The Oracle Paths

Almost at the same time, Prysm's body swelled thousands of times, then dissolved into a thick forest of scarlet flowers that covered all the surfaces of the hypermarket like a huge carpet. The petals then detached from their stigma right after blooming, then became rigid as razor blades.

"You have eaten my friends, you rotten angels. Let's see if you can take a bite out of me that easily." Her angry voice echoed throughout the building and beyond as if amplified thousands of times by a high-powered megaphone.

The millions of petals stagnating in the air suddenly began to spin, and with inconceivable speed the peace was replaced by a hellish storm of sharp flowers. The petals, so numerous and clumped together that from a distance they looked like a tide of red sand, began to spiral at supersonic speed, raising a tornado of bright red blossoms the same diameter as the building.

What was left of the Schwazen mall was instantly blown away, razed to the ground. Jake and the other Myrtharian Nerds ducked out of the building just in time to avoid being dragged into the sharp tornado.

As they landed a few hundred meters beyond the devastation zone, Fo, the one with the lowest Constitution of the group, suddenly fainted, blood oozing from all her orifices. Trea also fell to her hands and knees, coughing up blood, and Skorgeld staggered off, his eyelids drooping and his complexion waxy.

Tim, who also had the Myrtharian Bloodline, wrapped himself in flames and barely managed to stay on his feet. As for Crunch and Lord Phenix, because of their bulky size Vexa had ordered them to remain on standby outside the city.

Seeing the state of his friends, Jake's face turned ugly and with an upset wave of his hand he blew the poisoned air towards the nearby Schwazens. His companions soon purged the toxins from their bodies and stood up as if nothing had happened.

"What do we do now, help them?" Skorgeld asked in a voice full of resentment. He clearly had no desire to fight with allies who could inadvertently kill him.

Tim, Fo and Trea said nothing, but from their worried expressions they shared his opinion. Jake hesitated, then said,

" We wait and see for now. If they need help, it's not too late to help them. If they need our help, they'll give us new orders."

His comrades agreed with his reasoning 200%. With Jake's Stealth Spells still at work, they had not yet been spotted and found themselves twiddling their thumbs. With nothing better to do, they turned their attention to the two Mirror Vanguard Players engaged in a fierce battle before them.

Vexa, in his giant golem form, was completely unaffected by Prysm's petal domain, but the Schwazen civilians shopping couldn't say the same. Thousands of angels with 2 to 4 wings hit by the flower tornado or the poison gas released by Prysm were shredded or liquefied into a bloody, acid-stinking pulp.

Tim and the others drew a cold breath when they saw this. If they had tarried half a second too long, it could have been their fate too.

SHHHHRRRRIII!

After the explosion of the huge building, followed by the massacre of thousands of Schwazens by a gigantic scarlet tornado rising to the sky, the alarm was sounded and all the angel soldiers flocked to the carnage zone, flying over the city in silvery trails reminiscent of a shooting star shower.

These Schwazens too had only four wings, but they were much beefier than the obliterated civilians and heavily armed, their natural armor suspiciously beginning to mimic the silver chitin of the Digestors. From a distance, one would have thought they were some kind of variant of the Rank 4 humanoid Digestors.

BOOOMM!

Hundreds of warrior angels crashed into Vexa like meteors without a care in the world as if they had no will of their own. A few hundred more circled the two Players, staying out of reach of the petal tornado and a pure white aura shone forth from their bodies. The stream of light linked up with all the Schwazens, forming a white ring of pure energy.

SHRRRI!

The ring abruptly contracted, going from its original diameter to zero in a heartbeat. Prysm's flower tornado was instantly atomized along with everything else inside. The flower woman folded her petals, condensing them into a scarlet bulb between Vexa's legs.

As for the cube man, the ring of light slashed through his giant body as it tightened, but just before impact the microscopic cubes that made him up by the billions turned golden yellow and the attack was completely negated. His hand dissolved into millions of tiny Orange Cube that scattered throughout the city and suddenly Vexa disappeared.

With breathtaking frequency, he teleported hundreds of times in a flash, the Player popping up in succession at the location of one of these Orange Cubes.

The counterattack was so lightning fast and instantaneous that for a fleeting moment even Jake felt as if hundreds of Vexa had appeared at once. There were so many afterimages that it looked like he was not alone, but a whole army.

Each Schwazen had at least a dozen of these cubes around them and they had no time to see it coming. The Vexa golem, whose cubes had turned red, struck each of these targets with a mighty punch, each impact generating a sysmic wave exceeding level 12 on the Richter scale. All the Schwazen soldiers hit exploded on the spot, without having the time to understand that they had just been killed.

Not having said its last word either, the bulb condensed by Prysm also scattered and a bloody blast composed of billions of petals atomized a third of the city with the flower woman as epicenter. The few Schwazen warriors who were spared by Vexa were instantly disintegrated.

Jake and his companions were speechless. This level of massive destruction was just absurd. If some of their subordinates were still alive, hadn't they just killed them?

It wasn't just the physical damage that had to be considered. If Jake got serious and didn't care about his surroundings he could wipe out entire cities as well. To that end, not to mention his own powers, he could just detonate one of his Aether Sun Cores.

But here, it was not about innocent and helpless humans, but about Schwazens. The weakest of their warriors had armor and wings at least 2 to 4 times stronger than Adamantium. Such a pronounced power imbalance against such a formidable species was just mind-boggling.

"WHO DARES TO ATTACK MY CITY?!"

A Schwazen whose metallic wings were slightly golden thundered in a duplicitous, shrill voice. The angelic creature had three pairs of wings, its features were slightly more human, and its face much more expressive than those that Vexa and Prysm had just slaughtered. An oppressive and fiery aura radiated from his body, warping the atmosphere around him.

Seeing this new Schwazen that looked more dangerous than the others, Vexa threw the carcass of the last Schwazen he had just killed, its body crashing hundreds of meters below against a crumbling building. Where once stood hundreds of prosperous buildings, now there was nothing but ruins, corpses and desolation.

The whole thing covered in flower petals.

"Me." Vexa sneered as he teleported in front of the Schwazen with partially golden wings.

Without preamble, he summoned his heavy sword and slashed down ruthlessly. A red halo shrouded his arm and weapon and the mirage of a huge Red Cube appeared behind him.

CLANG!

Like Jake during his morning clash against Vexa, the creature was slammed to the ground like a cannonball, the arm having blocked ending up fractured into dozens of fragments. The angel got up straight away and its arm regenerated instantly.

From this, Jake became aware that this monster's level was about equal to his own. Using his intelligence and artifacts he could surely prevail.

" A Schwazen archangel." Vexa taunted as he floated to the ground, his overpowering killing intent spearing through the winged alien. "I should have known that those stupid angels wouldn't have been enough to capture my men and destroy my base. However... You are too weak too. Who else was with you?"

The Schwazen archangel stared at the cube man with no fear or hatred, just deep disdain and retorted with a hint of a smile,

"You are right. I was not alone. After all, I'm just an insignificant archangel. I'm just following orders."

After he spoke these ambiguous words, the air warped several kilometers above them and several dozen Schwazens a head taller than this archangel burst out of the vortex with the same flair as a spaceship leaving hyperspace. Their wings were half-golden, as was their chitinous armor, which now had its own differences in style and design. Their white eyes gleamed like stars, filled with profound wisdom and malice.

Vexa and Prysm's faces fell.

"Principalities..." The flower woman muttered solemnly. "We must retreat. I have a bad feeling about this."

As if to prove her right, a final figure stepped out of the vortex and as soon as it appeared, a horrific spiritual pressure, dozens of times more overwhelming than all those Principalities combined, engulfed the entire city.

" A Power. They sent a Power!" Prysm's heart sank. "They were waiting for us!"