The Oracle Paths

The group members braced themselves and drew their weapons all at once. Jake also summoned his God Slayer Broadsword. His armor was always equipped except for his helmet, but this time he put that on too. It clipped against the collar of his breastplate, sealing any gaps.

Seeing the ground cave in below their leader, Azeus and the others threw him both shocked and envious looks.

"Is that the armor you beat Shamash with?" The warrior inquired movingly.

"No... I forged it only recently." Jake replied glumly. Under other circumstances, he should have felt happy about such a backhanded compliment, but his recent humiliating defeat at the hands of the Nullifyer had quashed any pride he might have felt in his blacksmithing accomplishments.

What was the point of having a suit of armor that would fail him at the worst possible time? It was clear that his skills as an Aetherist and blacksmith were still worthless.

"Everyone ready?" Jake threw out seriously as he moved to liquefy the entrance to the underground bunker.

His companions nodded solemnly and he activated his Earth manipulation to open a passage. The thick wall of steel and rock melted away, instantly receding to the sides to let them through.

"While I don't doubt your powers, boss, isn't this a little too easy?" Fo raised up warily, brandishing her willow staff.

At that moment, a warm draught of air leaked from inside the gap he had just opened and Jake and the others abruptly changed their expressions.

"It smells like blood!" Trea exclaimed as she notched an arrow on her bow.

There was no arrow in her hand, but as soon as she got into shooting position, the Aether and ambient Mana were siphoned to her fingers and a blindingly white arrow of energy condensed before their very eyes. It took only a split second to create the light projectile and as soon as it was ready she fired the arrow.

The bright white arrow shot into the gap, illuminating the dark walls in its path. A moment later, it exploded like fireworks and the translucent eyes of the Beskyrian archer narrowed with astonishment.

"It's empty."

Jake did not comment on her initiative. A simple Oracle Scan would have sufficed, but he couldn't stop his subordinates from helping out once in a while. From what he understood of Trea's abilities, her arrows were not just condensed energy projectiles.

Like here, she could use their light to delineate areas with a wide array of functions. The interior of the bunker now appeared as a three-dimensional map in her mind, and the slightest life force was as vivid to her as a campfire at night. If she said there was no one inside, then that was definitely the case.

The explosion from the arrow shot also had stunning, dazzling and paralyzing properties, so it was a perfect way to launch an assault. Taking advantage of this window, the Myrtharian Nerds sneaked with surreal speed into the bunker, reaching the room where the arrow had detonated within a second.

As they walked in, Tim turned livid.

"Wh-what happened here?" He stammered with a dumbstruck expression.

In the room, which was as expansive as a small town, blood and guts of all shapes and colors formed a morbid abstract canvas. Hundreds of broken Intermediate and Advanced Aether Artifacts littered the bunker, the residual energies they emitted forming radioactive turbulence far beyond that of a nuclear reactor. A normal human entering this place would have died within seconds.

Suddenly, Azeus let out a grunt of disbelief and dashed to a crystalline object that was slightly brighter than the rest. It was a broken spherical mirror with multiple polished facets.

"This was definitely a base belonging to Mirror Vanguard. They were exterminated." The barbarian declared grimly.

"And we know by what..." Skorgeld said, holding up a long silver feather similar to the one they had picked up a few hours earlier.

"The Schwazens." Jake concluded with a concerned wince. The whole thing sounded fishy to him.

Ulfar's son brought the feather to him and Jake immediately noticed that it was different from the previous one. Their length, color and shape were similar, but this one was much heavier. About 10 times heavier.

As before, he tried to bend it to estimate its hardness, but he was stunned when even after activating his Double Bloodline Ignition and raising its internal temperature to tens of thousands of degrees he could barely bend it slightly. As they searched the room, they found other similar feathers scattered about.

As they gathered together their faces looked glum and uneasy.

"Mirror Vanguard has met stronger than them this time." Azeus sighed with conflicting emotions.

A few weeks earlier, these super factions had seemed invincible to him, as permanent as the sun and the moon, but now he realized that they too could be obliterated.

"The real question is why they were attacked..." Tim remarked self-consciously.

Jake didn't answer, but using an Oracle Scan he easily identified what must be their prison. He teleported into one of the cells and picked up a long white hair. Placing it under his nose, he sniffed and recognized a delicate fragrance of rose, jasmine and vanilla.

"Ruby was here."

When she had temporarily regained some semblance of humanity, he had noticed that she was wearing perfume for the first time. It was probably a way for her to convince herself that she could still be a young woman like everyone else.

Of course, with his boorish character Jake hadn't paid her any flattery, but with a keen sense of smell like his how could he not notice anything? Just as he could, to his utter displeasure, hear someone peeing several kilometers away if the environmental conditions allowed it, he could also pick up on the more subtle odors of his surroundings.

When Jake returned, his companions wore a relieved expression and jogged over to him. While he was gone they had collected all the feathers and damaged Aether Artifacts.

"What do we do with all this?" Skorgeld asked bluntly.

"Store them in the Faction Vault so Hade can study them or retrieve their materials." Jake ordered calmly. "Since the Lost Divinities attack, that's what we need most."

"What about the feathers?"

" Just hand them to me... This will be a good chance to check if these Schwazens' feathers are stomach-proof."

Tim and the others chuckled knowingly, but Azeus wore a confused expression. He obviously didn't get the joke.

"Do you eat... feathers?" He dared to ask awkwardly.

"And why not?" Jake answered smoothly.

As the barbarian gave him a bewildered look, the bunker was suddenly plunged into darkness. Sparks flashed in their field of vision and screams of pain echoed around them.

Trea's energy arrows shot out in all directions with the speed of a machine gun, the reflection of Skorgeld's axe clashed loudly against another blunt weapon, and Tim let out a furious groan. Thousands of talismans fluttered around them as if they had a will of their own and they intercepted thousands of invisible attacks, protecting the group as best they could.

Azeus let out a war cry and a network of purple lightning bolts as wide as a grown man's thigh spread across the bunker, electrifying whatever was in its path. At that very moment, Jake felt an oppressive killing intent washing over him and he responded with a murderous aura of his own.

His blade clashed with another blade, but Jake was instantly blasted away, his arm shattered into several pieces despite the fact that he had used all of his strength and amplification skills, including Double Bloodline Ignition. He immediately realized that he was dealing with someone of the same caliber as the Nullifyer.

Remembering how he had managed to protect Xi at the last moment, he focused on what mattered most to him, what he didn't want to lose, and swung his sword again.

CLANG!

This time his arm held firm for a fleeting second, the two blades clashing and sparking as they formed a deep crater around them, and then Jake was blasted away again. Before he had time to focus again, a huge fist smashed into his head with the crashing force of a train. Because he had his helmet on, he got away with only a severe concussion to the brain.

With a kick, his opponent disarmed him and with another stomp crushed the bones of his disarmed arm into dust.

The sheer fury and shame of suffering such humiliation for the second time swept through Jake's mind and he instantly flipped, as if his limiter had just been removed. Jake let out a deafening roar and focused all of his telekinesis, Reiga, Aether, heat and other energy into his good arm.

His arm became brighter and more scorching than a sun's core and collided at near teleportation speed with his opponent's temple.

BOOOM!

The enemy's head exploded, but so did his arm. Jake, though pale and dripping with sweat, got up with a snort and summoned his entire arsenal of Aether Sun Core around him to boost his regeneration. A brand new arm grew back in an instant, but the lost Blood Essence could not be so easily regained.

The light returned to the bunker and he discovered that all of his companions, including Azeus, Crunch and Lord Phenix, had been captured. The man Jake had just confronted walked sinisterly toward him, his head also having grown back and he snarled authoritatively,

"Who the fuck are you? Are you the one who slaughtered my men?"