The Oracle Paths

Chapter 1235: Wherever They Were

It was a punch delivered with force and velocity so far beyond reason that even a native of Valandar’s caliber couldn’t have braced for it. Before he could so much as react, his face caved inward, his skull flattening thinner than a sheet of A4 paper.

The only reason his head didn’t explode on the spot told Jake the blow wouldn’t kill him. The density and elasticity of Evolvers and cultivators like them had nothing in common with ordinary flesh and bone.

’Sorry about that,’ Jake apologized inwardly, his expression utterly devoid of remorse. ’Hopefully you’ll take a little nap and this’ll all be over by the time you wake up.’

He had poured in as much Red Aether of Strength as Twyluxia’s loosening laws would currently allow, layered it with his Fate Slayer Aura, and mixed in a cocktail of other energies only he could wield—each one tailored to sabotage regeneration.

Ever since he’d acquired the Chalice of Nethershade as an auxiliary vessel for Claire, one of its functions ”Lumyst’s Chosen” had gradually reshaped his body to better harmonize with Lumyst. The transformation was passive and incremental, but one of its earliest visible effects was simple:

Jake recovered fast.

All Players were regaining their strength at an accelerated pace—whether through cultivating Lumyst, refining their Lumyst Aura, or simply because Twyluxia, the World Spirit itself, was rapidly weakening under the combined assault of Anthace and the Blade Spirit.

But not as fast as Jake.

He should’ve been pleased. He wasn’t. Time was against them.

He had to completely tear off the invisible chains this world had wrapped around him—chains suppressing his full capabilities—before they shattered under circumstances he didn’t control. Like, say, Twyluxia collapsing entirely and taking the whole damn world with it.

If that happened, every Player would instantly regain full access to their abilities, including everything locked in their Space Storage. But that would be the worst-case scenario.

It would mean they had failed their Ordeal—both the Global Main Mission and, for most of them, their personal Main Mission. The few who had already cleared theirs had either exited the Ordeal... or were about to get wiped out by the monsters overrunning the continent.

As for that punch... The violence of the impact, and the shockwave that followed, were cataclysmic.

Jake hadn’t held back.

He was dealing with the Celestial—the most powerful cultivator known in this world, a Lifemancy specialist on top of that. He wasn’t going to croak from a single hit.

Too bad the same couldn’t be said for everything around them.

The sound alone, rippling outward, pulverized the entire white city within a few dozen seconds. A legacy spanning who knew how many thousands—maybe millions—of years, erased by the casual swing of one man’s fist.

Only the immense white tree at the heart of the capital—Titan Tree Anthace itself—remained standing, its luminous canopy untouched. A fragment of the Conclave Tower still clung to its trunk like a stubborn parasite.

What made Jake’s facial muscles twitch, though—what genuinely got under his skin—was the instant death of every ordinary civilian who had, by some miracle, managed to survive until now.

There went his perfect Ordeal rating.

Not that it mattered anymore. He’d already written it off the moment everything spiraled out of control.

Could he have saved them?

With the sheer number of monsters and resurrected Saints swarming the city? Not a chance. If anything, that shockwave had spared them a slower, uglier death—like ending up digested in the gut of those abominations.

Didn’t stop the guilt from biting. Not enough to drown him in regret—he’d buried that kind of naivety a long time ago—but enough to sour his mood even further.

He hated playing executioner when all he’d done was defend himself.

As Valandar vanished into the distance like a cannonball, blasting through kilometers of ruined structures without slowing down, Jake’s vision was immediately swallowed by a tidal wave of resurrected Saints and former Celestials diving at him like a hive of bees sacrificing themselves for their queen.

The first collision made his expression shift.

Not all past Celestials were created equal.

The one who struck first had materialized a heavy white wooden saber shimmering with sacred light from thin air, then brought it down in a full-force two-handed strike.

Clang!

Jake calmly raised his forearm and blocked without taking a single step back. No weapon. No technique. Just flesh.

His raw strength alone was enough to dominate these Celestials.

But as he prepared to tank the next hundred incoming attacks head-on, a sharp pain flared from the arm that had intercepted the blade. Something corrosive tried to seep into his limb.

Black Lumyst.

’You sneaky bastard,’ Jake cursed internally, glancing at the thin cut slicing across his skin.

It wasn’t deep enough to draw blood. A fresh layer of skin had already sealed the wound. But it proved one thing:

If he got cocky, if he assumed he was untouchable, these natives could hurt him.

Lumyst. Aura. Heavily enchanted weapons. Peak-tier martial techniques refined over countless generations. Combine that with Black Lumyst hidden inside that holy-looking white glow, and you got an attack that could actually threaten him.

Without hesitation, Jake stopped treating the fight like a warm-up and shifted gears.

Second gear.

He infused his flesh with the full output of every Aether his cells and Aetherist talents could instantly conjure. Channeling Yellow and Green Aether of Constitution and Vitality into a single limb was pointless—he was being attacked from every direction.

In an instant, his defense, regeneration, agility, strength, and reflexes all spiked.

He tanked the second wave with his bare body.

A cadaver-pale former Celestial’s sword slammed into his left knee. A white wooden dagger in a dainty, bloodless hand stabbed toward his heart from behind. A halberd crashed into the side of his neck, aiming to decapitate him.

On top of those three especially lethal strikes, dozens more attacks from other resurrected Saints landed across his body, leaving no blind spot untested.

One massive spear, its tip as wide as a megalodon’s tooth, even lunged straight for his groin.

CLANG!

This time, Jake didn’t even flinch.

His Yellow Aether surged beneath his skin, reinforced by his already monstrous Constitution, and every impact crashed against him without making him yield an inch. Weapon after weapon shattered on contact, despite the considerable intrinsic vitality woven into them. The radiant halos blazing around their blades—bright as torches in the dead of night—snuffed out as if they’d been plunged into freezing water.

No form of Lumyst—no matter its quality, density, or alignment—managed to breach his skin before dissipating. A portion of it was even absorbed, especially those aligned with vitality, light, or water.

”Impossible!” Shadrex and the other two Oracle Knights exclaimed from their branch high above.

They could probably withstand a coordinated assault like that and walk away intact—but it wouldn’t be this effortless. At the very least, they’d have to burn one of their major techniques. And they sure as hell wouldn’t tank it head-on with nothing but their bodies.

They were all Rank 17 Oracle Knights. So why was the gap this wide?

And wasn’t this Jake supposed to be the fake?

Then why did he look even more terrifying than the one tearing through the main battlefield?

Weiss frowned, then muttered in a flat, almost resigned tone, ”It’s a first for me. Spending this much time planning against a Player... only to realize it’s meaningless in the face of absolute power. I may have chosen the wrong path.”

It stung to admit that even a brainless brute like Kaelum might’ve picked a more promising route than hers. But watching this unfold, she couldn’t deny her shortcomings. Intelligence without power was like a general without soldiers. A flawless strategy meant nothing if your opponent was simply overwhelming.

What was even more unfortunate, though, was that Anthace had no intention of letting them remain spectators.

Jake was the primary target, yes—but there were more than enough spawn and resurrected Saints to keep the rest of them busy. Natives and Players alike were prey.

Just as they assumed they could observe their limitless nemesis at their leisure, the branch beneath their feet detonated with a lethal blast of spiritual energy.

Despite their towering mental stats, the trio was stunned for the barest fraction of a second.

It was all the tree needed.

The branch erupted in frantic growth. Twisting offshoots shot outward, coiling around them while jagged spikes thrust upward from below, aiming straight through the soles of their feet. At the same time, dozens of Saints wrapped in dark Lumyst poured from a fresh rupture in the trunk, followed by a tide of abyssal creatures.

Weiss, her delicate silver-blue feet hovering a few centimeters above the surface, slipped the trap entirely. Her telekinetic shield activated automatically, deflecting every incoming strike.

Shadrex and Kaelum weren’t so lucky.

They were impaled and bound by the writhing growths, then stabbed repeatedly as the resurrected horde piled in. Daggers. Spears. Lances broader than ancient tree trunks. Blood exploded from within the mass of thorns constricting them, spilling in torrents thick enough to fill a small pool.

”Shadrex?!” Weiss cried, genuine emotion flashing across her face for the first time.

”I’m fine,” the Bipolar Seer grumbled, emerging from the shadow beneath her. His mantle of darkness had swallowed every attack without issue.

The flicker of concern vanished from Weiss’s alien features just as quickly. She couldn’t have cared less about the fate of their other companion.

Kaelum—who had been the one hemorrhaging all that blood—didn’t hold back, cursing the bitch with every insult he could spit out. He hadn’t seen it coming.

Where Weiss regretted focusing too heavily on schemes and psychic finesse, Kaelum regretted relying almost exclusively on brute force. A sharp mind could anticipate worst-case scenarios and always leave itself an escape route. He, on the other hand, was helpless the moment he fell into a trap that outpaced his current defenses and reflexes.

Fortunately, his bloodline was that of the Titan of Vrax.

The sheer mass of flesh and cells contained within his true body wasn’t that different from the Titans of the Lustra Plains. The wounds looked catastrophic—but in reality, they were mosquito bites.

The branches constricting him exploded as he activated his Titan Core, initiating his transformation into his ultimate combat form—a giant towering hundreds of meters high. The injuries that had seemed mortal seconds earlier shrank in scale, becoming negligible against such a colossal frame.

They sealed before the eye, but not instantly, as Kaelum would’ve expected given his monstrous vitality. That Black Lumyst was filthy.

Moments later, the three Oracle Knights were swallowed by their own tide of monsters and resurrected legends, dragged into a battle of savage brutality just to stay alive.

The same fate hit the rest of their faction’s Players. They were quickly overwhelmed by legions of resurrected Saints and Radiant Lords. The numerical disadvantage was so absurd it was hard to see even a flicker of hope. Most vanished almost instantly beneath the mass of enemies crashing into them.

On Jake’s so-called allies’ side, Cho Min Ho and his companions weren’t faring any better.

Already locked in a vicious fight against spawn that had popped out of nowhere, they were suddenly forced to deal with an unexpected wave of Saints—and several past Celestials joining the chaos.

Casualties mounted immediately, forcing his trusted elites to fight in earnest.

Very quickly, the leader of the King’s Idol Alliance—who until now had barely revealed a fraction of his capabilities—had no choice but to step in personally when five of the most formidable former Celestials of their era singled him out.

Just like Jake. Just like the trio of Oracle Knights perched on the tree. His status hadn’t escaped Anthace’s notice.

Nor had anyone else’s. No Player. No native.

Wherever they were...

Above ground.

Or below it.