Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG) Chapter 140: Portal

As we stepped closer to the tal door, I could feel sothing thrumming, just on the other side of the door.

I closed my eyes and listened to the beating of the alteration essence in the air. Unlike most other alteration essence I had seen manipulating the laws of reality, which simply hung in the air like a dead cloud, the pustule of spatial energy on the other side of the door sounded like a second heartbeat.

It was terrifying. It was beautiful. It was hard for to understand in any aningful way. But the pulsing of alteration essence had a certain strange allure to it, in addition to the rising fear I felt.

I looked at the dragon, and for a mont, I thought I saw the dragon twitch slightly. It was a very subtle movent, and one that would be hard to detect if I hadn’t been paying close attention. I wondered if the dragon was twitching in fear or anticipation, and hoped that it was anticipation.

If even the dragon couldn’t win here, we were completely screwed. After seeing the dragon casually demolish several hallways with eighth-circle spells, I realized that the four of us were basically supporting roles here. If we were even needed at all.

On top of my increasing nervousness as we grew closer to our destination, I was increasingly uncertain what else lay on the other side of the door. The pulses of alteration essence were so engulfing and massive that it was hard to focus on anything else at all. And sohow, the door was blocking everything besides the beating alteration essence. I had no clue what was inside of the room - I couldn’t see any souls, but I also couldn’t see a lack of souls, either. It was simply blocked from my sight, sohow. On the other side of the door, there could be dozens of hostile outsiders stuck and waiting to kill us, or guard dragons, or basically anything else I could imagine. And I had no way of warning the group about any of it.

I suspected that the alteration essence from inside of the room was blocked too - it was simply so massive that, despite being blocked, huge amounts of alteration essence were still leaking out of the room.

Once we opened the door, there would be no turning back, either. Whatever was in the room wasn’t currently aware of us, but I seriously doubted that would remain the case once we opened the door.

I took a deep breath to steady myself, and looked at my friends, Sekundyrr, and the dragon.

If we could shut down the connection to the world of the black sun, we could save this world. If we figured out how it worked, and could find Sekundyrr’s ho, we could return it to its forr life.

We just needed to win against whatever was in this room.

“Let’s go,” said the dragon, after a few monts of hesitation. It leaned forward, and chomped on the door.

The door, being made of tal, disappeared down the dragon’s gullet within the span of a few seconds.

I looked inside of the room, activating my soul sight again as I looked for threats.

Inside of the room was a massive soul, surrounded by dozens of smaller souls.

The biggest soul in the room was nearly the size of the dragon’s, and the smaller souls were all almost as large as ours.

The room was alive. The air inside of the room was alive. The specks of dust were alive. The stacks of research notes, the pens near them, and the ink that had long since dried inside of the inkwells were alive.

And in the center of the massive room, there was a single, black scepter. Cords of tal connected it to the walls, and floating on top of it was a hole in reality. On the other side of that window, I could see sothing I had never seen before - the ocean of souls.

We were looking directly at a giant, narrow corridor that passed directly through the ocean of souls. I had no idea how the black staff had managed to make the ocean that literally traversed reality move aside, but sohow, the black scepter was keeping the ocean of at bay.

On the other side of the ocean of souls, I saw another dinsion.

And inside of that dinsion, there was a soul.

One, singular soul.

It was only one soul, but it was such a large soul that it made every single other soul I had ever seen in the course of my life seem tiny in comparison.

The size seed millions of tis stronger than the dragon. Hundreds of millions, even. It wasn’t staring at us, and didn’t seem aware of us at all - it simply existed, encompassing the entirety of the other world.

A deep, echoing terror inside of my mind told exactly what I was looking at, as if words and aning was being forced directly into my mind.

I suddenly knew that I was looking at the void between stars.

The living, walking embodint of the void between every single world, every single star, every single speck of reality in the other dinsion was simply sitting on the other side of the portal, completely indifferent to the little window in reality that the black scepter had created..

I had seen the research notes in the Dinsional Habitat Facility, and they had noted that almost everything exposed to the atmosphere in dinsion 6 would co to life after a while. I had known that, but I hadn’t realized that the void on the other side of the portal would be ONE SINGLE CREATURE. In my head, I had imagined dinsion six to be filled with various chunks of living, walking space, perhaps fighting each other for food or drifting through the void as planets and their imdiate surroundings also splintered into smaller, recognizably sized entities that fought or ignored each other.

That was dead wrong.

The void between stars wasn’t made up of hundreds of thousands of smaller living chunks of void.

Every single centiter of space between stars was one massive entity.

Even our entire planet was barely a speck of dust in comparison. The life force required to extinguish the thing was so ludicrous that I couldn’t imagine ever extinguishing it. Even if I had ten thousand tis my current essence reserves, the creature probably wouldn’t even notice a full-powered attack from .

The chi of the system brought out of my daze.

Exploration: Find the connection between the world you were born in and another world for the first ti

Achievent 1,000

Analyzing new world… Analysis complete!

Essences Present in this dinsion: Alteration

Estimated tier: 16 (according to the Market’s standardized power evaluation scale)

Special notes: The world you are currently near is much higher tier than your current world. If you do not have advanced equipnt or combat power, or a very technologically advanced civilization backing you up to make up for the difference in combat power, it is advised that you close the portal. Contact between different dinsions is occasionally peaceful, but war is very common.

The physics of the world you are currently near seem to be totally at odds with the laws of physics your current body is built to handle. It seems to be a sort of ‘plane of ideas,’ where concepts like space and physical matter only existed in specific, limited forms. It is advised that you proceed with caution, because your biology will almost certainly collapse instantly upon touching the laws of the other dinsion unless you have Heroic or higher grade Abilities to negate this effect.

TIER 16?!!!!

“Fuck,” said Felix, staring at the patch of air in front of him as he presumably read through his own System notifications.

I felt sothing strange start to happen to my body a few monts later.

I realized that my bones were… alive. Not just my bones. My skin, my flesh, my blood, my organs… every single piece of was rapidly awakening as completely foreign life and souls sprung into existence inside of my body.

My Fortitude stat and my Willpower stat fought to keep my body under my control. It was the most overt feeling of my attributes that I had ever gotten - normally, I could see the effect of stats like Strength as they made my body stronger, but I had never before felt an attribute actively resisting sothing quite so vividly.

I looked at Anise, Sallia, and Felix, and realized that they were choking in horror as miniature souls sprung up all across their body, like a wildfire in slow motion.

I tried to bite down on the connection between our world and the black sun’s world, panicking as I tried to keep the bodies of my friends under control. I failed to sink my teeth into anything at all - I clearly hadn’t bitten on quite the right thing.

Anise started to scream in agony.

The creatures inside of the room finally noticed our presence, and started turning towards us. I felt prickles of fear and danger crawl across my spine as I realized that we might very well be screwed.

The dragon roared, an expression of rage and frustration, and then fired a quick seventh-circle spell into the room to buy itself ti to form a higher tier spell. Most of the smaller souls in the room died on the spot, winking out of existence like little lights.

I imdiately started altering my fifth rune ability, trying to boost it as much as I possibly could by overcharging it with every drop of alteration and absorption essence I had in my body.

Then, I turned towards the dragon.

“Throw towards the portal!” I scread, ignoring the giant soul present in the room where the air had co to life. I prayed that this would be enough.

The dragon’s tail wrapped around and tossed towards the portal like a slingshot, just gently enough that I wouldn’t splatter on impact with the wall.

First, I reached towards the black scepter. My first idea was simply to rip the black scepter away, hopefully ending all of this.

I collided with the black scepter and realized it was hopeless. The black scepter was rooted into the ground like a billion-ton asteroid.

I tried reaching into the black scepter and flooding it with alteration essence, trying to force it to shut off whatever it was doing.

It felt like I had slamd like alteration essence into a steel wall. Nothing budged at all - I was way too weak to force the scepter to shut down.

I focused more on my fifth rune. It was my last idea. I powered up my spatial manipulation-deleting bite a little more, forcing my ability to lock on to the connection between this dinsion and the other one, and then bit down as hard as I possibly could.

It felt like I had bitten down on a diamond. I wasn’t even close to breaking it - I hadn’t even dented the connection at all.

The black scepter started looking at , the soul inside of it starting to glow with manifestation essence. I realized that I was about to die, and turned towards the dragon, praying that it had a way to save us.

The dragon finished its eighth circle spell, and the air inside of the room suddenly died. I felt a strange sense of suffocation as the air was plucked out of my lungs.

Sallia appeared out of thin air and swung her gravitite-empowered sword at the black scepter, as if trying to distract it. Even if she couldn’t see souls, she must have felt the manifestation essence building up inside of the item and tried to help .

The gravitite sword bounced off of the black scepter and did nothing whatsoever.

Then, I felt sothing settle on .

It was the weight of eyes.

Thousands upon thousands of eyes, looking at like the tiny, insignificant creature that I was. Every single star in the sky of the other dinsion, every single planet, every single piece of physical matter, all opened their eyes and looked at at the sa ti. I could feel my Fortitude and Willpower stats instantly lose their battle to keep control of my collapsing flesh. My bones started ripping themselves out of my flesh, fleeing as my blood started corroding my internal organs. My brain started trying to free itself from my skull, and every pound of flesh on my body started to unravel and flee.

But that didn’t matter, because they were looking at .

THEYWERELOOKINGATTHEYWERELOOKINGATTHEYWERELOOKINGATTHEYWERELOOKINGAT-

You have been detected to be (dead), and your soul is no longer housed inside of a physical vessel.

You will be returned to the Market shortly.

Warning: It has been detected that you are part of a potentially large influence-based event, and have not yet collected your rewards. Once you exit a dinsion, you may no longer connect to the dinsional laws of that world, aning you will no longer be able to collect any Achievent from interacting with a certain world. Would you like to enter slumber mode for 20 Achievent? This will keep your soul safe from the corrosion of the ocean of souls for up to 1 year, and prevent you from exiting this dinsion. This is advised to finish collecting rewards which are still pending.

Warning: You have one or more friends still connected to your current dinsion, even though you are dead. It is highly recomnded that you enter slumber mode until all of you leave a dinsion at the sa ti. Otherwise, it may be difficult to ti your births and deaths in each world properly, which has been statistically proven to increase the chance of your group breaking up soti within the next five centuries!

Would you like to enter slumber mode for 20 Achievent? Each purchase lasts for up to one year.

Before I could read the System notification, another System notification ca.

All mbers of your registered group of friends have been detected to be dead.

Influence: Contributed to the attack on the portal between worlds by an [Extrely Negligible] amount.

Achievent 0.0

I died.

Death Statistics Report:

Power:

Successfully Condense your First Rune

40 Achievent

Successfully Condense your Second Rune

80 Achievent

Successfully Condense your Third Rune

120 Achievent

Successfully Condense your Fourth Rune

160 Achievent

Successfully Condense your Fifth Rune

200 Achievent

[Basic] level attunent:

250 Achievent

[Interdiate] level attunent:

500 Achievent

[Advanced] level attunent:

750 Achievent

[Expert] level attunent:

1000 Achievent

First circle spellcaster

150 Achievent

Second circle spellcaster

300 Achievent

Third circle spellcaster

450 Achievent

Skill:

Achieve [Basic] Grade one-handed Swordsmanship

20 Achievent

Achieve [Interdiate] Grade one-handed Swordsmanship

130 Achievent

Achieve [Basic] Grade mastery of Ocean's Duality Magic

500 Achievent

Slaughter:

Kill an Acid Drinker for the First ti

100 Achievent

Kill a Voltenthus for the First ti

115 Achievent

Kill a Silent Puppet for the First ti

300 Achievent

Assist in Killing an Orukthyri Third or fourth Circle variant for the first ti

500 Achievent

Kill an Orukthyri Third or fourth Circle variant for the first ti

1500 Achievent

Assist in killing an Orukthyri Warrior (Variant) for the first ti

90 Achievent

Assist in killing an Orukthyri Warrior (Variant) for the fifth ti

250 Achievent

Kill an Orukthyri Warrior (Variant) for the first ti

1,200 Achievent

Assist in killing an Orukthyri Shaper-Commander for the first ti

600 Achievent

Kill a Sleeplurk for the first ti

35 Achievent

Kill a Dasher for the first ti

25 Achievent

Kill a Poisonlurk for the first ti

40 Achievent

Assist in killing a Sleeplurk for the first ti

3 Achievent

Assist in killing a Flare Eater for the first ti

300 Achievent

Kill an empty shadow for the first ti

150 Achievent

Kill a Thought Worm for the first ti

2 Achievent

Kill a Thought Worm for the fifth ti

4 Achievent

Kill a Thought Worm for the tenth ti

6 Achievent

Kill a Thought Worm for the 25th ti

10 Achievent

Kill a Thought Worm for the 70th ti

15 Achievent

Kill a Thought Worm for the 250th ti

25 Achievent

Kill a Thought Worm for the 700th ti

50 Achievent

Kill a Voidless for the 1st ti

100 Achievent

Kill a Voidless for the 5th ti

200 Achievent

Assist in killing a Voidless for the 1st ti

15 Achievent

Assist in killing a Voidless for the 5th ti

30 Achievent

Assist in killing a Voidless for the 15th ti

50 Achievent

Influence:

Contribute to the battle of the border cavern by a major amount

1500 Achievent

Play a [Major] role in the scout raid on the Orukthyri base

300 Achievent

Contribute to the battle of the tunnel by a minor amount

800 Achievent

Heal 3 Permanent, crippling injuries

150 Achievent

Heal 12 Permanent, crippling injuries

400 Achievent

Heal 30 Permanent, crippling injuries

600 Achievent

Heal 100 Permanent, crippling injuries

750 Achievent

Slightly Increase the Strength of Silver City

400 Achievent

Help 1 Palanthyrre escape its imprisonnt

100 Achievent

Help 1 Dragon Escape its imprisonnt

1,000 Achievent

Wealth:

Beco the Owner of 5 bars of (almost) pure gold

200 Achievent

Beco the Owner of 3 bars of Gravitite

200 Achievent

Beco the Owner of 12 bars of Gravitite

400 Achievent

Beco the Owner of 1 kg of Prismium

1000 Achievent

Crafting:

N/A

Exploration:

Find the connection between your ho dinsion and a new dinsion for the first ti

Achievent 1,000

Family and Disciples:

N/A

Misc:

First ti Achievents:

(Market-Produced Achievents cannot be repeated in subsequent lives. They are paid for by Eluxia and the Market, as a ans to encourage new Transmigrators, and not linked to the dinsional laws of any world besides the market).

Total at start of World: 218.89

New Total:19,383.89

Taxes: N/A (Error - no tax skill detected. Please consult with your local city administrator for further details. Tax evasion is a capital offense, and trying to avoid paying may result in execution!)

Equipnt maintenance costs and other expenses:

Friendship bracelet w/Location tracking: -1.8 Achievent

Two-Purpose Training Sword: -7.2 Achievent

Lake-Gazer's Dress: -22.8 Achievent

Storage Pack: -2.3 Achievent

Sturdy Boots: -1.1 Achievent

Final Total: 19,348.69