The Oracle Paths

After giving asylum to Galadin and Spak, the last remaining independent natives had all joined a Player faction. There were hundreds of Players who had resurfaced along with Wyatt and Lost Divinities, but most had already been eradicated or were about to perish.

With Gerulf as a witness, Jake saw a Khinchod Player protect two other aliens of his kind by conjuring a seemingly indestructible water shield, but after dozens of blasts, the vaporized water stopped recondensing and the next explosion atomized the trio.

This, however, was not the fate of all the survivors. Not all of the surviving Players were from the superfactions, and some had relied not on luck but on their own strength to fight their way through.

One of them was a humanoid woman with long black hair, about two meters tall, with three 7-pupil orange eyes, the third eye located right in the middle of her forehead. She was naked but it was hard to feel any arousal at the sight of her because right now her skin had the appearance, color and texture of cracked ashen earth. At first, Jake thought that this was just the natural appearance of this alien female, but he changed his mind when he saw the state of her skin change after yet another explosion.

At that moment, its surface took on a chameleon-like quality, turning slightly black and covering itself with a crystalline sheen. The next blast flattened the alien female against one of the unmovable buildings, but no blood spurted out as if her body was no different than a crystalline gum. The heat and radiation, as well as the shockwave were neutralized by her strange morphing.

'Interesting.'

Another Player smirked, which was actually a small alien about Cekt's size with a morphology close to a gray flying squirrel, but doped with steroids. The rodent was closer to the creature from the movie Alien than it was to the Chipmunks with its membranous frill around its neck, slit pupils and rows of sharp fangs dripping with venom.

The alien was accompanied by a dozen rodent-like creatures and the venom shield they erected around them was different from the water shield formed by the Khinchod trio. When the blasts of antimatter collided with it, it was the blast that eroded, dissolving like human flesh in contact with acid.

This was the first time Jake had come across a biological venom capable of dissolving thermal, radioactive and kinetic energy. The venom even seemed to be getting stronger, building up steadily around the rodents, forming a larger and larger puddle as they continued to produce venom with their salivary glands.

If Jake could see these extraordinary Players, then so could Lost Divinities, Anti-Life and Vhoskaud. Psykow, who was still safe under his weird psychic shield, became impatient when he saw that none of these survivors seemed about to succumb to the explosions.

Despite the hatred and resentment that simmered between the Myrtharian Nerds and Lost Divinities neither took the initiative to engage in round three. Because of the unrelenting antimatter explosions, it was impossible anyway. The curtain of black clouds had completely encircled the Celestial City.

Still, that didn't stop Jake and Ael from eyeing each other coldly with a smile that wasn't a smile, both ultra-vigilant in case of a surprise attack. At this distance, Jake could use his crushing hand with a single thought, just as the Nullifyer could teleport in front of him and nullify his intelligence and memories.

In truth, it was very much like a gun duel between two cowboys with their revolvers. The first one to score a hit would win. If Jake slacked off for a moment, there would be no one left to keep the Lost Divinities leader at bay.

The explosions continued for a long time, well over an hour, drowning out the last hopes of the struggling independent Players. The cataclysmic battle between Neri and Vexa hadn't stopped either, and if nothing happened, it would last for days.

No, Jake could feel it! Vexa was not in a good spot. Without the interference of the black clouds and the antimatter explosions his opponent wouldn't have been his match, but the cube man was expending too much energy.

The other Players were all outstanding and they could feel it too. Everyone was preparing for the status quo to be broken after their fight.

Psykow was in no hurry and was willing to be patient until their battle was decided. He would have waited several days if he had to, but a twist that he had not foreseen obliged him to hasten his plans.

At the same time, all the survivors suddenly felt an imminent danger, the shadow of their own death hovering over their heads. A billow of black smoke began to descend from the sky like a mini tornado trying to connect the sky to the earth. But when it touched the ground, instead of generating a swirling gale, it spread its dark fog throughout the city like a smoke bomb.

'Fuck, Aurae really doesn't intend to let us fight the way we want to...' Jake smiled wrily as the stormy mist made contact with his skin.

The fog density was still low, but Jake could already tell that at this rate his skin would start to melt within ten minutes. That was with his Gold Stone Skin and given the fact that his body had some tolerance to lightning, radiation and heat. Other Players had already activated their Oracle Shields.

The group of flying squirrels whose venom had seemed so omnipotent a few minutes earlier were powerless against this black smoke, its lightning streaking through as if the acidic liquid were a superconductor. Thin wisps of smoke even oozed through, smoking the rodents inside the venom prison they had themselves created.

The female alien with three eyes capable of altering her appearance to suit the situation changed her look again, her skin turning ink black as if she were trying to blend in with the mass of clouds, but from her winces of pain it didn't seem to work very well.

"Jake, what do we do?!" Lucia shouted from inside the ice fortress, angrily clutching the hilt of her sword in search of an enemy.

There was nothing worse than sitting around helplessly while the situation got worse! Wyatt, Carmin, Galladin, Spak and the other Myrtharian Nerds sported the same worried expression. The fact that they had no solutions was driving them crazy.

"There are less than 10,000 of us in the Celestial City, the buildings that are meant for us should have opened their doors already." Asfrid thought aloud without keeping any of her confusion a secret. "I see only two possible explanations. Either it is perfectly normal and there is another condition to fulfill. Or, we are..."

"Over 10,000." Enya grimly completed.

The faces of the Players gathered around the two women fell as they heard their discussion. The second hypothesis was by far the most plausible!

After all, they themselves housed several Myrtharian Nerds in a Portable Fortress. Who knows if the other factions didn't also have such artifacts?

"Stop racking your brains, we have another problem." Jake and Gerulf grunted simultaneously from outside. One could hear the gravity of the situation in their voices alone.

Psykow had telepathically called Neri back, ending her duel with Vexa and the ongoing round of detonations. Vhoskaud had also regrouped with the pair.

At that moment, Jake saw them bring out of nowhere several identical items resembling small 20-sided translucent dice. Their surface was covered by a kind of multicolored light grid and Jake could not fail to recognize what it was since one of these items was in his possession.

The Codex of Aurae!

One two, three, four, five... fourteen, fifteen! Together, Anti-Life and Vhoskaud had 15 out of 26 Codexes! The three Players brought the Gold Mana Artifacts together, fusing them one by one. Psykow, with Vhoskaud's approval, then began to alter the parameters of the clouds surrounding them, instructing the clouds not to target them.

At first, when there was only one Codex, the clouds continued to build up faster and faster around them, but with each successive merge the clouds began to slow down like insects stuck in honey.

When the 15 Codexes finished merging, a change occurred in the behavior of the black clouds. The three Players were still trapped in the dark mist, but unlike before, the stormy calamity seemed to ignore them as if it had been ordered to spare them.