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Chapter 271: Deathtrap - Markets and Multiverses
🕑 Added 2024-07-12 05:37:13 +0000 UTCAs the group of worldstriders attacked my illusions, we stepped into the Worldstrider layer of reality. Then, I sent a few extinguishes at the worldstriders.
My extinguishes caught them completely off guard. Three of them died before they realized they were being attacked.
After they realized what was happening, the worldstriders started thinning out their bodies. At the same time, half of the worldstriders… kept attacking our illusions. The other half floated up and started scanning the area, as if they were looking for their ambushers.
I grinned.
If the worldstriders were still attacking our illusions, they had definitely been fooled. I focused on making the illusions dodge, weave, and roll around. I didn't want to break the illusion.
Meanwhile, Anise got to work. The worldstriders that had thinned out their bodies started to collapse as Anise ripped them apart. One after another, they collapsed like soggy cardboard.
Seeing their comrades die, the worldstriders started to panic. A few of them started flying around and shooting at random bushes and trees. Meanwhile, the others kept attacking our illusions.
Some of the other worldstriders started thickening up their bodies again, making it harder for Anise to hurt them. I made sure to throw a few extinguishes at them, dropping a few of the thickened worldstriders.
<Ten down. About thirty to go,> sent Anise.
I grinned. This felt like a sharp contrast with how hard the first encounter with the worldstriders had been. There, the worldstriders had besieged us and killed Sallia. Here, two of us were ripping a hunting squad to pieces with little effort.
When about half of the worldstriders had died, the worldstriders started to flee from the battlefield. In their blind panic, they didn't return the way they had come. Instead, they fled in random directions.
And that’s when Anise and I were unpleasantly surprised.
One of the fleeing worldstriders flew near the bushes we were hiding in. When it got within about thirty meters of us, it froze.
“Zelyrian Mage!” it yelled, as it turned right towards the bush Anise and I were hiding in.
The other fleeing worldstriders froze, as if someone had stopped time itself.
Then, some of them continued fleeing, while others stopped fleeing and flew towards us.
I blinked in surprise. Then, I frowned.
I had thought that the worldstriders had no way to detect Anise… but it seemed that wasn’t accurate. If they got close enough to her, they could detect her.
Luckily, there was a massive range limitation. We had also found this out before it could cause us any major problems.
I used my teleportation ability redirect a few attacks, sending them towards the fleeing worldstriders. I didn't want them to carry news of our presence yet. Then, I followed up with a wave of extinguishes, killing another five worldstriders.
But two of the worldstriders were still fleeing. And they had managed to dodge multiple extinguishes. I gritted my teeth as I kept teleporting attacks towards them, but the stubborn creatures just wouldn't die.
Anise frowned, and then turned towards me.
“I’ll throw some fireballs. You teleport them on top of the worldstriders. Then I'll detonate them,” she said.
I nodded. Anise lobbed two fireballs into the air. I teleported them in front of the two flight risks, and then the fireballs exploded. Flames engulfed the two fleeing worldstriders, killing them on the spot.
The final half a dozen worldstriders kept throwing attacks at Anise and I for a few more seconds, but their struggle was futile. I could teleport their attacks around at whim, and they didn't have the numbers to overwhelm our essence pools. After a few more rounds of extinguishes, mage hands, and teleportations, the final worldstrider died.
I spent a few seconds using spatial sight and soul sight to scan the area. Then, I relaxed.
None of the worldstriders had escaped.
Anise and I looked at each other thoughtfully.
“Well, it looks like the illusions aren't perfect," said Anise. "They can be fooled, but they'll notice me if they're nearby."
I nodded.
“The range seems to be about thirty meters?”
“Best to think of it as fifty,” said Anise. “After all, whatever sense they are using to detect me could be more or less sensitive in some Worldstriders. No need to take risks.”
I nodded. Then, after a few moments of thought, I shrugged.
“The fact that they can detect you from a certain distance isn’t too important, actually. Now that we know it’s a risk, we can just stay farther away during fights. Extinguish and {Mage Hand} both have huge ranges. We can stay a few hundred meters away and pick them off from a distance.”
Anise nodded. “I don’t think this affects our overall plan. We just need to know what the risks are, and stay cautious.”
I smiled, and then pulled up the System notification I had gotten during the battle.
Slaughter: Kill a Worldstrider for the twenty-seventh time
Achievement +240
This fight was brief, but it tipped me over the edge of another milestone for worldstrider kills. It also pushed me from 10,192 Achievement to 10,432 Achievement.
It wasn't a huge amount of Achievement, but more was always welcome.
After that, Anise and I spent a few hours resting and recovering our essence. Once we were back to a healthy essence pool, we stood up and looked at each other. “So it’s time to really put the plan in motion?” I asked.
Anise grinned. “Looks like it."
"Let’s teach them a lesson for killing Sallia. And get you your keyword ability.”
The two of us moved to a new location, and then I set up the same ambush we had used earlier. However, this time I only made one of my illusions visible to patrolling Worldstriders. The other illusion went into another, different set of bushes... and then adopted a confident sneer. He was now here to 'lay in ambush' and surprise the worldstriders.
It took two hours for another group to appear.
This one was smaller than the previous group - there were only twenty worldstriders, instead of forty.
Anise and I ripped apart the group with little suspense. The worldstriders died en masse during the initial ambush, and panicked. This time, they found the 'ambushing mage' pretty quickly, and focused fire on him. With an obvious 'ambusher' to focus on, they didn't flee in random directions like last time. Instead, they kept trying and failing to hit my abnormally agile illusion.
Of course, that didn't last forever. When the eleventh worldstrider died, they started to grow tense. By the time the thirteenth died, the worldstriders looked ready to flee. Finally, when the fifteenth died, the worldstriders bolted.
Two more died to extinguishes. Then, Anise and I did a teleporting fireball, and made the air in front of the survivors turn into a pillar of flame.
"Stop!" yelled my 'ambusher' illusion. "If you flee, I'll kill you all!"
The three worldstriders reeled back in surprise, and then looked at my illusion fearfully. My illusion jumped into the air, before it floated in front of the worldstriders. My illusion smiled gleefully.
"We've come for you! Where are the other worldstrider camps?" My illusion asked. As it spoke, it also raised a hand towards the worldstriders, as if threatening to kill them on the spot.
"I'll never say. Die, damned native!" shrieked one of the worldstriders, before it launched a final attack at my illusion.
My illusion teleported the attack right back into the creature. I followed up with an extinguish. The worldstrider died.
The last two worldstriders looked at my illusion with a fearful expression, and didn't follow their dead companion.
“I’ll tell you! Don’t kill me!” Said one of the worldstriders. Its voice quivered, and for a moment, I felt bad.
For all that the worldstriders looked inhuman, they were still sentient, sapient beings. Hunting them down and then slaughtering them like this felt wrong.
But as soon as my guilt started to appear, an image of Sallia dying rose to my mind.
My sympathy disappeared.
Since these monsters had tried to murder Anise, and had killed Sallia, they didn’t need to exist in this world. Besides, the last worldstrider group had tried to forsake their survival to kill Anise. If the worldstriders existed, Anise wouldn't be safe.
I extinguished the other worldstrider, and then my illusion smiled at the remaining worldstrider. "Lovely. Lead the way."
The worldstrider looked at the corpse of its friend and shivered. Then, it began to float in another direction. Every minute or so, it glanced at my illusion again, to make sure that my illusions were following it.
Naturally, our real bodies followed far behind the illusion. We moved slowly, because I wasn’t good enough at illusions to keep us invisible while we walked… but I didn’t think that the worldstrider saw us. After nearly an hour of travel, we finally found it. A large camp, inhabited by worldstriders. There were about three hundred of them. Fewer than I had expected, but still a good number of them.
I also noticed that a few worldstriders were hidden underneath the surface of the earth. Normally, they would have been almost impossible to detect… but with my soul-sight, they stuck out like fireflies on a moonless night.
I immediately extinguished all of them. They were hiding under the earth, so they didn’t have any chance to respond before they died.
But as I did so, the worldstrider that had 'surrendered' to us shrieked.
"Enemies! They have weird abilities! They might be Zel-"
I extinguished it, and then stared at the camp of worldstriders. Honestly, I had kind of expected the worldstrider to have a trick up its sleeve. It would be absurd for it to help us when it probably knew we would kill it afterwards.
My illusions made grim expressions as they saw the worldstrider camp stir. creatures got up from the ground where they had been resting, and floated into the sky. Other worldstriders prepared for a fight, swarming like hornets after their hive was disturbed.
But even though my illusions looked desperate, I grinned.
Just as planned.
Author’s Note:
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Comments
Rain
Is this evidence of their humanity slipping? Probably why so many others started fake religions and stuff, they don't care any more
Bryan D
As in many conflicts, the blame circle just spins until someone decides against vengeance.
