The Oracle Paths Chapter 1236: The War Beneath the World

Deep below the surface of Dusken, the heart of the Duskwight Lands, over five hundred humans with bronze skin gathered in a tense, unyielding formation. Their physiques were ridiculously bulky, with layers of muscle stacked upon muscle, and their hair and brows gleamed in a vivid silver that instantly identified their lineage. Glowing veins of liquid light throbbed under their flesh, perpetually vaporizing the blood nearby.

Usually that of their foes. Occasionally their own.

Looming above them all was an even more gigantic form. Standing almost six meters high, Gerulf resembled a immovable peak rooted in the depths, single-handedly repelling over ninety percent of the relentless onslaught.

Gripped in his grasp was an enormous blazing greatsword, stretching longer than his full height, its edge glowing white-orange as it sliced through horrors. Even the steel-like tusks protruding from his mouth—more primitive and ferocious than those of any local Duskwight—were coated in dark ichor.

Gerulf could no longer afford to restrain himself.

Jake's directive had been straightforward: the Kintharians must block the emerging spawn from the depths throughout the Duskwight Lands, prioritizing the capital above all. Should Dusken crumble, their Ordeal goals would descend into chaotic disarray.

Initially, the Kintharians managed the task with mocking simplicity. Their immense power and incredible ability to navigate underground spans allowed them to patrol almost half the landmass. Gerulf, positioned under the city, had sufficed to protect its foundations alone.

Things shifted. Swiftly.

The volume of abominations seeking to breach Twyluxia’s already damaged barrier started surging at an outright exponential pace. To compound matters, the typical power of each creature was rising just as dramatically.

And as though that weren't sufficient, the roots of Anthace—extending across the continent's subsurface and long ago pinpointed by the Kintharians—abruptly acted like a global transport grid. The beasts were channeled directly upward, evading all barriers. At the outset, it went undetected.

Kintharians tended toward laziness by instinct—but they ranked among the boldest and most reliable fighters across the universe. Their might and development capabilities were unquestionable, and in the depths, concealing secrets from them proved nearly impossible for extended periods.

A scout from their ranks exposed Anthace’s scheme. The news propagated immediately. What ensued was a ferocious backlash against those seemingly innocuous roots.

To ordinary Players, the colossal roots of a Titan Tree were invincible—an unchanging feature of the landscape, not an objective.

To these extraterrestrials? Mere organic material primed for incineration.

Over five hundred Kintharians, veterans of five Ordeals, could swiftly convert Twyluxia’s underground layers into a high-pressure sea of molten rock. Lava scorching to tens of thousands of degrees by this planet's measure—intense enough to char even Anthace’s roots if the tree grew careless.

At that instant, the Titan Tree’s awareness centered mostly on Lustris and the main conflict zone. The actions of Kintharians and underground spawn near its roots felt no more significant than burrowing rodents or worms. It ignored them.

Until searing pain tore through half its buried root system.

Once Anthace pinpointed the offenders, its rage exploded. Countless buds meant for the surface burst open below ground, bolstering the fiends in the depths.

The straightforward task Jake assigned morphed in a flash into a vicious, intimate fight for existence.

Kintharians possessed ridiculous power—even against the top-tier Players in this Ordeal—but this retaliation proved overwhelming for them. Only Gerulf stood a genuine chance versus a Saint or Celestial. And their adversaries included endless hordes of each.

Asfrid, monitoring multiple battle lines from a distance while observing Jake’s dominant performance at the core arena, promptly broadcast the rally command.

Through clever setup of a Space Links grid via a faction ability, they warped and assembled under Dusken in seconds. None had perished.

Yet safety remained distant.

"Initiate Vitality Link. And United We Stand." Asfrid’s order arrived at Gerulf without delay.

Vitality Link enabled wounds to shift to a willing recipient. The Kintharian chief offered himself right away. He could connect directly to just three simultaneously, but others formed extra chains via the faction skill, building a multi-tiered system.

Drawing on their battle expertise, they had perfected the use of these connections—interweaving their vital energies into a dynamic mesh that could reallocate deadly injuries or speed up healing in moments.

United We Stand, on the other hand, drained one million Aether Points each minute from whoever triggered it. At level twelve, it enhanced every faction member’s attributes by 1.2% in a 1200-meter area.

Five hundred Kintharians clustered together. Their total fighting capacity surged six times over.

Insufficient for one to defeat a Celestial alone. But as a unit, they could endure.

Temporarily.

Their extraordinary endurance had boundaries. Building harm would ultimately empty the reserves.

As Gerulf saw rivers of lava-resembling blood pour from his comrades, a fracture formed within him. They might have offloaded their damage onto him and endured easily. Yet since he battled a whole swarm of creatures, Saints, spawn, and revived Celestials by himself, they chose not to weigh him down.

The blend of injured ego, thankfulness, and impotent anger proved intolerable.

The ex-Coliseum victor ceased holding back his power.

With a thunderous, primal bellow that rattled the stone foundations, he plunged wholly into the carnage.

The area under Dusken twisted into an infernal realm of lava and plasma. The surroundings bent into an ideal territory for his kind—and a torment for their opponents. Even Anthace’s roots couldn’t endure such temperatures. Burning with resentment, the Titan Tree pulled back from the area, leaving behind extensive empty caverns.

The pullout curbed the monster influx and revived fighters. But those able to persist—or muscle past—that blaze?

They embodied the true terrors.

Far from triumph, the subterranean conflict under Dusken intensified once more. And for the first time across five Ordeals... a Kintharian perished.

The conflict had barely commenced.

*****

Under Lustris, at the continent's far side, a parallel frantic clash unfolded—lacking the terrain mastery that magma provided below.

And in contrast to the Kintharians, the Throsgenians numbered far less.

Barely over four hundred.

They had also compelled to unite under Asfrid’s directive the second Anthace ramped up the fight to a higher level. The swelling horde of spawn massacring city dwellers on Lustris’ surface stemmed directly from this.

While Kintharians and Throsgenians were competing species with similar promise—both adept at tunneling and earth shaping—their rule over ice prevented them from melting the ground with comparable ease.

A few, such as Rogen, possessed that skill. Whether through elevating their earth control to a peak where they compelled rigid stone to flow like compressed fluid, warming it via pure dominance... or by perfecting their ice command to flip it completely. It mirrored the route Jake had followed before.

Yet generating lava didn’t imply it favored them. They hailed from icy origins. A setting of liquid stone offered no edge—it equaled gradual self-destruction.

Thus, their confrontation proved even more grueling and lethal than what Gerulf and the Kintharians faced.

Each blast from Rogen’s almost-absolute-zero chill could instantly encase thousands of beasts and reborn warriors in ice—including Anthace’s roots. Vast underground stretches became frozen tombs of crystal.

But the toll kept rising.

The nearby stone chilled quickly, hardening into thicker, firmer structures. The chill penetrated deeper, the ground grew more solid.

Before long, even for them, advancing would turn laborious.

The lone bright spot was straightforward: if navigation grew tough for Throsgenians, it crippled the creatures and corrupted Light Warriors exponentially more. Black Lumyst could erode and destroy nearly everything—but shattering kilometers of iced rock required outrageous energy.

For the moment, Rogen and his people had postponed the unavoidable final showdown.

However, in the process, they had botched Jake’s assignment.

Rather than wearing down against a handful of tenacious Players like these Throsgenians, the spawn deemed it simpler to skirt them altogether and flood toward the city unchecked.

That explained why Cho Min Ho and his group, positioned at Lustris’ edges in ambush, got pulled into the chaos too. The concentration of monsters bursting from the earth around the city’s borders increased every minute.

Nevertheless, specific abominations—emanating ominous presences like dark suns in emptiness—continued drilling directly through the iced rock without deviation. They avoided no paths. They showed no pause.

They bored ahead with unwavering, unyielding purpose.

And upon surfacing—be it under Lustris or elsewhere on the continent—both locals and remaining Players would confront their next apocalypse.