any of it. His gut told him the Soulmancer King was probably out there, licking his wounds, or maybe not even scratched.

What really caught his ear in the lady Soulmancer's spiel, however, was the baffling reason she was down to play ball with him, accepting his brazen bluff without batting an eye. Even if she'd clocked his earlier display of power, wasn't this all a bit too easy?

Turns out, it wasn't that straightforward. Circling Jake, she sized him up as if he was a piece of meat on the auction block, bringing back memories of his First Ordeal he'd rather shove to the darkest corner of his mind. She then remarked, with an air of indifference,

"Devilishly good-looking, a dark allure, pristine pale skin, a charismatic deep velvety voice, eyes that scream power... the guise is almost spot-on. Just one snag - you're a shrimp. You must've heard those nasty whispers about our king's stature, but you've overplayed your hand. Having seen him up close, he's at least half a head taller than me. Still short, yeah, but a solid two heads above you. What a pity..."

'Ah: Jake finally grasped the root of her disappointment, realizing that despite her outward leniency, she had never abandoned the notion of killing him.

She just couldn't wrap her head around the fact that an almost doppelgänger of their king existed among the new batch of recruits. Tragically, his height, or lack thereof, was a fatal flaw that laid waste to her grand scheme right out of the gate.

As Meribelle positioned herself behind him, her previously amused and disappointed face turned icy, and a long sword, a Zhanmadao almost as long as her, materialized in her right hand. As she readied herself to coldly deliver a beheading strike, the slender silhouette of her prey suddenly began to expand, with Jake's chilling laughter echoing mockingly across the battlefield littered with the remains of his regiment.

In the blink of an eye, his stature matched that of the young woman, and then rapidly, to the horror of the other Soulmancers and Sank- Uk, surpassed her by half a head, then another... A moment later, Jake had grown so immense that Meribelle's cherubic face seemed no more than that of an infant next to his hand. Slowly turning to face her, he glanced down in contempt at the steel toothpick she was brandishing with a trembling grip, and finally stopping his laughter, he uttered coldly,

"So... You tell me, when am I tall enough to be worthy of being your king?"