The Oracle Paths

Lady Faye responded with a disdainful roll of her eyes, then blew him a kiss before strutting out of the room without looking back, her hips swaying tantalizingly. Lady Lyria, who hadn't moved since rising from her throne, flashed a rueful smile at Valandar and the other Saints, then excused herself from the room.

Once the two chosen envoys had departed, a heavy silence fell over the council room, quickly shattered by Kaelum's sarcastic spit.

"Don't tell me you're going to let him just walk away like that?" The Titan of Vrax, silent until now, couldn't contain his contempt. "If that's all the Celestial and the famed Saints of the Radiant Conclave amount to, maybe we should just exterminate you here and now since you apparently lack the courage to face a single enemy!"

In his indignation, he seemed to forget that a single Abyssal Revenant defending Dusken City had given him a memorable thrashing. The two other Rank 17 Players, equally disappointed but more aware of their circumstances, visibly paled seeing him lose it in the safest place in Lustris.

Fortunately for them, it turned out Valandar and Master Eldrion were more magnanimous, or at least less touchy than their eminent status suggested. Only Lord Calyx seethed in shaking rage, his suppressed bitterness resurfacing with tenfold intensity.

"HOW DARE YOU?!" He bellowed, drawing his sword fully this time.

In a blink, he was in front of Kaelum, his blade at the giant's neck.

"Bow your head, foreigner, and accept your death!" Calyx growled menacingly, angling his sword's edge for a textbook decapitation.

But how could Kaelum, a brawny brute, accept such an undignified death? Faced with such provocation, his only possible reaction was to explode in fury. His recently unified Lumyst Aura, after their dips in the Lumyst River across the Duskwight Lands, was nothing compared to a Saint's, but the true power of his titanic form remained to be tested.

His muscles bulged, turning hard and rough like stone, and his size doubled instantly, quickly becoming cramped in the ludicrously spacious room. Seeing the foreigner revolt so fiercely, Lord Calyx's murderous thirst didn't wane an iota, but instead, a scornful sneer escaped his lips.

A burst of lifeforce suddenly erupted from his body, feeding his muscles and bones, while the gentle whitish radiance emanating from him intensified like a star going supernova. His plain blade became white-hot like a lightsaber, and with a haughty grunt, he brought it down unhesitatingly on the giant's neck, aiming for the kill this time.

Kaelum had no intention of dying without a fight and activated the power of his bloodline at full force, growing exponentially. His two companions had long since taken refuge behind the two unoccupied golden thrones, refusing to be associated with this diplomatic suicide.

In the span of a heartbeat, the Titan of Vrax had become a true titan again, over thirty meters tall, though currently curled up like a sardine in a can despite the impressively high ceiling of the five-throne room.

Lord Calyx, as a Saint, was no small fry either, standing a good six or seven meters tall, which was still small for a Life Lumyst Cultivator of his level. Nevertheless, he now seemed too small to reach the giant's neck without jumping. And that was precisely his intention.

"No matter how big you become, I can still slay you," the Radiant Conclave's master spy declared arrogantly, menacingly brandishing his light blade at his future victim.

Undeterred, Kaelum faced the threat to his life with a carnivorous smile most inhuman, embracing the prospect of a fantastic fight to the death with exultation. Even in this confined space, his berserk orange eyes burned with an unquenchable inner fire.

His rough skin, now with a metallic sheen, thickened, forming a full-body armor of plates and spikes, making his defense even more impregnable. Slicing his neck, even with a light sword, was now a much more daunting task.

The tension in the air rapidly escalated between the two adversaries, in a stifling silence where no one dared to intervene, but when the clash seemed inevitable, an irritated throat clearing from the Celestial, coupled with a chilling killing intent, abruptly brought the two buffoons back to reality.

Kaelum and Calyx froze, their gaze focusing on the colossal man who had appeared between them at a speed surpassing their sharpened senses. His right hand calmly crushed the master spy's dazzling light blade, while his left effortlessly restrained the Titan of Vrax's enormous fist without even looking at them.

With an impassive, yet no less intimidating expression, Valandar distinctively cleared his throat and articulated with deliberate slowness boding nothing good,

"Are you... tired of living?"

Lord Calyx, having regained his senses, was already sweating profusely and frantically shook his head in denial. However, Kaelum, a natural brawler, was deaf to the danger and, faced with this unexpected resistance, struck without hesitation with his other fist.

BOOOOM!

*****

Jake's expression darkened as he emerged from the building where the artifact he sought was supposed to be. The white stone cathedral in front of him was indeed a magnificent monument, but inside he found nothing but corpses and ruins. Even the basin storing the pure Life Lumyst Water of the capital had been emptied.

"These sons of... If I find the Player who swiped the relic I came here for, I swear to..."

"What?" Crunch asked with innocent curiosity, poorly hiding his scheming air.

Lord Phenix, his partner in crime, cackled excitedly with no subtlety whatsoever, "Let's raid them and steal back the relic!"

To the orange turkey, it didn't matter if the looters were from their own camp. As long as there was a good fight in prospect, he was down for it.

Unfortunately for the two clowns, Jake quickly regained his usual calm and muttered under his breath, "Never mind, I guess I'll call it a night."

After all, he could return here at any time, but he didn't want to clash with the Celestial and all the Saints and Titans defending Lustris just on the off chance of finding a suitable relic to collect Life Lumyst Water. Especially since, for all he knew, the thieves might have managed to steal the original relic.

'Well, without getting my hands too dirty, I'm willing to bet it's the work of Cho Min Ho or one of his underlings,' he consoled himself internally, preparing to turn back. 'With a bit of luck, it might even be another Myrtharian Nerd. If they don't die by then, I should be able to track them down easily.'

"Noooo!" Crunch and Lord Phenix moaned in unison as they saw him so resolutely give up, until…

BOOOOOM!

The capital was suddenly rocked by violent tremors, and from their position, they saw, stunned, the top floor of the towering Conclave Tower blasted into the clouds like a pressurized gas bottle cap being unscrewed. The trunk of Anthace, which wrapped protectively around the imposing skyscraper, was also shaken from within, its branches responding with an enraged hum.

The next moment, the figure of a giant the size of a building fell lifelessly from the cloud layer it had just penetrated, the latter being the thing that had carried the tower's roof in its wake. Before completing its terminal velocity fall, which would have caused even more catastrophic damage, the shrill cry of an eagle suddenly sounded, and appearing out of nowhere, Featherfall emerged from the clouds and grasped the unconscious giant with its talons before it hit the ground.

Soaring with the supreme arrogance of an apex predator above Lustris, which its immense wings fully covered, the bird of prey locked its disturbed slit pupils onto those of the man standing atop the devastated tower, and with a disgruntled chirp, carried off the 'prisoner.'

The mysterious individual radiating an overwhelming lifeforce then directed his cold slate-gray eyes toward the cathedral where Jake and his two companions stood. For an infinitesimal moment, their gazes met, but quickly the man's gaze moved on, sweeping the rest of the alarmed city.

"Return to your duties. The situation is under control," Valandar declared in a serene and amplified voice spreading throughout Lustris and beyond.

The next second, the trunk of Anthace came to life, and bark began to proliferate along the Conclave Tower, replacing the destroyed floor. The figure of the man in a simple white tunic emitting a formidable aura was masked by the newly erected wooden walls, and visual contact between Jake and him was broken.