Chương 340: Back into the Ocean

The flight of stairs felt like it stretched on into infinity. Every single step we took felt like an empty footstep into a long-distant, lightless world. A few moments later, I started to see souls approaching us. However, there was something odd about them. Most souls that approached us did so in full view, but when I looked at these souls, I felt almost like I was watching something through thick, foggy glass. Something was weird about them. <I see souls approaching us, but I can't see them well, > I said.

<I'm going to try to extinguish them. Keep an eye on what happens, especially in the more physical side of the world. > <Got it, > said Sallia, as she prepared her sword. A moment later, I finally saw the physical form of the odd souls. A swarm of tiny creatures flew out of the dark abyss, looking almost like flying worms the size of my arm. I felt a shudder pass through my body as one of the worms grew a human ribcage, before the ends of each rib ripped open and started crawling through the air like a bony spider.

Another of the worms grew fleshy tumors, which popped like bubbles and spurted green pus at us. I slammed an extinguish into the pus-spitting flesh worm, and grimaced as the creature survived. I had thought I loaded in enough alteration essence to kill it on the spot, since it had about a third of my life force - but somehow, my extinguish felt like it was trying to push through something the moment I aimed it. As if the creature had some sort of shell or spell protecting it.

I gritted my teeth, and used more alteration essence to push at the creature. My essence drained away, but a moment later, whatever had protected the creature cracked. My extinguish finally touched the creature, and it died instantly. Slaughter: Kill a Fleshling of the Lightless Void Influence: Contributed to the defense of the Market by an [extremely negligible] amount. Achievement +400, Achievement +0. 00 That bumped my Achievement from 9, 298. 46 to 9, 698. 46.

Endless Hunger of the Ocean has devoured Fleshling of the Lightless Void for the first time. New Skill created. Resilient body - Warped Flesh: Upon cutting off part of your body, it will exhibit abnormal mutations that will always somehow attack whatever you were targeting before the new piece of your body was separated. Mutations are random. I immediately rejected the skill.

I got the feeling it wouldn't work with {Eldritch Soul}, and I didn't think chopping off my limbs to use them as offensive weapons was a very good use of my skill slots. The other three worms flew towards Sallia, who swung her sword at them with inhuman strength and grace. Her blade halted for a moment at the same shell I had encountered, and bounced off. Before the bone-spider-worm could take advantage of that opening, Sallia activated her physical boosts, twisted her blade, and swung again.

This time, the shell provided little resistance as Sallia chopped through the three worms like they were made of hot butter. <A bit tough, but not too hard to kill, > she said. I grimaced, as I noticed several more souls in the distance as they started to move towards us. <Incoming, > I said. We started running down the staircase, moving as fast as possible to reduce our encounters with the annoying worms. The worms seemed to sense our agitation, and swarmed us wave after wave.

However, they weren't that much of a threat. They were somewhat scary, but manageable. We just needed enough strength to punch through their shell in order to deal with them. Within a minute of starting our mad dash, we found the other end of the staircase. The endless, lightless void, as well as the thin staircase that threaded through space, ended in a giant metal door that looked almost like the exterior of a nuclear bunker. Just outside of the bunker, there was a large wheel. <How do we open this thing?

> I asked. Felix stepped forward, and touched the wheel. A giant set of glowing letters appeared on the wall.

'Please wait for the shop attendant to open the wall, valued customers. As a final reminder, you must pay the shop attendant before they open the door. Thank you for using our services and have a nice day!' I felt a sudden urge to hurl an extinguish at the metal wall. Felix snorted, and started poking at the metal wall itself, before he shook his head. This narrative has been purloined without the author's approval. Report any appearances on Amazon. <Looks like the wheel itself is some kind of…

magically encoded key. I doubt I could figure it out. > I felt my heart sink. So this was all for nothing? <Luckily, I don't need to figure it out, > said Felix, a hint of mischievous glee appearing in his thoughts. <This thing hasn't been maintained in centuries, or possibly millenia. I can just break the rest with brute force. Give me a few minutes. > Our group killed another two waves of flying worms while Felix used his binding essence to 'bind' parts of the enchantment to the staircase.

With each action, he seemed more tired… but he also successfully ripped out parts of the enchantment with each action. Finally, he grinned. <Way harder than I thought it would be, but it worked. Opening it now! > he pushed on the wheel, and the wheel sank into the wall with a flashing red error message. A moment later, the giant metal bunker doors slid open, and we rushed inside.

A few seconds later, Felix fiddled with the door again, and even though it flashed more error messages at us in giant glowing letters, the door did close again. <I doubt it'll hold for long, but it should keep them out for a few minutes, > said Felix. <And if we need to flee from a second layer of defenses, I can open it again pretty fast. > I relaxed, I took a few seconds to review the other System notifications I had ignored during the fight.

Slaughter: Kill a Fleshling of the Lightless Void for the fifth time, assist in killing a Fleshling of the Lightless Void for the first time, assist in killing a Fleshling of the Lightless Void for the fifth time Influence: Contributed to the defense of the Market by an [extremely negligible] amount. Achievement +600, Achievement +100, Achievement +300, Achievement +0. 00 Those three rewards gave me a neat 1, 000 Achievement, bringing my total from 9, 698. 46 to 10, 698. 46.

Then, I started taking in our new surroundings. The inside of the magic bunker was very different from the aboveground part of the facility. Above ground, the pool of reincarnation had looked like a rotting dump. The underground facility looked much better. It wasn't amazing - it certainly didn't look as fancy as some of the other buildings for pools of reincarnation that we had seen on the street. However, it still had a certain level of quality to it that made me feel at ease.

We were now standing in a massive hall, filled with soft blue and gold light that trickled in from the wall. It looked distinctly magical, in a 'children's fairytale' kind of way. I couldn't quite put my finger on what the walls were made of - or even where they were. It was almost like we were standing inside of a cloud. I scanned the area, and confirmed that there were no other souls in the area.

It seemed that the rusty lock outside had kept any enemies from infiltrating the inner part of this pool of reincarnation - or perhaps I was just failing to notice the enemy. <This is more what I was expecting from a Garden World. I wonder why the decorations on the surface are so bad, though. And why they have this two-layer reincarnation pool. Very odd, > said Felix. A moment later, I heard a new voice enter the room, which caught me off-guard and nearly made me jump in surprise.

"Attention customers, if you are listening to this, you acknowledge the risk of piracy from stealing reincarnation slots in Garden world 'Hero's journey,' run by the corporation 'SwordSplosion," said a mechanical voice. I couldn't pinpoint the source of the voice - it seemed to emanate from every wisp of the cloud we were standing in. I searched for a soul, and couldn't detect anything. Whatever we were dealing with was either shielded, or not alive to begin with.

Since we had seen a bunch of other artificial intelligences in the Market, I suspected this was another AI.

"Piracy?" asked Anise. Unlike many of the other artificial intelligences we had encountered in the Market, this one didn't respond to Anise's question.

"However, by seeing the correct sign at the top of the building, and being screened by the attendant, you have already earned the right to use our amazing pool of reincarnation. Most Garden Worlds charge truly extortionate prices, and creating a backdoor entrance without being noticed is truly difficult. However, we've done the hard part. Please proceed at your leisure," said the voice. I heard a humming sound, and then, right in front of us, I saw a new pool of reincarnation appear.

"Backdoor. Piracy," muttered Sallia.

"So that's why this part of the facility is hidden." I resisted the urge to snort. At least one question was finally answered. This place looked like a dump because it needed to be camouflaged. Otherwise, the real corporation that owned this Garden world would crack down on the reincarnation pool here.

I wondered if the other buildings also had their own, hidden sides to them - places where Market residents could get illicit reincarnations at a fraction of their normal price, as long as they kept mum about this street's real business. It was hard to say - there was still a lot about the Market that we didn't know. I looked at the pool of reincarnation. Was it… safe to use a pirated pool of reincarnation? On the other hand, did we have any choice? We had two worlds left. We needed to grow as fast as we could.

Otherwise, we would have no chance at all of securing more lives. Compared to the risk of entering the fight that would determine our fate empty-handed, using a pirated pool of reincarnation seemed like a much lesser risk.

"The attendant should have discussed all of the details of this world with you already. Do you still have a reason to hesitate? Please proceed. If you have any further questions, please bring them up with the shop attendant." said the synthetic, artificial voice. I grimaced. This thing was definitely an artificial intelligence - and not a very bright one, at that. Hearing that we should have had more details, but didn't get any because the shop attendant was gone felt a bit disheartening.

But we still needed to move forward. We were almost out of time before our bodies started dissolving, and we needed to move on to our next life. Besides, while we didn't know everything, everything that we knew made it seem like this world fit our needs perfectly. There might be unexpected wrinkles in our new world, or things that we had to explore for ourselves - but I still felt that this world suited us far better than any other. I sighed, and stepped into the pool of reincarnation.