The Oracle Paths

Jake was taken aback when he stumbled upon the three factions. He couldn't understand why the three factions hadn't fled before them. Having to dismantle their camp was one thing, but was it worth more than their own lives?

Even without a long-range scan, these Four-Ordeal Evolvers should have heard them coming from a distance. After all, they were raising a ruckus to wake the dead, and these Digestors hadn't made the slightest attempt at stealth.

Suspicious, Jake looked at each and every individual of the three factions in his field of vision and noticed a certain pattern. ' The Black Orc and Bhuzkoc are here, but many high-level Evolvers are missing...'

Glancing over to Melkree, he noticed that her core members were still there, forming the rear guard of her troop. She seemed determined to protect all her subordinates, but then why not just run away sooner?

'Am I missing something?'

Jake didn't know what to think and it was exacerbating his paranoid anxieties. Keeping his gloomy thoughts to himself, he tried not to overreact and focused on the path ahead. With the Digestors behind them and the three factions on their flanks, they were surrounded by enemies.

All of a sudden, his hair stood on end as he felt someone closing in on him without his knowledge. Unthinkingly, he spun around and swiped horizontally with his 3rd generation sword. A huge warhammer clashed against his blade with an earth-shattering force. A split second before the impact, his mind went blank and the Aether he had just channeled dispersed.

CLANG!

Jake, who was on the defensive and running, had no good footing and took the blow in the worst possible posture. Worse, having neither activated Bloodline Ignition nor properly mobilized his Aether, he was badly injured by the impact.

His right arm holding the blade fractured into several pieces with loud snapping noises and the flesh tore at the insertion between his finger and thumb. Moreover, because of his disadvantageous posture, he lost his footing and his feet flew off the ground as he followed the circular trajectory of the enemy hammer.

The attack originating from his left, he slid on the ground for about thirty meters, carving a deep trench and knocking out two refugees of his faction in the process. Had he not mobilized his telekinesis to stop himself in a hurry, they would have been seriously injured by the collision.

Despite his reflexes, the two refugees were thrown violently into the air and crashed heavily a few meters away completely stunned. Under other circumstances, they would have gotten off with a few bandages and some rest, but with a herd of terrified beasts and a horde of Digestors on their tail, the fall was fatal.

Before they could regain their senses, they had already been outrun by the rest of the survivors and were trampled to a bloody pulp by thousands of rampaging beasts. Seeing their grisly deaths, the other refugees, regardless of their faction, broke out in a cold sweat.

His face contorted with rage, Jake turned to the culprit and hollered,

"Bhuzkoc!"

The Nawai Chief transformed into his Ogre form chuckled evilly as he received an uninterrupted stream of hate. As Jake was about to take flight to avoid being trampled by the herd of frightened creatures as well, his senses were drawn to a Nawai Evolver hiding behind Bhuzkoc.

With long turquoise florescent hair tied into a catogan, he was one of those rare barbarians who could be considered elegant. He was surprisingly well dressed in a pair of leather boots, flexible woolen pants and a long emerald green velvet coat with a long collar. His clothing seemed well-made, reminiscent of the medieval aristocracy of some Western peoples. Sharing the tribal characteristics of his people, however, his torso was bare under his long fur coat and he proudly displayed his many scarifications, evidence of his fighting past.

This was the first time Jake had noticed such a distinguished Nawai, but he had little time to study this anomaly. No sooner had he noticed the strange sign formed with his clasped hands than his mind went blank again. When he came to his senses, the rampaging beasts were already upon him.

Because of this vicious mental attack, Jake lost his only chance to avoid the collision and was also rammed into by a huge beast that looked like a cross between a triceratops and a polar bear.

The impact knocked the air out of his lungs, while one of the beast's horns impaled his torso. If he hadn't wrapped his legs around the monster's huge horn, he might have been thrown to the ground and trampled by the rest of the monsters. Although his body was incomparably stronger than the two refugees, his only fate was death if he ended up under the hooves of these beasts.

"Jake!"

"Leader!"

His comrades and the other refugees cried out in dismay as they watched him get impaled by that huge beast leading the herd, but they breathed a sigh of relief as they saw him hang on tight.

While they were distracted, three more cries of agony rang out among them, and alarmed by the noise they saw three more refugees fall into a daze at the worst possible moment, only to be caught and trampled to a pulp by the panicked beasts.

"Bastard!" Kyle fumed, his eyes bloodshot as he watched the smug faced Bhuzkoc and his generals walk away with the rest of his men. 'You think, we can't do anything against you?'

Rummaging through his Space Storage, the Playboy searched his arsenal for a weapon that would fit the situation. A huge bazooka, looking more like an anti-aircraft turret, appeared on his shoulder. The shells lodged in the barrel's entrance emitted an eerie dark purple sheen and even Mufasa who was galloping nearby gulped at the sight of this thing.

During the previous Ordeal, it was thanks to a Third Brotherhood Bazooka that he had managed to have a small hand in the final battle against Nylreg. Even though he had only caused minor injuries to Sigmar's son, it was an achievement in itself considering his level at the time.

After that incident, he realized that it was important to have a few trump cards in his bag. If Bhuzkoc hadn't taken his sister hostage and if the Oracle didn't forbid violence in its cities, he would have simply fired a warhead at his HQ.

Because of Maeve's presence he still didn't dare let loose completely, but if it was just shooting at the refugees to return the favor, then there was no problem. And too bad, if some of them were innocent! They had chosen their side.

"Let's see, if you have the guts to do that again after this! If you touch my sister, that's what's in store for all of you."

Bhuzkoc and his men froze as they heard the detonation of the missile launcher firing. Coming from a primitive world, he was not yet familiar with these advanced technologies. The huge missile filled with a dark purple light looked more like a forbidden spell than the shell of a scientifically explainable weapon.

"Crap-

BOOOM!

A small purple mushroom that looked like a mini atomic bomb exploded to the far right of Bhuzkoc's faction. Those in the center, such as his sister and Bhuzkoc himself, were relatively spread out and had to endure only the fallout of the explosion, namely the shock wave and a shower of rubble, but for the refugees near the epicenter of the blast, death was their only salvation.

A third of the refugees serving Bhuzkoc were vaporized out of existence, while another quarter were thrown violently to the ground, suffering terrible concussions. The weakest fainted on the spot, while the others saw stars and the world spinning around them. They were momentarily unable to get up.

Will and Svara inhaled sharply as they contemplated the extent of the massacre. Looking at Kyle strangely, they congratulated themselves for never having provoked that psychopath to his limit. Otherwise, they might have joined those refugees in the afterlife.

"Where did these weapons come from?" Svara asked with a slight tremor of fright in her voice.

Will had his own idea, but he let his friend answer.

"New Earth's Research lab." Kyle answered succinctly without taking his eyes off the enemy.

Svara was confused, but Will nodded matter-of-factly. It was amazing that Kyle had managed to get those heavy weapons only hours after their third Ordeal. It must have cost him quite a bit and it proved that he was serious about saving his sister.

With the deafening din of the explosion, the half-triceratops, half-bear beast that had impaled Jake reared up in terror and he took the opportunity to kick the monster in the eye. With his monstrous vitality at work, he briefly activated Bloodline Ignition and mobilizing his Strength Aether into his arms he firmly embraced the creature's horn, his biceps and veins swelling under the effort, and with a quick jerk the horn snapped in half, allowing him to break free.

Then, with the same horn he had plucked out of his torso, he thrust it deep into the beast's eye in retaliation. A whimper of pain pierced their eardrums and Jake took the opportunity to kick out the beast again, this time with the reinforcement of his telekinesis.

Despite the beast's mass and speed, Jake's front kick was like smacking into a solid steel wall and its neck cracked audibly. The beast didn't die, but its abrupt stop resulted in an ugly pileup. The panicked animals behind it crashed into it and the aftermath was like a series of dominoes collapsing exponentially.

As for Jake, he used the monster as a launch pad and the counterforce of his kick sent him flying back to his own group.

"Welcome back." Kyle smiled as he put his missile launcher away.

"Nice weapon you got there." Jake laughed good-heartedly, grateful to the young man for his initiative.

It felt good to be avenged by someone else once in a while.