The Oracle Paths

"Jake?" The android tilted its head in confusion.

Then the face of a certain man popped up in its mind and a horror-stricken expression distorted the robot's features.

"He-he is here?!"

"You'll find out soon enough." Kevin chuckled grimly. "In the meantime, you'd better focus on the opponent in front of you."

"You?" Vhoskaud snorted contemptuously. "You're overestimating yourself. Players like you who rely on the power of common mammals don't stand a chance against me. Because you chose the flawed Werebear bloodline as your foundation, you are doomed to never reach the top."

At that moment, the android unclipped its cloak and let it fall to the ground with a shake of its shoulder, revealing the metallic frame of a robot built for combat.

About two meters tall, the android's entire body was a clever mix of adamantium, mithril and orichalcum. Far from being frail, its musculature was that of a steel hulk. The pistons, pipes and cables powering this living machine pulsed a sinister bluish light with enough energy to light up a large city.

One of its hands ended in a long futuristic railgun, while the other held a silver blade covered with a shaft of energy reminiscent of a lightsaber. On its back, flight thrusters, sixteen mechanical arms reminiscent of spider legs and a homing missile launcher pointed straight at the Werebear rendered its presence even more intimidating.

"Do you understand now why I despise animals like you?" Vhoskaud scoffed as he activated the missile launcher.

Kevin was caught off guard by the droid's combat appearance, which differed from what Jake had described, but he was far from frightened.

"True, I'm just a poor human turned bear. A Werebear as you put it. A Grade 4 Bloodline." He admitted with a smile. "Even after becoming an Alpha, my strength depends on my subordinates. Without them, I'm just another Werebear or so."

His smile dropped and his gaze became one of scorn in turn as his stature began to balloon.

"But do you really think a Werebear can't evolve?" Kevin rumbled, his deep voice echoing through the destroyed warehouse and beyond. "All ordinary animals that join the Mirror Universe are given an Aether Skill, which gives them unlimited potential for growth and evolution as long as they have enough prey and food to devour. Since my powers come from a bear, all I have to do is develop the bear to become stronger. This is the first evolutionary lever.

"The second lever is just as obvious, although more difficult to implement. Do you really believe that there are no Bear Bloodlines in this vast Mirror Universe. Spanning the cosmos, there are multitudes of Legendary Bears with inconceivable powers."

In Kevin's place, a gigantic golden bear with emerald green stripes stood twenty meters tall on its hind legs. The beast was as massive as a building and its shadow covered the tiny android, making him look insignificant in front of such a monster.

"So please, don't treat me like a mere Werebear or this fight will be disappointing... It's been a long time since I've enjoyed a good fight." Kevin scoffed in turn, his green eyes burning with murderous lust.

The bear raised his fist, a sphere of compressed air forming around it and the Vhoskaud clone's face went ugly.

SMASH!

The giant bear's huge fist came down like a hammer and a seismic wave spread throughout the district, causing the ground to collapse for hundreds of meters around. Where the fist had landed, a crater several tens of meters deep had formed, with an unrecognizable, disjointed pile of scrap metal lying in the center of it.

"Now I can tell Jake that I too have killed one of these Vhoskauds." Kevin beamed as he returned to human form, leaving the other Werebears to deal with the Undeads.

The really dangerous Undeads were fortunately not present, but that meant his comrades would have to face the real deal. Realizing that he had only destroyed one clone, Jake's cousin forsook the brief joy stemming from his victory and heaved a sigh before rejoining the fight with his pack.

*****

Feeling the seismic wave approaching, Jake laughed, but as he stamped his foot on the ground, it caused the floor and the mansion to take on a pseudo-liquid consistency. The waves passed through the softened earth, stone and steel without causing any damage.

Enya, Esya, and Aisling, who were standing behind him, were stunned by this magic trick. His power had increased again and they understood it less and less.

Taking his time, Jake and the three women stayed in the mansion on the ground floor, leaving the other Myrtharian Nerds, Pureblood and Haynt to explore the underground laboratory. By staying here, they intended to ensure that no one could escape. With Haynt and Hade in charge, he wasn't worried at all.

And indeed, there was really nothing to worry about.

*****

"We've lost android C869. Switching to full alert status. Code 1, 7, 9...3, 2, 6." An android in mithril interrupted the dissection in progress and composedly put away his surgical instruments.

" Full alert status authori-."

A shadow disk sliced the droid in half from behind and a hooded man rose from the robot's shadow.

"Target cleared. Moving on to next objective." Hephais reported listlessly before disappearing again, merging into the darkness.

*****

In a cold room filled with relatively untouched corpses waiting to be dissected or devoured, a gray-haired but wrinkle-free man whirled his spear, decimating several Ghouls with each swing of his weapon.

When Ingranus had entered this room, he had encountered no one, but within five seconds, hundreds of Ghouls had burst through all the vents as if someone had ordered them to.

All of a sudden, a Ghoul twice as massive as the others and with its back covered with poisonous spikes crawled out of the vent it had come through, destroying the wall in the process.

"Hmm? An Alghoul? I guess it's my lucky day." The old lancer chuckled softly as he stroked his beard.

The next moment, his spear got coated with an invisible and indescribable halo of energy and with a super fast swing an arc filled with this energy shot towards the Alghoul. The monster, the wall behind it, and the next eight walls were instantly cleaved in half.

More amazingly, the Alghoul, which was a creature known for its insane regeneration, bled to death without showing any sign of healing, its intestines spilling all their contents onto the cold ground with no hope of stopping the slow agony.

Unmindful of the Alghoul's fate, Ingranus put away his spear and whistled towards the destroyed wall separating him from the next room.

*****

In another room filled with tubes, pipes and containers overflowing with liquids of dubious colors, a young man with an emo haircut, a bright yellow Hawaiian shirt, linen shorts and a pair of flip-flops sauntered around with gawking eyes, like a kid in his favorite candy store.

"It-it's good stuff! And it's all mine!" Peter Brady blubbered with joy as he hugged a cauldron filled with a bubbling purple liquid that smelled like a mixture of mango and kerosene.

Unable to resist the urge, he dipped his head into the cauldron, but when he opened his eyes inside he came face to face with a decaying corpse. The skin was rotten and flesh and bones could be seen in some places. The corpse still had a few scattered hairs.

'Fuck! Why is there a goddamn corpse in my pot!' He cursed as he grabbed the dead man by the neck like a chicken, then threw him across the room.

As the dead body slammed into a wall, its eyes glared out at him.

'Did he just look at me! It's an Undead!'

*****

"Peeh! I hate these Undeads! There's no blood to drink here!" Seren prattled on as she unscrewed an android's head with a backhanded slap.

One of the two Vampire Nobles who had attended the war meeting earlier, called Arnold, wore a fed-up face.

"We didn't come here to feast, but to deal a heavy blow to Lost Divinities and ultimately save Carmin." Wyatt chastised her coldly as he crushed the skull of a Draugr, "Stay focused on your task."

Gradually, they were getting closer to the heart of the underground complex.

*****

While most were lost in the labyrinthine laboratory, some had already reached their destination. In a room crowded with millions of sleeping androids, two men and a woman looked on with gravity.

"Jake wasn't lying when he said we would deal him a heavy blow if we destroyed his clones." Hade said bitterly.

"He forgot to mention that there were only two or three million left." Lucia chortled as she drew her sword. "I'll take care of the million on the left."

A Myrmidian princess had no concept of fear or defeat. To her, these cute androids were just another exhilarating challenge.

"Eight hundred of them seem to be made of Adamantium. And there are plenty more made of mithril, orichalcum and black iron essence. Destroying them will take time even for me." Haynt commented half-heartedly.

The old Astral was sensitive to energies and these metal things shone like a beacon in a moonless night in his eyes. Their durability would not be the only concern.