Chapter 54 – An oracle and Centipedes need to die.

Jack dismisses all the information about all the other villages being founded, they're all basic white villages so mostly unimportant, and returns to looking calmly and coldly at the goblin kneeling before him, the young man and goblin's eyes meet for a moment as invisible sparks fly between them but the goblin looks away quickly while Jack continues to just watch him in silence, this lasts for a minute or so as the onlookers don't make a sound, only the wind can be heard rustling the grass but a very quiet booming can be heard in the distance.

"Why did you submit to me so quickly?" Jack asks the goblin; he's confused as to what's going on as this is the first time he has met the goblin leader.

DeeYo made it sound like Jax was quite unruly and unable to be reasoned with, wanting to always be the leader and take the goblins to a higher more respectful stage but here he is kneeling before Jack after a single exchange, he did lose an arm but that doesn't seem to be affecting him much.

"Do you know how many creatures are afraid of you?" The goblin speaks without looking at Jack, "The creatures of this world were prepared for some abnormal signs since the godly entity foretold the coming of 'players' but since you appeared in this region there have been countless abnormal signs"

"What abnormal signs?"

The goblin turns to look at Jack, his expression belays a feeling of frustration, "The first sign was a void tear, the second sign was the giant Dragon and Phoenix in the sky, the third sign was you appearing on the outskirts of my town... your goblin town..., the fourth sign is the appearance of demonic invasion within this region and the final sign is our meeting now, no one would want to meet with goblins to talk"

"What's a void tear?"

"I do not know, I had to consult with the oracle to discover what it was but the clouds were replaced with the appearance of the night sky across the whole region. The oracle said it was someone using the power of the void to travel elsewhere but the oracle said it was curious as it contained power that doesn't originate in this universe"

"Did the oracle say anymore? Can I meet with the oracle?"

"No, it didn't but the oracle would like to meet with you too"

Jack furrows his brows, it's not a nice feeling to know that something called an oracle is aware of him and would like to meet with him as he's currently still incredibly weak, his stage 2 cultivation is honestly very weak in this world and this oracle sounds like it might be very strong, stronger than Leah even. Taking a breath of time to think, Jack makes a difficult decision since he doesn't fully trust this goblin yet.

"I will leave that to you to arrange" Jack asks, "What about our meeting now, why is that an abnormal sign?"

"The oracle predicted that someone would try to meet with me, it wasn't able to peer into the heavens secrets due to something protecting the person wanting to meet me but it was able to tell me that the person had the smell of an ancient dragon, a phoenix and an ever increasing tribulation aura which..." the goblin sniffs as his eyes contain a greedy glint again which is suppressed quickly, "You have"

Jack strokes his arm where the little snake used to sleep but has been replaced with a tattoo, it just feels like part of his skin, "What do you mean tribulation aura?" Jack stops stroking his arm before asking the kneeling goblin.

"The oracle described it as the universe trying to punish something that goes against its way or path"

Jack and Jax look at each other in silence, Jack is trying decipher this information while Jax is trying to decipher why this person with such a low cultivation base would trigger tribulations already but the young man is left frustrated because it's not enough information while the goblin is left disappointed as this human he's kneeling before didn't reveal anything.

Jack turns away from the goblin to look at the field, the dismembered arm has burnt into nothing, not even ash has been left while the surrounding grass is also catching on fire. The goblins in the distance are quietly whispering between themselves while Sleipner is still having a silent battle with the wolf that Jax was riding, the horse is taking some frustrations that Fenrir has given him on this new wolf.

The sun is still high in the sky indicating that it's mid-afternoon but if Jack wants to get back to the village before it's night time he'll need to wrap up soon. Jack looks at the information within the system prompts before bringing up the very last one which is the message about 'United Goblin Town surrendering' as he hasn't accepted or denied the prompt yet.

"Will I have your loyalty if you submit to me?" Jack grips the spear tightly while he turns back to the goblin, their eyes meet while Jack is looking down at the goblin as his body starts to exude a pressure of a human ruler, the goblin squints whilst his remaining hand clenched tightly but upon feeling the pressure that Jack's body is emitting and remembering the blood that he previously tasted the goblin lowers his head.

"I swear upon the Goblin God, Ghurrk that you have my loyalty"

Jack closely watches the goblin before he starts to twirl the spear between both of his hands, the goblin doesn't move satisfying Jack for now so lowering the spear towards the kneeling brownish-grey goblin he speaks in a commanding tone, "Rise!"

The goblin unsteadily stands up, his face is looking pale as green blood is dripping from his open wound but he still lowers his head.

"I cannot trust you fully, this is our first meeting but I have not found any reason to deny your request, I will accept your surrender and loyalty but I expect you to prepare a grand welcome for me. I will travel to the goblin town in the coming days where I expect to see all the goblins there display the same loyalty to me and my people"

"Ok... My Lord..." The goblin speaks through clenched teeth, "Please tell DeeYo that I hope we can put everything behind us and serve our... lord... together" Jack responds with a nod but secretly he's shuddering, hoping the goblin didn't mean that in a particular sexual way.

"I will expect you to send some people over tomorrow so that my subordinates are able to work closely with your town" Jack looks through the prompts and accepts the one about the goblin village surrendering.

'SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT – You have accepted United Goblin Town surrender. As this is your first subdued Town, You have received 5000 achievement points'

'SYSTEM ANNOUNCEMENT – You have subdued your first town and have been rewarded with 1 x City Profession Stele and 1 x Town Reward Box'

'SYSTEM NOTIFICATION – Dragon – Phoenix Village has acquired enough experience to upgrade into a Lv3 Advanced Village, please return to the city heart to accept the changes'

Various system prompts appear in Jack's mind which he dismisses so as to not ruin his image before the goblin leader, "I will leave now, remember my words I do not discriminate based on race or species so if you perform well, you will be properly rewarded but DeeYo will speak to you further about that" Jack speaks before letting out a whistle.

Sleipner is standing tall before the wolf showing off its bloodline, the two never stopped their battle but upon hearing the whistle Sleipner turns around and leaves but not before giving the wolf a zap of lightning. The horse quickly crosses the distance where Jack jumps onto the back of the horse in a single motion and without pause, hoping that it looks cool.

The goblin leader is left standing there with his head lowered not watching Jack, he's looking at a spot on the grass not too far away while the other goblins walk their wolves over to Jax.

Jack is stealthily watching the goblin leader with his divine sense, Jax looks up to see that Jack has gone before scrambling to the ground and ripping out a chunk of the grass, he's chewing it up as if it's the most delicious thing in the world. This is area where Jack spit out the mouthful of blood after absorbing the strike from Jax.

Jack smiles to himself while shaking his head, it appears that his blood truly does have something strange about it but he has no clue why, this body shouldn't even technically exist as it's meant to be a game world yet somehow the blood within this fake body is special, perhaps the assistance AI thing within the crystal room will shed some light on this problem.

The two ride for some time increasing the distance between them and the goblins that it's probably safe from any counter attack, so he relaxes slightly on the horse as they ride back to the village thinking about the course of events; studying the new skill on the ants and how the brown-ish grey goblin leader suddenly wanted to surrender for seemingly no reason though the 'oracle' appears to be a major influence on the goblins.

Letting out a sigh, the young man leans back on the horse to relax for a moment while his gaze is attracted to the sky where the blood-red moon is visible in the daylight, it looks eerie like a giant red eye in the sky pressing down on everyone. Jack gaze lingers for some time as if studying the red moon but some distant booming sounds wake him up as he tries to work out where they came from, they're about a quarter of the way back to the village and this might become a major route.

The booming sound has been going on for some time, he was able to hear it quietly while talking to Jax. Pausing for a moment on top of the horse to listen Jack works out the direction sound is coming from.

The direction is toward the outer plains, the heavens barrier isn't too far in that direction but there's nothing else except the stream and open plains, Jack looks at the map to confirm this and argues internally for several moments weighing up the pros and cons of going to check it out, the booms don't stop so nudging Sleipner to walk in that direction the two walk into the unvisited area, they come out of the grassy area into a clearing where they can see what's going on.

About 15km away a very large centipede is fighting against a person in a blue robe, Jack can't see much from this distance but he can see the centipede quite clearly, it's about 5x larger than the previous one he fought and each segment is differently coloured but some of them have a bright red and black colour that seems to be invading the other segments. The person in the blue robes has a giant phantom image of a blue bird above them, but it's protecting the person with its wings against the centipede that is slamming its various body parts into the blue bird's wings.

*SCREECH*

The centipede stops for a moment giving the giant blue bird phantom a chance, spreading its wings as various orbs gather which quickly turn into icicles, it lets out another screech as it launches various icicle attacks most of which harmlessly land on the ground, the few that made their target weren't able to pierce the outer shell of the centipede. 

The centipede shrugs off the attack as it attempts to grab the blue robed figure now that the bird is no longer protecting them, the giant pincers get closer to them when a glow comes from the persons hand and energy spreads into the surrounding area causing the temperature to drop instantly where it passed, the sky is replaced with a snowfield and snow litters the ground, the howling wind blowing up the snow that settles on the ground revealing an iced over dirt.

It seems to cover a 10km radius causing a strange scene on the boring plains area, a red glow can be seen from deep within the snow storm that covers the person, the bird and the centipede allowing no sound to come out apart from the howling wind.

Jack is outside the field of ice and snow but he can still feel the temperature drop as it casts the surrounding area into a strange cold like it would snow at any moment, he's left standing there unable to move from the feeling of tremendous power being emitted by the great field but that doesn't last long as the field disappears after a breath of time, leaving behind an area of ice with snow slowly falling from the sky the wind settles down as the scene is revealed.

The centipede has disappeared, a red orb is floating not too far away which can be seen through the falling snow, the blue robed person and phantom image of the bird have disappeared leaving Jack disappointed because he's certain that he has seen those two. The floating red orb is surrounded by a blue haze indicating that it's most likely sealed similar to the other orb sealed by Leah the other day.

Seeing nothing here that'll be interesting and not wanting to deal with ice, Jack turns around to leave the area but the blue robed person is standing not too far away.

Jack can see them clearly now, roughly 150cm with some long blue hair poking out from behind the mask as their robe that covers their whole body is torn in various places revealing soft skin beneath it, the robe tries to hide it but anyone would be stupid to not discover it's a woman behind the mask.

Clearing his throat, the young man speaks out, "Hello there again, do you know what happened here?" his face adorned with a pleasant smile.

The blue robed person's chest heaves up and down rapidly and deeply before they speak, "Get back to your village!" they speak in a commanding tone that doesn't sound male or female.

"Why? I might listen to you if you tell me why as we've met before but not if you don't give me a reason" Jack feels annoyed at this sudden outburst but he can't anger them because they're much stronger than him.

The blue robed person lets out a snort and disappears, Jack's ears hear a quiet female voice "You should be thankful to Sovereign Leah, if you didn't seduce her, I wouldn't need to protect your shitty little village like you should be!" the tone contains annoyance leaving Jack scratching his head, shrugging he gives Sleipner a nudge to continue, thinking back to the female voice and the appearance of their body, Jack can tell that she's around Jessica's age.

The rest of the trip is almost uneventful, quietly one Jack watches the perimeter of the ant's and can see no demonification of them nor any red glow from the distance like the two orbs that he's seen so far. Letting out a yawn Jack starts to circulate his qi to cultivate while passing that pen between the new storage space and his hand, his mind starts ponders about what to do after getting back to the village.

Within Sacred City, Bane and Albert are both enquiring about property, the bunny thieves are running rampant around the city while Tahel the Bunny Assassin stealthily infiltrates various groups and collects information that Bane needs, many underground gangs and lesser 'churches' have been hit by the dark bunny assassin, fully utilizing the skills of the profession as he blends into the walls or floors and leaves without a trace.

Tahel has climbed into a window of a large manor, it's a huge 40 bedroom manner in the rich part of Sacred City towards the top end of the hill the city is built on, there's no one around in the house to stop the bunny-man taking documents, this time he is raiding the 'Disciples of Lord' or better known as a slave trader group with loose ties to a company called 'Apricot Town Orchards' after stealthily taking some documents he leaves the same way without anyone ever knowing.

'What poor security these places have' thinks to himself as he leaves, he has hit over 30 places so far and none have detected him.

The next manor on the list is a rather rundown mansion but it's an important one as it's one of the houses owned the 'Yellow Snake Chapel', they have just recently purchased this manor for some purpose that's not clear. Tahel jumps over the wall and easily avoids many unskilled people patrolling, just typical gang thugs designed to scare off people.

The bunny-man scales up the side of the mansion, casting 'Bunny Stealth' he pushes a window open slightly and silently before entering through the small gap, a room with a single old man writing on a piece of paper with a whole stack of papers on the table, the top most piece of paper revealing a person's head and information, 'Wanted for Killing two town officials, reward 4000g at Jasper Town'

Tahel silently moves into a position so he can knock this person out and search the room but the door to the room suddenly bursts opens forcing him to cancel these plans and retreat to a distance, quietly shifting a dagger coated with poison into his hand ready to strike out if he's discovered.