Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)

After I finished talking with my friends, I took a few hours to just sit and think. Of course, I still made my rounds in the medical tents, in order to make sure none of my essence was wasted - but since the situation was largely dealt with already, I prioritized my own state of mind.

Finally, after four hours, I felt ready to process my System messages from the battle. The first thing I looked at was the local System messages.

You have leveled up! Ice Mage has advanced from level 41 to level 44!

+9 Free Stat Points (X3) +3 Sense (X3) +3 Mind (X3) +3 Vitality (X3) +5 Mana (X3)

I had gathered a total of 3 levels from wiping out the rats, which was more levels than I had been expecting to get from the fight. Since I was working on my third Spark now, I suffered from a massive decrease in levelling speed. I felt that these three levels were actually quite important, since they indicated that other members of our clan had also gained an abnormally high amount of levels. While I wasn’t quite sure why these extradimensional monsters were worth more XP than usual, it still meant that our Clan’s strength might have undergone a significant increase if people had hit levels where they could acquire new feats or compound sparks.

I assigned all of my stats to mana again, then checked my Market System notifications. They weren’t anything too unusual - largely just the notifications I had already come to expect.

Power: Level up (X3) Slaughter: Kill a rodent of the roots for the fifth time, Twentieth time, fiftieth time Assist in killing a rodent of the roots for the first time, fifth time, twentieth time, fiftieth time Influence: You played a moderate role in the battle against the extraplanar invaders!

Achievement +300 (X3), Achievement + 500, Achievement + 650, Achievement +1,000, Achievement + 200, Achievement +250, Achievement +400, Achievement +450, Achievement +4,500

In total, I had reaped a rather rich harvest from the battle, despite the massive death toll. I went from 174,324 Achievement to 183,174 Achievement - quite a substantial overall boost. The nice bump to my Achievement was a relief, at least - it made it feel even more likely that my friends and I would survive to see another world.

However, these System messages were the only relief that I could find. Even though we had been travelling for hours, I could still see the distant purple crack in the sky, raining monsters upon this world. Worse, there wasn’t a single sign of the warriors from one of the ‘greater planes’ we were connected to. There was no sign of people working together to close the portal, or help us survive the aftermath.

All of this pointed to the fact that something must have gone terribly wrong. I didn’t know anything about the greater battlefields of our dimension, but it was likely that the universal tree had breached the defensive lines of our dimensional cluster, and was now staging an invasion targeting this world. The one and only silver lining was that I hadn’t seen any ridiculously strong combatants enter this dimension yet - all of the enemies pouring out of the portal were at least somewhat fightable by the people in this dimension - at least in theory. The hundred meter tall giants were incredibly massive and powerful, but they also had structural weak points that made killing them possible, if difficult - and the rats that had harassed us while we fled the battlefield were also very easy to kill individually, although their numbers were absurdly high. It was obvious that the universal tree hadn’t committed any of its truly powerful combatants to our little dimension - doubtless, they were fighting in more important battlefields.

In a strange way, I even recognized this tactic. It seemed like exactly the same tactic the Universal Tree had used against the Market after the Market’d destruction. Instead of stationing a powerful, organized military in the Market, they had simply opted to flood the Market with cheap, uncontrolled monsters and then let things be. While it was far less structured than a formal invasion, it was certainly cost-effective.

However, even though no overwhelmingly powerful individuals had invaded this dimension, our world was still in a very dangerous position. We had zero ability to fend off an invasion from a multiverse-level empire, even if the invasion was a weak one with few important resources and weak leadership. The enemy had proven that they were hostile to us, and cared little for what happened to the people of this world.

Being at the mercy of a powerful, hostile force was never a great position to be in. The only thing we could really do was struggle to survive long enough and hope that rescue came for us, or hope that a few people reached the minimum threshold to actually threaten the Universal tree’s weak invasion forces.

I sighed as I glared into the distance, where we had fought for our lives and lost two village-bearing beasts only a few hours ago.

After that, I went to sleep. I was out of essence and I was exhausted, so the numbness of sleep was a relief, if anything.

The next day, after I woke up, I spent a few minutes using my dimensional and soul sight to scan our surroundings. That was when I noticed a rather worrying fact.

When I strained my dimensional vision to its utmost limit, I caught sight of the strange shapeshifting rats once again establishing one of the pyramid structures in one of the trees of the jungle. I could also see plenty of shapeshifting rats writhing in the midst of the pyramid. The rats hadn’t caught up to us yet, but their behavior worried me. I continued to observe, until I noticed that near the pyramid structure, a tiny channel had opened that led to the ocean of souls. A few moments later, a new rat-monster soul appeared right in front of my eyes. My eyes dimmed as I confirmed my worst fears.

The rats weren’t just an advance wave of shock troops, meant to soften up the defenders of this world. They were meant to work like a virulent plague. They were a numerous, invasive species of monsters that was meant to choke out all resources and life in thai world.

And there was absolutely nothing we could do to stop them but flee.

I couldn’t help but wonder why the Universal Tree had used this species as an advance troop. I could still see the rats as we continued travelling, so I could confirm that the rats did not engage in any sort of sustainable behavior. They quickly swarmed and devoured many nearby species of monster, before undergoing a rapid, uncontrolled population boom. I suspected that within a few weeks, these rats would devour almost all of the local resources.

This didn’t work like any invasion that I understood. As I understood it, an invasion was usually an attempt to either seize control over the local population and use them as a labor force, or an attempt to evict the local inhabitants of an area in order to seize control of the area and its resources instead. However, I certainly didn’t think that these rats were the controllers of this invasion - they didn’t seem very intelligent. So why were the commanders of the universal tree faction we were at war with feeding the rats all the local resources? The traits would quickly destroy all of the local plants and civilians and leave behind a barren, lifeless wasteland. How did that benefit them?

Something felt wrong about the Universal Tree’s actions, but I didn’t understand enough about their society or their magic system(s) to figure out what they were aiming for. At least, not yet.

I shook my head. Regardless of the world tree’s actions, I was sure of one thing. The problem was going to get much, much worse if it wasn’t dealt with soon.