The Oracle Paths

At the same time as the explosion, heat-resistant walls sprang up from the ground and encapsulated Ruby inside to contain the blast, but also to raise the temperature inside dramatically.

These walls, made of an ultra-hard alloy and stacked one on top of the other to form a thick, 15m thick shell, were not the result of Jake's skill, but a simple exploitation of his Purgatory Dream's creative functions. Even if the detonation were ten times more powerful, these illusory walls would have succeeded in confining the blast.

That said, even with this precaution, Jake still found himself breathless from the shockwave when he reappeared 100 meters away. Nearby adventurers like Elduin and his companions were blown away except for the large dwarf who managed to stay in place by rooting his heavy axe into the ground.

Jake watched each adventurer present carefully, looking to see if any of them had been substituted by Ruby to take the blast in her stead. Finding neither an absent face nor a strand of silky white hair swaying in his field of vision, he finally relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief.

The walls made of a heat-resistant alloy glowed for a moment until they cooled down entirely. Jake waited a few more seconds, not letting up until he was completely sure the threat had been eliminated.

VRROUISSH!

Just as Jake thought the matter was over, an unexpected gust of wind, or rather an air blast of unparalleled violence, suddenly swept down from the sky, striking the ruined Guild and the adventurers still present to the point of slamming them to the ground. Those already stunned by the shockwave of the explosion were unable to react in time and the descending gust crushed their bones when it didn't directly break their necks for those with an inadequate posture.

VRROUISSH!

A second gust, this time even more terrible than the previous one, struck the earth with such power that all the still relatively intact debris was reduced to fine dust just from the sheer pressure squeezing them to the ground.

The C-rank adventurers still standing were also knocked to the ground this time, while the B-rank adventurers and above who didn't specialize in physical strength also fell to their knees. In comparison, Jake remained completely still in the middle of a lava depression, the only evidence that he had also been hit by the wind blast.

Jake was already looking up at the sky, squinting his eyes for the perpetrator. In an instant, he locked eyes with the culprit and blinked as he spotted the mammoth mythological beast approaching. These cataclysmic gusts of wind were only the direct consequence of its flapping wings.

Their wingspan was over a hundred meters, but the sheer speed of each flap was such that the black pegasus seemed to teleport several kilometers with each movement. Even so, Jake didn't think it was enough to generate such winds. Obviously, this nightmarish horse was also frighteningly heavy.

Faced with an even greater urgency, Jake immediately forgot about his original target.

The illusory ramparts imprisoning Ruby suddenly retracted, revealing a young woman with long silver hair completely unharmed. She didn't even have a scratch on her and her clothes were undamaged. Yet, she didn't look proud of herself at all, displaying instead an aggrieved and regretful expression.

'How did she do that?!' Jake was completely flabbergasted.

She hadn't teleported and she hadn't switched places with anyone either. He was certain that the explosion had hit her hard.

VRROOUIISH!

'Too late to worry about it. Time to go.' Jake immediately forgot his desire for revenge.

The third squall would be the last, and while that was great news for the adventurers still alive, it was the final death knell for the two alleged wrongdoers. Jake obviously had no idea that the Baron of Lodunvals held Ruby primarily responsible for this catastrophe and believed he was the sole target of this fearsome native.

Deep down, he resented being framed so unfairly when he wasn't hurting anyone. It was a debacle that would haunt his nightmares for a long time. That was why at that moment he took an extra, but completely unnecessary risk.

'I may have failed to kill you, but there's no way I'm going to be the only one hunted down like a common thug.' Jake muttered vindictively, as a hateful glint flared in his pupils. 'It's time to properly test this Rune Engraver Soul Class.'

As the huge black pegasus and its rider landed, demolishing a city block and causing a mini earthquake, Jake leapt into the air, stretching his arms out in front of him.

Completely merging his consciousness with that of the Purgatory Dream, he channeled his will into a single intention, which he then transmuted into a very precise injunction that he then visualized in Oraclean.

Almost instinctively, as if he had always known how to do this, his mind slipped into a special kind of trance and the Aether Runes that made up his Spirit Body began to operate in a mysterious and enigmatic way that he was not even aware of.

At that very moment, he felt an immense fatigue overwhelm him, combined with the onset of a headache and a mental fog, but he gritted his teeth and endured the ordeal. He refused to give up until he got his revenge!

'Word of Power Magic!" he thought inwardly.

"Reveal your true self!" Jake shouted hoarsely as he powered up his Purgatory.

In response to these words, gigantic, deep gashes cleaved through the city to carve these words into the Purgatory, causing another wave of panic and some hesitancy from Laudar and his pegasus. This Guilty was no easy prey at all!

Laudar and the other adventurers had no way of recognizing the giant cracks for what they really were, but Ruby could tell the difference straight away. A horrified expression contorted her face and as she looked up at Jake she caught the smug satisfaction in his smile.

"Jake! You'll pay for this!" She screamed madly.

Jake sneered disdainfully, giving her the finger.

"Try to survive first." He taunted her with a flying kiss.

The next moment, the innocent human figure that Ruby had so far managed to preserve was replaced by a 3.5 meter tall woman with extremely athletic features. A network of bluish veins reminiscent of liquid ice began to glow under her translucent, almost grayish skin. Her ears were pointed like an elf's, her irises had not changed, but a luminescent blue glow now pulsed in her pupils.

Like Jake, long crystalline claws and fangs confirmed her non-human status, while her physical transformation went even further, not only stopping at those expected of a Throsgenian or Myrtharian.

Indeed, her forearms had a metallic shine and texture, as if she had dipped her forearms in liquid silver. Her legs, previously covered by the boots and pants she had stumbled upon in a Lodunvals store, ripped the clothes that had become too small, also revealing their metallic silver texture.

As if that wasn't enough, a pair of silver wings folded behind her back and a small pair of horns of the same hue on either side of her forehead delivered the final blow, this time giving her the edge of a monster. The icy, corrupting energy that oozed forth from her body and freezing all matter, including the air, did nothing to convince her victims otherwise. She was still stunning, perhaps even more so, but it was no longer a beauty that humanity could accept.

"A-A Demon!" Laudar and the other surviving adventurers cried out at the same time.

Jake said nothing, staring at her for a brief second without blinking to etch the image in his memory forever.

"No doubt about it, you're a humanoid Digestor." Jake sighed in a low voice, but Ruby heard him perfectly, a faint anger and resentment flashing across her exquisite face.

As he said this, Jake suddenly felt the air temperature rise alarmingly. As a Myrtharian, this should have been the least of his worries, but his instincts, which rarely deceived him, told him this time that he had better avoid the next attack.

Turning his head toward the source of the unreal heat waves, Jake saw that the rider previously on the back of his pegasus had stepped down and summoned a small dark wooden wand that he was silently pointing at them. At its tip was a ball of plasma even purer than his own, but containing within it and wrapped in even more terrifying black lightning bolts.

As he scanned the black lightning, Jake broke out in a cold sweat and shot off into the sky without hesitation, his hasty departure leaving a trail of flames and a supersonic boom in his wake. Ruby, wanted to do the same, but when she tried to flee in the same direction as Jake, the same illusory walls that had imprisoned her sprang up from the earth by the hundreds, sealing Jake's escape route.

Vicious to the core, Jake went even further, erecting dozens of layers of ramparts around the entire ruined area, trapping Laudar, his pegasus and Ruby together.

"Fuck! Really ruthless to the core!" She cursed before cracking a complex smile.

The furious Baron obviously tried to destroy these illusory walls to prevent Jake from escaping and he almost succeeded. Of the hundreds of meters of hyper-resistant metal that Jake had erected, more than 200 were vaporized by his spell, the lightning bolts even passing through the entire structure like a red-hot whip through a lump of butter.

His pegasus, Actalaus, also rammed his head into those steel walls, forming deep indentations with each collision, before giving up a few blows later, staggering slightly from the dizziness.

Laudar was humiliated and infuriated, but he was a pragmatic man. He instantly accepted that one of the two guiltys had escaped and shamelessly redirected his hatred at the only remaining target. His pegasus Actalaus did the same, revealing his sharp fangs in a toothy grin.

"Prepare to receive your punishment for sacking my city, young lady." The Baron declared cruelly, sadistically licking his lips.