The Oracle Paths

A few minutes later, when Jake finally left Cho Min Ho's hideout, his face still bore a strange expression. What the Korean idol had just told him threw a wrench in his plans, enough to require some serious adjustments.

"Damn… An Oracle Hacker… Who would've thought?" Jake muttered, his voice heavy with fatigue as he leaped into the air, fading into the night sky.

[Objectively, I had considered this possibility when reviewing the Mirror World Archives, but I dismissed it because it was statistically insignificant.] Xi suddenly confessed, her tone carrying a hint of guilt.

Jake nearly stopped mid-flight, stunned.

"What?! You knew?"

[Don't jump to conclusions. Let me explain.] Xi quickly defended herself. [If I didn't bring it up, it wasn't because I wanted to withhold information. Remember, I had already sent you data on the Oracle Hackers a long time ago. Otherwise, you wouldn't have known right away what it was. So, in that sense, you're as guilty as I am.]

"Fair point," Jake reluctantly agreed. He had, in fact, known about Oracle Hackers for a while. Most likely since his second Ordeal. He just didn't know the details because it didn't concern him, and his rank was too low to care. "Go on."

[The reason I didn't reconsider this possibility later on is because the chances of encountering Oracle Hackers are still extremely low. Even though our Oracle System is currently disrupted by this enemy and I no longer have access to the Archives, I had already downloaded all sorts of data about them in advance. At least, the ones you're allowed to access. And guess what? Practically nothing. There's almost no info on the extent of their abilities, other than the fact that they pose a serious threat to the Oracle System and must be neutralized at all costs. Even for the Oracle, it seems to be a pretty taboo subject. But it's not like there's no information at all.

[From what little I could dig up, the appearance of an Oracle Hacker in an Ordeal is so rare that there's less than one per billion Ordeals. The probability increases in higher Ordeals, but in a Fifth Ordeal, it's practically unheard of. How could I have guessed that one would show up in one of the two participating Mirror Universes, a corrupt one to boot and that the other Mirror Universe would match this threat with another corrupted Oracle Hacker? What's even more absurd is that ours succumbed to Corruption just days after the Ordeal began, prompting Lucia and the other corrupted Players from our side to eliminate him out of frustration, effectively giving the enemy Oracle Hacker free rein.]

Looking at it that way… Jake had no choice but to admit that Xi couldn't have rationally predicted such a situation. The hypothesis that the Digestors messing around in their Mirror Universe had damaged the Aether Network or caused issues for Aas made much more sense.

"Well, what's done is done," Jake finally dismissed his dark thoughts, accelerating again as his flight path curved straight towards the upper atmosphere.

In a way, it was almost good news. The fact that an Oracle Hacker was responsible was far better than his initial scenario. At least, neither Aas, the Oracle System, nor the Aether Network had any real issues within the framework of their Ordeal.

The real bad news was that the remaining Oracle Hacker was on the enemy side and powerful enough to survive an ambush by Lucia, Ulfar, Hade, and the others, even severely injuring them.

Cho Min Ho hadn't held back on the details. He had been completely transparent about Lucia's condition. Sure, the info came from Natan, so it was to be taken with a grain of salt, but Jake preferred to prepare for the worst…

[But at least we now know why Ulfar wanted you to meet up with them.] Xi shifted the subject with concern. [Without you, they probably wouldn't stand a chance against this guy, and more than Lucia's physical injuries, her mental state after all these consecutive failures is the real worry.]

"Right… Another reason to finish up here as quickly as possible." Jake's expression darkened significantly as his speed increased sharply.

In a blink, his upward trajectory shifted from a curve to a strict vertical climb, his silhouette blurring as he accelerated, creating multiple afterimages, almost as if he were teleporting. A few seconds later, his body and mind were finally struck by the resistance of the atmosphere, and he understood why no one had tried to escape Twyluxia by air.

Focusing all his Aether and Lumyst on his defense and spatial control, Jake braced himself, his muscles tensing, ready to endure the impact, and then pushed forward. As he pushed his limits, he thought back to what Claire had told him and the next step in his plan:

'Day or night, you can see the sun and the moon shining in the sky, but it's just an illusion created by the membrane surrounding the continent of Twyluxia that I crafted back in the day. Although weakened over time, the Lumyst formations I set up still function; otherwise, sunlight would have stopped reaching the continent long ago. Normally, the Sun and Moon Spirits orbit around my creator's corpse, forming a complete and functional day/night cycle conducive to life. At the same time, they reluctantly cooperate with Twyluxia, the World Spirit, to help contain the Blade Spirit threat.

'The catch is that these three Spirits are more rivals than allies. They're bound to each other by the gravity exerted by Klayr's corpse, but they each have their own domain of influence. To be completely honest, even if the Blade Spirit won and eventually devoured Twyluxia's consciousness, it wouldn't change much for those two. Unless the enemy becomes capable of extending its influence into space, up to them, they'll never take any initiative to cooperate. In the end, these Sun and Moon Spirits aren't beings of flesh and blood like you. Their intelligence and minds don't work like ours, nor do their sense of danger and the passage of time. The day they decide to act, it will probably be too late. That's why…'

"We're going to have to force their hand." Jake repeated, gritting his teeth as he finally broke through the membrane and its formations, tearing a hole in the atmosphere visible from the ground.

Luckily, because it was night, few living beings noticed, and less than a second later, the membrane restored itself, leaving any potential witnesses doubting if anything had really happened.

Freed from this resistance, Jake finally began to slow down, taking the time to recover from his injuries.

"That was close…" He winced, then snapped his mouth shut in surprise as no sound came out. 'Right, I'm in space.'

That ascent had put his body through more than he initially predicted. The Soulmancer King had warned him it would be dangerous, but he hadn't realized just how much.

Inspecting the state of his body once he was out of danger, Jake was horrified to discover that his skin was covered in deep lacerations that weren't healing, while most of his muscles, bones, and organs suffered from various levels of damage. "Various" in his case meant a skeleton reduced to powder or a heart turned to pulp. If it were any other Player than him, such a critical condition would have been a death sentence, the disintegration of their body and soul the only outcome.

'Besides me, I wonder how many other Players in this Ordeal could've made it this far.' Jake pondered grimly, shivering, though it had nothing to do with the cold of space surrounding him.

[No matter, now that the hardest part is over, we just need to do what we came here for.] Xi reminded him gently. [Time is ticking…]

Jake immediately forgot about his non-healing injuries and finally became aware of his surroundings, his consciousness expanding limitlessly with a pulse of his Oracle Scan. Not from his bracelet, but from his own spiritual energy, amplified through his Artifact Incarnation Skill.

At that moment, he finally saw the entirety of Klayr's corpse and grasped the full scale of its immensity. Of course, it also gave him the chance to see just how desperate the situation was…

'Are all these Ancient Designer-level beings this colossal…?'

[Another mystery to solve, one we'll only uncover by becoming stronger.] Xi responded with the same awe, though her emotional fluctuations sounded strangely off compared to her words.

Apart from the area covered by the membrane, encircling a zone that included part of the skull and extending down to the heart of the deceased Klayr, the rest of the body was blackened, as if it had been dipped in a sea of ink. The Corrupted Players directly facing it knew just how screwed they were, but from space, it was even worse…

'Let's hurry and convince the Sun and Moon Spirits…' Jake said solemnly before soaring off in another direction, his open wounds leaving a trail of unstoppable blood in his wake.