Chapter 385: An Oracle

Mid Evening - Late Fall : Nkremo | Bahamut

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*Wooooosh* The gentle wash of cool, misty air passing over my scales was like therapy for a troubled mind that evening, bringing a momentary calm to an ocean of stormy thoughts.

At the time, Hera and I were just a few kilometers off the coast of Nkremo scanning the ocean bottom with our auras looking for scales of the Leviathan, but we were already reaching the limit of what we could scan with our auras.

"Can you see the bottom here?" Hera spoke curiously.

"Just barely." With the water being almost seventy kilometers deep, I could only barely make out the texture of the bottom.

"Hoh? Your aura reading has improved that much?"

I swiftly nodded as a smile crept onto my face. "After I ascended, my brain finally switched to using divinity, and while I can't quite read my whole aura, the 'static' from my space mana has gotten far more manageable... It's still taking some practice though..." Although I was still far from perfecting it, I had figured out that if I controlled the emission of space mana in certain ways, I could get oddly consistent interference patterns when reading my aura, and over time, could 'tune it out'. -But it's still far from perfect...-

"Well, that's good. Compared to where you were just a few months ago, seventy kilometers is nothing to scoff at."

I somewhat proudly nodded before glancing back over at her. "By the way, I meant to ask earlier, but..." I paused to try and think of how to word it before continuing somewhat awkwardly. "Do you ever have an image pop up in your mind, like with aura, but where everything is math that takes the form of weird, tiny black threads?"

I spoke fully expecting her to look at me like I was insane, but unlike what I expected, she nodded. "I can't do it anymore, but I think I know what you're talking about."

My eyes lit up instantly.

"Are you talking about a projection that feels like when you read your aura, but it isn't coming from your mind, and differs from your aura's detail and range? Like, almost as if it's eye-sight based instead of mana-density based?"

I fervently nodded.

Although calling it eye-sight-based was a little bit of a stretch, I knew exactly what she meant. "That was something I experienced when I only had my soul left. It was simply how I saw the world back then, but ever since I was.. 'reborn', I haven't been able to see or use it."

-So it must be related to the soul somehow...- "Hm..."

Hera gently tilted her head as she tried to read my expression. "I would've thought you'd know about it considering your past lives..."

"Well, I do know 'of' it. I just don't know what it is or how to reliably use it yet."

"Huh?" She immediately paused. "How to use it? You've seen it outside of your reincarnations?"

"I've actually been seeing it more often recently, yeah. If I fall into a really deep focus, whether fighting or meditating, I can see it, but it feels more like opening another eye rather than reading already-present information like with my aura... Besides making some spells faster, I don't really see much point in it..." I paused to think before looking into her eyes. "Is it just.. the eyes of the soul?"

But she just gave me a baffled look. "Have you ever tried pulling on any of those 'threads'?"

Almost immediately, a memory from my first dragon sleep resurfaced. -Oh...- But they were a little blurry. "I.. have but I don't think I can do that here..."

The way I remembered it, was that during my first dragon sleep, I could tug on a string and see the futures of the object the string was connected to.

However, the last few times I had experienced it, it felt like I was looking at a projection of a world, akin to a hologram, rather than actually existing in the space.

"Really?" Hera didn't seem to understand. "If you can see it, you should be able to touch it..."

Finally pulling myself out of thought, I shrugged. "I'll have to look more into it whenever I have the chance..." -Being able to see the futures of things would be more than a little helpful...- Looking down at the smooth water passing by beneath me, I wanted to sigh. "But for now let's just loop back and check another area. I definitely can't read anything off the bottom at this depth..." Although it was faint, I could feel the bottom at the very edge of my aura almost a hundred and twenty kilometers down, but couldn't make out any details in its texture. -We might as well dive down at this point...-

But Hera kept gliding straight, heading toward deeper and deeper waters as if I didn't say anything.

"Hm? You change your plan?" Slowly looking up, I expected to find her lost in thought or looking up at the sky, but instead, her pupils were dilated and her gaze was aimed at the water. -H..huh?!-

"Vasilias..." She spoke with a faint quiver in her voice. "Did you just.. have a vision..?" Her voice was laced with worry.

"N..no?" -I didn't even feel anything...- "Did you?"

She somewhat shakily nodded as she lifted off the water and started climbing in altitude. "I just saw something horrific.. but I.. don't know what it was from..." She tried to speak firmly through the faint quiver in her voice as she looped backward and started scanning the water.

Worried, I stuck right next to her. "W-What did you see? Was it a hallucination, or-"

"No." She kept her eyes locked on the water as she broke into a cold sweat. "It wasn't a hallucination.. it was a vision of something in the future.. but I wish I never saw it..."

-W..what..?- Looking down into the water as well, I expanded my aura to cover far more than just the area we passed over...

But there was nothing...

"I don't.. see anything..." And even after circling the area for several minutes, I felt nothing at all...

However, Hera didn't stop, climbing higher and higher with every pass until we eventually climbed well above the clouds, and came to a halt. *Snap-WOOOSH* Clearing the clouds with her aura, we looked down over the patch of ocean below us with a scrutinizing look, but I still didn't find anything, only a small dark patch in the water that was so subtle it didn't seem out of the norm at all.

But after staring at it for a moment, Hera's eyes shot open. "Vasilias..." Her mental exhaustion seemed to vanish in a flash. "Can you flood that dark patch of water with mana?"

Simply following her lead, I pulled a massive swath of mana out of my reserve and dropped it onto the dark patch. -What is she expecting...-

But, against my own expectations, the moment I released the mana into the environment, the dark patch shrank and darkened. "What the..."

"It's all divinity..." Hera immediately spoke with deep discomfort and bitterness. "When I first flew over it, I must've gotten caught by a stray strand..."

It was the first time I had seen such a dark expression on her face. "Just.. what did you see?"

Slowly turning to look me in the eyes, she stared straight into my soul with a hint of pain in her gaze. "Vasilias. I need you to listen to what I'm about to say, very carefully..."

Immediately tensing, my gaze, locked in hers, didn't budge.

"I forbid you from looking into this matter further." She spoke firmly, filled with a determination I didn't know she could muster.

-But...- "Why..."

Staring in my eyes for just a moment longer, she paused before looking back toward the water. "That divinity is likely part of the source of the cult... It gave me a vision of my own future.. one I will do anything to keep from happening... So, just.. don't look into it anymore.. okay..?"

Seeing the pain in her expression, I wanted to back off and give her some space, but I just couldn't. "If it's a vision of a future you want to prevent, shouldn't you tell me about it as well-"

"N-No." She spoke with a stutter as a hint of uncertainty found its way onto her face.

"Hera." My voice and expression quickly firmed. "I'm going to need you to tell me exactly what you saw."

But she only turned her gaze away and spoke so softly I almost couldn't hear her. "I can't risk the oracle being based on a future where you know about it, and investigate it yourself..."

"So you'd rather risk it being based on a future where you keep the oracle to yourself?!" A sudden burst of anger quickly found its way into my voice.. but after a moment, I forced myself to calm down. "Look.. how about this." Pulling in her attention, I spoke more softly. "What if I promise to listen to whatever it is you want me to do after we discuss what you saw. If you want me to focus on other things while you look into it, I will, and if you want to look into it with me, we can do that as well.. but only after we talk about it..."

There was a long.. long silence that ensued after I finished speaking. Hera hovered there, keeping her eyes on the dark blue water below, without saying or doing anything but flapping her wings.

However, after a moment, she spoke under her breath. "How can I trust that this isn't the path towards the oracle... What if me telling you about it is the trigger that leads to your death..."

-My death?- She was serious, but so was I. "How can you trust that any path isn't toward the oracle? Is it not better to speak about it together and come up with a plan that we can both agree on? Why risk your gamble being wrong?"

She immediately snapped and turned to face me. "Because if there was one thing Bahamut taught me, it's that the future is a fickle thing! The reason oracles are vague is because if they're too specific, people will just guide themselves straight toward it in an effort to avoid it!" She spoke with haste, as if in a bit of a panic.

But as I wrapped her in my aura, she slowly started calming down. "Hera, I need you to just trust me..." As I spoke, an old memory from my life as Nott resurfaced, from when I was a child. "You can't avoid fate, but you can make yourself more prepared to face it... If you keep it to yourself, no matter where we try to run or hide, we won't be able to escape it..."

Her gaze slowly began to soften. "H..How do you know..."

But my expression only continued to darken as memories resurfaced. "Because every single time Dagr and I tried it.. we failed..." Staring into her eyes, my gaze slowly softened. "Look.. oracles aren't guaranteed to happen, but the more you try to run from it, the faster it will catch up to you... So.. why don't we just face it?"

Averting her gaze, she fell silent for what felt like eons. "Okay... Just.. promise me that you won't sacrifice yourself or some other bullshit like that... Even if you can reincarnate yourself, I won't accept it..."

As my gaze slowly warmed, a smile crept onto my face. "Alright. I promise... Now just tell me about what you saw..."

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