Chapter 410: Hope

The giant worm-like horror continued to stare at the Nursery for several more seconds. The four of us froze, staring at the abomination and wondering what we could possibly do to fight back if it came after us. Its speed was on a completely different level from the spiders we had fought last time we were in the Market. The creature was fast, massive, powerful, and probably very durable.

Luckily, the creature didn’t spot us. After devouring the billboard, I saw a big part of its tail slip out of the ground far beneath it, as the creature curled up in the sky. In minutes, it resembled a horrifying, monstrous egg, waiting for the moment it could hatch. I felt a wave of something swirl around us, as if we had entered a new dimension. It was hard to put my finger on what had changed, but I knew that something about our surroundings was different than usual. And not in a good way.

I glanced at my friends, and they glanced back at me.

“Do you guys think we can try to beat up that wyrm while it’s asleep?” Anise asked. “It looks almost like it’s evolving, or something of the sort. I get the feeling it’ll be much stronger after it finishes sleeping off whatever is currently happening.

“The idea is good, but I don’t think we can win,” whispered Sallia. “That thing could probably take us even at the peak of our strength.”

Felix and I both nodded in agreement. The eldritch worm was massive and powerful. I didn’t have my attunement back yet, so I couldn’t check its life force - but I assumed it was probably on par with a seven or eight bell raid from our previous world at least. It might even be stronger. In other words, it likely had double-digit [Fortitude], probably somewhere in the low twenties. It would laugh off any attacks we made as nothing more than papercuts.

“Does the worm change any of our immediate plans?” I asked, a moment later. Seeing the worm devour the billboard was scary. It was a sign that things were getting worse in the Market, and that things might continue to degrade as time passed. However, there wasn’t much we could do about it at the moment besides get stronger.

“I suppose it doesn’t,” said Felix a moment later. “Either way, we need to grow stronger before we can take action. Besides, if the worm takes a few months to evolve, maybe we can grow strong enough to contest it while we’re in the Market?” Suddenly, he grinned. “If we can get stronger fast enough, this could even be an opportunity. If that thing really is evolving, and weakened while doing so… killing it might be worth an Ability evolution.”

My breath caught as I realized what Felix was suggesting. We had a huge amount of Achievement right now, but we were lacking opportunities to grow. We only had one world left, and we had no idea how strong we needed to be in order to buy more lives. The worm was an indicator that things were growing worse in the Market, and that things would continue to deteriorate - but it was also a very small sliver of an opportunity. If we could kill the worm and evolve an ability or two, we would be that much more prepared for our next world, and for the fight for more lives afterwards.

It was a chance.

After thinking through our decisions, I was even more motivated than before to grow quickly. If we could nip this threat in the bud, we might turn a disaster into a boon. I threw open my Status Screen, and looked at the new Abilities I had unlocked. I only had 7 glut penalty open, so I could only buy one of the ability upgrades, but I already knew the first thing I wanted.

I took one last look at {Echoes of the Deep}. My strongest Ability, despite being a grade lower than my other magic system related Ability. It gave me access to my strongest spells, such as extinguish and renewal, and it was directly linked to the essence I had the highest affinity with.

Then, I purchased the third upgrade option for the ability - the fruit of my hard work in our previous world, and the only direct upgrade that gave me access to the eldritch keyword.

50,000 Achievement disappeared… and I shrugged. It was a hefty price tag for a new ability, but right now I could definitely afford it. Instead, I focused on the changes to my body after I bought my new ability.

I felt as if a fundamental part of who and what I was had changed. Something about my physical body was no longer… physical. It felt almost as if I were a puppeteer, controlling the strings needed to manipulate my physical body, instead of a being of proper flesh and physicality. I could still feel everything related to my proper physical body, and it wasn’t as though I had lost any of my control over my physical abilities - but I had certainly changed something about the relationship between my body and my mind. I was no longer a creature of pure flesh and blood. Now, I was like something that existed outside of my body, puppeteering my flesh.

Of course, I could still feel that I was linked to my body. I wasn’t something that could exist independently from my flesh and blood. But I could sense that part of me was something more than before.

Even more interestingly, I felt that the other half of me was ‘empty.’ It was waiting for something to fill it up.

Instinctively, I knew that I needed an ‘identity’ for the other half of me. Until I declared what concept the new, non-physical aspect of my body would be, the other half of my existence would be purely decorative.

I could also sense that this wasn’t quite as simple of a choice as I had thought it would be. When I had planned to buy the ability, I had thought that I would be able to ‘change’ the metaphysical half of my identity as needed. I had planned to go from one world to another, adopting new conceptual body parts like an alchemist changing their limbs. In some worlds, I would take a concept focused on death, in others, I might take the concept of ‘hope,’ to enhance my healing… but the other half of my identity didn’t work like that. Once I chose what my new identity would be, that would be it. I wouldn’t be able to change it in the future. I could sense that dying and returning to the Market would deplete any ‘growth’ to the conceptual half of my body, so I was still going to be resetting in power every time I completely died - but I couldn’t erase the identity I assigned to my conceptual half once I chose it. It would become just like my memories or my personality - an integral part of me.

I also realized that this ‘conceptual half’ had a few other uses beyond the ones directly stated in the ability. By having a conceptual half to my identity, I would be far less restricted by my physical body than I had been in the past. Normally, when we reincarnated, we suffered from massive stat penalties until we got a little older. Since I was still mostly a physical being, I would still suffer some penalties - but they would be far less noticeable than before. That might have some interesting use cases, but I decided to think about it later. For now, I decided that the other half of my being would be hope. Just as I had originally planned. I liked helping people. Getting powers and stats based on how much I helped other people sounded like a great idea, especially since it worked so well with my healing abilities.

I didn’t have enough glut penalty for my other big Ability upgrade, sadly. I was one glut penalty short of boosting my other big keyword ability. I took one final look at my current stats screen.

Then, I took one final look at the giant worm, slumbering in the sky, and clenched my fist. I didn’t know if we could do it… but I swore to myself that if we got the chance, we would kill that thing before leaving the Market this time.