The Oracle Paths

When the group of five surfaced at a slightly off-center location in the Celestial City, they were immediately exposed to a shocking degree of temperature and radiation. Jake had planned to teleport directly into the Divine Academy, but the protective energy shield erected around it had shifted them a little further away. Still, it was better than killing themselves by popping back up into some indestructible wall.

BOOOOM!

Another blast, but this time at close range, ravaged the unyielding city, and Jake and Ruby combined their telekinesis to erect an unbreachable force field around them. The invisible shield's surface immediately warped and the five Myrtharian Nerds reflexively activated their Oracle Shields.

Jake scanned the environment around him, intuitively detecting the building that was supposed to be his and teleported with his companions to its entrance. Like thousands of Players before them, he tried to force his way through the front door to get inside and shelter from the explosions, but it remained hopelessly locked.

Haynt's bracelet being the most basic, his Oracle Shield overheated a mere half second later and the blast from the next explosion vaporized half his body mass. Fortunately, he was invulnerable to the heat and radiation and used it to regenerate his body during the interval before the next blast.

"What do we do now?" Haynt asked darkly, his astral body flickering dimly.

Astral beings were a strange balance of stellar being, spirit, and physical body, with the advantages and disadvantages of all three and able to switch between different phases if necessary. Alas, these explosions of antimatter were dangerous to all three states.

Jake frowned, scanning the entire Celestial City with his Oracle Scan, and became solemn as he realized that the number of survivors could be counted on the fingers of one hand. In addition to their group, he counted a huge robot that must have been Vhoskaud, a drop-shaped alien hidden under a barrier that even his Oracle Scan couldn't penetrate, a human in armor that didn't appear to be a Player, an elderly Drur, plus two Players fighting on the outskirts of the city.

Seeing a myriad of multicolored Cubes light up the blackened sky in the distance like a blazing fireworks display, Jake realized that one of the two fighters was undoubtedly Vexa. The Player he was facing was the one who was at the origin of all these explosions, obviously immune to them.

Because of the sheer power of these detonations, the black clouds were pushed back by the antimatter explosions every time they threatened to overwhelm them and Vexa and his opponent had been able to continue to fight like this outside the city for all this time without worrying about anything.

The Celestial City had long been surrounded by the black clouds everywhere else, but an invisible dome-like barrier appeared to stop the stormy mass at the city's edge. The blasts from the antimatter explosions and the fallout from their clashes did not filter through, however, and this had caused a bloodbath among the survivors who had managed to reach the city alive.

Within seconds of Jake and his four companions' arrival, dozens, hundreds of Players and natives teleported into Celestial City. Their arrival was immediately greeted by a new blast.

More than half of them died instantly. Jake was indifferent to their fate, but his face clouded over when he saw Ael, Felphi, Deimos, Khag' Dagmai, Dhamde and Ashun among them. When he recognized Wyatt, Carmin, Elduin, Bhammod, and a few elite Pureblood members, the young Vampire Progenitor spotted him as well, and the blond man teleported his group over to them with an Oracle Teleport array.

As they regrouped, the two factions immediately merged their Oracle Shields, but Jake and Gerulf did not activate theirs, choosing to take the blasts directly with their bodies. With these indestructible buildings serving as a natural barrier, they could withstand the temperatures and shockwaves with ease.

While the two men manipulated heat and radiation to absorb or redirect it, Ruby and Rogen also went to work, quickly freezing the air to barricade their two factions under an increasingly cold ice fortress. Every so often, a new blast would vaporize the surface of the fortress, cracking the ice and threatening the integrity of its structure, but Jake, who now had control over both the hot and cold, had no trouble stabilizing it.

With the situation inside the ice fortress becoming more manageable, Jake teleported inside to get Asfrid and the other Eltarians out of his Portable Fortress, who then assisted by setting up a powerful force field inside the structure.

Tim and Haynt also helped while Enya tended to the injured with her white flames. Although she chose a more offensive Soul Class than her sister, her Light Element also had a holy nature that predisposed her to healing spells.

The other Myrtharian Nerds, especially the oversized Aristocats, remained inside Jake's Portable Fortress waiting for the situation outside to improve.

Psykow squinted its thirteen eyes as it calmly monitored their actions, blatantly showing its displeasure as it realized that their defenses were getting stronger. After a few dozen seconds, it became clear that the antimatter explosions would not be enough to deal with them.

The SS-adventurer Galadin, the 3-meter-tall armored warrior, ignored his wounds and made a dash for the ice fortress, begging Jake and Gerulf outside to let him in. With his level 103, the native emanated a powerful aura as concentrated as ten nuclear bombs. The only entity superior to this native that Jake had encountered on Quanoth was Shenron, the dragon who had taken Will under his wing.

Thanks to Digitalization, his high-tier Soul Class, and his high attributes, the half-giant had withstood those hundreds, thousands of blasts without faltering, but he was close to his limit. Upon scanning him, Jake discovered that he had a "Weakened State" status, with a 90% malus to his stats, including his HP regen. He had also long since exhausted his Mana, his Mana Regen no longer being sufficient to defend himself properly.

The reason was that he had been virtually annihilated multiple times and his Spirit Body had ended up being damaged despite his impressive level 103. The native's mind and body were one and the same and in addition to suffering a stats malus, his effective level was currently below 70. If it continued like this he would perish after a few more explosions.

Jake deliberated for a while, sizing up Galadin from head to toe, but then, considering that the drop-shaped alien and Vexa's opponent were surely part of Anti-Life, he decided to accept him. The warrior was very grateful when, after shaking hands with his savior, the scenery changed to the interior of the ice fortress. He had been teleported inside.

The veteran Drur, a cold, muscular, purple-skinned alien a dozen meters tall whose armor suit had long since melted, swallowed his pride as he found that Galadin had been accepted into this group. With no armor, no shield and his batteries flat, he was also very close to his limits.

As the most illustrious warrior of his race, he knew all of his potential rivals and had a very clear idea of the adventurer's character. Although he was carefree and indomitable, he was not a bad guy and he could at least trust his instincts.

Remembering that he was the only Drur still alive on this planet, the old soldier quivered with rage, biting his lip until it bled. He glared at Vhoskaud, who had exterminated them long before Neri's intervention, and then, choking back his pride, he ran to Jake to ask for asylum.

"I am Spak, the guardian god of the Shatug Empire and a friend of Galadin." The giant alien nervously introduced himself, buck naked. "He can vouch for me..."

The alien had the body and deep voice of an abnormally muscular male, but nothing hanging between his legs, making Jake doubt his gender. Seeing his strange expression, the Drur understood what was going on and explained,

"Drurs are asexual. We reproduce by cloning and gene manipulation. We mix the genome of one or more partners in a test tube and then use a chromosomal harmonizer to then create a-"

Jake teleported him inside the fortress before he could hear the end of his sentence.

'Geez... Did he really think this was the time to give me a Drur sex ed lesson?'

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