Markets and Multiverses

I took another look at the dead spiders on the wall, and grinned to myself as I scrolled through my System notifications. I had two of them that I cared about.

First, I had gotten my first kill of an {Acid-Drinker}, which gave me a small but noticeable Achievement bump.

Slaughter: Kill an Acid-Drinker for the First time

Achievement +100

100 Achievement wasn’t too shabby for the first kill of a creature. With this addition to my Achievement, I had gone from 2,718 Achievement to 2,818. For a fight that wasn’t too dangerous, I was quite happy with the results.

The second System notification related to my Keyword Ability. And since it was my first time seeing how this actually worked, I was both excited and happy to see it in play for the first time. I double checked my keyword ability first, since it had been twenty years since I had gained the ability, and I had never actually activated the last part of the ability up until now.

Endless Hunger of the Ocean (Basic Grade)

Keywords: Ocean, Madness (2 Keywords.)

Glut Penalty: 20

While you are submerged in water, your body will generate absorption essence, regardless of whether the local dimensional laws support the existence of absorption essence. Furthermore, contact with water will naturally remodel your body and brain to support absorption-essence spellcasting.

 

Absorption essence may be spent to form ‘runes,’ a unique magical structure created partially within the brain and partially within the body. 

 

These runes have varied effects, mostly relating to strengthening the body and mind and allowing limited control over specific abilities. (This rune system is copied directly from the world you were just living in.) You will also recreate the relevant dimensional laws within your body.

 

Whenever you use water-related abilities to drive something insane, you will collect Achievement as if you had killed it. Madness-related keyword Abilities will be slightly easier to form and upgrade in the future, up to [Master] grade.

 

Killing an enemy with a water-related ability or with water for the first time in each body will allow you to form a skill related to that creature. You may absorb this skill into your current body in order to permanently enhance yourself.

Note: Only Achievement-granting creatures can form skills. Only three skillsfrom this effect may be ‘held’ at once. You may delete a copied skill from this Ability at any time to replace it with a new one.

Held Abilities:

1.

2.

3.

I grinned to myself. I hadn’t been sure what kind of ‘skill’ my ability would generate whenever I killed a new creature with water. Now, I finally had an answer.

And while the reward didn’t push me into a completely new dimension of power, it was definitely useful.

Endless Hunger of the Ocean has devoured Acid Drinker for the first time. New Skill created.

Acid and poison control: You gain understanding of Acid, Poison, and force magic symbols as long as this skill is active.

You gain Basic-grade poison and acid resistance.

Since my skill said I could swap my equipped skills around anytime, I saw no reason not to add the skill to my ‘held’ Skills from {Endless Hunger of the Ocean}. I felt something change inside of my brain, and a new wave of knowledge integrated into my thoughts.

In ten seconds, I learned two magic symbols, a feat which might have otherwise taken me three or four years. The poison and acid magic symbols, which I had never studied before, were suddenly as familiar to me as the three magic symbols I already knew. Of course, I didn’t know any acid or poison spells yet, so the symbols were useless. However, half of the work for learning any acid or poison spells had just been done in an instant. Sadly, the Skill seemed to do absolutely nothing for my knowledge of force magic symbols, likely because I already knew that magic symbol.

The ease with which {Endless Hunger of the Ocean} granted me new abilities made me suddenly eager to see how far the Ability would go in the future. I had been starting to wonder how long I would keep using {Endless Hunger of the Ocean}, since I had noticed the difficulties I faced when using rune magic in a new world. However, the ability to ‘steal’ spells and abilities from monsters gave me hope for the Ability’s future. Perhaps I should focus on evolving the Ability towards the direction of ‘stealing’ in the future? My knowledge of how Ability evolutions worked was kind of patchy right now, but I knew that they could change drastically every time they evolved, based on how they were used.

As I was about to tell Sallia and Felix about my new skill, and discuss what that meant for all of our futures, I heard something in the distance. There was a faint roaring sound, and out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Ella and Lauren turn pale.

A moment later, I saw a new denizen of the darkness in the distance. I couldn’t see it very well, because it was far away and my eyesight was terrible in this life, but a bad feeling started to well up inside of my stomach.

“Orukthyri! How the hell did it get in the tunnels?” yelled Ella, as the other soldiers around us started to turn pale.

Orukthyri?

I felt a tremor in my heart, although I wasn’t sure whether it was from fear or excitement, and then glanced at Sallia, Felix, and Anise.

Anise, upon hearing Ella’s words, had started to turn white with fear. Instead of looking for a way to fight, she immediately started looking at Lauren, as if hoping he would protect us.

Lauren, however, was also starting to frown. 

“If a few Orukthyri got into the tunnels, there are two options,” he called out, both to Ella and to the soldiers. “Either they’re smaller than their kin, which will probably mean they’re weaker. Or they’re some sort of variant Orukthyri. They might be more spell resistant than usual, be stronger, or have spellcasting or shaping abilities. Keep an eye out for magic and adapt as needed.”

The soldiers trembled at Lauren’s mention of ‘varient’ Orukthyri, but the presence of two shapers and multiple trainee shaper-casters seemed to steady their nerves somewhat. They looked at us as if using our presence to reassure themselves, and then gripped their weapons more firmly as they glared at the Orukthyri who were charging towards the wall.

A few moments later, I finally got my first good look at the Orukthyri.

It looked like someone had taken a human and cross-bred it with a boulder. The creature faintly resembled a human, much like the other Orthan descendants, but the resemblance was incredibly faint. Its skin was coarse and gray. Its frame was massive, perhaps two and a half meters tall. Its eyes glowed a hateful orange color in the darkness of the caverns. Its teeth were sharp and serrated. In its monstrously large hands, it held an uprooted tree as a sort of makeshift club.

Behind it were four more Orukthyri, all holding tree-clubs of their own. I wondered how they had gotten tree-clubs into the caverns, but right now, I had bigger problems to worry about.

The moment it saw us, the Orukthyri in the lead grinned, before it stopped moving.

And then, I felt it start manipulating manifestation essence.

“Caster!” Yelled Lauren, turning pale as he reached out his hand towards the caster Orukthyri.

I took another glance at the soldiers on the wall, and saw them turn pale at the mention of an Orukthyri caster. The archers sent out a shower of arrows towards the Orukthyri caster, but due to the range, and the thickness of the creature’s skin and flesh, many of the arrows only gave the creature flesh wounds, or failed to penetrate its skin. The creature didn’t seem to notice the archers at all, and simply continued building up its spell. 

I frowned, and prepared for an actual fight. The caster felt like it was creating a tier 3 spell. If it landed, many people would die.

The orukthyri caster quickly formed a crude fireball, before launching it at the wall. It lacked much of the refinement a well-made fireball had, but the sight of a two and a half meter tall partially invulnerable giant throwing magic at us was intimidating enough that it didn’t matter. 

Luckily, Lauren seized control of the spell by replacing several of the magic symbols on the fly. The fireball, which had been flying towards the wall, suddenly flew to the side instead, nearly hitting one of the Orukthyri before exploding in midair and hitting nothing.

I immediately focused on the caster, and tried to extinguish the Orukthyri caster’s life. That thing was too dangerous to leave alone.

However, the moment I visualized its candle of life, I realized that this thing was much stronger than the spiders we had just exterminated. If I had to guess, this thing’s Fortitude was probably around grade 11 or 12. Furthermore, the thing felt… hard to influence, for lack of a better term. Trying to manipulate its existence using alteration essence felt much more difficult than influencing other creatures. 

“It’s especially magic resistant!” I called out, frowning. If the Orukthyri were also highly magic resistant, that would make them several times more dangerous than other creatures would be. After all, spellcasting and shaping was our primary method of fighting right now.

Then, I proceeded to attack the spellcaster. We needed that thing dead, and I just had to hope that my attack would still be at least somewhat effective, even through the massive magic resistance of the creature. I spent the majority of my essence trying to extinguish the creature’s candle of life in one giant blast of water.

The Orukthyri staggered, caught completely off guard by my bizarre attack that struck at the very core of its existence. I saw the creature’s candle of life flicker madly for a moment, desperately fighting off my attack. And then it stood upright and glared at me. Its life force was weakened, and its movements were sluggish. But it was still very much alive and kicking.

“Crap,” I said.

Then, Lauren and two army spellcasters launched fireballs at the Orukthyri caster. They didn’t waste the window of opportunity I bought them. Ella narrowed her eyes and glared at the caster, and the creature stopped glaring at me and doubled over in pain, ensuring the creature couldn’t defend itself.

Two fireballs crashed into the spellcaster’s body, singeing it and injuring it. Lauren’s fireball blasted out one of the spellcaster’s eyes, nearly killing it. However, somehow the damn creature was still alive. It roared in pain, pointed at the two military spellcasters, and tried to throw another fireball at them. However, Lauren immediately redirected the fireball towards another Orukthyri, forcing one of the warriors to dodge the sudden friendly fire.

The Orukthyri warriors decided they were done sitting around and waiting. They charged the wall. 

The archers and Felix started taking potshots at the warriors, realizing that if they reached the walls and attacked our spellcasters, we were all going to die under the attack of the Orukthyri spellcaster. However, the creatures had incredibly resilient bodies, and the arrows just didn’t do enough damage to kill them.

I hesitated, wondering if I could somehow finish off the spellcaster, before realizing I didn’t have enough alteration essence to launch another extinguish at the spellcaster, and my spellcasting abilities weren’t sufficient to help attack the spellcaster anymore. Ella and Lauren would need to finish the fight with the spellcaster without my help. However, I could still help distract the warriors and buy more time. The warriors could probably climb the wall and kill our spellcasters quickly if they were undistracted, but if we could stop them from interfering, our side would hopefully win the spellcaster war.

I look at Sallia, and I saw that she was preparing to jump off the wall and attack the Orukthyri. Perhaps she was thinking that it was best to make sure our fight took place as far away from our spellcasters as possible? She glanced at me, and then her eyes darted towards one of the Orukthyri again.

“Together?” I asked, as I pulled out my Market sword. 

Sallia grinned at me. “Together,” she said.

Felix and Anise were starting to join the other soldiers in shooting arrows and spells at one of the approaching Orukthyri, so Sallia and I decided to aim for a different target. Then, the two of us jumped off the wall.

We crashed to the stone ground with thuds, our rune-enhanced physiques easily absorbing the shock of landing where a normal soldier’s bones would have shattered on impact.

Then, I immediately activated my rune ability. The air around me started to liquify and swirl around me, before it started turning into a whirlpool of madness-inducing water. Both of my keywords activated, for all the good it did me, and more importantly, water alteration started to become easier if I used it on my immediate surroundings.

Sallia distanced herself from me, making sure not to get caught in my whirlpool, and the two of us charged at the nearest Orukthyri.

The giant boulder-like creature roared in challenge as it saw us springing towards it. Perhaps it saw our approach as a challenge to it. It redirected its charge away from the wall and towards us instead. 

Then, as it locked eyes with me… its gaze fell upon my whirlpool instead. It started to grin madly, and ignored Sallia completely.

I felt a twinge of surprise at the sight. Despite the creature’s resistance to shaping and spellcasting, it didn’t seem to have any resistance against absorption essence at all. 

Out of the corner of my eye, I also saw one of the other Orukthyri glance at my whirlpool and divert its charge towards us.

Suddenly, I wished the Orukthyri were more resistant to absorption abilities. Fighting two Orutkhyri at once would be very hard for us. However, at least we were properly distracting the two creatures.

Now we just needed to survive. Or, better yet, kill our opponents.

The first Orukthyri quickly reached us. It tried to swing its knock Sallia out of the way with its tree club, barely even registering her presence as she moved to ambush it. However, Sallia leapt over the tree, and then rammed her sword into the Orukthyri’s massive neck. Clearly, she was trying to kill the creature on the spot while it was distracted.

Sallia’s muscle attunement got to work, trying to rip apart the Orukthyri’s arteries apart using raw magic. However, the creature’s magic resistance made it a tough target.

For a brief moment, its massive body sped up by several times. In that time, it grabbed Sallia and threw her towards the wall like a human cannonball. 

Sallia spun through the air before crashing into the wall. Stone and bones both cracked, and I prayed that my friend wasn’t dead. I used the time to stab the Orukthyri in the armpit, trying to distract it so that Sallia had time to recover and heal. At the same time, my mind spun as I tried to assess the creature’s power.

This thing was stronger than Sallia, despite her runes and physique enhancing spells and attunements. And it had survived a direct stab to the throat as well. I felt a growing realization gnawing at my mind.

This was what I needed to expect from a tier 4 world. An unreasonably powerful creature that could crush Sallia and I working together. I spun away from the creature as it tried to crush me with its massive tree club, before I pushed more absorption essence into my water whirlpool. It was the only ability that had proven effective so far, and I wanted to keep the creature away from Sallia while she recovered.

While the creature was distracted, I used a steam ball spell to try to boil the creature’s eyes out. The creature simply waved its hand through the steam, causing the manifestation essence in my spell to disperse. The creature’s magic resistance was far more troublesome than I had thought. Second circle spells couldn’t even hurt it.

Suddenly, a massive hand surrounded me, clamping down on my waist. I realized with horror that I had lost track of the second Orukthyri. Much like the first one, it had suddenly sped up for a moment, and was prepared to kill me. The second Orukthyri’s mouth opened wide as it tried to lift me up.

And then its hand sank into my dress, accomplishing absolutely nothing.

The creature’s eyes widened in confusion. I took the opportunity to cut into its wrist, and it yanked its hand back. Unfortunately, I didn’t manage to cut anything off. I only inflicted a superficial wound. 

This thing’s fortitude was way too high.

I got a desperate idea. I was in way over my head, and the fact both Orukthyri were nearly immune to my attacks and could suddenly speed up was making that fact very clear to me. However, the second Orukthyri was in contact with my madness-inducing water, and its willpower seemed quite low. 

I converted more of the air into madness water using general shaping, pushing my rune ability well beyond its natural limits by using my alteration essence. Then, I used general shaping to toss my rune ability to the side, creating a floating ball of madness-inducing water. I hoped the creatures would just stroll up to the water and drown themselves, since I couldn’t find another way to harm them.

The two Orukthyri chased after the floating ball of water for a moment, grinning like lunatics.

This lasted for about ten seconds, before they finally snapped out of it.

I swore as I realized they were already starting to realize the water was a trick. These things weren’t very smart, but they were much, much smarter than the creatures I had fought before.

I quickly separated my ball of madness water into a giant stream of bubbles, before I began spreading them in our area. The Orukthyri didn’t seem very distracted anymore, but they still swatted at some of the stray water bubbles.

The moment the nearest Orukthyri swatted its third bubble of water, I turned it into ocean of souls water, causing it to yelp in pain as its hand burned on contact with the ocean.

However, it didn’t seem very injured; just pissed off. Luckily, the other Orukthyri seemed more cautious of the water bubbles now, and actively avoided touching them. It stared at me, as if considering how to reach me through the field of madness-inducing bubbles.

I sscuttled backwards, trying to think of a way to survive.

As if to mock my attempts to stay alive, the second Orukthyri finally gave up and charged at me. I converted more of the bubbles into ocean of souls water, causing it to wince in pain as it sprinted towards me, but it ignored the minor damage I was inflicting on it. I started to panic.

Rune enhancements or not, if I got hit by that thing and wasn’t protected by my dress, I would die. Grade nine Fortitude was nowhere near enough to survive a direct hit from these things.

I heard soldiers scream in the distance, and realized that the other two Orukthyri had reached the walls and was slaughtering the soldiers. I hoped the soldiers had a solution, because I had no way to help them. I saw spellcasters flinging spells at the creatures out of the corner of my eyes, but the Orukthyri on top of the walls were dodging out of the way, and the best casters were trying to taking down the distant Orukthyri caster.

The second Orukthyri speed up again, but even if I couldn’t see it, I knew it was coming. The moment its figure disappeared from my sight, I rolled out of the way, and just barely managed to dodge. Then, I saw Sallia ram her sword into the back of its knee. The muscles in its leg twisted like snakes trying to burst out of its leg, and the creature screamed in pain. It dropped to its knees and tried to punch Sallia. I didn’t miss the window of opportunity she had brought me, and stabbed the creature in the eye. I did my first noticeable damage to the creature as one of its two eyes turned into gray goop. However, I didn’t manage to hit the brain and kill it.

It punched me, and part of its fist hit a part of my body that wasn’t protected by my dress. I flew backwards like a rag doll before bouncing off of the stone floor of the cavern. I groaned in pain before struggling to my feet. I looked back towards the place Sallia and I had been fighting the Orukthyri, and got my first good look at Sallia.

Sallia’s right arm dangled limply to the side, and she was holding her sword in her left hand now. There was blood everywhere on her right arm, although it didn’t look like it had been destroyed. 

The two Orukthyri had their eyes locked firmly on Sallia now, apparently having forgotten about me since I had been knocked away from the fight. I felt icy fear start to creep its way across my spine as I realized that none of my other spells would be strong enough to matter here, and Sallia and I were seriously outclassed by these giant creatures. And the damn things were trying to hurt my friend.

I clenched my sword more tightly as I tried to shake off my fear.

Were we going to die here?

 

 

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