The Oracle Paths

Chapter 1234: No Hesitation

At that exact moment, Jake had more than a few legitimate concerns weighing on him—but one demanded immediate attention.

If anyone who interacted with Anthace—or even carried one of its extensions for long enough—ended up falling under its control without realizing it... then how long would it take for an Evolver like him?

Was his mental fortitude and raw power enough to make him immune? And if not, how long before the elite tier of Players—the very top bracket he belonged to—started dropping like puppets with their strings yanked from underground?

If the takeover was fast-acting, then yeah... he had a serious problem.

Jake owned more than a few items crafted from Anthace’s wood and leaves. He even had two Goblets of Ethershine—one enchanted to +25, the other to +27. They sat inside his Space Storage, a place that was supposed to be isolated from external influence.

Supposed to be.

That still required verification.

He turned inward.

Diving into himself, Jake swept through his body and mind with the most powerful Oracle Scan he could currently deploy via Artefact Incarnation. With that ability active, he wasn’t just using a device—he became one. A living Oracle construct. Nearly all of his energy could be funneled into a single act of perception.

An Oracle Scan wasn’t all that different from using mental sense. The energy it relied on, once converted, bore striking similarities to Spirit Power. Even under normal conditions, the results were outrageous—capable of scanning billions of kilometers in every direction.

But Jake wanted to push it further.

Curious, he added his Spirit Lumyst to the equation—Saint-grade in quality, yet absurdly abundant in quantity—then waited, almost eager.

He felt the difference instantly.

The precision sharpened. The intensity deepened. The resolution jumped several tiers in a heartbeat.

The spiritual impulse of the scan burst outward—no, not outward. It bloomed—as if every cell in his body detonated into a silent, invisible supernova. Except the explosion was flawlessly contained, compressed within the boundaries of his own flesh.

The Celestial stood only a few meters away, watching him carefully.

He noticed nothing.

Normally, a Player could use their bracelet to detect an Oracle Scan if they had sufficient authority. This time, the signal was so refined—so qualitatively distinct from standard Oracle output—that no ordinary Oracle Device could have picked it up.

In Jake’s estimation, you’d need to reinforce one with thousands of tons of liquid alloy before its hardware even began approaching the required threshold.

Unlike when he used his bracelet, this kind of Oracle Scan didn’t present data to be read.

It was felt.

And Jake understood, with absolute clarity, the condition of his body and spirit.

The good news?

Anthace could not control him.

Not even close.

For natives whose growth relied entirely on Lumyst, that might’ve been inconceivable. But Jake wasn’t built on a single pillar. His foundation was layered, reinforced, diversified.

The four Aspects—Aether, Body, Spirit, and Bloodline—fed into one another, amplifying his progression curve past critical thresholds. His new Lumyst-based cultivation system didn’t replace them; it elevated them. It provided a high-grade energy source with tangible physical and psychic properties.

In a way, enchantment itself functioned as a fifth Aspect. In theory, there was no limit to how many enchantments a being could undergo.

Even someone like Ceythie—a Great General who cultivated Spirit Lumyst at a high level—had been incapable of resisting his charm in the slightest. And while the Celestial could momentarily match Jake’s aura, that was only because of the monstrous accumulation of Lumyst in his cores, combined with an improbably high enchantment awakening of both body and spirit.

Brute stockpiling.

Not structural superiority.

The bad news, however...

Jake could definitely feel Anthace’s presence woven through his cells and Spirit Body.

It clung there like the residue of a sunken oil tanker—seeping silently through clear water, polluting everything by mere proximity. Subtle. Likely harmless in his case, especially now that he was aware of it and could scrub it clean.

But it carried an unpleasant implication.

Anthace had probably been tracking him ever since he acquired the +25 Goblet of Ethershine from Lady Faye.

He’d believed he’d completely dominated that exchange—and he had, if you only considered the ambitious seductress involved.

He just hadn’t factored in the tree watching from the shadows.

”Well played, Anthace. Not bad for a tree,” Jake muttered under his breath.

Good thing he’d abandoned complicated strategies. Turns out subtlety was overrated when the battlefield itself was wired for surveillance.

He shifted his gaze back to the Celestial, expression hardening.

”How long can you still resist?” he asked evenly. ”Your resistance might just be a story the tree planted in your head.”

”Possible.” Valandar shrugged, the gesture heavy with fatalistic indifference. ”My efforts may be meaningless. But what’s the point of living if I don’t at least hold onto the will to defy?”

Jake smiled faintly.

The old warrior had earned his respect.

”Fair enough. So how long before it takes you over completely?”

That was when the leader of the Radiant Conclave offered a sad, defeated smile.

”Not long. A few minutes at most. When this barrier drops, my consciousness will be seized by force. When that happens... don’t hesitate. If I attack you and you kill me in self-defense, so be it. If you can, spare what remains of my people.”

Jake didn’t answer immediately.

That had been his original intention as well—conquer cleanly, ethically, decisively.

That was before learning the tree had effectively lobotomized most of the continent’s living beings.

He hadn’t abandoned his vision of a disciplined, principled conquest.

But it seemed that reality had other plans.

”I’ll try,” he said at last, voice low.

It was the only promise he could make.

”That’s enough.” Valandar nodded, relieved—but not naïve. ”Then listen carefully. I’ll tell you what you want to know while we still can.”

In the remaining minutes of their private exchange, Jake learned another way to restore the Chalice of Lumyst.

If the original fragments were no longer available, they could be replaced with something equivalent. And only one entity met that condition.

Anthace.

The problem?

The properties of those fragments—along with their near-limitless Life Lumyst—had been distributed evenly throughout the tree’s entire body, fundamentally altering its nature. In a sense, the whole tree had become a proto-chalice.

But no individual part—branch, sap, leaf—possessed the intrinsic quality required to reforge the Chalice as it once was.

Hence the existence of the variable-quality Goblets of Ethershine.

The only part of Anthace that might satisfy the material requirements was a very specific region at the core of its trunk—where its own Life Lumyst Core resided.

Unfortunately, that didn’t solve everything.

The fragments’ properties were dispersed across its colossal body. Every cell had inherited a fraction of that energy.

If Jake used only the heart of the trunk as forging material... The resulting Chalice would inevitably be inferior.

That was why Valandar proposed another solution.

One Jake liked a whole lot more.

Kill Anthace.

Or rather... force it into a corner so extreme that, by pure survival instinct, it would condense its entire vitality into a single seed—one last desperate attempt to preserve itself and maybe sprout again in some distant, more favorable era.

An ordinary plant couldn’t pull that off.

But the Titan Tree? With its mastery of Lumyst rivaling Claire’s own?

Yeah. It absolutely could.

It wouldn’t be easy. Not even close. But Jake didn’t exactly have the luxury of alternatives.

As their conversation drew to a close, the Celestial began to tremble. Subtle at first. Then worse. Spasms rippled through him, each one harder to suppress than the last.

He hurried to relay the final pieces of crucial information. And the instant the barrier isolating them from prying senses finally collapsed—

Anthace made its move.

Across the continent, it unleashed its army.

Billions of resurrected Saints and Radiant Lords erupted from the earth—former heroes, forgotten legends, even past Celestials whose auras burned brighter than Valandar’s own.

Everything they had discussed was confirmed in the most brutal way possible.

Lustris didn’t just fall. Twyluxia itself plunged into a level of chaos and panic that made the earlier collapse look tame.

*****

Back in the present, the faltering words of the Celestial took on a different tone.

A requiem.

”Ah... Anthace... How long have you been plotting this betrayal?”

Valandar forced the look of wounded disbelief. Even if it was theater, it bought him a few extra seconds before he drowned.

His gaze swept across the Saints blooming from the buds.

Pure performance, Jake thought, face blank.

”All these Saints...These millions of warriors...No—these billions of Light Warriors.Brave, loyal, courageous...I don’t recognize all of them, but I recognize many. Many across the thousands of years I’ve lived.”

The Celestial inhaled deeply, drawing in the continent through the wind itself.

He’s really farming aura until the bitter end, Jake sneered internally.

”Judging by the number of Saints our land has produced over the last few centuries...and the number of auras I feel here—auras on par with the current Conclave, or even stronger—I can already estimate how long you’ve been preparing all of this.

His voice sharpened.

”Tens of thousands of years... at the very least.”

Then his expression hardened.

You’re about to turn into a puppet I’ll have to beat senseless. Why bother posturing? Jake winced.

”And some of these auras... match my own. Others... exceed it. The Celestials who came before me. You even got your hands on their remains...”

His eyes narrowed.

Oscar-worthy performance. That’s all this is. Jake applauded silently.

”...even though they should have remained buried beneath the temple,in the crypt designed specifically to be inaccessible to your roots.”

In response, the entire forest of roots rippled.

A psychic pulse exploded outward—sharp enough to make even the Oracle Knights flinch. A mental broadcast. Too complex for most to decipher.

Anthace had answered.

Jake couldn’t hear the exact exchange, but he didn’t need to.

The intent was obvious.

Contempt.

Mockery.

A suffocating, bottomless condescension. The kind a timeless being reserves for a screaming toddler who barely understands the sandbox he’s throwing dirt in.

The tree wasn’t fooled by Valandar’s flimsy bluff.

Finally, Jake broke the silence.

Out of respect—and maybe a little pity—for the old warrior, he played along.

”Huh... I thought I’d prepared for the worst. Even for scenarios so screwed-up you couldn’t imagine them. But this? Yeah, no. I didn’t see this coming.

”Doesn’t matter. An enemy is still an enemy. And victory comes once every enemy is dead or wiped out.

”The situation changes. The objective doesn’t. Step up, then. I’ll slaughter you all the same.”

At that moment, Jake felt it.

Not just eyes.

Mental senses.

Dozens. Hundreds. Thousands.

Desperate natives. Enemy Players. Rivals hiding behind alliance banners. Allies buried inside enemy ranks.

And finally—

The vast, vile consciousness of a certain tree.

For the first time, Anthace addressed him directly. The Titan Tree, conductor of the Lustra Plains, orchestrating every living being like instruments in its dark symphony—

Its voice crashed into Jake’s mind like a tidal wave.

’YOUUU... WIIILLL... FAIIIIIIL!!!’

It was a disgusting sound. Like ancient bark fibers grinding against each other. Wood splintering under pressure. And beneath it all, something feral. Alien.

Jake suddenly understood just how deep the brainwashing of the Lustra Plains ran.

A voice that warped and grotesque should have exposed its intentions centuries ago.

”Go fuck yourself,” Jake replied flatly, flipping off the massive tree looming over the capital. ”And book a speech therapist while you’re at it.”

Shadrex. Weiss, Kaelum. The other Players and natives who witnessed the gesture didn’t all grasp the cultural nuance.

But everyone understood the intent.

Insult.

Provocation.

Seconds later, a spiritual shockwave detonated from the tree’s core, sweeping across Twyluxia at absurd speed.

Valandar’s gray eyes—clear and hopeful just moments earlier—dimmed.

His consciousness vanished.

The Celestial was gone.

What remained turned its inhuman, emotionless gaze on Jake. Then, like someone yanking a puppet string, Valandar lunged—striking with a single palm wrapped in blinding radiance.

Jake deflected the blow with a precise edge strike of his right hand.

And then,

Ignoring the empathy he’d felt. Ignoring the promise he’d made. He retaliated.

No restraint. No hesitation.

He drove his fist forward—

Straight into Valandar’s face.