The Oracle Paths

Chapter 1238: Where Luck Leads (part 1)

In a forgotten corner of the Duskwight Lands lay the territory of a minor, insignificant tribe. Their only settlement—closer to a haphazard sprawl of gray earth huts and weather-beaten tents—didn’t even have a name carved at its entrance. Just axe-hewn stakes, totems draped in animal skulls and bone charms, and spectral violet flames burning without wood at the center of a dusty square.

This was a far cry from the Lustra Plains, with their immaculate white ramparts and grandiose architecture. Even further from their atmosphere of prosperity, civilization, and cultural refinement.

Here, in the Duskwight Lands, everything was harsher. Drier. More primitive.

Normally, this region wasn’t exactly a tourist hotspot. But the slaughter currently unfolding within it turned the place into something far worse—somewhere you ran from and never looked back.

From the outskirts, a few bare-chested warriors could still be seen fighting, bodies crisscrossed with scars and layered in spiritual talismans. They howled tribal chants, slamming blades against hardened leather shields in what could only be a last stand against certain death. For a backwater like this, their numbers—and their individual strength—were astonishing. Any one of them could have rivaled a division commander.

Even more absurd, Soulmancers with milky pupils hovered ominously above them, summoning possessed artifacts—cracked masks, straw effigies, obsidian bells, cackling spears etched with shifting runes. Restless spirits spiraled around them like a flock of invisible vultures, their spectral energy so dense it almost felt tangible.

And despite all that... the nameless settlement—which by all rights should have been defended by nothing more than a few elders and boys too young for the front lines—was collapsing.

Like everywhere else.

Monsters aside, Anthace’s roots had erupted from the earth like colossal serpents, bursting through huts, skewering warriors, ripping open crude altars. House-sized buds throbbed between clay structures, detonating in sprays of Black and White Lumyst. Resurrected Saints clawed their way out, dead eyes fixed ahead, weapons raised.

It was the apocalypse.

Barbarians were impaled mid-charge. Soulmancers tried to seal the roots with occult incantations before being crushed by a will far beyond their own. Enchanted beasts—half flesh, half specter—screeched as they hurled themselves into the fray.

The ground shook. The air reeked of blood and burnt sap.

And in the middle of it all—

Tim walked.

Calmly. Hands in his pockets.

Lily Wilderth followed right behind him, jaw clenched so she wouldn’t look too closely at either side. A root burst from the ground less than three meters away, obliterating a hut in an explosion of dirt and splintered wood.

She froze.

The root... stopped.

Then slowly retracted.

As if it had just realized it had made a mistake.

As for the monsters and those vacant-eyed resurrected pouring out of the buds, they moved around them as if they simply failed to register their existence.

A grotesque abomination covered in yellow, swivel-mounted eyeballs lunged straight at them—only to veer off midair, as if struck by an invisible impulse, crashing into a cluster of warriors to their right instead.

None of them touched them. None of them saw them.

Or maybe they did. But their attention felt strangely volatile in those moments—magically diverted by literally anything other than the two of them.

Lily tried to keep it together, though her fingers trembled slightly around her fairy wand, ready to unleash a barrage of banishment light spells at the slightest misstep.

The kid had grown a lot in four years. She looked less like the naive little girl she once was and more like a teenage girl becoming aware of her own charm. At least when monsters weren’t trying to kill her.

”Tim...?”

He didn’t even turn his head. They were both teens, but compared to her, his build looked straight-up adult—like he’d been prepping for a CrossFit championship. Only the absence of facial hair and the lingering softness in his features betrayed his age.

Something people forgot the second they met his hypnotic golden eyes, pulsing with a nebula-like glow eerily reminiscent of Jake’s. The deal the boy had struck with his idol had paid off. It had made him far stronger—and turned his old reliance on luck into something far more tangible.

”Hm?” Tim finally reacted after yet another elbow jab to his ribs.

At that exact moment, an explosion thundered behind them. A Soulmancer screamed before the sound was abruptly cut short.

Lily swallowed.

”Why... why aren’t they attacking us?”

A root slid slowly over their heads. Slowly. As if hesitating to make contact with something it didn’t quite understand.

Tim shrugged lightly.

His smile was the same as always. Easy. Almost absentminded.

”Just a bit of luck.”

A bud burst open ten meters away. Resurrected Light Warriors emerged, blades dripping with Black Lumyst. They halted. Then stepped aside. Opening a path.

Tim kept walking.

And the dying city, strangely enough, seemed to bend around their trajectory.

Lily moved beside him, stepping over a corpse without daring to look at its face.

Whoooosh!

A Soulmancer was suddenly nailed to the ground by a root thinner than a spear barely a meter from them. His artifact still floated above him, flickering with unstable light before going dark.

Lily’s teeth ground together audibly.

”Tim... what are we doing here?” Her voice trembled despite her efforts.

There was nothing to defend. No fortress. No armory. No obvious relic—not even the usual Netherwell Chapel. Just a tribal outpost lost in the Duskwight Lands, too small to matter on the continental scale.

And yet...

There were far too many high-ranking warriors and Soulmancers for a dump like this. Way too many. As if this miserable settlement was guarding something it didn’t even understand.

Tim didn’t answer right away.

He walked like someone following an invisible scent. Not hurried. Not hesitant. Just... oriented.

A root shot up a few meters away. It swerved at the last second.

A resurrected Saint turned its head toward them. Then looked away. As if their presence didn’t warrant acknowledgment.

Tim slowed down.

They had reached a patch of neglected land, partially hidden behind several sturdier huts and a tall black stone fence meant to block prying eyes—a rare feature in a place like this.

Aside from the ashes of a prematurely extinguished fire, there were only scattered stones, a few half-collapsed steles, and a stretch of yellowed grass baked by the arid climate. Maybe an old cemetery. Maybe just abandoned ground.

Nothing important. At first glance.

Tim took three more steps. Stopped. Tilted his head slightly.

”Hm.”

He tapped the ground with the tip of his foot.

Once.

Twice.

Then a faint smile curved his lips.

”If I trust my senses, we’re in the right spot.”

Before Lily could ask right spot for what, he made a simple gesture with his hand.

The earth rose—or rather, tore free.

Just... a section of ground—rock, dead roots, dust—lifting as if gravity had decided to clock out. The entire slab came loose cleanly, revealing a dark opening beneath.

A staircase. Ancient. Carved straight into the stone.

Lily froze.

”...What?”

She blinked, then stared at Tim as if trying to pinpoint the exact moment he’d decided to become a walking enigma. Ever since the Ordeal began, that’s all he’d been.

He’d found her just like that too. Out for a stroll. Following wherever his steps happened to lead him. She’d long since lost count of the absurd scenes they’d stumbled into, racking up windfalls left and right. Whether it was their gear or their personal strength, their standards had skyrocketed in a matter of days.

It was almost indecent.

For Tim, bathing in the Lumyst River barely counted as a risk with luck like his. And because it spilled over onto her, it hadn’t been one for her either. If it weren’t for the fact that past a certain enchantment threshold luck alone stopped being enough, they probably would’ve tried bathing beneath the twin waterfalls too.

This staircase was just another blessing waiting for them. Like always.

And still, she never got tired of it.

In this adventure where she was clearly the side character, things always turned out fine. Zero suspense.

Tim shot her a calm, almost innocent look.

”You coming?”

He was already stepping onto the first stair. The darkness below seemed to swallow the ambient light whole.

Lily took a deep breath and grabbed his hand. Almost instinctively. To hide her nerves. To remind herself he was real.

He gently closed his fingers around hers.

And together, they began to descend.