The Oracle Paths

A rush of memories and emotions that were not his own flooded into his mind and for a moment he forgot who he was.

He saw a tiny baby Schwazen hatching from an egg of light in first person as if he were that same infant. He was filled with wonder as it spread its wings for the first time, and then felt the burning ambition and hatred that drove it to seek more and more power when it accidentally learned that the purpose of its existence was to oversee this iteration of Quanoth, and then to perish with it.

The scenes and emotions that flashed through his mind became darker and crueller. The gradual descent from being an innocent and selfless angel to a feared and respected Corrupted Virtue flashed through his mind and the mass of memories and experiences added to his own.

Jake had only lived 25 years and this monstrous amount of information, almost 1,000 years of memories, nearly made him forget who he was. As he tried to hold on to his identity so that his personality would not be rewritten by this Virtue's, he experienced the Virtue's death as if it were his own.

*****

Twenty seconds earlier...

The body of the human inside the gigantic Mana Storm titan completed its reconstruction. The lonely head of the only one of the three Virtues still alive widened its eyes in terror as a primal, predatory spiritual pressure swept across the battlefield.

The human slowly opened his eyes, an ocean of silver and darkness swirling inside them. Somehow, the human detected the angel's fear, because he cast a disparaging look at him. It was the kind of gaze that the emperor of a powerful empire might have when looking at an ant.

Well, not exactly... The emperor wouldn't eat the ant with such a vengeance.

No sooner had their eyes met than the landscape blurred around the Virtue as if he were in the cockpit of a ship entering hyperspace mode. The next moment, he entered a dark cavity filled with translucent fangs and everything went black. His head was forced by a tongue movement into a wet pipe before landing in an extremely narrow chamber.

The temperature and local brightness suddenly jumped thousands of times in a flash, exceeding the temperature and radiation level of a star's core, and the Virtue finally understood where it was.

That was its last memory. The excruciating pain of feeling its own DNA, the Aether and Aether Soul Code defining its very existence, breaking down under the pressure of an insane digesting power.

*****

When Jake thought it was over, memories of another Virtue flooded into his mind in waves. In the same way, he relived the life of the Schwazen angel from its very first second of life to its thundering death. His own heart nearly stopped when it was smashed into oblivions by that huge hand of Mana.

The memories were not continuous like those of the previous Virtue. He only experienced bits and pieces of it that amounted to 5 or 10% of the angelic creature's total memories, but it was enough to send his mind into a turmoil from which he could not escape.

Jake learned the reason at the very end. After being smashed by that huge hand, this was not the end. The Aether filaments containing what was left of the corrupted Schwazen's soul had floated over his remains and time had elapsed silently.

Although the Virtue could already be considered dead in its state, and was totally deprived of its sensory abilities, such strong soul fragments could still passively register information. Notably, that of their own demise.

Jake could not see anything, but the excruciating pain of when these Aether and Soul Fragments were digested was impossible to mistake.

Next came the memories of the third and final Virtue present. Its life journey differed from the other two, but the ending was much the same. Its Aether and Soul filaments ended up in his stomach and were thoroughly digested.

After these three successive waves of memories, Jake could hardly remember his own name and the translucent wings on his back were spontaneously changing shape in an attempt to replicate the four pairs of silver and gold wings of the Schwazen Virtues he had become so familiar with.

The chitin scales forming his skin were frantically trying to replicate the exquisite armor those angels wore in life and if Jake had been able to inspect the result he would have found that it was a clever mix between his Gold Stone Skin and the Digestors' chitin creation.

"Jake, focus." Xi's voice echoed loudly in his mind, snapping him out of his slumber.

Another avalanche of memories rushed through his mind, encapsulating a much shorter but more relatable life: his own.

It was the only way Xi could bring him back to himself.

It was a good idea, but the three Virtues' memories were not the only ones he had devoured...

A surge of even more shocking memories was in store for him with a cruel surprise.

*****

A three or four year old girl was bored in her wheelchair. A deep contempt for her feeble body and a seething hatred for this Aetherless barren world that prevented her from thriving overwhelmed her mind, triggering a fit of spasms...

The memory ended half a second later, when another much warmer presence banished her to the shadows.

*****

A young girl of 6 or 7 years old was sitting in a wheelchair wearing a virtual reality headset with a smile on her face. Suddenly, someone gently poked her cheek to tell her to turn off her headset and the smile disappeared, replaced by a snarl of an enraged beast.

The hand in question reflexively withdrew, but not before losing half of her finger... When the girl took off her helmet, she was totally normal and when she saw her aunt's bloody finger she started to cry.

*****

A young teenager of 12 or 13 years old looked at herself in a mirror, facing her own ugliness. Her right eye pulsed with a vibrant amethyst glow. When someone knocked on her bedroom door, an overwhelming killing intent spread throughout the room, coupled with a ravenous hunger.

Before an accident could happen, another presence as annoying as ever took over and forced her to become a spectator of her own life again.

*****

A flash of white light plunged the Earth into a stupor, momentarily blinding all its inhabitants. When the teenager regained her sight, she looked out her window and saw a huge silver metallic sphere floating in the sky. Mysterious futuristic blue lines of light roamed over its smooth and polished surface.

The blue lines of light quickly thickened, becoming brighter and brighter. After what seemed to be an eternity, something sprang out. Millions of bat-sized silver spheres gushed out, spreading out fast toward the ground.

Toward her.

The window shattered, and as the disabled young woman covered her face to protect herself from the shards, her amethyst eye gleamed, a jubilant grin stretching her lips.

Her time had come.

*****

Jake saw his own face behind the counter of the VR center where he once worked. His smile and friendliness sounded somewhat fake...

The disabled woman felt a strong urge to kill him on the spot, but no sooner had this intention crossed her mind than her unwanted "co-pilot" took the wheel of her own life.

*****

These memories, which were not his own, flashed by faster and faster. At first they were far apart and rather blurred, but the closer they were to the present moment the more they predominated, pure hunger and murderous rage suffusing her whole being.

Except at the end. When Jake reached her very last memory, all that was left was fear and a strange sense of resignation.

*****

Digestor Ruby had completed her evolution. Her soul was almost healed and she had regained most of her mental faculties. So she knew how powerful she was.

She was now a Rank 11 Digestor. Her average Aether stats peaked at about 800,000. Her body and mind were in perfect symbiosis and she had complete control over every one of her abilities.

She should have been invincible in this Ordeal. The Mirror Universe would become her hunting ground and she would continue to grow unimpeded.

This was what should have happened. As soon as she sensed the presence of the monstrosity that Jake had become, her Digestor instincts screamed at her that their battle for supremacy that had not yet been fought was already over.

There could only be one Apex Predator in this Ordeal, and it wasn't her.

Four fairy wings in multiple shades of blue flapped in front of her, and a familiar handsome face topped with black-hair opened his mouth. An orb of black light condensed in his open mouth and Ruby felt her consciousness stretch, then break apart as the rest of her body was sucked inside.

'So that's how it feels to be devoured by me...'

That was her last thought. Jake's mouth snapped shut and her consciousness faded, becoming part of her predator's.