The Oracle Paths



Just a few paces away from the wall of shield-bearers, Jake and Hephais watched in stunned silence as six frenzied rookies lunged at a single shield-bearer, their eyes bloodshot and full of manic desperation. It wasn't a terrible strategy if their goal was to punch a hole through the enemy lines, but the disparity of strength was just too damn wide.

Unperturbed, the heavily armored foot soldier they had targeted sneered under his visored helm and surged forward, viciously ramming his rectangular shield into the soldier directly before him. Simultaneously, his spear-wielding arm executed a lightning-fast horizontal sweep, cutting down all the 'weeds' daring to clutter his field of vision.

Four conscripts were instantly bisected at the waist, while the one who took the brunt of the shield was violently hurled fifteen meters back, heading straight toward Jake and Hephais. The sixth fool, who'd launched himself skyward in an acrobatic leap, plummeted just as miserably, his legs severed at the calves. His pitiful jump saved him the fate of being sliced in two but did little else.

Feeling a touch of sympathy, Jake caught the airborne rookie with one hand, shaking his head as he felt the soldier's shattered spine and pulverized ribcage. He was still breathing, but his fighting days were over.

Witnessing the brutal six-on-one that had just unfolded, Jake and Hephais exchanged a complicated look before nodding in mutual understanding. 'At this rate, if we keep our heads down, we'll be the last men standing in a minute or two,' their faces seemed to say.

Yet, they had no intention of altering their course. Reinforcements were still pouring in from all directions toward Havocspire Citadel, and the closer they got to the Inner Wall, the more likely they'd link up with friendly regiments.

"Let's see how this plays out for a minute or two," Jake decided, striding purposefully toward the shield-bearer who had just annihilated six men with chilling ease.

Still brimming with confidence, the imposing Light Warrior readied his shield to block Jake's sword and thrust forward with the practiced precision of a master spearman.

Whoosh!

The anticipated thud of his spear piercing a ribcage followed by the buttery ease of a punctured heart didn't happen. Confused, he cautiously peered over his shield, his eyes widening in alarm as he realized Jake had vanished.

'Where did he go?'

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than a rusty blade looped around his neck, severing his head cleanly from his body. Landing gracefully after a dizzying aerial flip over the enemy, Jake found himself perfectly positioned between the first and second lines.

The sinister archer behind the now-headless shield-bearer barely had time to aim his already notched arrow before Jake crushed his windpipe with a swift karate chop. Jake's nails morphed into razor-sharp claws in the same motion, severing the archer's spine with surgical precision.

The two flanking archers, caught equally off guard, managed to draw a bead on Jake and let their arrows fly. Without missing a beat, Jake twisted himself into the blind spot of one archer using the falling corpse of his second kill, dodging the other's arrow with a casual tilt of his head.

The stray arrow lodged itself into the shoulder of the keeling archer, causing him to finally collapse. Just before the body tipped over, Jake, his back turned, snatched the arrow as if pulling it from an imaginary quiver. In less time than it takes for a nerve impulse to travel from eye to brain, he flicked it back at its sender, burying it deep into his forehead, feathers and all. The archer's inch-thick steel helmet made no difference.

At the same moment, Hephais effortlessly deflected the piercing lance thrust from the shield-bearer in front of him, then delivered a powerful front kick to his right knee followed by the left, shattering both. The hulking warrior crumpled forward as if someone had just yanked the rug out from under him. Just as his body became horizontal, Hephais nonchalantly stepped on his head and launched himself parallel to the ground toward the archer right behind him.

The same archer who had just missed Jake with an arrow, one that Jake had momentarily spared him from. Hephais's hiltless sword effortlessly pierced the archer's heart, emerging from the other side of his back. Coincidentally, the shield-bearing foot soldier hit the ground with a heavy thud at the same time, as if it were choreographed.

Nearby archers, who thought they had a advantageous position for easy kills, hastily ditched their bows upon realizing the danger, drawing nimble scimitars instead. This was what happened when they put too much trust in their shield wall.

"Eh, nice weapons," Hephais coolly praised, tossing aside his rusty blade to snatch a scimitar from his last victim.

With his new weapon, he skillfully deflected the incoming strikes from three scimitars all at once, then, in a fluid motion, skillfully slid his blade along theirs and slit their throats. He then snatched another scimitar from one of his latest kills and, glancing at the shield-bearers who had turned their backs on him, took a step back to line up and hurled his second weapon like a frisbee. The heavily armored warriors, blissfully unaware, were decapitated in an instant.

Well, that's how it should have happened. Instead, a deep gash appeared at the back of their necks—enough to break their spines and render them quadriplegic, but not quite a clean decapitation. Still, it was a hell of a strike.

"Tsk, they have tough skin," Hephais sighed, picking up another scimitar to transition into a dual-wielding combat style.

Meanwhile, Jake had been systematically decimating a whole squad at the leisurely pace of one kill per step, or rather, per swing of his blade. He shared the sentiment.

Of course, he didn't include himself in that analysis. For him, it was simply a matter of putting a bit more heart into it or not.

"However..." Jake's eyes sparkled contemplatively as he witnessed the souls of his victims being siphoned by his non-existent Lumyst Aura. "I underestimated the potential of this spiritual enchantment."

[Aura of Lumyst: Enemies Killed: 17, Souls Harvested: 17. Stat boosts: 0.00068%]

The boost to his physical and cognitive abilities might seem negligible, but that was because he was already monstrously powerful.

In his current base form, Jake estimated his physical strength—after accounting for all his Aspects but excluding special abilities—to be equivalent to 100 billion Earth-born grown men. The ratio dropped to 2.5 million if it were humans capable of withstanding this world's gravity, amplified 40,000 times.

This was roughly on par with an average Fifth-Ordeal Player, as well as untrained natives. While there were other factors to consider, such as size, muscle mass, or race, the quality of their souls should be relatively similar. Meaning, the boost he could expect from a harvested soul was likely to be fairly consistent.

At least, as long as he stuck to cutting down small fry like these Shimmers.

Though professionally trained and bursting with vitality, their souls were nothing special. In contrast, the inexperienced Underworld Barbarians from his squad might be getting slaughtered, but their spiritual force was markedly distinct.

More importantly, although the overwhelming majority of recruits were getting steamrolled, the few barbarians like Sank-Uk who managed to incredibly finish off an opponent saw their spectral aura and killing intent noticeably increase. What was a negligible boost for Jake represented an immediate stat boost of about 1% for these untrained recruits.

It wasn't enough to revolutionize their combat performance, but that bit of passive killing intent was sometimes sufficient to momentarily rattle the Light Warriors they faced. It could buy them the split second they needed to dodge and sometimes even counter-attack.

In other words, even though 95% of their troop lay in pieces, soaked in their own blood, the remaining 5% saw their odds of survival skyrocket with each additional kill. More importantly, their spiritual power was also visibly surging.

'Should I switch sides?' Jake pondered seriously for a fleeting moment, realizing that harvesting the souls of his comrades-in-arms would probably be more time-efficient. He grimly dropped the thought when he acknowledged that his Main Mission made it impossible.

"In that case, I'll just kill them faster," he concluded, his voice tinged with melancholy.

Resigned, Hephais and Jake, who were both on the same wavelength, resumed their killing spree, slicing through their enemies like a chainsaw through wood. Their agility wasn't necessarily superior to that of their foes, but miraculously, their blades always found their marks.

At a pace of one kill every one to two seconds, they each took down more than forty Shimmers in under a minute. An irreversible gap had torn through the well-oiled killing machine that was the enemy's army.

Losing a single Light Warrior didn't make a huge difference initially, but when the death toll escalated to wiping out an entire platoon, a chain reaction was bound to unfold.

Because if the enemy was conscious of what was going down, so were their allies. The moment the few survivors on their side grasped the situation, they ceased throwing their lives away in futile charges against enemy lances. Instead, they frantically poured into the breach carved out by the unstoppable duo.

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