The Oracle Paths

At the same time, the walls of several nearby buildings rippled and several figures emerged with different expressions.

Walking out of a structure reminiscent of a futuristic bunker, Jake recognized his archenemy, and loathsome Vhoskaud. From a building darker than the sunless sky, Neri sauntered out with a sensual wiggle brimming with sex appeal. Psykow levitated out of its skyscraper, its thirteen unblinking eyes betraying neither guilt nor satisfaction after all that had happened.

Almost two hundred Anti-Life Players surfaced from their respective buildings one after the other with varying degrees of injury. A whopping 188 to be exact. Most of them looked upset, if not downright angry. They didn't appreciate being thrown into the lion's den without being warned by their leader.

Ael, Felphi, Deimos, Ashun, Dhamde and Khag' Dagmai, the only remaining members of the Lost Divinities, came out of their buildings a few seconds later, their dejected faces reflecting their dissatisfaction with their performance. Ael greeted Jake with a nod, then ignored him completely, seeming not to care about his physical changes.

All of the Mirror Vanguard Players had perished.

Jake was beginning to think that none of the Myrtharian Nerds other than those he had saved had survived, but suddenly he recognized Will and Jinlong, the dragon elder protecting him. The merchant's eyes lit up when he recognized his friend and ran to him.

"I knew you would survive!" The man exclaimed, giving him a bear hug. Though, very quickly he let go and sized him up. "Your appearance has changed again... What happened?"

"To be honest, I'm not sure." Jake admitted honestly. "Nothing too serious I hope."

Will stared at him thoughtfully, but didn't pursue the matter. What he kept to himself was that he was clearheaded when Jake had blacked out under the influence of Psykow's psychic magic. He knew that it was none other than his leader who had killed many of his subordinates.

Well, to be exact, they had killed each other. Jake was just the strongest of them. That was his privilege. Even when he fell into the enemy's trap he could still blast through, trampling over any obstacle in his path. Tragically, at the cost of a few collateral victims...

"How did you survive?" Jake asked nonetheless on his own initiative. He hadn't lost his critical thinking skills. "Even I lost control so I wonder how you did it. Is your Soul Strength that high?"

"If only..." Will sighed ruefully. "As a Dragon Soulspeaker and Dragon Rider, my mind and Charizard's are intimately connected. You see the emerald crystal in the middle of my forehead? That's Charizard. When Psykow's spell hit me, my soul started to split, but Charizard who defends my sea of consciousness incinerated it, then devoured it before it could harm me further. My soul is currently severely injured, but Charizard who has a copy of my memories is busy regenerating the soul part I lost."

"It's convenient." Jake acknowledged. Now that he and Xi had an even closer spiritual connection they could perhaps also resort to such tricks. "So you're the only survivor among those I didn't save?"

Will was relieved to hear that Jake had regained his sanity before the end and saved more Myrtharian Nerds. Pondering quickly, he said,

"I believe the SS-Rank Adventurer native who joined us for a while survived. Galadin, I believe? Of Ruby's teammates, Craig and Wang Xiaoming kept their sanity. I saw Craig knock out his Japanese friend, Ryo, so he may have survived too. Immyr, Hade's dragon was also alive the last time I saw him, but he seemed determined to avenge his master..."

Jake and Will simultaneously turned to the Lost Divinities group and faced the obvious. Ael and Felphi were fine, but Immyr was nowhere in sight.

Suddenly, Jinlong, who was standing next to Will cleared his throat and coughed, "You made it sound like you saved people. Not to sound offensive... Where are they?"

Inwardly, he hoped that other dragons had survived. Although they had been given a bracelet in a hurry, it was too recent for them to normalize the idea that death wasn't necessarily the end.

"Erm..." Jake realized they had a bit of a problem. "They were all badly injured, some had even practically merged with the Mana Storm. If the building didn't stop their transformation or stabilize their injuries, they might have been shipped back to the Red Cube. And we can't enter another Player's building... We can only pray and wait."

"Not necessarily." The alien woman Jake had rescued walked toward them.

Now that she wasn't using her adaptive powers to adjust to the Mana Storm, she had enough restraint to not wander around naked. She had hastily put on a white bodysuit, her pale skin highlighting her long black hair and her glowing 7-pupil orange eyes. Her third eye shone brighter than the other two, giving the same vibe as the emerald shard adorning Will's forehead.

"By the way, thanks for saving me. I'm Ryne." She bowed low in gratitude although her expression and pitch were still very cold.

"You're welcome. Please to meet you, Ryne. What did you mean by not necessarily?" Jake perked up.

"Now that the Ordeal is almost over, I suspect the Players' intent prevails. If they consider you their ally, the building may allow you access."

'That's very plausible.' Xi chimed in his head.

No sooner said than done. Their group walked towards Lucia's ancient palace-like building and as they tried to knock, their fist went through the wall.

"Whew, your guess was right." Will rejoiced as he entered first.

Jake followed and they stumbled upon Lucia's body lying on the floor. The interior of the building was filled with a magical aura that seemed to contain some sort of concept, but it had no inherent healing properties. The immense amount of energy that this aura contained, however, was enough to stabilize the princess' condition. Her soul was no longer deteriorating.

"This Psykow's magic is truly disgusting." Ryne growled with a trace of fury in his voice.

"Do you know what this is about?" Jake asked, surprised that she was so knowledgeable.

"Anti-Life tried to recruit me during my Second Ordeal so I made inquiries. Psykow is a Dhox, a void alien species born from a scientific experiment that went awry. These aliens were working on a biological weapon capable of destroying civilizations without being blamed for it. As you can see, they succeeded. Unfortunately, the success was too great for their own good and it caused their downfall. Psykow is a proud specimen of this. His psychic powers are almost impossible to avoid or counter, one can only neutralize their effects. Like a virus, it manifests all sorts of mental disorders in the minds of its victims. It can take the form of a multiple personality disorder that turns against the original soul, but also other equally harmful forms such as schizophrenia, psychopathy, paranoia, borderline disorder, bipolarity, psychotic neurosis and so forth... Of course, with symptoms thousands of times more severe than those of the psychiatric disorders I just mentioned. If a Dhox uses this kind of magic sparingly, one may not realize for several months or years that one is affected by such a spell. By the time you realize it, it is already too late. You're no longer the same person. We were lucky that Psykow was in such a hurry to end it. The only flaw with Dhoxs is that their main ability is an area of effect ability and it has no conventional cure. If he had used it earlier in the Ordeal, the inhabitants and Players of Quanoth would have killed each other much sooner, but it would also have affected his key subordinates like Neri."

That made Jake realize that if Xi hadn't used his last Oracle Heal to negate the damage of the Mana Storm, his mind wouldn't have been able to recover either. Though, he couldn't tell if his soul was in a better state now with everything that had happened to him.

"So, how should we proceed to heal Lucia? Will refocused the conversation on the very reason they were here.

"I don't know." Ryne shook her head. "I've been using my own abilities to deal with the symptoms, but they only apply to me."

Jake and Will exchanged a look but didn't ask her what her powers were. Looking for a way to help Lucia, Jake began to examine her injuries more closely and suddenly became aware of a certain detail.