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Chapter 459: Apocalyptic Magic - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2025-10-24 06:37:00 +0000 UTCThe rippling essence in the sky felt as if it would tear the very world asunder.
My father, and many of the other townsfolk, also seemed to feel the imminent threat of death. My father turned pale as he looked at the terrifying essence surging above us.
“Miria. Stay quiet and don’t squirm,” said my father.
Then, he grabbed me, and started sprinting towards our house at full speed.
<Miria, do you see this?> asked Felix, as he also looked up at the sky. Unlike me, he had invested a huge portion of his stats into [Perception] in order to better boost his crafting abilities - the ability to understand and assess a material before carving it was vital for a woodcarver, after all.
Through Felix’s eyesight, I could finally see what was going on in the distance. In the sky, there were two creatures fighting. One of them seemed to be a human - he was perhaps two and a half meters tall, so he was practically a giant, but apart from that he looked quite normal.
The thing he was fighting was different. It looked like a mound of fur, wood, and eyeballs, all jammed together in ways that made no biological sense. The strangest part of the mound of fur, wood, and eyeballs was the fact that it was on fire. This fire didn’t seem to harm the creature in any way - it seemed more as if the flames were making way for their ruler.
<Looks like something powerful,> said Sallia. <Some sort of fire magic wielding monster?>
<I hope we don’t die here. We need time to develop in this world,> said Anise. <My mom is rushing me into the house, as if the roof will somehow protect us from whatever is happening in the skies. I don’t think a roof will save us if one of those two decide we should die.>
Through Felix’s vision, I saw the mound of eyeballs and wood release another wisp of flames. The heat ripped through the skies as if it were alive and with my own, less augmented vision, I saw the previous blizzard start to dissipate in seconds. The distant blue sky turned orange-red as the atmosphere itself seemed to turn into a curtain of flames.
The man snorted, and swung a spear at the pillar of flames. The ripple of fire turned into a boundless expanse of sunlight. It was still hot, but the nature of the fire was different. I felt the eldritch aspect of hope resonate with the light, as if it had met a kindred spirit, and somehow I knew that I was looking at a conceptual incarnation of the sun itself. Light, warmth, life-giving…
While none of those aspects were directly tied to the concept of hope, many of them were adjacent.
Then, the two combatants disappeared from Felix’s vision. I heard loud, rattling booms that shook the skies like cannons thundering in the heavens. The crackle and crash of fire, sunlight, and collisions was so loud that my ears started to bleed, even though the two in the skies must have been several kilometers above us.
Then, I felt the sky tremble as a shockwave tore through the world. It was as if someone had set off a bomb right above us. Icicles and trees trembled, and I felt my very bones rattle as the shockwave passed by us. Then another shockwave passed by.
Felix lost sight of the combatants as his own family dragged him into the best shelter they could find, and so I used my soul sight to give my friends the best view I could of what was happening in the sky.
Two blazing suns of life essence danced through the sky. Waves of essence lanced through each one. Another shockwave tore into the area, and I saw one of the seven village-bearing beasts die instantly. I had no idea what had killed it - one moment, it had been alive, and the next moment, a quarter of its body had turned into paste and its life essence dissipated. A moment later, I saw a golden gout of flames tear into a nearby swathe of trees, exterminating dozens of monsters and hundreds of trees before dissipating.
Another terrifying shockwave rippled through the world around us, and the six remaining village-bearing beasts struggled to plant their feet into the ground beneath them. A moment later, I realized that it wasn’t a shockwave this time - it was some kind of blast of wind magic. The wind grew increasingly powerful, and my father tightened his grip around me with one hand. With his other hand, he used fire magic to melt a few chunks of the stone foundation of our house, and then planted one of his hands into the rock like a plant trying to root itself in the ground.
The wind grew more and more absurd, and in mere seconds, I saw our surroundings start to ripple and change. The icicles from distant trees started to swirl around, and I heard the distinctive crackle of ice hitting stone.
I mentally apologized to my father. It would definitely have been much more dangerous outside of the house compared to inside. His act of dragging us both inside had been a good idea.
A few moments later, the magical wind shut off. I had no idea which side had nearly killed us via magical hurricane, but I was glad the other side had forced them to abandon the spell.
Then, another burst of wind ripped through the area. This time, I saw two of the six remaining village-bearing beasts struggle to maintain their posture. One of them nearly tipped over, although a burst of essence from several people with [Tamer] sparks helped stabilize it.
At least, that was the case until another burst of wind magic hit it, finally causing the village-bearing beast to start tipping over and falling. I saw the souls on the surface of that village remain surprisingly stable, even as the village started to fall over. A few people still fell off the village-bearing beast as it crashed to the earth, but most people managed to hold on to their position somehow, and I noticed that very few people actually got hurt. Even with the influence of the System the low level of deaths and injuries surprised me, but I was glad.
After nearly two minutes of chaotic devastation, I saw one of the souls in the sky take a huge blow. The other combatant didn’t miss that opportunity, and several more bursts of sunlight-esque magic quickly ripped the other soul to pieces. In seconds, one of the two souls winked out of existence entirely.
I breathed a sigh of relief. At the very least, the rounds of chaotic devastation from the heavens had ended. For a moment, I thought that would be all - the calamity might finally have ended. After all, it didn’t seem likely that such a powerful combatant would care much about our existence either way. However, to my surprise, I saw the massive, ridiculously powerful soul quickly dive towards our clan of wandering villages from the sky.
I wriggled out of my father’s arms. He didn’t resist, since it was obvious the massive chaos and madness had started to die down. Then, I got a much better look at the incredibly powerful combatant that had nearly wiped out our wandering clan with the aftershocks of his battle.
The winner had been the human man, rather than the mound of fur and wood. The man was actually a bit taller than I had thought he was - closer to three meters than two and a half. He had dark skin, nearly coal-colored, and had a regal and proud tilt to his chin. It almost seemed as if he was a noble, inspecting peasants as he gazed at us. He wore gleaming gold-colored armor that contrasted heavily with his skin. I had no idea what it was actually made of, but I suspected it was some kind of magic metal.
However, while there was some pride in his body language and his gaze, he also seemed a bit sympathetic as he looked over our village. Finally, he spoke. I felt a small ripple of essence as some kind of spell or ability projected his voice over our entire clan of wandering villages, even though his voice didn’t sound particularly loud in my ears.
“It seems that my battle has disturbed you folks. While I didn’t necessarily have the ability to protect you, the fault is still mine. I apologize deeply for my incompetence and for the damage you suffered. I’m Nalgym, a planar wanderer.”
Author’s Note:
Scheduling Notice for the rest of the year: Those of you who have been around for a while probably already know this, but I take the last week of each year and the first week of each new year off as vacation time. Basically, the week of Christmas and the week of New Year’s. I also need time to rest and recharge, okay XD. This year I intend to do the same thing as usual. I will also be taking the day of Thanksgiving off, since I live in the US and I’d like to spend some time with my family and eat some turkey. As a result:
On November 27th, there will be no Markets chapter. Expect two chapters for that week, not three. (Also note that time zones exist, and my sleep schedule is rather unusual, so ‘November 27th’ might be a bit wonky wherever you live. The third Markets chapter of that week is cancelled, basically).
Then, from December 19th to January 5th, I will be taking my yearly vacation. The first chapter for next year will probably be up on January 6th, unless I see a reason to make some kind of scheduling change to what days of the week I release Markets and Multiverses chapters. I currently tend to mostly release chapters on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday, but I might swap these dates around if I think of a compelling reason to do so during my vacation. I’m not saying it will happen, just that it might. Vacation is a good time to look at my schedule, my plotlines for each story, and spend some time thinking about how I organize things and do things without the imminent pressure of ‘gotta release another chapter soon.’ I have no idea whether I’ll actually implement any changes, just noting that some might happen post vacation. Anyway, chapter releases will follow their usual schedule up until my vacation. I just like to give people extremely advanced forewarning when I plan to take time off. Consider yourself forewarned!
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Comments
Primeruler
Thanks for the chapter! Excited to see where this goes!
