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Chapter 435: The Great Worm - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2025-08-28 05:50:20 +0000 UTCAs the great worm slammed into the ground, I felt an earth-shaking thump rattle through the city. Even the monsters swarming towards the splinter of wood paused, before some of them backed off.
Whatever made monsters chase after valuable items in the Market, it seemed that it wasn’t strong enough to compel the more intelligent monsters forward. They seemed to have realized that the tree bark was now claimed by something else.
I looked at the spot where the worm had landed, and as I analyzed the scene with my soul sense, I blinked in surprise. When we had seen the worm devour the billboard after arriving in the Market, it had looked as if it were evolving into something else. I had expected that the massive creature would be dozens of times more powerful now - but it was the exact opposite. The worm’s life force was much weaker than it had been when I glimpsed it, hanging above the Market like an ominous meteor preparing to crash to the earth.
Had it failed to evolve, and suffered some kind of backlash as a result? If so, that would be the best case scenario. I wasn’t sure whether the worm was venting its frustration at its failed evolution, or if the attraction of a valuable Market item was what had caused the worm to fail its evolution and get distracted… but either way, it looked like things were evolving in the best direction possible for our group. Both major threats we needed to deal with were fighting each other.
On the other hand, I was concerned. Only a few streets away from us, there was now a giant worm blocking the path of the scavengers. If we stole the splinter of wood, that thing would turn on us immediately and chase us like a bloodhound chasing a bloody steak. If the worm won, there was no guarantee it would overlook us, either. I suspected that the worm might continue to vent its frustrations about its failed evolution on all nearby life - and we were probably high on its list of targets, since we were transmigrators.
The only scenario where this turned out well for us was if the scavengers and the giant worm were evenly matched, and harmed each other enough for us to swoop in and claim the spoils of war. If either side had a big enough advantage, we wouldn’t get what we wanted out of the fight.
Still, even if the odds were low… I couldn’t help but feel a flicker of hope. If the worm and the scavengers were evenly matched, we might have a real chance to turn things around. Perhaps we could swoop in after both sides were weakened, take the tree bark, and run. If the two sides hurt each other enough, perhaps we could even deal with both threats, then run back to the school and see what other goodies we could find inside the ruined magic academy. With Felix’s work as a craftsman and a few more valuable items from the Market, I felt better than ever about our odds of buying more lives.
Furthermore, we had already ascertained some of the weaknesses of the heroic-grade shooter. If one side wasn’t overwhelmingly dominant, we could always even the odds a bit by interfering with the fight. It was just a matter of finding the right opportunity, and surviving the aftermath.
The four of us kept running through the streets. The monsters near us ignored us, thankfully - the ones that were still moving towards the fight were far too entranced by the splinter to bother paying attention to us. We ignored them as well, until we got to the site of the battle.
There were about half a dozen monster corpses strewn about one of the streets of the Market. Nearby, there were flattened, crushed, and ruined shops - it was impossible to tell what had once been sold in each shop, because they were so utterly ruined that only rubble remained. The twenty-eight scavengers were scattered into smaller groups of people. Some of them were dealing with new monsters that joined the fight, while others focused on harassing and injuring the giant worm.
I saw a bright flash of light and heat slam directly into the monstrous worm’s head, and immediately located the heroic-grade shooter. He was alive and well, and seemed to be the main force against the worm.
His lasers didn’t seem to be bothering the worm very much. The massive creature shrugged off the laser beam to the face, and then vanished into the ground, as if the massive wooden planks beneath our feet were thin air instead of solid wood.
I retreated several steps, to make sure that neither side of the conflict spotted me. Then, I turned on my soul sight and shared my vision.
Beneath our feet, the giant worm slithered through the wood like an eel. The coils and folds of its body twisted hypnotically as it circled around, before it suddenly sprang towards the surface. Like a spring, it launched itself out of the ground - right beneath two of the scavengers.
The Scavengers managed to get out of the way in time, though. I wasn’t quite sure how they did it - one moment, it looked like they had been engulfed by the worm’s maw, and the next moment, they appeared several meters away. They hadn’t teleported - I hadn’t felt any ripples of spatial manipulation. However, they had done something to escape.
Before I had time to process the strange movement ability, I heard a loud boom from inside of the worm's throat. The worm roared in pain.
<What was that?> I asked.
<Must’ve been one of the mines,> said Felix. <The sound is similar to the ones we saw in the magic academy. I think the scavengers managed to trick the worm into swallowing a few of them.>
The worm groaned in pain, and its already weakened life force shuddered. In my soul sight, it was as if the worm were now a third of the way dead. Most of that damage had come from its interrupted evolution, but the mines had certainly done some damage as well.
<Should we help the worm?> I asked.
<Not yet. I don’t think a monster that could devour a billboard the size of the moon has this little ability,> said Felix. <Even if it does look seriously injured in your soul-sight, let’s wait a bit longer and see what tricks it has up its sleeve.>
I held my breath as the worm glared at the Scavengers, and then its body swelled like a balloon. To my surprise, a moment later, the top quarter of the worm’s body exploded like an overfilled balloon - but its life force grew stronger, not weaker. It actually seemed that it had healed after blowing itself up.
Then, I noticed that the blood falling out of its exploded head wasn’t falling to the ground, the way blood usually did. Instead, each droplet of blood flew through the air in a controlled streak of motion. A giant swarm of these droplets of blood surged towards the scavengers - before a round of laser beams ignited most of the droplets of blood, turning them into steam. Blasts of laser beams continued to pepper the worm, while the other members of the scavenger team spread and started using their own methods of attack against the worm. Gunshots, swords, arrows, spells, and even a few robots swarmed the worm.
However, the worm was indifferent to most of the attacks. It bellowed again, and then dove back beneath the surface. Meanwhile, the droplets of blood in the air continued to replicate themselves, constantly creating new threats. Combined with the constant pressure of weaker monsters swarming the scavengers, the scavenger team was quite distracted as the worm tunneled beneath them. Just like before, the worm launched itself into the air. This time, it managed to grab three scavengers who didn’t flee.
Instantly, the other scavengers turned on the worm, launching another wave of attacks against the creature - but the souls of their friends disappeared inside of the belly of the beast. The worm’s life force began to weaken again, but it quickly made its way back underground. I frowned. The worm was definitely weakening much faster than I had expected. At this rate, it might struggle to take down even half of the scavengers before it died - and the other monsters swarming this area were too weak to pose a real threat to the scavengers.
<The worm is using more tricks than before, but the fight is still going badly for it. The fact that it just failed its evolution is really weakening its combat power,> I said.
<Agreed. We should move a bit closer to the battlefield,> said Felix. <I think we’ll need to interfere. At the very least, we should distract a few of the weaker scavengers - or perhaps Anise can distract the heroic-grade shooter for a bit and let the others fight the worm on their own.>
The four of us crept closer to the battlefield while I kept a nervous eye on the worm’s life force. Then, I noticed something else. Near the edge of the battlefield, a few of the scavengers were throwing together a wide variety of different components. It looked almost like a cannon.
The sight seemed so ludicrous that for a moment, all I could do was stare at the spectacle. Considering the size of the cannon, they must have been using some kind of spatial storage to carry the parts around. It also looked like the cannon was designed to be easy to set up - the scavengers had only been fighting for a few minutes, but the cannon was already mostly assembled.
A few moments later, while the worm circled around for another attack, the heroic-grade shooter dashed towards the cannon. The worm sprang towards another group of scavengers. Then, the cannon roared, and a giant beam of fire tore through nearly a third of the worm’s body.
The worm bellowed in agony, and nearly half of its life force dissipated. Burnt chunks of worm-meat fell off of its body - and then turned into a completely new monster. The new monster looked like a patchwork horror - it had far too many limbs to resemble anything other than a piece of meat surrounded in arms and legs. Before the heroic grade shooter could react, the glob of flesh and limbs pounced on another two of the scavengers, before it rapidly tore them apart. I didn’t even see how they died - I just saw them get enveloped in the mass of flesh and limbs, before their souls disappeared.
The glob of flesh started to quickly lose its life force, and I realized the glob of sapient flesh was kind of like my clone. It was temporarily animated by magic, but once its animation spell ran out of essence, it would die.
The heroic grade shooter ignored the glob of flesh, and shot another laser beam at the worm. This time, the creature teleported out of the way, taking me by surprise - but it was clear that it was heavily injured. Its life force was starting to drain away now. I suspected that it might die of its own injuries soon, unless it had more spells and abilities up its sleeve.
I glanced at the scavengers again. Five had died while fighting the worm, and one more had fallen to the monsters nibbling at the edges of their group while they fought. The glob of sapient flesh was also a problem for the scavengers, but it was rapidly weakening.
<The heroic grade shooter is still the real problem,> I said. <Anise, are you ready?>
<I’m ready,> she said.
<Then let’s step into the fight.> It was time to make this battle a bit more balanced.
Author’s Note:
Join my Discord! (I’m at least sometimes active there, while I admit that I don’t generally check the comments section. I’m not very active anywhere, though - writers are antisocial people, okay!)
Comments
Benjamin Bernard
This chapter isn't in the collection, btw. I think this arc is really cool! I love getting to finally get some info on the market, and in really hoping they get bodies or something and can explore more
xMoses
A lot of bots in here
Suras c
o outro grupo os atacou a vista, se existe um grupo que esta disposto a te matar se houver oportunidade acho correto eliminar o problema ainda mais se eles tem algo que você pode precisar.
Kade Holder
I’m enjoying this arc but this comment is also true. We’ve seen our characters kill people before but I feel like there would be more regret in their actions? Maybe it’s just me though. I’m certainly no author
Syrahl
Not gonna lie, this arc is very much not doing it for me. The group complains about the attack-on-sight attitude other multiversal factions have regarding Market reincarnators, and then immediately prove that to be the correct attitude at the first opportunity by commiting premediated murder over a percieved threat and the mere possibility of important resources. Then they start picking a fight with someone hilariously out of their league, again only because of the *possibility* of this piece of bark from another multiversal faction being useful to them. And despite the multiple chances they have to back off when it becomes clear they are attempting something very dumb, they keep pressing on. And, narratively speaking, it's looking like they'll get their hands on the piece of bark in the end. So they'll have been rewarded for their no good, very bad behaviour.
Taylor
This behavior by them just feels straightforwardly villainous
