The Oracle Paths

A few minutes later.

"Damn it! How many more of these bloody vermin do we need to slaughter before they leave us be?" Lucia raged, her boot violently squishing the brain of yet another Sinewshade.

These Sinewshades bore little resemblance to their predecessors. They had grown larger, stretching up to three meters long, and even when hunched on all fours, they appeared almost as massive as bears with their bulging, oozing musculature.

Severing their heads was no longer a solution. Even dismembered, they didn't perish but posed the risk of an errant bite if one's foot landed in the wrong place.

Their regeneration was formidable; any injury not dealing with their brains was rendered null and void within a second.

They were also much tougher. The laser turrets mounted on Syrbarun's shoulders couldn't even burn the flesh on their foreheads, and blinding them by aiming at their eyes became increasingly challenging.

These upgraded Digestors were now managing to blink or duck at just the right time. Siri's plasma guns hardly fared better.

Above all else... they were strong and fast!

"Oh no, fuck! I'm going to die!" Syrbarun panicked as a pack of Sinewshades dodged his automated fire by skittering, leaping, and galloping along the walls and ceiling.

Less than four meters away, the minotaur watched in horror as the six monsters lunged at him like starving lions on a poor wildebeest. Believing his end was near, he closed his eyes, praying his mechanical suit would hold up.

Slash, slash!

A warm flow of blood splattered his armor, and when he opened his eyes, he saw only darkness. It took a brief moment of bafflement for him to realize that his visor was smeared with enemy blood. Swiftly wiping it away with the back of his gauntlet, he saw the remains of his assailants strewn across the floor, their bodies cleaved with uncanny symmetry.

Lucia continued to slay the other monsters that rushed in, wielding her sword with virtuoso skill and displaying a supernatural strength and speed that seemed to only escalate. A battle at this level had long surpassed what a non combatant Evolver like Syrbarun could comprehend.

"Are you planning to die here daydreaming, or are you going to snap out of it?!" Lucia barked, nailing a Sinewshade's chin into the metal floor with a savage downward elbow strike.

With another swift punch, she smashed another of these degenerate creatures into the wall to her left, its head bursting like a water balloon thrown from the twentieth floor. She then snatched the leg of a third, pivoting on her heel with perfect technique, and launched it with all her might as though it were a bowling ball, achieving a magnificent strike.

Just as she was preparing to come to Siri's aid, who was beginning to be overwhelmed, a slight dizziness caused her to momentarily falter. It was so fleeting that no one but Ulfar noticed it. Seeing this, his feeling of unease in her presence slightly intensified, and he knew that what he feared was on the brink of happening.

"Lucia, don't overexert yourself. Let me deal with these small fry," he declared sternly, his attitude contrasting with his usual nonchalance.

Instead of complying, Lucia's dark golden eyes emitted a bright glow, and an aura of dark gold, matching her eyes, began to radiate from her body and her sword, forming a thin layer of sacred light.

"I can still fight!"

Ulfar's facial muscles twitched with a fed-up expression, seeing that his good intentions had been completely ignored. "These stubborn Myrmidians... Always feeling belittled the moment someone offers a helping hand.'

However, this time he could not yield to the young woman's whims. She didn't realize it, but she was certainly not in her usual state.

Siri and Syrbarun, who were too low-level to notice, couldn't see that she was slower than usual, while their enemies were growing stronger. With the synergy of her Neithnikidian Bloodline and her Divine Princess of Victory Soul Class boosting her combat prowess proportionally to her thirst for victory and the number of victories accumulated, she should have continued to grow fiercer as she decimated her enemies, chaining kill after kill.

Instead, she was barely faster than him. Not that he was slow in the first place. Ulfar had his own methods of enhancing his physical performances, like potions from his Witcher Bloodline, Wind Spells, and other reinforcement enchantments.

But he knew his limitations better than anyone. His forte had never been speed. In a one-on-one battle, deprived of any tricks, and without his luck, he had never been a match for Lucia.

"Believe in me, Ulfar," Lucia growled telepathically, sensing his worried gaze. "I won't fall that easily."

Where he was mistaken was that she was fully aware of her symptoms' progression. She was underperforming, and although she tried to compensate with her various abilities, this overwhelming sense of weakness was only gaining ground.

'At this rate...' A shiver of foreboding ran down her spine, imagining that if her symptoms continued to worsen, it would only be a few more minutes before she passed out.

Gritting her teeth in frustration as she parried the attacks of three Rank 9 Sinewshades, even more massive than their predecessors, the long flexible tail of one of them sneakily whipped her back, wrapping around her waist.

She snorted at the futile tactic, grabbing the monster's tail without looking with her free hand, the arm bearing her shield. Continuing to grasp the creature's appendage with an iron grip, she knocked out the three Digestors in front of her with supersonic pommel strikes, sending them with shattered skulls in the opposite direction.

The Sinewshade's tail remained in Lucia's grip, severed from the rest of its body. With an audacious grin, she used it to thrash another lurking cluster of the beasts who'd had the arrogance to hang around the fringes, thinking to profit from the bold efforts of their kin.

After lashing several dozens of the Sinewshades into submission, Lucia let out a victory roar akin to that of a feral beast. Ulfar, who had been growing increasingly anxious, relaxed at the sight of her enduring vitality.

"Use this respite to heal," the King of Beskyr commanded, grabbing her by the nape without awaiting her consent and placing her behind him, back against the wall with Syrbarun and Siri.

Ulfar was now defending the eight corridors and his three companions alone, his lone figure curiously steadfast against the steadily increasing horde of Digestors pouring into the intersection, despite the dozens he was felling each second.

These were Rank 9 Sinewshades, not the weak Rank 8s of the first wave. It was in these moments that one could truly witness the miracle of his supernatural luck in action.

Before reaching him to claw or bite, these monsters would often meet their demise in peculiar ways - tripping, stumbling, accidentally biting their kin, and so on. It was eerie yet fascinating to witness.

Those who directly targeted him and managed to get within striking distance sometimes froze inexplicably, as if suffering a heart attack or stroke.

At this stage, his luck had surpassed what science could reasonably explain, no probability could account for these events that played out in his favor.

But even when one of these monsters miraculously landed an attack without missing, it had to contend with his sword, Death Embrace.

There was a reason why Ulfar had been so reluctant to use it in his friendly duel against Jake back then. Even a minor graze from its blade held a slim chance of causing instant death.

In the hands of another Evolver, such a weapon would have been too unreliable, but in Ulfar's grasp, his sword was as lethal as the scythe of the Reaper.

Knowing that Ulfar had the situation under control, Lucia ceased her stubborn struggle and focused on healing as he had asked. Channeling her Vitality Aether, she worked to circulate it as efficiently as possible through her body to boost her cellular metabolism.

She even converted a portion of her Aether Storage into Vitality Aether, using it to boost her Aether stat to levels far beyond usual. As long as her mental fortitude held strong, she could maintain this heightened state of vitality for a while.

No one could blame her. Whether it was Ulfar, Gerulf, Hade, or even Jake not too long ago, lacking proper magic, this was the closest they had to a Healing Spell at their disposal.

Unfortunately, this time it backfired. No sooner had the additional Vitality Aether permeated her cells than she was seized by a fit of vertigo and began to cough up blood. A startling amount of blood.

Siri and Syrbarun, who were standing right beside her, recoiled at the sight, swiftly backing away as her skin started to peel off her flesh, falling away in long, gruesome strips.

Siri's android eyes flashed as she rapidly computed the unfolding situation. She barely had time to open her mouth to warn Ulfar when a red, blurring blade sped past her eyes at a frantic pace, severing all connection with the rest of her body.

Her head rolled to the ground, and while her processor was still active, her rapidly dimming eyes watched a new Sinewshade, clad in armor with long golden hair, viciously raking Ulfar's back with a savage claw.