The Oracle Paths

Chapter 1193  You Really Scared Me

'Then, the second option it is,' the Moon Spirit yawned nonchalantly. 'Though I'm no daughter of any moon. I am the moon itself.'

'Yeah, sure. Amaris it is,' Jake confirmed, mentally ticking off one more thing from his to-do list.

Calling her "Moon" made him cringe every time—not to mention, how would he tell them apart if he met others? Unlikely, but after everything he'd been through these past years, nothing seemed impossible anymore.

The two World Spirits then left him alone to settle into their new temporary digs. Ray spontaneously shifted back into a glowing plasma orb and floated up to the top of the dome to indulge in one of his signature unproductive naps. Amaris, on the other hand, simply remained motionless in her golem form—the dome made any orbiting impossible.

Jake resumed his descent through the deadly atmosphere, gritting his teeth. The return trip felt just as interminable as the ascent, but Xi gave him a morale boost by informing him that his injuries were less severe and he'd beaten his previous ascent time by over ten seconds. His increased resilience played a part, but it was mostly thanks to his Lumyst Cores soaking up more of the destructive Lumyst tearing through his body.

"At least reaching Saint stage wasn't for nothing," he consoled himself, forcefully piercing the membrane still isolating Twyluxia before slipping through the breach without slowing down.

Looking up, he was relieved to see it regenerating after his passage, but he had a hunch it was taking longer this time. As for its fragility, he preferred to chalk it up to the fact that he'd grown stronger over the past few hours.

Jake scanned his surroundings to figure out where he was, and after locating one of the Lumyst River's tributaries, he followed it upstream without hesitation, heading toward the Underworld Cascade. This was the final step in his nighttime prep.

The first thing he noticed upon returning to the continent was that his body and soul were once again under the yoke of Twyluxia's anti-Aether laws. Most of his powers—except for his Lumyst cultivation—had been sealed again.

Yet, he noted a significant difference: the world's suppression over him had lessened—a side benefit of his cultivation breakthroughs.

It wasn't a game-changer. Instead of accessing 5 or 10% of his total power, he now had at least double that. He wouldn't know the exact amount until he was in the thick of battle.

Being stronger and having higher cultivation meant his affinity for Lumyst had significantly increased, so he could risk more ambitious Lumyst baptisms.

It was obvious Jake wasn't the only one with this idea, given the large number of Players he passed bathing in the river as he made his way upstream. He also encountered Players from the opposing camp, but as long as they behaved, he decided to let them be. They'd need all the firepower they could muster to face the Blade Spirit once this war was over.

All in all, he had zero intention of interacting with anyone, even familiar faces. For his grand plan for the next day to go off without a hitch, all his actions tonight had to stay strictly under wraps.

Jake had already visited Lustris with great fanfare, but this was the first time he'd ventured this far upstream into the Duskwight Lands. He was tempted to go all the way to Dusken, the capital, to rally the Abyssal Revenants to his cause in person, but thanks to his Snitch Ring tracking his movements, Ledger probably already knew all about his plans.

He'd thought about destroying it, but Claire had assured him that Ledger was absolutely impartial. All that mattered to him was recording everyone's contributions and dishing out rewards accordingly to wrap up this war ASAP.

Case in point: he'd known the true identity of the Soulmancer King for a long time but had kept it under wraps. Since she'd officially passed her title to Jake, the Abyssal Revenant's loyalty was his—unless something went horribly wrong.

Ledger had already started assigning missions to each corps in preparation for tomorrow's battle to throw everyone off the scent. Logically, the other two Abyssal Revenants—Bones and Chillmire—had probably already received their orders.

On the flip side, he'd destroyed the Black Skull Badge that some unknown Soulmancer had handed out shortly after their arrival in this world. Whether it was an agent from the Lustra Plains, a follower of the Blade Spirit, or a Soulmancer serving his own interests or someone else's didn't matter. From the moment he'd decided to roll with his plan, he'd trashed the badge without a second thought.

When Jake reached the part in the river where he'd undergone his last Spirit Lumyst baptism, he teleported unnoticed to the riverbed. Once submerged, he shot forward like a silent torpedo toward even purer waters.

If last time his limit was 14 enchantments, it turned out—as he'd expected—that wasn't the case anymore. The loosening of Twyluxia's restrictions on him and his cultivation advances had significantly upped his tolerance for Lumyst water.

Fifteenth baptism... Sixteenth baptism... It wasn't until the twentieth baptism that he felt an acute sense of danger again. He promptly unleashed his Fate Slayer Aura and started circulating his Lumyst at full throttle to counter the threat, and the suffocating sense of peril eased its grip on him.

Twentieth baptism complete!

From here on out, Jake approached each baptism like it was a life-or-death battle, and his pace upstream slowed to a crawl.

Twenty-first baptism? Jake pulled out all the stops, including his luck and blood essence, to nail it with style. His Fate Slayer Aura flared up with a force comparable to his last showdown with the Moon Spirit, making him realize just how deep in danger he was. Even a deathmatch against a living moon barely held a candle to these waters.

When he bobbed back to the surface, belly-up like a dead fish, it took a long while for his body and soul to recover from the trauma.

"Just one more!" Jake rallied himself with a defiant shout once he could form words. The stream of bubbles escaping his mouth killed most of the epic vibe he'd been building up.

[It's great to be ambitious, but if you want to live to see tomorrow, you need to know when to quit,] Xi chided wisely. He could easily picture her disapproving frown.

"If I had all the time in the world, that's what I'd do," he shot back determinedly. "But to beat an enemy considered invincible, you have to do things that prudence and common sense would balk at."

Even though the end of the Ordeal was near, Jake hadn't forgotten that he still hadn't received a third Side Mission explicitly ordering him to defeat the Blade Spirit or purge Klayr's corpse of its influence. His second mission was only to unite Twyluxia under his dominion. Twyluxia being, as he now knew, not a territory but the name of a World Spirit, he realized this task could be interpreted in many ways.

[Have it your way...] Xi sighed, then went quiet again, keeping her worries to herself.

Knowing he had her support no matter what, Jake's expression hardened with resolve. Fifteen minutes later, he "survived" his twenty-second baptism.

To pull off this miracle, he'd danced with death in every sense. Luck hadn't been on his side this time, and he owed his survival solely to his massive biomass reserves and the incredible regenerative abilities granted by his Energy Body. Three of the twelve total instant regenerations his biomass allowed had been used up.

In other words, if he hadn't had all those spare cells brimming with vitality, he'd have burned through a terrifying amount of blood essence. Even if he'd miraculously survived, his strength would've been knocked down to that of a nobody in this Ordeal.

The real issue was his soul and Spirit Body, for which he couldn't provide ready-to-use spare cells. Spells, meds, tech, and bloodlines capable of restoring those were insanely rare, and their effectiveness was often limited and mediocre at best, requiring time he didn't have.

With his Energy Body on lockdown, he owed his resurrection this time solely to his Spirit Lumyst Cores. Only by brushing death way too closely did he remember that it was the Lumyst's ability to convert interchangeably into its source attributes that made this energy so incredible. Klayr was an even more brilliant genius than he'd given him credit for.

"Any closer, and I'd be a vegetable," Jake croaked hoarsely, eyes glazed over. He'd just remembered his own name.

[You really scared me this time. Any other bloodline wouldn't have been able to restore such a wrecked soul. Rebuilding a computer identically doesn't mean you save the data stored inside. You're playing with fire.]

She was right. The Spirit Lumyst had provided the spiritual energy needed for his healing, but it was his unique soul and bloodline that truly saved his ass. At the critical moment, he'd felt his adaptability power unleash like never before to yank him back from oblivion. He'd already blacked out by then, so he couldn't really say what had happened.

However, during this near-death experience, he'd vaguely sensed a mysterious power surging from the deepest parts of his being to retrieve directly from the abysses of the Aetherdream the information of his soul, which was on the brink of disintegration. His Soul Class might have also played a mysterious role in saving his soul.

"Anyway, I survived," Jake cleared his throat. "The hardest part is done. The Life Lumyst baptism will be a walk in the park compared to this."

Not giving Xi another chance to lecture him, he decisively swam back downstream, heading toward the Heaven Cascade. The night was still young...