The Oracle Paths

Somewhere, millions of kilometers southeast of where Melkree had sunk her roots, a massive mountain range loomed in the distance, its peaks carved in an intimidating shade of charcoal gray. With its towering summits and tightly interlocked ridgelines, the region was widely considered impassable to the armies of the Radiant Conclave.

Not for lack of trying.

The few passage points deemed safe had long ago been sealed by the Dusken Throne, reinforced with colossal ramparts and an intricate network of ancient black-stone fortresses carved directly into the mountainsides. Suspended bridges and labyrinthine tunnels connected them in a feat of brutal ingenuity. Some structures stood over a thousand meters above ground level. No standard infantry had the slightest chance of scaling such defenses.

At first glance, nothing justified a defensive system this ambitious—especially given the technological poverty of the Duskwight Lands.

Except this region possessed two irreplaceable assets.

The black stone used to construct every citadel, fortress, rampart, chapel, and key infrastructure across Dusken territory was quarried here. And even more crucially, this was the primary nesting ground of another strategic resource of the Dusken Throne:

The Vorzhuls.

These ferocious wyvern-like aerial beasts bred and nested along the jagged cliffs and summits of these mountains. Naturally, the region had become the domain of the Vorzhul Legion. The grandest fortress, perched atop the highest peak, served as both residence and command center of the most feared Great General in all the Duskwight Lands.

Radahn.

Unfortunately, the bulk of the Legion had been mobilized long ago. Even Radahn himself was currently pinned at the central battlefield alongside "Jake" and the main body of their forces.

The consequences for the remaining garrisons and native populations did not take long to manifest.

Genocide.

Vorzhuls roared overhead—some terrified, others maddened with fury. Steel clashed against wood. Screams tore through the air, shrill and distorted, like the wailing of wandering souls spiraling through the sky.

The noise alone was enough to make someone retch. But the most staggering sight by far was the siege itself.

The supposedly impassable mountains were swarming with misshapen abominations, stacking over one another in grotesque layers. The fortresses and walls once thought unclimbable had long since been buried beneath an endless tide of enemies.

The only silver lining was that Anthace’s roots—and these spawn—did not appear capable of penetrating such vast thicknesses of black stone, renowned for its density and hardness. The Titan Tree’s buds had been forced to bloom outside the mountain chain.

That limitation had allowed the locals and Players stationed within these fortresses to face the surprise invasion under far better conditions than most other strongholds.

But that luck was running out.

The resurrected were about to join the battle.

And while no Saints had appeared yet, the sheer, absurd number of Radiant Lords encircling the mountains was enough to wipe them out a hundred times over.

"Holy fucking shit, where are all these lunatics coming from?!" a bearded dwarf roared, his swollen face turning purple with exertion.

As he spoke, he sent a hundred monsters flying with a single sweep of his massive greataxe.

Those closest to him were cleaved clean in half. The second line was shredded by deep gashes before being blasted away by the shockwave of the swing.

Resting the axe—wider than he was tall—against his shoulder, Bhammod shot a resentful glance at the shattered tankard of beer at his feet.

’By my beard, I was peacefully getting hammered when these things dropped on us...’

He simmered in outrage.

If there was one sacred rule, it was this:

You do not interrupt a dwarf mid-drink.

To his right, a scimitar radiating with the brilliance of dawn sunlight spun with elegant precision, silently carving through a pack of monsters without resistance. The corrosive Black Lumyst oozing from their bodies evaporated like morning frost upon contact with that radiant glow.

"It seems your Dawn Great Knight Arts are working wonders on these things, Elduin," a woman of breathtaking beauty remarked approvingly.

Clad in gleaming mythril armor, shoulder-length blood-red hair framing her face, crimson eyes shimmering with demonic allure, Aisling Dracul stood unmistakable amid the tide of enemies. Add to that her expansive membranous wings and the long black horn curving from her forehead toward the back of her skull—

The supernatural charm of the Dhampir Demon knight was a spectacle in itself.

Sadly, the monsters and resurrected didn’t seem impressed.

Her lips curled into a disappointed pout.

She gripped her faithful Nemesis Sword and slashed forward without a sound. Every monster charging her was atomized in a blink.

But what followed made even her allies uneasy.

The blood spilled from those corpses—and from countless others nearby—suddenly surged toward her blade, causing it to blaze with a sinister crimson glow.

Aisling slashed again—this time horizontally.

A dazzling arc of blood-light tore across the top of the ramparts where she stood, then continued downward along the mountainside.

The clustered monsters and resurrected scrambling over one another to scale the cliffs were obliterated in an instant. Even the fortress trembled as part of its foundation was carved away.

"Oops. Sorry! Couldn’t help myself," the Dhampir knight apologized with a charming smile, casually siphoning the fresh blood into her blade to prepare something even more devastating.

It hardly mattered.

This was only the beginning of the endless despair these horrors had in store.

On a neighboring fortress, Kevin and Vincent Wilderth stood side by side atop a collapsing rampart, grim expressions etched into their faces.

They had already been targeted by something particularly vicious.

The darkness and malevolence radiating from the creature rivaled the vilest Digestors they had ever faced. By this world’s standards, the monster’s power was comparable to that of an ancient Titan or an Abyssal Revenant.

In other words—

Close to a Celestial.

It resembled a colossal, hairy arachnid with countless eyes, though its true form was difficult for the human mind to grasp. Its eyes were opaque vortexes that pulled in the gaze and siphoned Spirit Power. Worse, its legs seemed limitless—new appendages branching endlessly from those already present.

Its body was in constant reconstruction. Perpetual mutation. Massive enough to reach them simply by rearing up on its abdomen. Fast beyond reason.

And unmistakably intelligent.

When Kevin, in his Werebear form, had leapt to tear it apart with his massive claws, the alien had shuddered almost imperceptibly—

Then released a cloud of acidic poison moving at dozens of times the speed of sound.

An omnidirectional attack like that was impossible to avoid for natives—perhaps even for most generals. The entire garrison fighting alongside them on that fortress died in a fraction of a second.

With another lightning-fast strike, the arachnid had split the half-melted fortress—and a chunk of the mountain itself—in two.

Kevin escaped with only singed fur and a stinging snout.

Vincent had been forced to condense all surrounding moisture with a flick of his rapier, isolating himself within a sphere of water to neutralize and purify the toxic cloud.

Of all the Players stationed there, only the two cousins remained. Eyes wet. Bloodshot. Pain and fury twisted their features as they prepared to avenge their fallen comrades—

When the arachnid suddenly sprinted toward the neighboring mountain. Ignoring them completely, as if they were nothing more than minor bugs.

Their rage was instantly replaced by stunned dread. The creature wasn’t mindlessly fighting. It was demolishing their defensive positions.

If it succeeded, only a handful of Players like them might survive. Everyone else would die.

Aisling and the other high-ranking Players and natives had understood the monster’s intent as well. But before they could even attempt to intercept it—

The resurrected Radiant Lords and Saints entered the battlefield. The pressure shifted instantly. From overwhelming dominance to desperate survival.

They could now do little more than protect their own lives, and those few they cared about.

For Aisling, that meant only one person.

Her little sister.

Chloe Dracul. Fighting valiantly just a few meters away.

Suddenly, a hideous abomination with grotesquely overdeveloped forelimbs and the thrashing lower body of a tadpole the size of a truck launched itself from the foot of the mountain—

And landed directly atop the fortress ramparts.

By cruel coincidence, the thirteen-year-old girl stood precisely at its landing point.

"Don’t even think about it, you slimy bastard!"

Her big sister struck without mercy, redirecting her blood-forged blade toward the newly arrived monster. But to her surprise, the abomination didn’t dodge. It sneered contemptuously, revealing a row of translucent teeth.

Its tail lashed out.

The blinding crimson arc—charged with overwhelming energy—was swept aside effortlessly. The redirected strike tore across the entire battlefield, slicing through allies and enemies alike.

The instant she saw it, Aisling felt a crushing wave of guilt. But it was the sight of her sister’s face—frozen in pure terror—that made her own heart stop.

She ran. Or tried to.

A cluster of Radiant Lords slammed into her like a meteor strike, sending her crashing into the cliff face supporting the fortress. She didn’t register the pain. Didn’t register the hollow eyes of the resurrected who had struck her.

All she knew was the abyss swallowing her whole as she searched desperately for Chloé.

Bhammod and Elduin moved as well, but it was obvious they wouldn’t make it in time.

The remaining soldiers and Players were fighting one against a thousand. Even the fearsome Vorzhuls defending their nests were dropping like flies, their eggs shattered and devoured mid-battle. In the distance, another fortress and its garrison were about to be obliterated by a single sweep of the arachnid alien’s claw.

Chloe’s fate—and that of the remaining strongholds—seemed sealed.

Then the battlefield shuddered. An unnatural tremor cut through the chaos.

The spider behemoth froze mid-swing, its raised limb suspended in the air. Its cunning eyes bulged wide in sudden, visceral terror.

The tadpole-like monstrosity—so arrogant just seconds ago—let out a piercing squeal. Ignoring the girl entirely, it twisted midair and bolted away from the mountain range at full speed, leaving Aisling’s sister stunned and untouched.

Sensing something, Aisling—and the other high-ranking Players—lifted their eyes toward the sky.

Far above, a streak of light tore across the heavens at an insane velocity.

It looked like a shooting star.

It passed over the mountain range without slowing, holding allies and enemies alike in stunned silence—humans, monsters, Players, natives.

Then, just as it seemed about to vanish toward the northeast—

It stopped.

Instantly.

From incomprehensible speed to absolute zero. The shockwave from the deceleration alone scattered clouds for miles in every direction.

Now stationary, Aisling, Kevin, Vincent, and the other sharp-eyed observers finally got a clear look at the mysterious streak that had arrived at the perfect moment.

When the Myrtharian Nerds present recognized it, they reflexively rubbed their eyes to make sure they weren’t hallucinating.

They looked again. Their jaws dropped.

The luminous streak was none other than Jake.

The only reason he had braked so abruptly was because two notifications had just popped up on his bracelet. When he realized both were good news, a radiant grin split across his face.

"Ah! The kids have grown up. Just when I needed it, Timmy found a fragment of the Chalice of Lumyst. His Ordeal Rating should be excellent this time. Maybe I should start trusting my luck a bit more from now on..."

The second piece of good news was Melkree’s distress signal, informing him that Anthace’s true body had manifested.

As he prepared to depart toward his new destination, Jake suddenly noticed the critical situation unfolding beneath him.

He recognized quite a few familiar faces.

"Hmm. Maybe I should say hi."

He gave them a casual wave and a broad smile.

Then he turned—and vanished the way he had arrived, in a flash so fast it could only be perceived as a streak of superheated air ripping through the sky.

For a split second, nothing seemed different.

Then every monster turned to dust.

The tadpole abomination disintegrated midair. The colossal arachnid was annihilated down to the last particle without even having time to scream.

The survivors exchanged stunned looks. The two sisters in particular were too shaken to even process their survival.

All right.

It was Jake. Their undisputed leader.

And even after four years of absence, he was still untouchable.

Anyone who still doubted his ability to eliminate the traitor Pyrrakles—who had attempted to dethrone him and build his own empire in his absence—was convinced now.

The days of the traitorous Myrmidian, self-proclaimed Imperator of the new Myrmid Empire, were numbered.

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