The Oracle Paths

While he was happily collecting the blueberry liquid from the Pit's basin after having laboriously slaughtered the dozen snakes inside, his reward had vanished and the barren metal walls of the station had reappeared around him.

Still cursing his rotten luck several minutes later, a blazing machete coming out of nowhere had then ruthlessly drilled a hole right through his chest. What kind of crappy luck was that?

And if his memory wasn't failing him... that weapon was familiar. Although he was often in a daze from the drugs he was high on, it didn't take long for Peter to recall its owner.

"Why did Jake attack me? He seemed like a nice guy though..." The druggie muttered, scratching his chin with a look more bemused, than saddened.

The huge hole in his chest was already closing, but his muscles were also steadily shrinking.

He seemed not to have registered the growing influence of the Corruption on his body. For someone who constantly indulged in excess, letting his vilest instincts do the talking was practically second nature.

"Oh well, I might as well follow him." His face lit up as if he had just come up with a stroke of genius. "This hunk will clear the path for me and point the way out. If he likes to fight, then we' ll let him fight... Yep, that's a good plan. Hopefully he'll leave some drugs behind as loot."

With this simplistic and more than questionable reasoning, Peter rammed into the steel wall punctured and half-melted by Jake's machete and set out to follow him on the sly.

*****

"Fuck, fuck, FUCK!" Tootega screeched with an ugly face while about to tear her hair out in fury. "Why won't that motherfucker get off my back?!"

Within 5 minutes, Jake and the Inuit woman had continued their cat and mouse game and crossed more than a third of the space station with multiple back and forth maneuvers. She had tried many feints and subterfuges to lose him, but it looked like he had no trouble keeping track of her.

' Is his Oracle Rank really higher than mine? Impossible!' She shook her head, giggling shamefacedly for even considering such nonsense.

If she had known that Jake was using 100M Aether points per hour to temporarily raise his Oracle Rank to level 12, she might have reacted differently. With the Oracle Cloaking in support, she needed Rank 14 to have any hope of plotting against him.

She briefly considered activating her own Oracle Cloaking, but her instincts were telling her that it wouldn't do any good. The problem was that her time was precious. If most of the Players were left in the dark, she knew that the coming explosion would be fatal if she didn't get out in time.

She didn't have time to play hide and seek with a lunatic Player. In other circumstances, she would have gladly accepted a one-on-one fight, but she had greatly underestimated this guy. Even if she came out of this duel victorious, she would lose quite a few feathers.

"Very well... If I can't run away, I'll just put obstacles in your way." Tootega snickered with a malevolent gleam in her eye. "Let's see how stubborn you are. At this point, you're just a bull I'm waving a red flag at."

Closing her eyes, she deployed her mental sense in an ingenious way that would have left Jake gobsmacked with admiration. Her Spirit Body remained confined to her body, but a tiny portion of it began to swell like a second skin until it encompassed a sphere about a mile in radius. The maximum range of her Extrasensory Perception far exceeded Jake's own with his crude methods.

"Found one!" Her eyes glistened up as she found a suitable first candidate.

*****

A few seconds later, a listless Jake came face to face with the most massive Hunter he had ever encountered. At over 20 meters tall, the creature was so enormous that it couldn't even move properly through the narrow corridors.

The parasite was literally huddled in a small room, but the mutation making it grow was far from over. Frowning, Jake looked at the huge hole in the floor from which the monster had escaped, and his indifferent gaze ultimately fell on the fusion reactors, an apocalyptic scene unfolding before his eyes.

"I doubt Nylreg would have allowed that." Jake ridiculed dryly. Looking up at the rapidly morphing Hunter, his lips curled up into a mocking sneer. "Nice try Tootega. I'll give you those few minutes."

Still unfazed, Jake ignored the creature, merely resting his hand on the monster's flank. The scorching heat radiating from the parasite flooded to his arm and within seconds the mutation was stopped dead in its tracks as the Hunter's blood froze in his veins.

As the frozen monster collapsed from hypothermia with the sound of shattering glass, Jake jumped into the hole, flying straight for the overheating reactors.

*****

"He gave up the chase?" Tootega had a hint of doubt, finding the execution of her plan far too smooth.

She even considered for a brief instant turning back to check on the Hunter's circumstances, but she immediately chased that stupid idea from her mind.

" Whatever, at least I lost him. Now let's head for the exit. If I can kill a couple of the Players on the list, even better..."

Like a snow comet, the scarred woman broke into a spine-chilling laugh, which reverberated through the pipes in all the surrounding corridors and rooms. Alas, those who heard her laughter had long since gone mad and continued to slaughter each other or engage in debauchery without any further reaction.

*****

BOOM!

Two bloody figures ricocheted miserably against huge debris through several layers of walls before scrambling to their feet while coughing up blood. At that moment, the metal ceiling magically collapsed on them, causing the floor to subsequently crumble under their feet due to the additional weight.

The two individuals fell about ten floors before ending up completely buried by the thousands of tons of rubble. Seconds later, a telekinetic shockwave disintegrated the rubble within 5 meters and a glowing man wrapped in a force field could be seen inside. The second person who was buried along with him did not get up.

The first person was obviously Sigmar, but despite the sheer power still radiating from him, he was like a candle in his final moments. The superficial wounds were no longer regenerating and his fiery body was gradually cooling down, the veins of white lava lining his body dying out one by one.

A third uninjured figure floated lazily over the ailing Fluid Grandmaster, giving him a falsely sympathetic look.

"Give up father." Nylreg glared at him with an arrogant pose, hands clasped behind his back. "Your struggle is useless. The ship will explode in less than three minutes no matter what you try. Most of them won't make it, including the Players I sent to eliminate your protégés."

Sigmar's son may have been arrogant to a fault, but a flicker of anxiety glinted fleetingly behind his pupils.

' The station should have exploded by now.' Nylreg wore a grim expression as he contemplated the discrepancy between his original plans and the current reality.

Most of the survivors who were still lucid had already reached the launch bay and were thinking of a way to get out of here. Those with special abilities had already tried their luck out in the sidereal void.

His only consolation was that the vast majority of these survivors were happily killing each other, ruining their meager chances of getting out unscathed. Their fate was already sealed.

Despite his apparent superiority and dominance over his father and Minerva, he too was feeling the effects of the battle. His two opponents were by no means weak. They were, quite frankly, the two most valiant fighters he had ever faced in his vain existence.

Although he gave the impression of being in control, his mind was considerably weakened. As for Sigmar in front of him, he was indeed severely injured, but he was still able to exploit the slightest flaw.

To deploy his Spirit Body in his state to sweep the station with his senses meant to dilute dangerously his mental power. The mental fatigue resulting from the Spirit Body's weakening was an accumulation process that was difficult to grasp, but very real. Like the physical body, its outward appearance would not change in any obvious way, but its responsiveness, stamina, willpower, and other faculties would gradually be affected.

While Jake and the other Players would have a hard time exploiting these flaws, an alert Sigmar, even a weakened one, would have no trouble accomplishing this. In other words, as long as one of them was still alive, their extrasensory perception would be sealed off unless they secured a sufficient distance, which was naturally impossible.

If they tried to scan the station forcefully, trying to assert their dominance, it would lead to yet another spiritual clash, comparable to the previous ones that had ravaged the place they were fighting in.

As a result, Sigmar and Nylreg could be considered blind beyond their battlefield and were completely oblivious to Jake and what was currently transpiring in the reactors.

Meanwhile, a near-dead Minerva had regained consciousness and staggered with difficulty as the bits of brain that had squirted out of her skull when Nylreg had punched her pretty face were put back in their place. The human Digestor was not holding back his blows.

The deadly battle between the three Fluid Grandmasters then resumed with even more fanfare, their techniques less spectacular, but with increasing surgical precision. Each blow was packed with power, going straight for the kill.

Five minutes later, Nylreg finally beheaded Minerva and as he held her bloody head by the hair, the space station still intact, he had to face the facts.

Something had gone wrong.