The Oracle of Illusea had left her homeland for the first time in centuries, all to better ruin Simon’s day.
She looked so small and frail compared to her reputation, more like a vestal than an immortal nation’s ruler or the Overlord’s most persistent foe, yet appearances were deceiving. The holy light and the shimmering aura of mana radiating from her matched that of a true dryad, while the subtle pressure and intensity she gave off reminded Simon of his own vicious ancestor.
This was Elios Magnos’ one and only equal. The first and only wielder of the Oracle Crestone, who looked down on the world from the highest of heights. A Tier X spellcaster capable of razing cities and outliving three Overlords.
And she wouldn’t have left Illusea unless she was absolutely sure Simon had zero chance of surviving this encounter. The way her gaze settled on him personally suggested he was already condemned, and that his bird form did not fool her.
She pointed a finger at him, and Simon did the wisest thing he could in this situation.
He immediately teleported away.
To his surprise, he actually managed to activate his Lord of the Demon Castle Perk without an anchor spell or barrier getting in the way… but rather than return to Frightwall, he found himself teleported right in front of the Oracle.
Telecatcher redirected your Teleport!
Her foot then flew at his face like a meteor.
Simon immediately dispelled his Bird Title, put on his Overlord armor, and hastily cast all the defensive spells he knew, but she swiftly kicked him in the face and pulverized all of his defenses. Buffs, Unyielding Essence’s immunity to non-magical damage, nothing lessened the impact. Her blow carried more power than what the likes of Thalas or Vouivre could manage, and propelled him upwards with such violence it nearly tore his head off his shoulders.
He activated Darkflight and attempted to put distance between them, but she was on him in a flash, somehow teleporting above him. “Chaos W—”
“Meteor Dive!”
She punched him in the chest with the strength of a falling star.
It was as if the weight of the world had fallen upon him, cracking his armor, shattering his ribs, and causing blood to fill his throat. She slammed him against the earth below, with the impact shaking the entire Magefalls and leaving a crater. Simon felt water filling the hole she had dug with his body, his vision going white for a second.
He attempted to activate Hellfire Gaze and blast her, but she pressed her foot on his face and forced it to the side, his baleful flames melting stone rather than the elf. He immediately cast Chaos Wave against her, only for the spell to fizzle out.
Auto-Counterspell cancelled out your magic!
“You will not escape,” the Oracle said, “and neither shall you die.”
Her cold tone suggested he would wish he did, though. The only reason she hadn’t killed him on the spot was likely because she feared slaying him, by accident or design, would cause the Overlord Class to pass on to a more dangerous holder.
Simon hissed and prepared to cast her into Hell with his Crown of Pain, when a bolt of light surged from the side of his vision. The Oracle dodged it by leaning her head slightly to the left without even looking.
Alphonse.
“Enough!” The Paladin shouted, his sword drawn. “We came here to tal—”
“Every word coming out of this mouth is a poisonous lie, Alphonse,” the Oracle cut in, her foot pressing into Simon’s face. “To think you would be brazen enough to try and corrupt our Paladin.”
“No one is corrupting anyone!” Alphonse snapped, his armor gleaming in the sunlight. “Simon is our ally!”
Shura growled at Alphonse. “Have you betrayed your oaths to side with the Overlord?”
“He is not the monster his father was!” Alphonse argued. “We have a once in a lifetime chance to talk things through! Why must we come to blows immediately?”
Simon would be damned. Alphonse did consider him his friend. It was a pity it had come at a hefty price, but a sideways glance showed him that the rest of his party was torn between watching the situation unfold and assisting him.
This might be his chance to win himself more time. Find a way out.
Simon removed his armor, regained his human form, and raised his hands. “I have come to parley, Oracle.”
Shura growled in disdain at his offer, but the Oracle… her frown of hatred faded into something else, something unexpected.
A look of pity.
“You know me,” Simon guessed. “Who I am.”
“I know the hero you should have been, Simon Magnos, not the villain you became.” Her voice dripped with disgust, and she wouldn’t remove her foot from his face. “Your father, and through him, the Overlord Class, decided otherwise. I weep when I see you, twisted into this mockery and corruption of the glory we were promised.”
So she had seen his former fate in her visions; the life he could have lived with his mother in Lore, had Balzam Magnos not ruined everything. However, that knowledge clearly hadn’t inspired any sympathy for Simon in the Oracle’s heart.
Neither did Shura look pleased. “You allied with the Overlord, Paladin, and would dare bring him before me? Are you a deceived fool, or a traitor?”
“I am neither, Lord Shura,” Alphonse replied with knightly dignity. “Simon is a valorous ally who did not choose his Class and helped us—”
“He helped you take out his competition, and then exploited your naivety to gain access to the Light Megalith.” the Oracle interrupted him. “Your impatience for answers doomed an innocent soul, and the world with her.”
Alphonse frowned. “What do you—”
“You have been deceived. By allowing this villain to sacrifice our savior to the Light Megalith, he has ensured Brimir will enter a spiral of decay it may never recover from.”
“I sacrificed no one!” Simon snapped back angrily. He would not allow this treacherous elf to slander him in public and turn people who had the decency of giving him the benefit of the doubt against him! “I’m not a villain, whether you like it or not! I just want to save the world and my people from the Zodiac Parade!”
The Oracle’s disdain was written all over her face. “What good can you do?”
“Destroy the Zodiac crystals, for a start!” Simon argued. “I can ensure this four hundred year cycle of Doom ends! Bring me Nodens’ core and I can prov–”
“Lies!” The Oracle clearly didn’t believe him. “You sacrificed the real chosen one, whose soul is now imprisoned in stone and refuses reincarnation because of your abuse. The weight of that crime is greater than you could ever know.”
“Then why don’t you tell me rather than keep everything to yourself, Your Vagueness?!” Simon replied angrily. Her judgmental attitude just got on his nerves. “I freed Belzemine from her brands and let her act as she wished! If I knew what would happen, I would have stopped it. I have no wish to wage war on Illusea, Lore, or any other nation for that matter!”
“There is no bright future for Brimir so long as the Overlord stands,” Shura replied imperiously. “Your mere existence infects this world with evil.”
“It is foretold your Class will eventually destroy our world and engulf it in eternal darkness,” the Oracle added. “It is simply in its nature, and the end has never felt so close since you inherited the Crimson Throne.”
Because killing me is what triggers the flood of miasma you so fear! Simon felt invisible hands on his throat when he considered sharing that information with her. Of course the Overlord Class wouldn’t allow for diplomacy! She’s mistaken. She thinks killing me will prevent her vision, when it will only ensure it comes to pass.
There was some irony to this situation, but not the funny kind.
“You think you can seal me in stone, like a vulgar fiend,” Simon said. “Guess what, it won’t work! I foresaw it! I will either escape once Abraxas shines on my constellation or the Overlord will pass to a crueler inheritor.”
“There are other options,” the Oracle replied, her tone growing dangerous.
“Like what? Having Louis stab me with the Mana Sword, so you can watch someone like him or Vouivre become the Fifth Overlord?!” Her deepening frown only emboldened Simon. “I didn’t choose my Class, but I’m not bound by it either! Shouldn’t we cooperate to save the world from it and the Zodiac Fiends?”
“Exactly, he’s no Overlord material,” Mel said in his defense, “he’s a weirdo who shits on rocks while transformed into a bird!”
“I agree,” Alphonse replied. “Lady Oracle, we have a once in a lifetime opportun—”
“Your so-called ‘friend’ is either lying or deluded, Alphonse,” his superior interrupted him, her gaze firmly settled on Simon. “Power. Ambition. Delusions. Those are the strings you dance to at your Class’ whims. You think you are free, Simon Magnos, but you are only free to make the wrong choice.”
“From whose perspective? Yours?” Simon returned her sneer. “You, who hide in your paradise while others are free to die for you? You, who kept losing to my predecessors for four hundred years?!”
His words rattled the Oracle, whose face twisted into a scowl. “You understand nothing of my duty.”
“And you understand nothing of courage, you paranoid coward!”
Frea gulped. “Lady Oracle, with all due respect—”
“You would be wise to remain quiet, Frea,” the Oracle rebuked her. “Especially after you violated your oath and attempted to keep this from me.”
She knows what they will say before they open their mouths, Simon realized. He was the only one she didn’t interrupt, likely because Anathemic Secrecy interfered with her foresight. It’s why her gaze never leaves me.
He was the only one who could throw her off her game, which he did by asking the question on everyone’s lips.
“Is your goddess truly dead?”
His words were met with silence, with only the sound of the falling waterfall to break it.
“Belzemine wa—is one of the Mana Goddess’ inheritors,” Simon said, still refusing to accept his friend’s demise. “Why would she inherit anything, if the Worldtree’s dryad is safe and sound?”
“I owe you no answers,” the Oracle replied.
Alphonse scowled and stepped forward. “Is the Mana Goddess truly dead?” His blunt question went unanswered, so he asked another. “Why is Lady Bel—”
“She is important, and that is all you need to know.”
This didn’t satisfy Alphonse. “Alcyone is facing the Cobweb as we speak. You timed this moment so she wouldn’t interve—”
“Think carefully about what you are considering, Alphonse,” the Oracle interrupted him, her voice cold. “I can forgive your naivety, but not treachery.”
“Why won’t you just answer our questions, then?!” Mel snapped at her in frustration. She had already taken a step forward to help her friend. “Why won’t you just say yes or no?!”
“Because tales say that the Oracle Class demands truthfulness and honesty from its wielder,” Satine noted, her hands clutching her staff. “She cannot lie.”
The sheer absurdity of the notion that the Oracle had to be honest almost caused Simon to burst out laughing, but the way his foe remained eerily silent lent credence to the princess’ claim. It would have been so easy to simply answer ‘no, the Mana Goddess is alive’ or the like to end it all.
The fact she outright refused to answer was quite the revelation in itself. Something had happened to the Mana Goddess. Something that left her indisposed at best.
“With all due respect, Lady Oracle, you are not making this any easier…” Frea cleared her throat. “You demand absolute faith, without returning any of our trus—”
“I trusted you, Frea, and you listened to him instead.” The Oracle’s words grew all the more bitter, her voice heavy with pain. “Like the Librarian before you.”
Elios? An idea crossed Simon’s mind, and he immediately put it into motion.
“How many elves?” he inquired, his words more venomous than a snake’s kiss. “How many elves died fighting your wars?”
The Oracle glared at him. “All I have done was for the well-being and happiness of Brimir’s people.”
“But some people matter more than others, don’t they?” Simon smiled. “Did you tell Elios that before he rebelled?”
The Oracle didn’t like that comment, at all. She raised her foot to smash his jaw and silence him, but Simon sprang to action. He put on his Overlord armor in a flash and cast the one spell he knew she wouldn’t have prepared for.
“Soul Calling!”
His spell tore many martyrs’ souls from their diseased undead flesh, and a flock of screaming demon goat specters arrived to defend their shepherd.
They appeared to surround him from nowhere, startling the Oracle before quickly pivoting to snap her fingers. “Rain Spell, Stasis!”
A wave of magic erupted from her, paralyzing not only the ghosts but Mel and Satine too. Simon was only spared by virtue of Unyielding Essence, while Alphonse and Frea simply shrugged it off. The former immediately sprang into action in a dash of speed, channeling Thunderslash through his sword. He did the bravest thing a Paladin could do.
He lunged at the Oracle to defend the Overlord.
She dodged, of course, avoiding the blade as if she could literally see it move before it struck, and Shura quickly pounced on the Paladin to pin him to the ground. However, this allowed Simon to blast the Oracle with Chaos Wave. He immediately felt his spell hit an invisible barrier of some kind.
Chaos Wave couldn’t overcome the Mirror effect!
The Oracle had coated herself in the same effect Carbuncle applied to Simon when summoned, and it reflected the Overlord’s spell back at its sender. Simon was flung across the lake and hit the waterfall, which ended up putting a few dozen feet between the Oracle and him. Meanwhile, Frea acted on instinct to defend Alphonse and blasted Shura’s head with a Nova, causing the eidolon to stumble.
Simon immediately triggered Darkflight in an attempt to escape in the confusion, but enormous vines burst out of the Magefalls to catch him. The waters twisted in the form of liquid elementals, and previously invisible elves and fairies manifested everywhere all around them.
Of course the coward wouldn’t show up alone!
The Oracle quickly teleported to Frea’s side—or maybe she simply moved too fast for Simon to see—and touched her. “Timeleap.”
Frea disappeared in a purple flash, leaving the entire party incapacitated and at the Oracle’s mercy.
Simon held absolutely no illusions about their chances of defeating a level 100 foe with an eidolon and an army of elven warriors prepared to defeat him. He might be able to challenge Shura to an Ordeal, but the others would ambush him whether he won or not.
This reign was at an end.
Unless… Simon glanced at the roots holding him and held onto them. They likely belonged to the nearby Manatree, and those were a dryad’s true self. He could be able to target it with that ability. Forgive me, Alphonse, but this may be our only chance…
“Crown of Pain.”
His fiery halo burst above his head, and the jaws of Hell roared open to claim their victim.
A mighty quake shook the entire region, a raging storm of miasma heralding the chaos to come with an infernal hiss. The Oracle’s three eyes widened in horror, as her foresight no doubt gave her a preview of what would follow. Jaws and teeth the size of hills burst out from everywhere in wide rifts, with dragons rising to the sky to escape fires engulfing the horizon.
The sycamore Manatree began to sink into Simon’s prison demiplane, and the entire region with it.
Let's see you stop that, Simon thought, glaring at the Oracle. This is all on your head.
All color left the face of Illusea’s leader, at which point she quickly slammed her hands together. The sheer mana gathering around her turned her into a star shining bright in the rising sea of miasma threatening to engulf the world.
Her people needed a miracle, and she had one.
“Clockstop.”
A tidal wave of purple engulfed the universe, and the march of time halted for all living beings.