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Chapter 354: Hunger and Madness - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2025-02-20 04:46:31 +0000 UTCThe first difference between the raid and regular raids was the fear. By now, I had gotten used to the usual raid bells. I barely even thought about them anymore - raids were pretty manageable at two or three bells, and it was rare for even minor injuries to appear through the city during a two bell raid. I usually thought of raids as an inconvenience instead of a threat.
That changed as the bell evaluating the threat level of the raid kept ringing… and ringing… and ringing… and ringing.
By the fifth bell, my parents had started to take notice of the distant chime of the bell. By the sixth ring, they turned off the ovens and stared into the distance with pale, anxious faces. By the seventh bell, my mother’s ears were flicking back and forth, as if they were radards scanning the entire city for danger. Meanwhile, my father’s usual jovial expression had melted away, replaced with a cold, hard look as he glared at the sky.
My mother’s eyes flicked towards my father, and then to me. “Miria, get your sister,” she said. “Now.”
Without a word, I dashed towards the second floor. However, I didn’t wait until I reached the second floor before I messaged Anise.
<Anise! Get down to the floor level! Mom and dad are worried! I think we’re going to flee the bakery soon!>
<Got it!> She said.
A few moments later, Anise tore out of our bedroom, while I concentrated on Sallia and Felix.
<Where are you two? Are you safe?> I asked.
<Right now, I’m still on my family’s farm,> said Sallia. <My father looks worried - mom went to go chat with one of her friends, and she’s not in the house. Luckily, whatever threat is approaching hasn’t reached the farm yet. With any luck, it’ll land away from the city instead of passing by the farm.>
<I’m still in the house,> said Felix. <My father is putting on some armor and weapons, and the house is going crazy. Everyone is panicking and running around. Ah - one of the maids is pulling me and one of my other siblings towards the back of the house. It looks like there is some sort of safe room here?>
I nodded, just as Anise and I returned to the base floor. My other friends were safe for now, so I didn’t have to worry about them. If something changed, I would just have to hope that they could handle it - I was too far away to really give them a hand right now.
Anise and I returned to find our parents armed and carrying two stuffed backpacks. I could see food, water, and medical supplies crammed into each backpack - although I could only see the top of some of the containers. My mother’s eyes flicked towards the sky again, before she grabbed my father’s hand and interlaced their fingers for a moment. She hugged him, and then gave hugs to Anise and I as well.
“Let’s go. My father has a safe house he sponsors in the lower city. It should keep us safe through this.” My mother grimaced, and glanced at the sky again. “I’ll take the lead. I have better eyesight.”
“Got it,” said my father. He quickly grabbed my hand. “Miria, grab on to Anise. I don’t want anyone to get lost while we’re moving, okay?”
“Got it,” said Anise, as she grabbed hold of my other arm. My mother checked everything one final time, and then dashed out the door.
The streets outside were filled with other families moving around. Normally, in a raid, people in the city would group together and then retreat to a nearby building to defend the area. This time, there were no signs at all of people grouping together, or preparing to defend themselves. People were dashing towards other destinations, and barely even spoke to each other. Instead of the usual buzz of conversation and laughter I heard on the streets, the only sounds I could hear were the rustling of clothes and feet as people scurried towards their destinations.
Several minutes passed as my mother led us deeper into the city. Before we arrived at our destination, I finally caught sight of the invading monster, in the distant skies.
It looked like reality itself had gone horribly wrong. The way it looked wasn’t so much a shape, as the nonexistence of a shape. It was like a pale shadow that had been given form and substance. Its body was that of a bulky, massive whale, but instead of the usual tail and flippers of a whale, it had patchy, half-seen tentacles, like a giant squid. The way the creature moved wasn’t by flapping wings, or using mana, or anything else my regular humanoid brain was equipped to deal with. With every movement of the creature, its form seemed to unravel reality itself, before the rest of its body somehow twisted forward. Worse, the monster was at least a fifth of the size of the city itself. If it landed in the middle of the city and then rolled around a bit, it would cause unbelievable destruction just due to its massive size and weight.
It reminded me of the Eldritch. For a moment, I was tempted to split off a clone, and see if that gave me a better idea what the creature actually looked like - but I held off on the urge. I would save it in case I needed it in an emergency.
A moment later, I saw several pulses of green light rip out of the canopy of the tree and towards the flying monster. They looked far thicker and faster than the fireballs I had seen the city use against flying monsters. These green beams of light hit the eldritch leviathan’s tentacles - and accomplished nothing whatsoever. Its skin quivered and rippled in response to the beams of light, but the monster didn’t even seem bothered by the attacks.
Apparently realizing that their first wave of attacks had done nothing, I saw a group of people fly out of the leaves and descend towards the creature. They glowed with a faint silver light that I could see and feel all the way from across the city.
Unlike the green beams of light, the monstrous whale eyed the flying people. The moment it saw them, its flight towards the tree trunk in the city paused for a moment, before it turned towards the fliers instead. Then, it opened its mouth and vomited black sludge towards the city. At first, I thought that its vomit might be acidic, or poisonous, or something of the sort.
Instead, everywhere the breath landed, chunks of city started changing.
I blinked in surprise, and then activated my soul sight.
The monstrous leviathan was like a lighthouse - it was a massive, bonfire-like soul with so much energy and life force that it drowned out everything else in the world except for the tree itself. I grimaced when I saw it. Even if I hit it with a full-power extinguish, and emptied my entire essence reserve, I doubted it would even notice. What Grade was this thing’s Fortitude at? 20? 25? I had no idea, but I definitely couldn’t hurt it right now with my go-to attack.
However, the eldritch blimp wasn’t the only hostile soul in the area. Not anymore.
Contrary to what I had seen other raids do, this monster didn’t carry other monsters around in its stomach. Instead, its breath itself was awakening the city, turning random buildings, chunks of dirt, and other miscellaneous materials to life. I could see new souls suddenly springing into existence everywhere its breath had touched. The breath didn’t seem to harm people - but anyone caught in its breath now found themselves in the middle of a pile of monsters.
Since Felix’s factory hadn’t preserved my Tarot deck, I couldn’t even toss some curses at the eldritch blimp. I felt the urge to curse. I could tell that it had spent a bit of its life force on that breath attack, but not much. And the awakened buildings were about to become a massive problem for the city to deal with.
Civilians started to scream as buildings grew arms and legs, before they started to stomp after the people on the ground. Meanwhile, people stuck inside of awakened buildings found themselves literally trapped inside of the bodies of monsters. The buildings didn’t seem capable of killing them by collapsing the roof, but they rendered any attempt to hide from the other monsters in the area completely hopeless. I heard people in the distance start to scream as arrows clattered off of giant buildings and people started to desperately resist the new onslaught of monsters. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a few beams of green light and some stray fireballs start to slam into the awakened buildings and dirt golems - but it seemed wholly insufficient to handle the ongoing mess.
We were too far away for me to help. Before I could think of a solution, I lost sight of that part of the city, as our parents kept dragging us deeper into the city.
Soon, we approached the inner ring - the buildings closest to the tree trunk. My mother led us to a half-buried building, where I saw a well-dressed man gripping a bow and a quiver of arrows right in front of it.
“Young miss,” he said. He turned towards Anise and I, before he smiled faintly. “Your daughters? They look lovely.” He moved out of the way, and ushered us inside. “Come along. There are some other families that are also taking shelter inside, but don’t worry. The building should be secure, as long as that… thing doesn’t turn it into a death trap for us.” He shuddered.
My mother and father glanced uneasily into the sky, where the whale was now trying to slap the flying people out of the sky. It seemed like they were keeping it busy, but I couldn’t help but worry about whether they could win the fight. The difference in power between the two sides seemed very noticeable.
Before I could worry more, the well-dressed man quickly ushered us into the building. I lost sight of the fight with my physical eyes, and swapped to my soul-sight to keep an eye on the fight happening above the city. I barely glanced at the other families in the shelter - I had other things to worry about..
Our family fell into tense silence as I watched and waited, searching for any signs that I could help the fight, or that our family would need to flee the shelter.
For nearly two minutes, the souls in the sky battled against the leviathan. It was going better than I had expected. The flying defenders of the city were doing something that actually hurt the beast, unlike the original barrage of green light beams. I had no idea what they were doing to harm the creature, but I could see its life force slowly dimming as the fight progressed. There were perhaps two hundred flying people in the sky, and somehow, none of them had died so far. If they kept this up… maybe this fight wouldn’t be hopeless.
Just as I thought that, the creature seemed to grow tired of fighting with the fliers in the sky. Instead of continuing to battle with them, the creature roared, an unearthly, eardrum-shattering screech that made me reflexively cover my ears in pain. Then, the creature redirected itself towards the tree, and started charging straight for the trunk like it wanted to ram it.
I felt a surge of fear as I realized the creature’s plan.
If the tree was damaged badly enough, the island would stop flying. Then, we would all plummet to our death.
The damn thing had given up on killing the defenders, and had decided to just kill the island instead.
Author’s Note:
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Comments
Noah
The previous chapter said that Anise took the Tarot Deck, didn’t it? I’m pretty sure they specifically didn’t put it in the factory space.
