The Oracle Paths

"Gerulf?"

In that case the other shapeless mass had to be Rogen. He had been wondering what would happen if he was hit directly by the Mana Storm and now he had his answer.

Death was not the worst possible outcome.

Because of the myriad of spells coexisting within the Mana Storm the effects on their victims were unpredictable. If they were hit, it was the end, but that end could take many forms.

In their current state, Gerulf and Rogen could no longer even be considered living beings. Even their Spirit Bodies and souls had gone through a change of form and nature and Gerulf uttering his name was just his last instincts trying to formulate a coherent thought before fading into oblivion.

Because his mental sense melted away as soon as it came in contact with the Mana Storm, Jake couldn't say for sure what was happening to them, but from what little he could see with his Myrtharian Eyes, the two giants had delayed their deaths by using a method similar to Vhoskaud and himself.

By producing lava, rock, metal, and ice through their Stone Skin, they had tried to encase themselves alive under a gigantic amount of matter to block the Mana Storm, but it had eventually reached them anyway. Their bodies were affected first, then their minds, but Jake had underestimated the resilience of their Aether Code.

A high-grade Bloodline couldn't be broken down so easily. The Aether making up their Runes was so dense and precisely intertwined that not even the Mana Storm could immediately corrupt it.

The same was true of their Soul, the Aether Soul Runes that made up their Soul were probably one of the trickiest things to alter since it was like rewriting a person's psychic identity. Gerulf and Rogen were not the sharpest knives in the drawer, but they were the most stubborn people he had ever met.

Regardless, even these two giant louts were about to reach their limit. Psykow's spell had already severely damaged their souls and the Mana Storm was about to disperse and absorb what was left. Within a minute, their Aetheric and psychic signatures would become inseparable from that of the Mana Storm.

"I made it in time." Jake praised himself, wondering what would have happened if he hadn't found them.

Would the Oracle have pulled them back at the very last moment before their souls ceased to exist, or did it know ahead of time that Jake would save them and could therefore afford to let them suffer a little longer? He wished he had the answer.

"Okay, Gerulf and Rogen try to hold on a little longer." Jake said as he levitated around them, figuring out how he could shift them.

The first thing he had to do was separate them from the Mana Storm, but unfortunately none of his abilities, not even his telekinesis, could resist the Mana Storm for more than a thousandth of a second.

"Jeanie, do you think you can extend your Water Spirit Shield to Gerulf and Rogen?" Jake asked without much hope.

She hesitated, then said, "If you touch them it should be possible, but they are already part of the Mana Storm. Their Mana is extremely chaotic. If you touch them, my barrier will indeed extend to them, but then you will be affected by the Mana Storm."

Jake hesitated in turn, then made his decision. "Do it, please."

"Hmm."

Flying towards his two friends, he activated his Purgatory just below his feet to recreate his ideal environment and tap into an unlimited source of energy, then triggered his Gold Stone Skin to full power and his appearance quickly transformed into that of a ridiculously bloated and ungainly black steel golem. At this point, he looked more like a robot than Vhoskaud itself.

Inspired by the method Gerulf and Rogen had used to hold out until now, he wanted to use the metal produced by his body to offset the energy of the Mana Storm. Having seen how Vhoskaud's army and his two friends had ended up, he knew that this method had its limits, but his Bloodline's Grade was also higher than his friends'.

For some inexplicable reason, his interest in devouring and assimilating new things to enrich his Bloodline and his arsenal of abilities had gradually increased during this Ordeal. First, there had been the magic metals such as Orichalcum or Adamantium, then the hydrogen from the sun, and then recently the black lightning from the dark clouds.

His recurring successes had boosted his confidence in his stomach, and while the black lightning had posed enormous risks to his companions, he was the one, along with Ruby, who had had the easiest time making this power his own.

And most of all... Lately he was always hungry. Hungry for new things and that was something that ordinary food could not satisfy.

And this hunger had dramatically increased after overcoming Psykow's magic. In his mind, there was only one thought that was rapidly growing louder and louder: "I want to know what this Mana Storm tastes like."

Both of his hands touched Gerulf and Rogen, or rather the meters thick hybrid metal covering them and the bluish halo enshrouding them immediately spread to the two shapeless masses of Mana and matter. Although he had expected it, the layers of steel he had produced to delay the Mana Storm crumbled or changed appearance instantly upon contact with the contradictory energies swirling within them.

The millions of hostile energy streams raging through the two giants' bodies made contact with his skin at once, and an untold pain swept through the affected area of his skin, spreading immediately to the rest of his body.

If he had to describe the pain, it must have been the pain Wolverine felt when molten Adamantium was injected into his skeleton, only a thousand times worse. It was the awful, agonizing sensation that some foreign force was taking over our own bodies, eroding our very existence from within at a staggering rate.

Unable to control these mana flows, he could only bring his mouth in front of one of them in an attempt to devour it. At some point, knowing that his time was running out, he teleported with the two giants, throwing them directly into their respective buildings, which fortunately resembled them.

At this point he might as well try to look for other survivors in the same condition as Gerulf and Rogen and while an inferno of pain was gradually building up inside his esophagus, then his stomach, he continued to teleport at full speed, finding several other survivors to his surprise.

The first was Hephais, whom he found unconscious and badly injured in a sea of shadows. The mass of darkness seemed to be effective against the Mana Storm, as if the Mana flows were lost within it instead of clashing directly with the latter.

The second survivor was the mysterious alien woman who had fought alongside them and who seemed to have the ability to adapt to any environment. As before with the black clouds, she did not immediately perish upon contact with the Mana Storm.

Her body changed shape and consistency rapidly, becoming a multi-colored Mana being flashing at a very high frequency before becoming as dark as a black hole, letting no light escape. She seemed to vacillate between these two states, but Jake could feel her struggle weakening. Her consciousness was already affected or she could have easily found the building that matched her all this time.

Jake hesitated to save her, realizing that they were complete strangers but having done nothing to harm them he decided to do the right thing and with Xi's help identified the building meant for her.

The third and final survivor he found was Drastan. The Troll Hunter regenerated over and over again, rebuilding his already unrecognizable body. His Aether Code had finally been affected and his regeneration was finally starting to falter. He only had a few seconds left. If Jake had found him two seconds later, he would have been gone.

After his third rescue, Jake still wanted to look for survivors, but the searing agony in his body prevented him from doing so. Crippled with pain, he fell to the ground on all fours in the middle of nowhere and his vision blurred.

"Jake!" Jeanie wailed in panic as she pulled on his hair to wake him up.

She was the only one that the Mana Storm left unaffected. If Jake could see her current Status, he would have seen that her level had reached 97 and her intelligence attribute had broken the million mark.

The bluish radiance pulsing from her small body deepened and the Water Spirit Shield enveloping her and Jake began to condense from a gaseous-liquid appearance to almost solid-like ice. Despite this, Jake did not immediately find the strength to get up.

Vaguely hearing the fairy's terrified screams as a distant echo, he snapped out of his daze a second later and grunted with a pounding headache, "I hear you. Stop yelling in my ears."