The Oracle Paths

Left with a clear field of fire, Jake again ordered his Aether Sun Cores to shoot at the light dome, except this time the laser did not fire continuously. Light pulse by light pulse, blaster shot by blaster shot, he bombarded the energy shield at an insane rate of several million rounds per second.

Soon the dome was draped in a destructive black veil again, but since the laser was not steady, its inherent contamination property was not exploited. Without True Will, even the most destructive power was constrained by the most fundamental laws of physics, the most inviolable of which was the conservation of energy.

The True Will of Destruction was a limited resource and after the death of these three Powers, the tenacity of this protective shield took a hit. The black veil continued for several minutes to break down and absorb the light particles hitting its walls, but soon the interior of the dome overheated again. And this time, there was no one to stop the people inside from slow cooking.

And indeed, the dome was manually shut down by someone a few moments later and two charred Schwazens on the verge of death revealed themselves to him writhing on the floor. He nuked them with a laser blast each.

It was not the two Powers that caught his attention, but the spooky altar erected in the center of the once-dome of light.

A strange silver figure about six meters tall, vaguely humanoid and without facial features hovered twenty centimeters above the ground with its arms outstretched like some biblical figure on its crucifix. Thousands of wings of energy with the same warm dawn radiance spread out behind its back like a fan, forming a perfect circle.

The aura of this thing was not oppressive and repulsive as Jake had envisioned, but rather like the soothing embrace of a loving mother. His mental fatigue at the sight of it seemed to subside, and a subconscious urge to approach it made him take a step forward.

[Jake, what are you doing?] Xi snapped him out of his daze with a sharp rebuke.

A cold sweat brought the Myrtharian to his feet and a chill of dread swept through his body.

'That was close... I almost lost control of my senses.' He realized, his face gloomy.

His lucidity recovered he finally noticed that this silver avatar was not alone. Seven humanoid aliens of different species were crowded around the majestic entity, hugging it possessively like a pack of starving hyenas clinging to a dying zebra.

Looking more closely, Jake realized that this was not just an impression. These seven individuals were indeed devouring this unknown silver angel. One of them had long silky white hair, and although she was in her Digestor Myrgenian form - a giant of just over four meters, covered in silver chitin armor with skin streaked with veins of bluish light - he identified her at once.

Ruby Hale. And in this case, the other six aliens must have been the other six Digestor Trojans gathered at Cradel and scheduled to receive the angelic bloodline through a ritual.

Right at that moment, Ruby had like the other six her fangs deeply planted in the flesh of the silver entity's forearm, swallowing greedily. The scene might have seemed erotic at first, reminiscent of the festive practices of some of the upper class vampires, but that misconception faded away as soon as Jake realized that the faceless angel was not just having its blood sucked out, but was actually being devoured alive.

It was just that its regeneration speed was so terrific that its flesh was instantly rebuilt between each bite. Although this thing had no face, Jake got goosebumps as he perceived its altruistic and benevolent aura.

This overwhelming presence was very much like the one summoned by the Virtue he had killed earlier.

He could almost imagine it smiling. But that smile was pure evil. With each additional bite, the genetic and Aetheric material of this entity would accumulate in the stomachs of these seven Players and with it a Corruption unlike anything they had encountered before.

Jake didn't know how the ritual had summoned this thing, but he was sure of one thing. He couldn't let them finish devouring this entity. He didn't care about the fate of the other players, but he hadn't given up on saving Ruby yet. His Ordeal Rating and his hopes for revenge depended on it.

The most confusing part was that this silver avatar and the seven hungry Digestor Trojans were completely unaware of his existence. It was as if they were possessed and the only thing that spurred them on was the compulsive instinct, the powerful desire to evolve that drove them to relentlessly devour this evil angel.

The lack of resistance was unexpected, but he wasn't going to complain about it.

"Forgive me for interrupting you in the middle of a feast, but this might hurt." Jake mentally apologized in advance as he grimly raised his hand up to his face.

All that was left of his True Will focused in his fingers and after activating all his boosts he clenched his fist and gripped the air eight times. An overwhelming mental fatigue immediately overtook him, blurring his vision.

The silver entity imploded on the spot, immediately followed by six more implosions and a tearing sound. Its body rebuilt itself instantly, but the Spatial Rift that appeared at its location warped the space around it and the angel was siphoned inside without offering any form of resistance.

Six of the seven Digestor Trojans were reduced to the state of molecular pulp and were in turn sucked into the Rift, but Ruby suffered a different fate. A sort of flaccid pouch with a short tube at one end and a long, serpentine pipe 20 or 30 feet long at the other appeared in Jake's hand.

Ruby's digestive system... His Grabbing Move was not only used to kill but could also fulfill its most basic function: catching things.

A few feet away from him, the white-haired woman had regained her senses, an excruciating pain radiating throughout her body as she became cruelly aware of the disappearance of her internal organs.

Her eyes were bloodshot and her face puffed up with pain and bewilderment and for a fleeting moment Jake sympathized. But only for a moment.

Without mercy or hesitation he pulverized Ruby's stomach with a stomp of his foot, hoping that what she had ingested had not yet been digested. Stomach acid splashed in all directions, but instead of corroding all the surfaces, the floor and walls froze for several dozen meters.

This reassured Jake greatly. Cold was not as effective as heat in destroying matter. Its main function was to freeze things as they are, not to break them down.

This meant that by definition Ruby's digestion was much less efficient than his. However, this kind of logic applied to normal cold. Cooling an object meant stealing its heat energy and taking this logic to the extreme once all the heat of an object was stolen, the next step would be to steal the matter itself.

Eventually, Ruby's cold digestion would lead to the same result, but the outcome was simply longer.

After tearing open her stomach and intestines, Jake coldly inspected what was inside, ignoring the foul smell of gastric juices. He soon found pieces of silvery, spongy, glistening flesh scattered throughout her digestive tract, whose erratic behavior reminded him of liquid alloy.

When Jake's gaze fell on them, they began to wriggle autonomously as if they had a will of their own, trying to crawl back to Ruby by any means available.

"Not under my watch." Jake snorted coldly.

With a thought he wrapped them in a telekinetic force field and shoved them right into the Space Rift that was about to close. The predigested pieces of silver flesh disappeared into the silent rift and Jake finally breathed a sigh of relief when he received a notification from the Oracle System.

[Side Mission 6: Assist Mirror Vanguard in their war against the Serinese Theocracy.]

[Sub-Mission 2: Rescue Ruby Hale: Excellent Rating]

That was it. Still, he noted that the rating was not perfect, which could only mean one thing: Some of the silver flesh consumed had been digested.

He didn't worry too much about it. If her condition was impossible to reverse, the final rating would have been mediocre, bad or downright deemed a failure.

The Spatial Rift began to close and Jake walked toward Ruby, keeping his guard up. Only after it had completely closed did he dare to relax for good.

Rather than sedate Ruby's Digestor half with his own Spirit Body and Calming Soul Spells at the risk of corrupting himself, he did as Vexa suggested and forced the young woman to drink a sedative substance intended for that purpose. Ruby, who had barely finished regenerating her digestive system, immediately fell into a deep coma.

This potion was a substance produced by a veteran Mirror Vanguard player with 8 Ordeals under his belt, and at this level even a promising half-digestor like Ruby could do nothing.

With his mission accomplished, Jake placed the sleeping girl onto his shoulder and prepared to turn around when the Spatial Rift that had closed suddenly reopened by a milimeter. The process lasted only one billionth of a second and he did not notice anything.

A blinding, superheated jet of silver substance shot out of the rift and splashed onto the back of Jake's neck, penetrating the pores of his skin. He felt an itch and scratched absentmindedly, then returned to the surface.