Chương 543: The Paths We Walk

"There's another one?" asked Veritum. There was a dawning note of horror in his voice that was impossible to ignore. I felt a wave of despair crash into me as well. One water elemental had already been too much for us to handle. Now, this water elemental had also come - and it seemed no weaker than the first one. My earlier suspicions had been correct. The Universal Tree had no intention of letting this dimension survive.

I had no idea why there had been such a long break in the war - but it was clear the peace between our dimensional cluster and the Universal Tree was over. Their monsters were flooding this world - and these monsters were prepared in order to invade a Tier 9 world. I closed my eyes and took a deep breath. I needed to concentrate on finding a way out. Screaming in frustration wouldn't accomplish anything. Until the very end, I couldn't stop trying to improve the outcome. Still, it was hard not to be upset.

When the Universal Tree had invaded our home dimension, the universal tree had basically flooded the entire plane with wave after wave of cannon fodder monsters, before ripping the plane out of its former place in the ocean of souls. Then, it had been dragged into the Universal Tree and consumed for nutrients. In other words, the monsters here weren't even the real threat.

They were just a way to distract the local inhabitants of this dimension and stop anyone from preparing for the real threat - the roots that would probably descend upon this world any day now and rip this dimension to pieces. We were already struggling to handle the distraction. Furthermore, where there were two water elementals, there had to be more. In other words, there were probably dozens, or even hundreds of water elementals roaming the ocean now.

Within a few weeks, everything in this dimension might get ripped to pieces and annihilated, and I had no idea how to stop it, or even fight back. Even though I was trying to remain optimistic, I felt a wave of despair. I was beginning to realize one fundamental truth. No matter how much the four of us had grown in strength over our previous lives and over the centuries of training and reincarnation, there was no way I could influence the outcome of an interdimensional war.

Right now, I wasn't even on the same level as a real interdimensional empire. Even trying to survive the aftershocks of a battle between a weak interdimensional cluster and the Universal Tree felt like a hopeless task. We were utterly insignificant in this battlefield, and right now there was nothing we could do to change that.

"Is there a way to avoid the water elemental?" asked one of the other adults, a woman whose name I vaguely remembered was Joanna. She had a rather swollen belly. I could tell that she was pregnant - probably seven months along by now. If this nightmare hadn't happened, she would have been preparing to give birth right now. Her words finally snapped me out of my thoughts. Thinking about the future could come later. Right now, we had more immediate problems to deal with.

The water elemental was surging towards us, and it was obvious that it would catch us soon if we didn't do anything about it. How did we survive the next fifteen minutes? Veritum turned towards me.

"Can you use that strange ability you used last time? The one that slowed the water elemental down for several minutes, and made it seem unusually bad at noticing us? Without that ability, the first water elemental might have caught us before we could even retreat to the village." I grimaced and shook my head.

"It wasn't an ability at all. It was a consumable item Felix made. We don't have another one. And even if we had the materials to make another one, it would take too much time. We have maybe ten minutes before the water elemental reaches us." My thoughts continued spinning as I searched for a way out. A way to survive. I came up blank. The one and only 'easy' way that I thought we could escape… was if we used some of the more permanent consumable items. Such as the {Splinter of Annihilation}.

Nothing else would do it. While there were other items that could probably help, such as Sallia's consumable items that could ramp up her stats, I didn't think that Sallia alone could turn the tides and crush the water elemental. If using our other consumable items was enough to kill a water elemental, there would have been no need to flee the island in the first place.

Only the {Splinter of Annihilation} would let us escape, since the water elementals were already quite slow, and removing 10 grades of its [Agility] might leave it literally unable to move. Even then, I wasn't sure if we could kill it. This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. But that was an item we were saving for the Market. Unlike most Market-made items, the items Felix created usually didn't have any kind of self-repair or self-restoration property.

He hadn't figured out how to add that property to items yet, which meant that if I used the item, it would be gone for good. If we used it here, we wouldn't have it when we fought for more lives. That might mean that we would die next time we returned to the Market - and this time, our death would be a lot more permanent than our previous ones. We would be dooming ourselves, in order to save the few hundred people on these boats.

We wouldn't even be saving them permanently - they would probably still die within a few weeks anyway, when the roots of the Universal Tree ripped this world to pieces. Intellectually, I knew that wasting an item specifically prepared to keep my friends and I alive was a terrible idea. It would be an utter betrayal of my friends, and their odds of survival. We already knew that we were probably hopelessly outclassed in a regular fight with whatever guarded the lives in the Market.

The only reason I thought we had a chance at all was because Felix managed to make a crazy item that gave us a chance. If I wasted it now, not only would I waste all of Felix's hard work, but I would probably doom us all. And yet, the idea of just abandoning everyone to their fates felt awful. Even though I knew that spending the {Splinter of Annihilation} was stupid. Even though I knew that they would all die soon anyway.

Even though I knew, intellectually, that this dimension's long-term prospects were nearly nonexistent - and if this dimension did survive the war with the universal tree, it certainly wouldn't be as a result of our actions. Someone from one of the greater planes would have to swoop in and save everyone. The eldritch half of me, the side attuned to hope, screamed that I should do it anyway. That the hope in my surroundings was dropping, and that I should do something, anything to restore it.

That failing to help others was a betrayal of my fundamental nature. <Miria, don't do it. I can see that look in your eye, > said Sallia. I paused. <What look? > I asked. <That look that says you're about to pull a crazy stunt and try to save everyone. If you have a good idea… then go for it. But if you're planning to use the {Splinter of Annihilation}, don't. I know you like to help other people, and I usually support that, within reason. But that's an item we need to keep for ourselves.

I care more about the four of us than anyone else in this world. > I hesitated. Was leaving everyone to die really the right thing to do? Was it selfish of me? Of us? Was it horrible that a part of me agreed with Sallia's words, even though another part of me was screaming that I should do anything to try to help people? Was it horrible that I was thinking about letting the people in these boats die, just to keep my friends and I safe?

I knew that several of them would dissolve in the ocean of souls - that they would permanently die afterwards. When we observed the ocean of souls in between deaths, I had estimated that about five percent of souls permanently died each time they were exposed to the ocean. Who mattered more? Us, or everyone else that I cared about. I gritted my teeth… and then stopped reaching for {Splinter of Annihilation}. We would face the water elemental without wasting the consumable item that Felix had crafted. I hated it.

I wanted to save everyone. But I didn't have the power, and I also valued my friends more. I felt something crack. It felt like the hope that I was meant to embody had cracked somehow. My eldritch half hadn't utterly collapsed, but it rejected Sallia's words, even though they were realistic. People continued to throw out desperate suggestions about how to survive as the water elemental drew closer, but nobody had a real solution.

Soon, the water elemental shot out a tendril of water at us, and Veritum gritted his teeth and tried to steer the boat out of the way. The water elemental had reached us.