The Oracle Paths

"Holy shit... This is crazy." Jake gawked at the apocalyptic sight.

A galactic vortex began to glow behind his pupils as he activated his Myrtharian Eyes and every movement, energy, aetheric and spiritual fluctuation on the battlefield was captured by his eyes.

His brain stoically received and analyzed the mass of incoming data, with Xi processing and crystallizing any details he might have missed. A few seconds later, Jake exhaled deeply, his face a model of pessimism.

'Lodunvals is lost, but there are still some survivors.'

Three kilometers to the east, atop a hill, several hundred Wengol Protectoral Guards were guarding their great head general like rabid tigers. Their level was still a notch above that of Urzul and his elite brigade, and their ferocity was matched only by the rabid hatred they had for their former brothers who had turned Undead and were currently attacking them in droves of thousands.

Whatever the plan may have been to defeat the Wengol army, it had gone haywire. Despite how far away he was, Jake could feel the overwhelming presence of the titanic Wengol astride his equally huge Wurching steed, each of its sweeping swings mowing down hundreds of Undeads in one fell swoop, including its former elites.

As tall as a six-story building, this alien with dark purple squid skin stood out from its followers. Its long white tentacle beard and three bleary eyes were so cold that they could freeze a river of lava with a single glance.

Its assegai and armor were forged entirely of a mythril-orichalcum alloy, and no enemy arrow or spell could leave a scratch. Runic inscriptions ran through every piece of its equipment, enveloping its gigantic body with multiple defensive halos of different properties. Some accelerated its regeneration, others its defense and reflexes.

Lastly, in addition to having a set of gear that bordered on the technological and material limits of Quanoth, the alien had a mass, strength and physical constitution several times greater than that of Norton in his demonic gorilla form.

This head general was the ultimate tank.

Plus his mount, a Wurching behemoth resembling the lizard centaur of legends, but on the obese side. Its lizard-like front end also wielded a huge halberd covered in black flames and each swing sent out deafening deflagrations that consumed everything in their path.

'So this is what Laudarkvik sent us to battle against?' Jake mullered in his mind as he struggled to contain his indignation. Even if Aisling and her 26 elite Mutants had somehow managed to defeat that 600,000-strong army, they would have been routed by that alien. In the most optimistic scenario, they would have escaped unscathed, but left with nothing. No one would have been saved and the mission to retake Lodunvals would have been a total failure.'

And indeed, Jake recognized several Mutants from Aisling's bodyguard among the Undeads. They too were currently trying to take down this invincible Wengol, but when one of them got too close, a spectacular assegai blow shattered half his bones and organs, blasting him to kingdom come. If they hadn't become Undeads, they would have been incapacitated long ago.

In addition to these Undeads, there were also humans, specters, and other humanoid species trying to take it down, bombarding it with devastating spells and other debuffs designed to weaken it. The Wengol and its guards were forced to retreat, step by step.

Yet, Jake didn't feel at all like this ultimate general was about to fall. With baleful indifference it continued to wield its assegai, brutally cutting down anyone who got in its way. Despite the best efforts of these Undeads to bring it down, it was slowly but surely retreating into the Wilderness towards Khinchod.

Feeling spied upon, General Wengol glared at him, piercing him with its three discolored eyes, and Jake felt as if he had been struck by a nuke. His hair stood on end and he prowled into a fighting stance, but by the time he was poised for a deadly counterattack, the invincible alien had already averted its gaze back to the tide of Wengols blocking its path.

'Phew... He's the most powerful native I've met since I arrived on Quanoth.' Jake sighed. When it dawned on him that this was the second time in less than an hour that he had uttered this sentence, he sighed again. I really hope I don't have to say that line again...'

[(Boss) High-Wengol lvl 90]

Fine, this Wengol could just go about its life and return home in peace. Jake wouldn't stop it. As if he could anyway... That 'boss' suffix spoke more than enough about the guy's power. The Oracle Device didn't use that adjective often, but when it did you could be sure that the enemy in front of him was an anomaly among its kind.

Jake had personally experienced what it was like to meet a boss version of himself and he knew what to expect. If he came across this clone again, he'd run like hell.

'As for Aisling and the refugees...' Jake squinted his eyes, zooming in on the ruined bastion in the heart of the ruined city.

The old Archdeacon who had fought so valiantly earlier lay in her own blood, her face frozen in a plea of terror. The young S-Rank Adventurer fighting with a rapier lay in one of the few craters outside the city, but miraculously he had not joined the ranks of the Undeads.

Perhaps he was still alive.

The refugees under the Archdeacon and his paladins' protection had mostly perished, but Jake recognized several Mutants from Aisling's guard among them, staunchly protecting those who remained. Each of them was covered in festering wounds, surrounded by Undeads, Wengol riders and...

Humans and specters. Again, the reinforcements that were supposed to help them had betrayed them.

In that case... Jake began to actively search for Aisling and her other squadmates with the Oracle Scan, and with Xi's analysis and his keen eyesight, he was able to piece together the battle. His eyes darted from one crater to the next, until they drifted off into the depths of the Wilderness forest.

His Myrtharian Eyes gleamed as he spotted several tiny shadowy figures in the distance.

"So that's where you are." He grunted, his heart pounding with apprehension.

"Are we really going to head over there?" Jeanie murmured anxiously as she found him peering into the vast forest where freakish auras were clashing with extreme viciousness.

Jake needed his eyes to spot them, but since Minmins were semi-spiritual beings, she was particularly sensitive to anything supernatural. This was even truer of the Blue Minmins who specialized in Intelligence.

Just as Jake was about to leave, Ruby and his other companions burst out of the clouds behind him. Seeing the sheer scope of the bloodshed, they had the same shocked reaction as he did. Especially when they saw how few of Aisling's trusted Mutant guard were still alive.

"I'm going to assist Aisling. Ruby you come with me. Wyatt, I'll let you save the ones that can still be." Jake instructed sharply. "Don't take any chances. If that's not possible, just save the remaining Mutants and paladins and leave."

Elduin and Bhammod frowned at his orders, but they did not protest. It was up to them to prove him wrong. Wyatt and Carmin, by comparison, complied without complaint.

"Let me handle it." The Vampire Progenitor declared gravely, a vengeful glint blazing in his red eyes. "I will make all those responsible for Lily's death pay in blood. I will not let such a blunder happen again."

"All right. I'm counting on you." Jake nodded as he rocketed into the sky with Ruby in his wake.

"Follow me." Wyatt commanded tersely once Jake and Ruby were gone. Without them, they couldn't fly and plummeted to the ground.

With Wyatt leading the way, they easily infiltrated the city and a new killing spree began under the supervision of the Vampire Progenitor. Meanwhile, Jake and Ruby reached their destination.

As they approached the battle zone, the clashes and impacts of aura that Jeanie was picking up became clearer and clearer, even to Jake and Ruby. And then, finally, they were close enough, and their keen vision allowed them to discern clearly the tragedy that was unfolding.

Dozens of kilometers ahead of them, in the heart of the Wilderness, a blinding constellation of stars suddenly lit up the dawn sky, instantly dispersing the thick layer of dark clouds obscuring the sun. A dazzling beam connected each star, forming a psychedelic pattern in space, and then when they were all connected a pillar of light as large as a mountain smote the earth with the explosive power of a Tsar bomb.

Simultaneously and in response to this strike, a dome of water as large as Lodunvals formed over the forest, intercepting the pillar. An equally large metal structure resembling the shell of a turtle sprang up from beneath the watery dome, pushing the water skyward. Upon contact with the metal structure, the water dome turned into a gigantic crystal bowl as hard as a diamond.

The pillar of light struck the double dome of metal and crystal, generating a devastating shockwave that blew down trees for ten kilometers around. But the dome held and the light diffracted inside the crystal as if the rays had just penetrated a prism, before being refracted in all directions, its destructive potential diverted to other targets.

As soon as the pillar of light and the constellations in the sky began to dim, the defensive dome cracked at its center, and a gigantic blade as long and wide as a spaceship sprang up, the invisible energy surrounding it slicing through the very fabric of space. The lone figure hovering majestically in the sky in the middle of its constellation had no time to react and was violently shredded by this tyrannical sword of energy.

Puchi!

The blade disintegrated Jake's shoulder and half his left torso instead. When he reappeared in the forest at his former location a split second later, the two people he had just saved collapsed to the ground unconscious in front of a dumbstruck Ruby