The Oracle Paths

Lord Calyx violently gripped the arms of his throne upon hearing this, grinding his teeth so fiercely that the shrill sound alone would have killed everyone in the room if they were ordinary humans. Conversely, Lady Faye gloated with delight, while Lady Lyria's eyes sparkled with interest.

Learning that she was responsible for the information that made their initial offensive successful, Valandar had a more measured reaction. It allowed him to see her in a new light, but it was hard to appreciate her remembering the disaster that followed. Unfortunately, no one could have predicted that a foreigner would throw a wrench into the well-oiled machine of their perfect plan.

Lord Calyx's livid grimace of anger was understandable. For their plan to work so well, he had to activate all his sleeper spies scattered across Havocspire Citadel, but also give up his own double identity. Decades of meticulously adjusted preparations had turned to dust in a blink.

And in the end, for little gain.

Millions of elite troops with potential potential had died at the cost of the lives of a few minor generals and several times their numbers of conscripts. The death of Great General Winchu, of course, didn't count, since it was he who had killed him to take his place long before the start of this offensive...

"It's certainly commendable, but do I need to remind you how this disaster ended?" Valandar growled at Master Eldrion and Lord Calyx.

Especially the latter received a rare look of pity, which quickly turned to disappointment. The master spy of the Radiant Conclave felt rage flushing his face again, palpable killing intent oozing involuntarily from his body, targeting the young woman who provided the intel.

Before a regrettable incident could occur, Master Eldrion cleared his throat again, more emphatically this time, and tactfully reminded them,

"Let's forget the final fiasco for a second and focus on the positive. Thanks to this charming young lady… Weiss, right? Didn't we manage to mortally wound the Soulmancer King? Sure, we didn't know he used such advanced avatars to deceive everyone, but the ambush was a success nonetheless. The information was correct. If we try to see the bright side, didn't we learn something crucial about the Soulmancer King that we didn't know before?

Valandar and Lord Calyx, who had struck the blow in person, changed their expressions upon being reminded of this detail. The Soulmancer King they had killed had indeed shaken them more than they wanted to admit.

Because what they thought was an Underworld Barbarian like any other wasn't one. In fact, it wasn't even a spirit, but an artifact capable of shapeshifting into human form. And not just any artifact…

A Calice of Nethershade.

And not just any. The real deal.

This discovery had numerous implications for them and their approach to the tricky case of the Soulmancer King. How the Soulmancer King had managed to convince the spirit of such an ancient artifact to impersonate him was already a mystery in itself, but there were worse possibilities.

Like that the Soulmancer King was the spirit of the Chalice of Nethershade itself. After all… Knowing what their Radiant Conclave planned for this artifact, the total war that the Dusken Throne had declared on them out of the blue two years earlier suddenly made a whole lot of sense.

It was out of self-preservation! And while for the other members of the Radiant Conclave it was just a suspicious element questioning their understanding of the Soulmancer King, for the Celestial who knew more, it was just the sign he needed to know he was right.

Valandar was indeed after the Chalice of Nethershade. Or rather its spirit.

This was also the reason for his irritation. Because their ambush against the Soulmancer King had succeeded! The strongest Chalice of Nethershade of the Duskwight Lands, reputed to be the original and supposed to be preserved as a holy relic in the heavily guarded Netherwell Cathedral of Dusken, had been thoroughly destroyed following their attack.

Its spirit had also been destroyed, except for a will fragment that managed to escape. Valandar was far from an expert in soul and spirituality, but compared to the majority of natives in the Lustra Plains, he had long compensated for his weakness by immersing himself unhindered in the Lumyst River's half crossing the Duskwight Lands. His Spirit Body, as well as his Soul, were actually pretty powerful, rivaling the best Soulmancers.

Back to the Soulmancer King, destroying the spirit of the main Chalice of Nethershade was undoubtedly excellent news for the Lustra Plains, although the loss of such an artifact was regrettable in more ways than one. The artifact itself had survived, but without its spirit, the equivalent of an Abyssal Revenant, it had become an regular chalice. Harder than any metal produced on this continent, sure, but stripped of all its magical properties that made it so invaluable.

'At least, we killed their strongest Abyssal Revenant.' Valandar repeated gravely to himself to put their bitter defeat into perspective. Although his expression immediately soured again, remembering that for an Abyssal Revenant, its soul was quite weak.

So weak, that even before he personally intervened, the Chalice had almost been annihilated by Lord Calyx's relentless assaults. He couldn't help but think they had missed something.

Whether the true Soulmancer King was originally the spirit of the legendary artifact or just its last holder was ultimately unimportant. The priority of finding him to end the war remained the same. The only difference from before was that their goal was no longer just to kill him but to capture him alive.

And that bastard of a Soulmancer King understood it very well, considering how he was hiding, even from the eyes of his own allies… But his efforts to hide were futile. Even without Lord Calyx's spies, they still had Lady Faye.

Finding him wouldn't take much longer. They had already found the foreigner serving as his substitute.

"We indeed learned valuable things about our enemy." Valandar finally responded with a tone heavy with implication in response to Eldrion's enigmatic words. He then coldly assessed Weiss with his slate-grey eyes, then gestured, "If neither this Cho Min Ho nor this Nathan are the Player you're so anxiously warning us against… Then who is it?"

"Jake… Wilderth. And… He… is… already… here!" Shadrex articulated, his facial muscles contorting in a grimace of pain to spit out those two words.

Weiss and Caelum froze, giving him an astonished look. In contrast, the Celestial and the other four Saints glared at the impudent with luminous green eyes in discontent,

"Who authorized this foreigner to speak?!" Lord Calyx snapped, drawing his sword, more than eager to vent his accumulated anger and resentment.

The three Oracle Knights tensed up, gearing up for battle, but before Lord Calyx could fully draw his weapon, Valandar's deep, authoritative voice brought him to an abrupt halt,

"Put that away. I didn't give you the green light to attack them either."

The master spy, a handsome man of average stature for a Lumyst cultivator of his level, stiffened at the command, then with dangerously narrowing pupils, he reluctantly sheathed his sword and sat back down.

"Keep talking." Valandar then ordered Weiss to continue, his tone brooking no argument.

Realizing the command concerned her and her alone, Weiss signaled Shadrex to stay silent with a warning look, then with the same composure and coolness, she explained,

"Shadrex is a kind of... seer. Under the right circumstances, and if the subject of his divination isn't leagues beyond his own, he can divine certain things about them. In this case, his name and location… The name, we already knew after interrogating a few members of his faction. Even Cho-Min-Ho's subordinates knew his name. I'm sure you've heard it too… His appearance was communicated to them by their superiors before the start of the Ordeal. They have orders to report to their leader if any of them spot him anywhere on Twyluxia."

"If you already knew his name, why did this Shadrex engage in an unrequested divination right in front of us?" Lady Fyria interrupted out of curiosity, her mouth pursing in realization shortly after. "Oh…"

"That's right." Weiss smiled wryly. "It's his location that matters. Shadrex's divinations never miss. Jake is h-"

"THREE INTRUDERS HAVE JUST ENTERED LUSTRIS!"

A deep voice, more a vibration than a sound, suddenly echoed in the room, emanating from the gigantic luminescent trunk enveloping the Conclave Tower. Valandar and the other four Saints maintained their composure upon receiving Anthace's warning, but their expressions darkened.

"Their power level, Anthace?" The Celestial inquired gravely without moving from his throne.

Instead of responding immediately, the Titan tree fell silent for a moment as if pondering what response to give, then said dramatically in a lower voice,

"The one who killed River's Bane is among them."