The Oracle Paths

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'Crap! What the hell is he doing here?!'

Ruby had postponed her Fourth Ordeal for over a year under her aunt's incessant prodding. In the military, disobeying orders was taboo, and all the elite members of the Prodigy Program respected Colonel Hale greatly. Ruby was no exception.

The year of training in isolation had been particularly hard on her and her mood had deteriorated over the past few months to the point where her former friends refused to approach her.

Of course... She now knew why... The end of her third Ordeal had been more than a shock to her. Her whole life had been called into question. And her former comrades who had survived almost as long as she had were no longer fooled either...

Who could hang out with a two-faced sociopath like her and trust her with their lives in wartime? No one.

The tragedy was that upon learning the truth about her nature, her overwhelmed mind had literally gone crazy. The distrustful and frightened look of her comrades, whose attitude had already grown much colder in the past months, had suddenly struck her as awfully hateful.

A brutal desire, an untold hatred to break them, to annihilate their existence and devour their flesh had suddenly overwhelmed her, and even before she realized the horrendous thoughts running through her mind, she had acted on them.

When she came to her senses a few minutes later, all of her mission comrades lay at her feet, forming a filthy pool of human minced meat. She herself was smeared with blood, guts and brain parts from head to toe. When she understood what she had done, she puked her insides out in disgust, but it was too late.

She had already committed the irreparable. The unforgivable.

When she returned from the Ordeal, the most disgusting thing was that her superiors had warmly congratulated her on her first place, completely disregarding her treachery towards her teammates. All that mattered was the free ticket to Quanoth that she had secured for the Earth Union army.

And the most terrible part of it all was that she relished the attention. Congratulating her for having shredded to death her comrades who trusted her... Inwardly she was tingling with profound satisfaction.

She didn't recognize herself anymore, but at that time she was still able to tell that she was losing her grip. Sometimes at night she would wake up sweating from dreadful nightmares that she was never able to remember. Each time she woke up, she forgot everything but felt like she had lost another piece of herself.

After a year of training, the old Ruby was hardly recognizable. Her appearance had changed little, at least on the surface, but her adorable, playful personality of a few years ago was a distant memory. Even her guilt, shame and abhorrence over her actions and thoughts hardly plagued her anymore. Her nightmares had also stopped.

'I'm just a monster... And I behave like one.'

At peace with herself, she had regained some mental sanity. Her peers avoided her, but it was for the best. She didn't have to pretend anymore.

Once she arrived on Quanoth, she had not sought to contact her teammates as she had been ordered to.

'I'm just going to have some quality time by myself.'

Yep, that was her only aspiration. Killing, slaughtering, manipulating, causing mayhem and despair, tasting everything, and enjoying life were the only ambitions she had left.

Here, nobody would judge her. Because the people of this world were already doomed to extinction.

Therefore, as soon as she arrived on Quanoth, she had, like Jake, met a group of adventurers that she had massacred after one of them had inappropriately ogled her cleavage.

So far... nothing excessive. What followed afterwards was much more so.

Eventually, a group of ten elite knights had come across her covered in blood and sobbing during their monster extermination mission and out of pity they had decided to escort her back to Lodunvals. Perhaps because their captain was a strict man enforcing military discipline upon his subordinates, she had not received any inappropriate looks, and thus these hardened warriors had kept their wretched lives.

That was her excuse. The truth was that her instincts had told her that attacking these warriors would not give her the same enjoyment as her previous victims... These guys were not as weak as the rest.

Faced with this unsettling feeling, another emotion had arisen in her and a sadistic desire to enslave them, to transform these virtuous heroes into immoral lackeys had suddenly overtaken her.

After several hours of exerting her charm, and psychological techniques, along with a couple of Aether Spells, she had finally succeeded.

Well, maybe 80% of it.

This elf named Elduin and this dwarf without manners named Bhammod... They were two thorns in her side that she couldn't get rid of.

This Dawn Elf was a Dawn Great Knight practically invulnerable to mind influencing spells. His vigilance was always sharp and he never let himself be touched or approached.

As for the dwarf... He didn't give her the slightest impression of being wary of her, but his attitude hadn't changed at all after all her attempts. After failing several times, she had given up, turning her focus to their captain and other companions.

She was so close to her goal and the accomplishment of the first step of her scheme should have brought her an exhilarating thrill. While she was exulting inwardly, she just had to catch a glimpse of the one person she was dreading meeting for various reasons she could hardly explain.

'Jake... Meeting him here is the worst case scenario for me. If he didn't recognize me I can just leave town, but that's just delaying an inevitable confrontation... Before he regroups with his comrades, I better kill him now.'

With an evil glint in her eye, a young woman with long silver hair began to hatch her evil plan.

*****

"What? Did I hear wrong?" The ape-like warrior named Simgut blinked in bewilderment as he replayed in his mind what he had just heard.

He had expected all sorts of responses after threatening this good-looking guy, from surrender to polite refusal, but certainly not one like this. If it was the insolence or resolute anger of a desperate person, he might have accepted it. If it was the arrogant response of a spoiled arristocrat who had no sense of danger, he could conceive that too. But this answer...

It was as if the world had just fallen on its head.

" A lvl 51 Warhammer Champion, isn't it? Not bad, not bad. Too bad you're a little too puny for my taste. I'm afraid that won't be enough to warm me up. Well, let's see how you swing that hammer first. When you're ready, please start."

It was the response of an old master to a junior, a veteran to a novice, an adult playing with a toddler. The tone was cordial, even polite, but then why did he feel even angrier than if he had insulted his own mother!

For a second he began to wonder if the human in front of him was really a greenhorn, but then he calmed down. It couldn't be. One of his biggest secrets was that he possessed the Appraisal skill, allowing him to know his enemies' level.

This guy was only lvl 28... What did he have to fear? His doubts gone, his rage hit the sky in an instant.

"Hahaha, good. Good! Remember, you asked for it. EAT MY HAMMER!" Simgut hollered like a degenerate.

Jake had initially just intended to catch that hammer with one hand, but in mid-motion he sidestepped with superhuman speed. The huge war hammer hit the pavement a split second later and there was silence.

There was no deafening explosion on impact, no cracks in the ground, no rocks blown out. The earth didn't even shake and Jake wondered if he had overreacted the moment before. When the simian warrior lifted his hammer from the ground, he got his answer.

'What the fuck?!'

His laid-back, if not downright apathetic demeanor was now that of prey meeting its natural predator. His skin was sweaty, his eyes were wide open, his pupils constricted and his hair bristled. And for a good reason.

At the collision spot, a rectangular print had embedded itself deep into the earth. If that was all it was, Jake would never have been left frozen in shock like that.

This hammer print in the ground was not just a few inches long. A bottomless rectangular hole had drilled through the rock to the very bowels of the earth. Even when he projected his mental sense into it, Jake couldn't find the bottom. It was only when he ran a scan that he found out to his horror that the hole was nearly 900 meters deep.

Jake was floored. And his opponent Simgut was more than happy with his reaction. Terrorizing these beginners was his guilty pleasure. He could do this from morning to night.

'It should be impossible. His physical strength is more than ten times less than mine. A technique? But what kind of technique can accomplish this kind of inhuman feat?'

Warhammer Champion? Jake immediately ruled out this option. This Soul Class was definitely an excellent one, but if a Soul Class alone could confer such power, then he had greatly underestimated their potential.

'Did I miss something?' Jake mused at full speed.

He replayed the attack several thousand times in his head with his photographic memory in half a second, even forcing himself to relive what he had felt during the attack.

Then suddenly, he put his finger on it.

'Found it!'

[You finally figured it out. Taking so long with your intelligence... What a waste.] Xi scoffed gently.

'If you knew the answer all along, you might as well have warned me. I almost died just now, you know?" Jake retorted with annoyance.

[I knew you'd be okay.] She laughed.

Jake had indeed been slow on the uptake. The answer had always been right before his eyes.

The culprit was the Spirit Body level.