Markets and Multiverses (A Serial Transmigration LitRPG)

<I’m activating my {Star Core} - I don’t think there’s going to be a future if I don’t use it now!> yelled Sallia. A moment later, I saw a burst of light in the distance, followed by several waves of essence. Then, Sallia leapt in front of me at a speed I could barely track. I spent a moment staring at Sallia’s life force, and felt a wave of shock. Sallia’s stats were ridiculous now. Her speed was still considerably lower than the fastest enemies - but she was at least equivalent to someone with grade 20 in her [Agility] Stat.

Another beam of light tore through the air, and then slammed into Sallia’s chest - but unlike the one that had nearly instantly killed me, and the one that had dropped our [Sound Mage], this beam of light didn’t seem to do much. Sallia winced, and I caught the faint scent of burning flesh - but it was very minor. When I poured some healing essence into it, I quickly realized that Sallia’s injuries were only a bit more severe than a second degree burn - and with her ridiculous [Vitality], bolstered by all of her temporary physical buffs, her injury was already scabbing over. Even if I hadn’t poured healing magic into the injury, with Sallia’s superhuman abilities, a second degree burn wouldn’t have slowed her down much.

Then, before I could even blink, Sallia grabbed me, pulled me into a princess carry, and then dashed away, right before another beam of light tore through the village-bearing beast. If she hadn’t moved, that beam of light would have hit Sallia’s head - though I wasn’t sure if it would have actually accomplished much.

<Sallia? You can survive those terrifying light beams?> I asked.

<I think that they’re actually some form of mixture of light and fire magic - so my {Star Core} gives me a huge resistance boost,> said Sallia, as she ducked behind another house.

A moment later, a giant wind blade carved a bloody furrow through the fur of the village-bearing beast, and wiped out four villagers that had been cowering in their house a moment ago.

I glanced around us, and realized that things were going catastrophically for our side. People were dying in droves as the group of intelligent spellcasters flung spells at us, and most attempts to retaliate were splattering harmlessly against the shield created by the shield-using spellcaster.

<If you’re using your consumable items, try using the {Suppression Field} on that shield spell. If we don’t deal with that thing, there’s no way we can make any headway in this fight! Miria, be ready to boost it by tapping into the eldritch concept of hope!>

<I already used the {Suppression Field} to kill a giant a few months ago!> Yelled Sallia.

<Fuck, I forgot about that. Well, try -> A loud boom shook caused the entire village-bearing beast to shudder, as a massive wave of force picked our ride up and flung us several meters through the air. The village-bearing beast somehow managed to stabilize itself in midair before everyone got flung off of its back - but I still saw dozens of people fly through the air before slamming into the snowy ground beneath us. Another jolt rippled through the village-bearing beast when its dozens of feet hit the ground, but it managed to stabilize itself before too many people were flung away.

The battlefield devolved further into chaos, as rats swarmed the surviving village-bearing beasts, and the hostile Mages shredded most of the defenders. I quickly realized that the rats themselves weren’t the problem - even the plague-infested rats would have been entirely manageable on their own.

The problem was the couple dozen Mages. Each of them was as powerful as the four of us - except for the fact that their stats were so far out of our league that they might as well have been in a different dimension. Their abilities themselves weren’t as varied or as threatening as our abilities were - I even suspected that they had rather lacking grades for their Skills. They certainly hadn’t reached Heroic grade yet. Heck, they might not have even reached Expert grade yet - based on their actual attacks, I suspected they were just using advanced grade skills. Otherwise, it was hard to explain why Sallia’s {Star Core} had been so effective at nullifying the man’s beam of light, even though the light beams were obviously only partially heat-based.

But with their terrifying stats and their teamwork, it didn’t matter. Sheer, raw stats were enough to tilt this battle wholly in their favor. Skill grades were a huge part of how effective someone could be with the same pool of essence and the same stats - but there was only so much that skill grades could do when they had enough life force for their mages to tank entire squads of spellcasters blasting them with magic, while one of their hits would instantly kill most of us.

I gritted my teeth, and zeroed in on the barrier. I couldn’t create any portals inside of their giant, group-wide shield - but that didn’t mean there was nothing at all that I could do.

Extinguish, for example, didn’t rely on portals - it relied on creating a drop of water, empowering it with essence, and then using that essence to chip away at their ‘candle of life.’

<I’m going to hit the barrier magic user with everything I can. Be ready to back it up! I’m hoping he’ll lose concentration if I hit him with a full-force extinguish!> I said.

<Got it!> said Anise, followed by Felix and Sallia a moment later.

Sallia set me down so I could get the best possible view of my target, and I unleashed the strongest extinguish I could.

All of my alteration essence reserves plummeted to nothing. A single drop of water appeared right above the barrier mage’s head, which I boosted as much as I could with {Empowered Spell}, the spell I had purchased to give me a trump card of my own. It splashed onto the hair of the Mage.

The barrier protecting the universal tree’s mages shuddered wildly as the man lost concentration for the briefest fraction of a second, while a few sparks of his life force collapsed. It was nowhere near enough to inflict serious harm upon him - but it clearly hurt, even if it wasn’t very dangerous.

Immediately after the barrier flickered, a humongous fireball burst out of Anise’s hands and towards the barrier, before it splattered harmlessly against the transparent shield keeping the enemy safe. A moment later, a giant pile of Felix’s makeshift bombs slammed into the barrier as well. The other mages in the alliance seemed to finally find a ray of hope in the midst of this catastrophic, one-sided slaughter. They poured their own spells into the same spot.

<Stay safe!> yelled Sallia, before she kicked off the back of the village-bearing beast. With a mixture of magic and sheer muscles, Sallia soared through the air like a confused pigeon, before she slammed into the barrier and tore right through it. The universal tree mages seemed stunned for a fraction of a second, as Sallia stepped right in front of the barrier mage.

{Timewinder’s Slice}, the ability Sallia had purchased at the Market last time as a trump card, was activated. Sallia’s sword seemed to blur through reality itself, as if it had completely ignored the laws of physics. There was no moment between when Sallia’s sword started making its swing and when it finished - instead, in one moment, Sallia’s blade was above the man’s head. The next moment, Sallia’s sword was stuck in the man’s jugular vein. Zero seconds passed between these two moments.

The man gasped in pain, but somehow, his life force was still working to keep him alive. Fortunately, since he was now critically injured, the barrier collapsed, and a tidal wave of spells finally killed him.

His life force disappeared, and his soul returned to the void.

“Enough!” A wave of light suddenly crashed into Sallia, throwing her through the air like a broken kite. Her life force itself didn’t wink out - but sheer quantity of essence nearly overwhelmed her resistance. Sallia was flung towards a nearby village-bearing-beast, before she plowed through the village-bearing beast. I had no alteration essence to heal her, or the village-bearing beast.

I looked back at the Mages that were besieging us. The barrier mage was dead. The other two dozen were still completely fine. I looked at our own side - at the village-bearing beasts and the dead.

In less than a minute, tens of thousands of members of our alliance had been wiped out by the flurry of spells, magic, and rats. The number and power of the spellcasters in front of us was too much for us to handle, underpowered though their skills might have been. We had taken too many casualties during the battle against the wooden butterflies - and we had taken too many more casualties during the opening phases of their attacks, when the high-density blasts of light had killed most of our leadership, and our entire communication network.

We had killed one Mage, but nearly half of the alliance was dead.

I used {Dangerous Current}, the other trump card I had purchased from the Market, for a brief moment. My body transformed from solid flesh into a drop of water - and essence started to surge through my essence pools again. I used a few dribbles of alteration essence to heal Sallia and the village-bearing-beast that she had been flung into, and nearly flung through.

Then, I activated a portal, right beneath the feet of one of the village-bearing beasts. I rapidly expanded it, until in a fraction of a second, it encompassed most of the battlefield-including every surviving village-bearing beasts. As for the people who had been flung into the distance, or flung off of the village-bearing beasts - I had no choice but to abandon them.

In another fraction of a second, my portal swallowed all of us and spit us back out right at the beginning of our journey - or at least, what remained of our group.