The Oracle Paths

1177  Genesis of the Four Spirits n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

Jake was left stunned long after hearing all that. Not because he couldn't believe it, quite the opposite, but because it raised so many more questions.

Was a World Eater conscious? After all, its Aether Signature affected the deepest instincts and values of those it corrupted.

In retrospect, not necessarily. A biological virus wasn't conscious either, yet it had the genetic tools to invade its targets, intercalating into their DNA to let the host's enzymes replicate the virus's RNA infinitely for further spread. In the end, a World Eater could very well be just a slightly different Mirror Universe.

But from what Claire had said, Jake felt it wasn't that simple. She had initially revealed that her creator and mentor, Klayr, had been targeted by one of the worst enemies one could wish for: A World Eater.

That implied one thing: A World Eater could choose its targets, and this process wasn't entirely random. The idea that something as vast as a Mirror Universe could be conscious was enough to give anyone chills...

The other questionable point was that she had spoken of the Digestors as a multiversal scourge. If a World Eater was just a Mirror Universe with different behavior, then the Digestors it spawned to invade and corrupt target worlds wouldn't deserve such a high regard.

And that was because nothing she said implied that all World Eaters grew and hunted in the same way. If a Mirror Universe like theirs was an antelope, a World Eater could be a lion or a tiger—two carnivorous species similar yet ultimately different.

That wasn't what the Spirit Artefact had suggested.

"World Eaters..." Jake murmured softly. "Can they prey on each other? I mean, can Digestors with different Aether signatures contaminate each other's worlds and hunt among themselves?"

If he had any doubts left, Claire's response finally made him understand how World Eaters and Digestors were inseparable.

"No." Claire had replied in a gloomy, definitive tone. "World Eaters and Digestors, whether they've just been born or have existed since the dawn of time, never prey on each other. Digestors can kill each other, but it has nothing to do with the influence of their Aether Signature. Likewise, they never spawn on another World Eater's territory.

"In other words, they're the same species. Just like a pack of hyenas tolerates each other and can even coordinate to hunt large prey, World Eaters and Digestors operate the same way as long as their own interests or survival aren't directly threatened."

She didn't elaborate on this last point, perhaps fearing censorship, but from her grave expression, Jake guessed the unspeakable: If World Eaters and Digestors acted like members of the same pack, then they possibly had an Alpha or some form of authority.

A World Eater or an ultimate Digestor ruling over them all, or at least preventing them from killing each other.

"And finally, I'll end on this note." The Soulmancer King, having just ceded her title to him, concluded. "Unlike a Mirror Universe like yours, World Eaters move. They are moving universes. This isn't necessarily proof of sentience; other less cognitively evolved living beings also move, like jellyfish. Their movements aren't precise, but they constantly move toward a prey. The spores they spread in the Aetherdream, spawning Digestors, can touch thousands of Mirror Universes simultaneously, but the World Eater only targets one at a time. Usually, the most appetizing Mirror Universe. In other words, the most developed and massive one."

"And what happens when a World Eater attacks in person? No Ordeals to settle it amicably, I suppose..." Jake joked with a deadpan expression, suspecting he wouldn't like the answer.

He wasn't disappointed.

"Total war... As brief as it is futile." She answered without a smile. "As soon as the borders of the Mirror Universe and a stronger World Eater touch, it's like a macrophage engulfing a bacterium. Once the Mirror Universe's membrane breaks, Digestors and the World Eater's Aether Signature flood in. The Corruption spreads faster than information in the Oracle System, contaminating the Aether signature of everything it touches. At that point, the threat of Digestors and Corrupted no longer matters, as the engulfed population adopts the World Eater's values with few exceptions. If you ever find yourself among those exceptions, I advise you to flee."

Jake didn't like her last piece of advice, coming out of nowhere. It was as if she was trying to tell him something...

Claire then dedicated herself to explaining how Klayr had perished and how she ended up reduced to the state of a fragmented Spirit Artefact. The cosmic monk had a gigantic body and a volume of energy comparable to a world at its peak, and since he had voluntarily exiled himself from his birth Mirror Universe, the World Eaters recognized him as such.

A mature World Eater the size of a Mirror Universe would never have noticed him, but just as there were dimensional pockets existing as independent micro-universes, there were puny and immature World Eaters the size of a planet only preying on them. When they were so small, the line between World Eaters and Digestors blurred.

Just as Klayr had been mistaken for a world, a truly powerful and massive Digestor could behave like a World Eater, even housing and spawning Digestors on its surface. That's what had happened.

A hybrid fitting both the definitions of a Digestor and a World Eater had targeted him. If it had been a Digestor Dungeon that had evolved multiple times to surpass the size of a solar system, Klayr could have easily fled. But against a Digestor Seraphim of that size, confrontation was the only option.

14:39

A hybrid fitting both the definitions of a Digestor and a World Eater had targeted him. If it had been a Digestor Dungeon that had evolved multiple times to surpass the size of a solar system, Klayr could have easily fled. But against a Digestor Seraphim of that size, confrontation was the only option.

Jake knew the rest. The cosmic monk won the fight but lost his life.

This duel at the summit had lasted many years, spanning many worlds, and involving numerous powerhouses and factions related to his order. The number of Aetherists and figures on the level of an Ancient Designer who perished was in the hundreds, but despite all these losses, they could only manage a draw.

After the death of the World Eater and Klayr, the matter should have ended there, but that didn't account for the unpredictable effects of Lumyst and the mortal wound left by the enemy on his corpse, in the form of an immense broken chitin blade that had pierced the back of his skull.

In contact with the remaining Lumyst in the corpse, the remnants of the destructive black Aether and the sliver of True Will in the blade were soon... enchanted. To speak plainly, the chitin blade had become a sentient being.

It could have been game over right there, but luckily life was fair, and Lumyst had no favorites. The inert corpse of Klayr had also been touched by this Grace.

Almost simultaneously, Twyluxia was born. A World Spirit, or rather a Corpse Spirit.

And with it, two other neighboring celestial bodies touched by the fallout of their battle, becoming the Moon and the Sun that allowed this world-plane to exist. Thus, without any native or Player being aware, this world-plane became the cruel chessboard of four Awakened Spirits: A Corpse Spirit, a Sun Spirit, a Moon Spirit, and a Chitin Blade Spirit.

A hostile Blade Spirit against the other three. A battle they were about to lose.

Sorry for the late chapter, I got home late and just proofread it.

Arkinslize

Creator's Thought