The Oracle Paths

Peter showed right off the bat how ruthless and shameless he could be. As soon as he saw the stupor on Shamash's face, the junkie stomped his foot and shot towards him.

His pale arm turned an unholy shade of purple and a liquid reminiscent of blueberry jelly oozed from its surface. On contact with the air, the substance instantly evaporated into a gas and Shamash inhaled some of it despite his readiness to bury himself under the huge spectral creature he had just summoned.

Inside a towering armor-clad demon specter, Shamash twitched, then scratched his chest until he finally spat out a mouthful of black, purulent blood. His skin turned purple and his hair and teeth fell out of his skull, followed by his ears, nose and lips.

RAAAARRGH!

A blast of energy shattered the spectral summoner from within and the titanic black minotaur reappeared in the center of the Purgatory. In this form, the poison became insignificant and Shamash finally managed to stop its spread.

With a vengeance, he brandished his saw, which could also change size, and with a furious roar swung it down onto Peter.

The addict, instead of dodging, waited until the last moment before tilting his chest slightly to the right. The saw sliced his head obliquely, also separating the left half of his torso from the rest of his body.

Yet, immediately afterwards, the bloody halves regenerated, recreating two perfectly identical Peters in a general stupor.

Driven by experience, Shamash did not attack again with his saw. Instead, he summoned a huge sun disk that served as his pendant, and the medallion radiated a blinding light. The two Peters immediately began to melt and it was the addict's turn to retreat with a growl.

Just as the two Peters appeared to be done for, Hade teleported with his lightsaber over the minotaur's neck and all the Aether for miles around flowed toward the blade of light. Shamash's hair stood on end as he sensed his imminent demise and he ducked his head reflexively.

The sword missed its target and an arc of light shot through the Purgatory forming a kilometer-long gash in the Artifact's false sky. Shamash gasped, sweating profusely as he saw what he had narrowly escaped.

Jake winced as he beheld the false sky of his Purgatory being restored to its original state. There was nothing free about it. Restoring the Purgatory inner world cost him Aether. A lot of Aether.

He would rather Hade refrain from using such overpowered strokes in the future...

While Shamash was still flabbergasted, and with his head bent down, Lucia took advantage of his disadvantageous posture and thrust her Myrmidian Sword into his eye, popping up in front of him like an elusive wisp. When the blade pierced the eyeball, instead of bleeding, it began to glow, becoming a ball of glowing plasma.

The blade of her weapon turned white-hot and the princess had to drop her sword to avoid being incinerated. However, this was not a simple sword strike and the blade was charged with a foreign energy containing a profound intent.

Lucia smirked as she recalled her sword and a hole of several meters in diameter opened on the other side of Shamash's skull. The huge Minotaur smashed backwards and as with Jake's first ambush, his head did not regenerate.

Nevertheless, as with Jake earlier, the giant Minotaur eventually dissipated like a mirage and Shamash's presence reappeared on the other side of the hall. Seeing his face, they saw that he was no longer smiling and was now looking at them seriously as if he was facing his arch enemies.

"You hurt me." Shamash growled like a ferocious beast as he formed strange mudras with his hands, "If I leave you alive, you will be a danger to Lost Divinities and my kind."

A huge portal emitting a black miasma sprang up behind him, dwarfing his Minotaur frame. Blood-curdling wails escaped from within, and soon a huge, shiny black insect's leg poked out with a heavy thud.

A grotesque half-man, half-scorpion creature soon crawled out of the portal accompanied by thousands of similar spectral creatures, but about the length of an elephant.

"Let me take care of these scorpions. Venom is my thing." Peter licked his lips as he charged at the army of insect-specters alone.

Jake and the others shrugged their shoulders dismissively, but didn't stop him.

"Back to square one, I guess." Hade rolled his eyes as he walked calmly toward the god, who was glowering at them.

"As long as we can't find his divinity, we won't be able to kill him. Lucia remarked with a frown.

Her previous sword strike was close to her peak power. This thrust contained her Victory Intent, Essence and True Will of Victory. Anyone hit by this attack could only perish and embrace their defeat. Without a counter power or a thirst for victory of equal or greater magnitude, the victim's body would simply accept death without resistance.

In addition to securing victory, she and her Myrmidian Sword would take advantage of the enemy's momentary acknowledgement of defeat to suck out as much of their Aether and a chunk of their Soul. At that moment, her Aether stats had risen by 10% and she had gained 2 Spirit Body levels. This proved that for a moment, Shamash was indeed defeated.

It was beyond comprehension...

At that moment, Jake finished engraving his Runes of Amplification on his body with a Sentence Of Power of his own. Watching the aggressive strikes of Hade, Lucia and Peter, he figured out a solution.

A solution in fact so ridiculously simple that he was mad at himself for not having thought of it sooner.

"I see the Divinities and Faith Energy flows."

At that moment, Jake's Myrtharian Eyes took on a strange purple tint and his vision, limited until then to primordial energy flows such as Mana, Aether or elemental particles, was enriched with new colors.

Jake concentrated on the color he was seeing for the first time and as he traced these energy flows, which were so dim as to be virtually imperceptible, he finally found an extremely dense node of pure power. Several infinitely wispy threads vanished into the distance, but one of them was connected to a similar nucleus in Shamash's left hip.

The microscopic Divinity kept changing position, the god ensuring that it remained untraceable. The most annoying thing was that it was not always in his body. It kept moving from one end of the hall to the other within a sort of domain and hitting it was almost impossible.

But Jake had another Sentence of Power planned for it as well.

"My body, my Aether, and my Soul refine and draw in Faith and the Divinities coming in contact with it."

As he finished carving the second sentence into his flesh, he felt profound changes take place within him. As soon as he released his aura Shamash instantly felt the difference, because his control over his Divinity weakened drastically. He had to expend a huge amount of willpower to prevent it from leaving his body.

"What have you done?!" The god screamed as he felt his personality and memories deteriorate against his will.

Unlike most of Lost Divinities members who were gifted with a Divinity later on, he was a true God born of the beliefs and faith his followers placed in him. Although he now had a real body, if his Divinity no longer recognized his authority it meant that he was no longer himself.

In that case, he might as well die.

Jake obviously ignored Shamash and teleported apathetically in front of him. He transferred a series of commands to Hade and Lucia telepathically and they both went on the attack at the same time as he did, pincering the opponent with perfect timing.

The Lost Divinities Player felt the Faith Energy flow guaranteeing his invincibility dry up even before Jake swung his katana. Shamash raised his saw to parry Jake's blow but was confused when he felt no impact.

Suddenly, the Aether from kilometers away was vacuumed up again and Hade's lightsaber resurfaced an inch away from his left knee.

Shamash's heart skipped a beat as he saw the place the Fluid Grandmaster had targeted.

'Is this just a fluke? It must be.'

For the third time he transformed back into a giant Minotaur and Hade's attack only sliced his foot instead. However, the monster's size was clearly a bit smaller than before.

With bone-chilling timing, Lucia's blade thrusted forth under the monster's left armpit and the Player understood that they now knew how to get rid of him, though he could hardly believe it. With a heavy heart, he retaliated by swinging his huge saw and Lucia was blasted off like a cannonball down the hall, crashing under a mountain of rubble.

At that moment, Shamash saw what Jake had severed and his eyes bulged out in rage and unbridled panic. A very important thread had been cut and the god felt helpless, like a trekker in the desert realizing he had just drunk his last drop of water.

A Divinity was a complex thing. Even if Shamash exhausted all his energy to the point of being kicked out of the Ordeal, he could always recover by returning to the source of his Divinity which was located in his private cabin in the Oracle Bunker on B842. It was this tenuous link that made him truly immortal.

But Jake had just severed that link. For Shamash, it was like having his heart ripped out.

Right now, he was a mortal like everyone else.