Chapter 96: What lurks in the shadows of our minds - Markets and Multiverses

The seven of us took one final look in the direction that the unearthly screech had come from, and for just a moment, I swore that I could see something out of the corner of my eyes. I whirled towards it, trying to figure out what I had seen, but I couldn’t make out anything unusual.

“Any idea what the heck that sound was?” I asked one of the scouts, sweeping my eyes across the cavern over and over again as I tried to spot anything at all.

“I have absolutely no idea,” he said, trembling. “But it sounds bad.”

So we had no information at all.

I decided that, whatever I had seen from the corner of my eye, I would prefer to not interact with it at all. It hadn’t interacted with us yet, so maybe it was a different cave critter than the one that made the unearthly screeching sound?

“Let’s charge towards the scout leader, then flee into some of the side passages,” I said. “Forget the two Orukthyri, let’s just get out of here and hope they don’t follow us. If they do, Sallia and I will figure out how to fight them, but if we’re lucky, whatever made that sound will focus on the Orukthyri and-”

For a moment, I saw something move out of the corner of my eye again. I whirled towards it, already prepared to hit it with an extinguish, but there was nothing there.

Then, I felt something. And then the tunnel suddenly winked out of existence.

The caves, the other people that had been near me, the glowmoss… it just disappeared, as if someone had flicked off a light switch and turned off reality. The entirety of the cavern I had been standing in just disappeared, leaving me floating in a vast expanse of nothingness.

It reminded me of my introduction to the Market. I panicked, wondering if I had somehow died without even seeing what had killed me, but couldn’t find a system prompt letting me know I had died. My Status Screen appeared as normal, but the entire physical world was just… gone.

What was happening? Why was everything dark?

Then, I felt something ticking at the edge of my thoughts. It was the same feeling I got when I had forgotten something, but it was at the tip of my tongue.

As I focused on that sensation, the feeling grew stronger. Instead of feeling like I had just forgotten something, it started to feel as if someone was pouring water directly onto my thoughts.

Then it stated to hurt.

It was as if someone had dribbled a few drops of acid directly into my mind.

I finally guessed what was happening. Something was launching some sort of mental attack on me. That was the best reason I could think of for why my brain hurt and why the world had suddenly disappeared in front of my eyes.

Even as I realized that something was influencing my mind, I felt something spreading through my thoughts, like a sticky contaminant that slowed down my mind. It was as if the acid in my thoughts was partially made of glue.

I tried to think of how to fix this, but my thoughts just felt so… slow….

Finally, I realized I could try to kill whatever was attacking me using extinguish. I concentrated on the Ocean of Souls, and tried to find any ‘candles of life’ in my surroundings.

I quickly realized that there were several orange and red souls that were near me. However, I couldn’t make out where, exactly, the strange souls were located: it was as if they were holographic projections of a soul, rather than real souls. Something about them seemed wrong in a way I had never observed before.

But even if I couldn’t quite locate them, I had a good enough idea where they were located to blast them with extinguish.

With barely any resistance, one candle of life winked out of existence.

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Slaughter: Kill a thought worm for the first time

Achievement +2

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Endless Hunger of the Ocean has devoured Thought Worm for the first time. New Skill created.

What Lurks in the Shadows of our Minds: Any mental attacks you use against another creature are enhanced by a very, very small amount, so long as the mental attack is transmitted via sound.

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Thought worms?

I finally understood what was happening.

I quickly focused on the rest of the tiny orange-red flames of life and extinguished them. I couldn’t launch spells very quickly, but with every single thought worm that died, I felt my mind clearing up as the strange creatures infesting my thoughts died out.

Each individual worm was very weak. The biggest problem was that attacking them was very difficult, and I had no AOE spells that could wipe out the entire group at once. However, now that I knew how to deal with the problem, I quickly set to saving myself.

I spent an unknown amount of time hosing down the tide of tiny souls at the edge of my vision, until with a sudden shudder, I felt my vision return and the last worm died.

I looked around, and realized I had fallen on the cavern floor at some point. I felt blood stuck to my mouth and the sides of my face. I quickly wiped the blood away from my eyes, and looked at the other scouts.

The other scouts were flopping around like drunkards on the floor of the tunnel, and blood was pouring out of their eyes, noses, and ears. Even as I watched, two of them finally collapsed and stopped moving, before their body started to turn black. Underneath their skin, I could see illusory squirming worms, swimming through their skin and flesh as though it was water as the thought worms feasted on the dead scouts.

The scouts were very clearly dead.

A few moments later, I heard another two horrifying, mind-numbing shrieks emanate from the thought worms that had been dragged away from their prey, and I felt two somethings slide into my thoughts again. I quickly killed off the two new thought worms that had appeared in my mind.

Then, I shuddered in disgust, and immediately blasted the corpses with a steam ball spell to exterminate the thought worms. It was with great relief that I saw the squirming worms inside of the dead bodies writhe in pain before they curled up, and another few System notifications confirmed their deaths. Then, my eyes widened in horror.

Sallia.

I quickly ran forward a few steps, and found Sallia writhing and bleeding on the floor, just like the scouts. Sallia’s higher mental stats were keeping her alive for now, but she wouldn’t survive for long. She didn’t have a way to kill these things, since her build was so focused on physical combat.

I quickly looked in my surroundings, trying to find the same tide of tiny souls corroding my mind that I had found when I was under attack. However, I couldn’t find anything. It was as if Sallia was being attacked by nothing, and had flopped on the ground and started dying for no reason at all.

I swore, before I got an idea.

The primary concept of my fourth rune ability was to draw in the minds of other living creatures, driving them mad in the process. These creatures seemed to be some sort of sound-based creature that lived inside of thoughts.

Perhaps I could use alteration essence to modify my rune ability, and make it devour the thought worms instead?

I hated trying to modify an ability on the fly with Sallia’s life at stake, but it was my best idea to keep her alive. I didn’t want Sallia to die here.

I quickly created another madness-inducing whirlpool with my fourth rune ability, before I started shaping it into another ability entirely. Instead of just making creatures who saw the water want to get closer to the whirlpool, I wanted something different. I wanted my whirlpool to drag in the thoughts of other creatures in my surroundings. Especially the thoughts of worms.

Because my mental image of what I wanted wasn’t precise enough, I felt huge quantities of alteration essence drain away. In moments, I went from nearly full of Absorption essence to nearly empty. But in the middle of the whirlpool of water, several orange-red souls appeared. However, there still weren't any physical creatures in the water: it was as if illusions of worms were stuck inside of the whirlpool.

But that was good enough for me.

I immediately started blasting them with what little remained of my manifestation essence, killing the thought-worms with balls of steam. Whether their bodies were illusory or not, it seemed that once their bodies were exposed they could die just like any other creature.

Sallia’s violent thrashing and bleeding started to calm down, but I spent an extra few seconds extracting the last few thought worms from her mind.

Then, I turned to see the three surviving scouts… only to confirm that two were very dead, and one scout was very close to dying. I quickly wiped out the worms from the two dead scouts, before they could start another invasion of my thoughts. Then I rushed over to the final living scout, still holding on to the whirlpool of thoughtworm-eating water, and quickly dragged the creepy little monsters out of his body before killing them off with another second circle spell. I was down 15 magic symbols, but I still had one hundred and fifty one magic symbols left, after the extra symbols given by the Orukthyri Skill. At least within grade six, one point in the manifestation essence stat seemed to directly translate to one extra magic symbol per day, though I had no idea how the math changed at other Grades.

Then, I finally had time to check my System notifications, now that everyone was dead or saved.

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Slaughter: Kill a thought worm for the 5th time, 10th time, 25th time, 70th time, 250th time, and 700th hundredth time.

Achievement +4, +6, +10, +15, + 25, +50

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I ignored the Market ads, and shuddered. I had gained 112 total Achievement from removing the thought maggots, bringing my total up to 6,220.89 Achievement. And it had not been even close to worth it. This was the weirdest and most disturbing creature I remembered fighting so far.

I looked at the one surviving scout, and at Sallia, both of whom were alive but unconscious.

I sighed, shaking my head. At the very least, the Orukthyri that had been chasing after the scout leader were probably dead as well. Though I imagined the scout leader had gone with them.

In theory, trading five scouts for five Orukthyri was probably a great deal for the city as a whole. Each Orukthyri could defeat far more than one human in a head on fight, so dealing with Orukthyri like this would make it much easier for the city to survive the oncoming fight.

However, looking at the scout who was nearly dead, Sallia who wasn’t even awake, and then thinking about the six dead scouts, it sure didn’t feel like we had achieved a victory, no matter what the numbers said. Of the eight people who had set out for this expedition, only three would return alive. And I had no idea if there were any permanent effects of nearly getting eaten by the thought worms. I hoped not, because if Sallia was permanently crippled or became a vegetable after this, I would be heartbroken.

I sighed, shaking my head as I grabbed Sallia and the scout. They didn’t react when I dragged them into a side cavern. I couldn’t move both of them while they were asleep, so I needed to wait for someone to wake up before we could start heading back towards the city. I doubted we were in any shape to continue our original plan.

Then, I went to check on the scout leader and the two Orukthyri she had been dragging towards our position. Even though she was probably dead, I still hoped that she was fine, no matter how bad the odds were.

As I got closer, I froze.

I heard snuffling and snorting sounds coming from further down the tunnel. It only took me a few moments to make out the sound of grotesque chewing and crunching.

The Orukthyri didn’t seem to have even noticed the strange thought-worms. Perhaps their magical resistance helped them ignore the disgusting little creatures.

But the scout leader enjoyed no such protection. Based on the chewing sounds I could hear from further ahead, she was already quite dead.

I bitterly laughed to myself, before I slowly and carefully retreated towards where I had left Sallia and the scout. Then, I hid and hoped nothing else found us. I was out of alteration essence and only knew second circle spells. And no matter what I tried, I couldn’t wake up Sallia and the scout.

We were in no shape for a fight, so all I could do was leave the Orukthyri to their meal while I huddled in the darkness and prayed that nothing came to finish us off.

Author’s Note: Reminder that I’ll be taking a week off near the beginning of next month to deal with some family stuff. Should be between the 4th and the 11th. No chapters that week.