The Oracle Paths

[Jake! Snap out of it!] Xi's voice echoed in his head, but he could no longer understand her. It was just dissonant gibberish.

"Areuh, gah!" Jake shooed the air in front of him, indifferent to the enemy walking with an unsteady gait towards him.

Once in front of him, the Nullifyer, who had the same dumb baby expression, suddenly frowned and slapped him.

SLAP!

The Myrtharian's head was thrown to the side, his lower jaw shattering into dozens of pieces.

"Aho, Nullify Vitality." The god articulated with difficulty, his gaze losing focus from time to time.

Jake, even deprived of his intelligence and senses, still clung to life like a ferocious beast after being struck and began flailing his arms around, lashing out blindly. The strength and speed of his blows were laughable, but the glare in his eyes was that of a cornered beast ready to explode with his last bit of vigor.

But it was not enough.

BANG!

A knee blow from the Nullifyer cut off his breath, followed by a murderous elbow strike that crushed the arch of his brow. The god then inflicted a bloody and unforgettable beating on him. Still, the leader of Lost Divinities paused a couple of times, puzzled to see that the Myrtharian was still resisting.

It was not True Will, just some automatisms anchored in his limbic nervous system. Pure instinct.

[Jake! Wake up! You're not going to let a mere technique undo everything you've accomplished! Are you really that weak?!]

Hearing the cacophony echoing in his head, Jake squeezed his ears with both hands as he winced and abruptly thrust his head forward.

"RAAAH!"

BAM!

The Nullifyer, who was about to strike again, was not expecting this counterattack at all, and the headbutt smashed his nose. He lost his balance and rolled backwards on the ground. His lucid eyes momentarily became as haggard as Jake's and for a split second his Divinity was turned off.

Jake's eyes regained a glimmer of intelligence, but it was gone immediately after. The Nullifyer stood up and muttered, acknowledging his opponent seriously for the first time,

"For a very short time, he managed to resist my Nullification skill. So you have that True Will inside you too, heh. But what does it stand for? The fear of dying? The thirst to win? A misplaced pride that prevents you from tolerating any failure? Protecting your friends? Let's find out together.

"Nullify memories."

The fighting spirit in Jake's dazed eyes vanished entirely. This time he stopped struggling and the pain of his wounds caught up with him and he just started sobbing and bawling like a dying baby.

"Poor thing, hehe." The god sighed as he watched the Myrtharian totally at his mercy. "I may have overestimated you. If your True Will doesn't protect your memories, how can it protect itself? Let's get this over with. Even if you are not able to understand me, the lesson is not over. When you wake up, you will still have to feel the stinging pain of failure."

The Nullifyer smirked and raised his arm again.

SLA-CLANG!

The unintelligent Jake had indeed raised his arm and grabbed the wrist of his opponent. Was this intentional or a fluke?

"Hmm? He blocked" The god widened his eyes in amazement.

With a frown he shook his arm to free himself but like a baby grabbing his parent's finger, the Myrtharian clung to it as if his life depended on it. Which, all things considered, was pretty much the case.

The Nullifyer snorted and without mercy he used his other hand to wring the fingers desperately clutching his wrist. Then he kicked Jake in the stomach and he was knocked to the ground again.

"Nullify Instinct."

This time, Jake didn't get up. He stopped moving, looking as blank as a dead vegetable with a flat brain. In fact, he wasn't breathing either. The subconscious life functions, the so-called primary instincts, had also been suppressed.

The god waited for a while and when he saw no reaction or movement from his opponent he showed a slightly disappointed expression.

"I guess I expected too much from the one who defeated Shamash. In the end, you're just another human. This time, it's really time for me to end it. Don't blame me, I'm just following the rules."

The invincible Player walked resolutely towards Jake, then his hand took the shape of a knife and apathetically sliced Jake's right arm.

"Absorb liquid alloy."

The liquid steel in Jake's arm began to ooze out of his limb, and the Nullifyer's bracelet began to suck it all in. It was as if a thin river flowed between Jake's severed arm and the god's wrist.

All of a sudden, the Nullifyer felt a resistance. The liquid alloy began to flow in reverse, back into Jake's body. The god was startled, but when he looked at Jake's condition he was stunned when eyes brimming with killing intent peered out at him as if he were already dead.

Instantly, the severed arm reattached to Jake's body and his body stood upright, his wounds rapidly regenerating. His skin took on a faint grayish hue and a silver glow began to pulse behind his pupils.

"Silver eyes? Digestorification?" The Player commented in disgust. "So you are already partially corrupted. If you were a real Digestor Trojan it would be more difficult, but at this level of Corruption it's a piece of cake.

"Nullify Corruption."

The silver glow in his eyes faded, his skin returned to its normal hue. The Nullifyer expected him to turn lethargic again, but he was taken aback when the flaming killing intent in his eyes didn't disappear, instead intensifying.

SLASH!

A spray of blue blood spurted into the air and the Nullifyer's head rolled to the ground, his eyes still bulging with bewilderment. Unsatisfied, Jake's fist, coated in incredible energy, slammed into the god's heart, sinking into his chest, and then pulling out an insanely dense core of pure divine energy.

Just as Jake seemed about to swallow it, it shot out of his hand in a blur of light and restored an unscathed Nullifyer a few hundred meters away. His face was solemn and he bellowed with hostility and vigilance,

"What are you? I know it's not Jake."

Jake glared at him coldly, consumed with hatred and rage, and slowly articulated,

"Someone willing to do anything to protect him."

With that, dozens of tons of alloy liquid shot out of Jake's body, forming a tentacle-like armor that covered every inch of Jake's body except for his eyes. A golden flame shone in his eyes, and soon it spread to the rest of his body, enveloping him in a godlike halo.

The god felt his domain being slowly consumed, overridden by an uncanny will, almost as old as the universe.

"The Will of an Ancient Designer? No... You are an Oracle AI?!" The Player finally cried out, his face utterly shocked.

"... It doesn't matter what I am. Consider me part of Jake." Xi replied coldly.

The Nullifyer regained his composure and said,

"You're using an Ancient Designer's True Will, but in the end you're just an artificial consciousness, a modified reminiscence of an Evolver that probably died a million years ago. I don't know how you managed to bypass the authority of the Oracle System, but you know that as soon as you did it in front of me, another Player with an Oracle Device connected to the Oracle System that records everything, you ruined all your prospects.

"So what? I accept responsibility for it. I couldn't let you torture him without doing anything."

The Nullifyer gave her a sorry look.

"You don't understand. What you just did will have far more severe and immediate consequences than you can imagine."

Xi squinted in confusion, but suddenly a Will as ancient as it was profound burst forth from the Oracle Device on Jake's wrist. The True Will generated by Xion Zolvhur's will fragment was instantly snuffed out by an even more terrifying and overwhelming spiritual force.

A terror-stricken expression flashed across Jake's face as Xi received a blood-curdling notification.

[Corrupted Oracle AI detected. Immediate reformatting of corrupted consciousness initiated. Reset to factory settings]

Before she could react, Xi felt her code being attacked, but just as she thought she was done, the overpowering will seeking to annihilate her touched not only her consciousness but, because of their deep mental connection, Jake's as well.

At that moment, Jake who had been deprived of all his faculties, including the one to think, shouted,

"NO!"

A feverish, flickering, but focused flame of Will enveloped both their consciousnesses and the Oracle System momentarily collided with a wall. An intolerable pain, as if thousands of rats were gnawing at his soul, swept through Jake's mind and he was finally jolted awake.

An extremely weak, yet unyielding aura began to radiate from his body and he became a glorious and majestic 11 meter tall Myrtharian in a heartbeat. His Myrtharian Armor covered his body, and his God Slayer Broadsword and Hammer appeared in each of his hands.

"I WON'T LET YOU TAKE HER AWAY FROM ME." Jake roared furiously, igniting his own soul.

At that moment, a huge eye as large as a universe appeared in his mind, its pupil locking onto his soul. When that eye looked at him, Jake stopped breathing, a nameless terror threatening to obliterate his soul.

Then the eye closed and disappeared. The irrepressible Will trying to reset Xi withdrew and the Oracle System in his bracelet fell silent again. Jake and Xi's True Will faded away and the Myrtharian collapsed face down on the ground, drained of all his strength.

The Nullifyer stood frozen in shock, thousands of thoughts racing through his mind as he tried to figure out what had happened.