The Oracle Paths

"Whoa, this is huge!" The recruit with the enchanted axe blurted out, his eyes wide with excitement as they descended the steep dirt road leading into the fortified camp.

During the journey, they had taken the time to learn each other's names, and the hyped-up recruit who had just entered the camp was oddly named Jashuzen—a name quite uncommon even in the Duskwight Lands. With his somewhat clean and styled black hair, intelligent purple eyes, and a knack for intriguing stories and eloquent speech, he had a certain allure.

Except when he was gawking like this at a mere camp. It reminded Jake, Hephais, Sank-Uk, and Meribelle that he was just another clueless newbie.

The son of the leader of a small tribe that had once been much larger, Jashuzen had received a somewhat comprehensive education. However, it was one that predated the rise of the Dusken Throne, and so naturally, it did not include compulsory conscription or what lay beyond the Ironsoul Rampart.

This military camp was far different from what they had imagined before seeing it in person. No rows of identical tents neatly aligned to the horizon, no makeshift wooden walls. Instead, the rocky ground had been directly carved into an awe-inspiring stone city.

In the end, little distinguished this fortified encampment from Havocspire or Grimstone Keep, except that it was smaller, square, and built underground. And 'smaller' was, of course, a relative term. Each side was at least ten kilometers long, and some iconic buildings, visible from their high vantage point, were as grand as any in Havocspire before its destruction.

"Well, gotta admit, this Netherwell Chapel is huge," conceded Thonzo, the mummified soldier, a chill running down his spine as he recalled the memory of his own recent baptism.

His name was Thonzo, quite common among the Underworld Barbarians. Jake had long ago healed him of his injuries. For now, he kept his bandages to avoid drawing attention by suddenly appearing healed in the gaze of the Soulmancers tasked with escorting them from Havocspire to this camp.

"Because it's not a chapel, it's a Cathedral," Claire gently rectified him, one of the two women among the surviving recruits from the Havocspire massacre. "For Soulmancers, it's nothing to build. What determines its importance is whether there's an underground water table connected to the Lumyst River below."

Her name was by far the most "ordinary" Jake and Hephais had heard since arriving in Twyluxia—almost as much as Meribelle.

It wasn't surprising given her past as a servant in a Netherwell Church. Apparently, she wasn't just ugly in Jake's eyes, but to all her kind. Used to discrimination, the draft had been a chance for her to be treated as something other than a revolting slave.

Like Jashuzen, she also had intense purple gaze brimming with intelligence, but her demeanor was much colder, though entirely pleasant.

"She's right," Meribelle confirmed as she walked with them. "Netherwell Chapels don't have direct access to Lumyst Water. Churches have access to an underground water table but of varying purity depending on the distance from the main river. If the water table is pure and abundant enough, it becomes a Cathedral. Obviously, it's impossible to find such a water table this far from the Underworld Cascade, but this one has likely been enriched with pure Lumyst Water in anticipation of the Soulmancer King's arrival. As you can guess, things didn't exactly go as planned…"

"That's where we're going, right?" Ekho asked aggressively, noticing that the procession of recruits they were following was heading exactly there.

The alcoholic hadn't had a drop of booze in days, and his brutal withdrawal had inevitably taken a toll on his already foul mood.

"It's pretty obvious, isn't it?" A sarcastic feminine voice belonging to the second female recruit shot back at the former vagabond. "It's no secret. Every fortified camp behind the Ironsoul Rampart has a Soulmancer Enclave. To my knowledge, it's them and the Spirit Enchanters who take care of crafting, preserving, and distributing enchanted gear to the soldiers."

Neither beautiful nor pretty, she was Thonzo's female counterpart in the sheer plainness of her appearance. Her name, on the other hand, was distinctive enough to neither be easily remembered nor forgotten: Scelacabe.

"Scelacabe is also correct," Meribelle confirmed with a nod, while shooting Ekho a scathing look to nip in the bud the snide comment he was about to hurl at the insolent woman who dared to mock him.

"Hmmph."

The female Soulmancer's lips twitched at his disrespectful reaction. If it weren't for these two foreigners, she would have long since taught him a lesson. When was the last time she had to deal with these insects only good for shining her shoes? Sigh...

Jake, who had been silently listening to their conversation from the start and had just finished mentally scanning the fortified camp, finally chimed in.

"To be honest, I'm kinda surprised they let us roam freely without any checks or escort. The soldiers here naively trust the Soulmancers way too much. Haven't you guys learned your lesson after what happened?"

He was referring to the reason why the ambush set up by the Soulmancer King at the Radiant Conclave backfired, leading to the destruction of Havocspire Citadel. Besides an unexpected leak of information, the real reason was much more straightforward: a traitor.

Great General Winchu, the Governor of Havocspire assigned to secretly receive the Soulmancer King, had long been killed and replaced by Lord Calyx, one of the five members of the Radiant Conclave.

Before being a prodigious Lifemancer, Lord Calyx mainly built his reputation as an infallible spy and assassin. He made so few public appearances—always masked—that few among his allies and enemies knew his real face. Only his alias was widely known: the Light Assassin.

Seemed like the perfect enemy for Hephais.

"Lord Calyx wasn't impersonating a Soulmancer," Meribelle countered with a displeased expression. "If he tried to replace one of us, we would've surely sniffed him out."

Hephais' blatant eye-roll told her all she needed to know about what he thought of her claim.

"Yeah, sure," Jake snickered, choosing not to further needle her on this delicate topic.

"Hmmph. Anyway, we're here!" Meribelle harrumphed, rolling up her sleeves in frustration.

That was a lie. They'd just passed the first barracks. They still had at least a kilometer or two to walk before reaching the Soulmancer Enclave.

Still, they decided to cut her some slack, and the rest of the trip was made in silence, save for the occasional "wow" from the other recruits. An hour and a half later instead of 20 minutes, due to the colossal influx of recruits causing bottlenecks, they finally arrived at their destination.

As soon as they crossed the boundary of the Soulmancer Enclave, a heavily armed guard asked for their regiment name, company, and section. Learning that they were awaiting reassignment like millions of others following the Battle of Havocspire, he couldn't help but make a scene.

"Goddamn it! I'm so tired of playing babysitter."

Meribelle cast a sympathetic glance at the frazzled barbarian, pulling down the collar of her dress to reveal a locket hanging around her neck. Upon recognizing the medallion, the guard's attitude pulled a complete 180.

"I-I didn't recognize you, Your Excellence. Please forgive me," he immediately apologized, breaking out into a sweat.

"I will be escorting this group," Meribelle politely declared.

"No problem!" The soldier blurted louder than he'd intended, eager to fade into the background.

The Soulmancer Enclave wasn't all that large, and a few minutes later, they arrived at a colossal building serving as a warehouse, with a small annex attached. When they walked into the annex, they found dozens of counters and hundreds of attendants ready to assist and process their requests.

"Welcome to the Ironsoul Armory. Are you here for your first set of gear?" An enthusiastic receptionist greeted them as they stopped in front of his counter. The man wore a robe similar to Meribelle's but in a drab gray with no frills.

"He's an apprentice Spirit Enchanter," Meribelle quickly explained, as if he were invisible, pointing to the winged helmet locket in bronze stitched onto his belt. "They can forge and perform enchantments but can't influence the success rate. Usually, the prerequisite to qualify as a Spirit Enchanter is to endure two spiritual awakenings, or to survive two baptisms, to put it bluntly. This generally grants them the ability to sense and control their Spirit Body, along with a not-insignificant boost in cognitive faculties. If they also awaken an Attribute or another Grace suitable for becoming a Spirit Enchanter, then they've hit the jackpot."