Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)

Chapter 525: Growing Pains

When Felix reported success in his mission, it felt like a giant earthquake of essence rippled through the world. I felt as if someone had grabbed me, trapped me in a tiny jar as if I were nothing more than a small insect, and then shook the jar until I was dizzy and disoriented. However, the shaking was created entirely by essence, which threw me even more off. I couldn’t see what was going on in our surroundings, because my blindfold and earplugs prevented me from observing the situation - but for a few brief moments, I wondered whether we had just unleashed some kind of ancient, slumbering horror onto the island by messing with the cyclone. Or perhaps we had triggered some kind of massive natural catastrophe?I hesitated for a moment, and then ripped off my blindfold. However, none of my different forms of sight detected anything unusual. To my physical eyes, we were still just walking in circles around the coast of the island while the fog banks fruitlessly tried to kill us. To my soul sight, nothing unusual had changed either - there were still several hundred fog banks circling us like sharks in the water, though they seemed rather disoriented by the massive essence wave.

I asked, as we continued to swim counterclockwise around the island.

Yelled Felix through the communication bracelet.

I glanced at the fog monsters, before I kicked the ocean floor and surged back towards the surface. Doing so was risky, and might give the fog monsters an opportunity to attack me while I was away from the comforting water pressure of the ocean - but we also needed to know what was going on.

When I surfaced, I saw that all of the other nearby fog banks were spinning around in pure confusion - it looked like they were robots with a faulty control center. Rather than circling the water, or doing anything productive at all, they were just… spinning in circles in midair.

However, the real change was happening above the island.

There was a new cloud of mist blooming in the center of the island, like a giant mushroom shooting into the sky. In mere seconds, it had already reached a height where I could see it hundreds of meters above the trees - and it was continuing to expand at an alarming rate. At the same time, it was blossoming outwards. Worse, as far as I could tell, the giant mushroom cloud of fog had appeared right next to where our settlement was - which meant that if there was any danger associated with this change, the children and noncombatant adults were probably facing it right now.

I felt my heart start to hammer in my chest. We couldn’t afford to stall and wait anymore, if our settlement was in danger. But we were still surrounded by angry fog banks. Escaping their pursuit seemed like a hopeless task right now.

A moment later, my concern proved unnecessary. That was because the fog banks all turned in the direction of the cyclone, and as one, most of them began heading towards the spot where Felix was.

I yelled.

said Felix.

The feeling of my friend begin in danger while I couldn’t go help him gnawed at me like a wolf ripping at my intestines. Unfortunately, while most of the fog banks had left to chase Felix, not all of them had. About two dozen fog banks had remained behind us - and it seemed that they had noticed me surfacing for air. I dove back under the water, right as they started summoning a new wave of mist minions to tear me apart.

Were we capable of handling thirty fog banks?

I estimated my essence reserves. After killing a few fog banks earlier, plus healing people to keep them alive while underwater, my alteration essence was down to about 30% of its maximum reserve. It was nowhere near out yet, but it was far from enough for me to just extinguish the remaining two dozen fog banks. I could probably get somewhere between one and three of them, depending on how strong the ones I attacked were. My binding/manifestation reserve was almost untouched, but that wasn’t very important. I had already tested my ice magic against the fog banks, and it had proven almost completely ineffective, even when I tried to do things like ‘freeze the fog these monsters are made of.’ I hadn’t used much absorption essence either, but against the fog banks, my portals had also proven somewhat inadequate. My portals were most effective against enemies that used projectile attacks, such as guns or bows, and these fog banks only attacked using minions. The enchanted swords we had created didn’t have enough energy to wipe out these monsters either, even if we optimistically assumed that we didn’t mess up a single time during the fight. I had no bright ideas for wiping out two dozen enemies. 

I squinted at the remaining fog banks with my soul sight. They weren’t particularly strong. They were also spread out. Some of them were guarding the group at the bottom of the lake, while others were guarding the shore, where we might emerge if we tried to make a run for it. When hundreds of them had been guarding the shore, we had been in a hopelessly passive position, because we would get torn to pieces before we could actually head back for the forest.

Now, though? There were far fewer enemies to deal with, and most of the ones that had stayed behind were weak. I couldn’t kill all of them, but with the help of the swordsmen in the group, we could probably kill a few of the ones guarding the beach and then run into the forest. With the swords, some help from [Fire Mages], and the enchanted fires we had set up around our settlement, it might be possible to counterattack. Assuming the settlement was still intact, at least. The worry that the village might be facing something even more dangerous set my teeth on edge - but if there was some kind of unknown threat there, perhaps the fog banks could be used as cannon fodder with some careful maneuvering. Even more reason to rush back.

I said, before I sent back everything I had seen to my friends.

said Sallia.

Sallia removed her blindfold and her makeshift earplugs, and then she and Anise began removing them from the other warriors. Then, they swam towards the surface. The other warriors didn’t need to communicate with us to realize what we were trying. They joined us.

We broke out of the water. I coughed a glob of water out of my lungs. I could still feel some water in places water wasn’t meant to be, but I could gargle out some speech. That was good enough.

“Run for the village! Hit the defenders on the beach and then start fleeing!” I said.

Then, I extinguished the fog bank closest to us on the beach. The fog bank’s death alerted the other warriors to exactly where I wanted us to get to shore. As a group, we charged.

The three nearest fog banks immediately started summoning an army of monsters, but an extinguish took down another one before it could really get started. I then let loose with my new and improved third rune, empowering the people who had swords. It was like hitting a fast forward button for all of them. Their other stats didn’t matter very much yet - but their speed made all the difference. In mere seconds, before the third and fourth fog bank even had time to summon armies, their swords ripped them apart, clearing a direct path into the trees before the enemy could respond. The other fog banks finally reached us, and began to summon their own armies - but it didn’t matter. They were too late to stop us from fleeing. 

We ran into the trees. The fog banks chased behind us like rabid wolves, and I noticed that even with my rune providing speed enhancements, the fog banks could still keep up with us. Clearly, they could still outrun us - but equally fortunately, they weren’t smart enough to run ahead of us and set up ambushes, even though they probably could have killed us if they did that. My ability to heal exhaustion away meant that we would never tire, so we kept fleeing from the fog banks as they tried and failed to kill us with their summoned armies.

After several minutes of frantic flight through the trees, we reached the edge of the massive cloud of mist that now seemed to encompass nearly a third of the island. My stomach tightened in fear. My only consolation was the fact that the fog bank didn’t seem to be alive - which meant that at the very least, it wasn’t actively hostile towards us. It could still be dangerous, but we didn’t really have a choice in the matter. The enemy was upon us.

We plunged into the domain of mist, and kept running.

Then, I blinked in surprise, because I saw something I recognized. A tiny, flickering little fog-fairy, just like the ones I had seen when we visited the fog pillar. Just like the previous ones I had seen, it looked like some kind of hybrid of a miniature person and a centipede. While it looked a little horrifying, it gave me a friendly wave, then winked at me and disappeared.

I blinked in surprise, before I shook my head and kept running. I now had a sneaking suspicion that I knew why the area was covered in fog - and it might not be the disaster I had feared. In fact, it might not be a bad thing at all. We had encountered multiple kinds of mist creatures since setting foot on this island - and not all of them had been hostile.

A moment later, the fog banks chased us into the mist. I shook my head, and kept running. I could sort out my thoughts later. Right now, we needed to keep running.

But after only a few minutes of running, rather than reaching the village, we encountered a palace I knew and recognized. One that I had visited myself, not too long ago. The place where the fog column lived.

A few tendrils of fog reached out from the palace, and like a dragon fighting ants, it slapped the fog banks chasing us to death. Our previously dangerous chase through the wilderness stopped, just like that. I stopped healing the others, and we spent a few moments just basking in the relief of knowing we were safe. A moment later, a new staircase extended down from the fog palace towards us. I didn’t hesitate a moment before I started walking up, followed by the others.

It seemed that the fog pillar was willing to provide us with some answers.