Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG) Chapter 214: Fragmented Space

When I saw the horde of shadow creatures flying towards us, I imdiately realized sothing.

There were way too many of them to handle.

Worse, Felix’s regular attacks had passed through the first creature’s body. My lightning bolt had done nothing to it. Anise and Felix wouldn't be able to hurt them. With two of our four combatants out of the picture, contending with a horde of dozens of enemies was a pipe dream.

So I grabbed my mother and ran for my life. The rest followed suit.

Even the parents seed to realize the situation was urgent, even if they didn't have all the details.

As we fled, I saw o that several of the manta rays were still investigating their fallen comrade. Only a few of them focused on our group.

Based on the first creature’s contempt for our actions, I surmised that most of the manta-ray creatures felt we weren't threats. They didn't believe we could hurt them at all.

I hoped that they were afraid of us, instead of enraged.

That hope was short-lived, as I saw the first few glow with manifestation essence. Black strings of essence tore out of their bodies and snaked towards the nearby rocks. A mont later, airborne missiles started flying towards us.

The horde was not afraid of us. Instead, they were hellbent on vengeance.

I teleported the first few rocks back into the horde. I hoped that I could slip them into the sa sublayer of reality the creatures existed in. It didn’t work - the creatures shifted their body shapes and let the rocks sail right through them. Without the tarot card guiding my aim, hitting the creatures was nearly impossible.

I said.

asked Felix.

I opened my spatial sight again, before I winced.

said Felix.

asked Sallia.

I yelled into the friendship bracelet. A mont later, I ducked to the ground as a boulder crashed into the ground near . Since my essence was nowhere near enough already, I needed to dodge so attacks instead of teleporting everything away.

In desperation, I popped open the System ssages I had pushed to the side earlier, and hoped that sohow one of them would fix this ss.

The first thing I saw was a regular kill notification. My actions counted for a kill rather than an assist, even though Felix struck the final blow.

Slaughter: Kill a Worldstrider for the first ti

Achievent 80

I resisted the urge to throw sothing when I saw that the kill had only been worth 80 Achievent. That was barely any better than a skeleton foot soldier in the Market. I felt that the creature was far more frustrating to fight against than the Skeleton. Only getting 80 Achievent didn’t feel fair.

I took a deep breath and looked at the other System notification. This was the one I had been hoping to see, and would hopefully provide us a way out of this ss.

Endless Hunger of the Ocean has devoured a Worldstrider for the first ti. New Skill created.

Fragnted Space:

Your body gains the ability to step in and out of a certain sublayer of space. One may think of this as sothing like a ‘pocket dinsion’ that layered on top of the surface world.

It takes a moderate amount of any type of essence to step into this sublayer of space. Interacting with items in the ‘surface world’ while within this sublayer of space will require other abilities.

I looked at the ability, and imdiately accepted it. A few monts later, I felt as if sothing was calling to . It was almost like a door or a window that I could step through, but had never been aware of until now.

I said, before activating the ability.

I felt so of my absorption essence disappear. Imdiately, my vision went black. I felt like I had fallen even deeper into an endless void - and it was slowly ripping away at my body. The laws of this reality weren't wholly compatible with my biology. It was nowhere near as dangerous as the living galaxy had been, but it hurt. I tried not to grimace in pain - it still felt like I had jumped into a vat of acid.

But if I wanted us to have any chance at all against the horde of creatures, I needed to hit them in their ho territory. Attacks from the surface layer of reality didn't even hurt them without a lot of extra steps. I scanned the area, looking for so sort of weakness I could seize to finish off our attackers.

I didn’t see anything. This sublayer of space was even more void-like than the first one. I could feel the ground I was standing on, and see a few ripples of essence in the distance. The only other thing I could find were the worldstriders flying towards us.

I couldn’t even see the rest of the group unless I used my spatial manipulation/soul sight combination. To the rest of our group it must have looked like I had disappeared into thin air.

The sounds the worldstriders made were also much louder in this sublayer of space.

They spoke to each other in strange, chittering sounds that I couldn't interpret at all. The first one we had t had clearly only spoken Zelyrian for our benefit.

But they definitely noticed the fact that I had traveled to their ‘ho layer’ of reality.

Several of the flying blobs started zooming towards . I gritted my teeth and held {Breath of the Storm} in front of , before I activated the lighting attack.

This ti, the lightning didn’t pass through the creature - it slamd directly into the worldstrider. For once, my attack had been fast enough that the blasted creature couldn’t shapeshift out of the way. It collapsed into a burnt, foul-slling pile of charcoal a mont later.

asked Sallia. She sounded panicked.

I sent back as I started moving to keep up with the group.

asked Sallia.

I blinked.

That was a good idea, if it worked.

I spent so more absorption essence to reappear in the ‘main’ layer of reality. I grabbed onto Sallia’s hand and tried activating my new Fragnted Space Skill again.

A mont later, the real world disappeared, and I was standing back in the other layer of reality. Sallia was with .

I grinned.

I was pretty reliant on my essence to fight, and I had started this battle at less than half of my reserves.

Sallia was not low on essence at all.

Sallia grinned at the worldstriders. Her grin was the stuff of nightmares - it was savage, feral, and conveyed how very, very pissed off she was. I wasn’t the only one upset that sothing was trying to kill Anise.

Then Sallia leapt towards them. The creatures chittered and screeched at her, and few of them launched strings of black manifestation essence at Sallia.

She ducked out of the way, but one of the strings latched onto her skin - where it left a shallow cut and then collapsed.

said Sallia as her grin widened.

I also grinned. We could fight the worldstriders on even ground here.

A few of the creatures swapped to launching fist-sized globs of darkness at Sallia instead. These gave a bad feeling - but it seed like projectiles travelled slower in this sub-dinsion. This had thrown my extinguish off-course when I first tried to use it. Now, it worked to our benefit, since Sallia could dodge the attacks with ease. The few blobs of darkness that did make past Sallia’s defensive maneuvering sank into her {Robe of the Wandering Swordsman}... and then did nothing.

Sallia hit the first worldstrider like a billion ton asteroid. Her first swing divided one of the worldstriders in half before it could respond. The creature fell and stopped moving, as Sallia’s grin grew even wider.

With another worldstrider dead, the worldstriders finally stopped paying attention to the group. Sallia and I had their full, undivided attention. They had realized we were the real threats, and they weren’t happy about it. I was glad to see their attacks no longer falling on Anise, our parents, and the others.

I fell back, and concentrated on supporting Sallia. I needed to preserve my essence, but I could still hit worldstriders with lightning bolts at opportune monts. I reserved my alteration essence for ergencies, since it was hard to hit the creatures with extinguishes.

anwhile, Sallia was like a hurricane. She took occasional wounds, but they were minor in comparison to the devastation she wrought. Every ti one fell, she sprinted towards another one and stuck to it like glue. The creatures tried to float out of her range, but it didn't work. Sallia used her tal manipulation to create platforms for herself, and sohow managed to keep herself airborne using her muscles and rune ability.

I watched in awe as Sallia killed her sixth worldstrider. Many of them started to try to shapeshift out of the way of Sallia's blade. Sallia adapted to this trick equally quickly through her swordsmanship expertise. For a few monts, Sallia dominated the battlefield on her own. Against a horde of enemies, the two of us stood like mountains holding back the ocean. We made them aware of just how big of a mistake they had made in picking a fight with us.

Then the mont ended.

The horde of worldstriders seed endless, and they were approaching faster than we could kill them. We could kill one every few seconds, but there were dozens of enemies. And the laws of this sublayer of reality were still corroding our bodies. That did more damage than the worldstriders, and I didn't have enough alteration essence to heal us. After a minute, I picked up Sallia and dragged us back in the original dinsion. The corrosion of the other sublayer of reality disappeared.

The others had made good use of the ti we bought and had booked it.

Sallia grabbed , burned so absorption essence, and then ran at a speed that made my neck hurt from whiplash. We caught up to our group in monts.

We had held off the horde of black blobs and gained a small lead - but we were now sprinting blindly through a massive, empty dinsion that we still hadn’t figured out a way to leave.