The Systemic Lands

Chapter 608: Day 5,102 – A Message?

Now that I was looking for it, I could see it. The wave of non-System energy pushing away the energy that covered the Systemic Lands. I was crossing the level 3 zones that connected the former Dragon Empire portion and the original Purgatory portion of the Systemic Lands.

I slowed down and saw that the energy wave was advancing. It really was a natural disaster. Stopping at the edge, I stepped through slowly, bracing myself. There definitely was something off. Even the air had a slightly different taste to it.

What was it trying to do. I spent a couple of minutes just standing on the road and trying to get a solid feel of this foreign energy. Energy was thought made manifest, so what was the intent behind this. I took a long moment as the foreign energy pressed down upon me.

I could feel it trying to erode my own energy. To enter my body. I rejected it, but I had to partially focus on rejecting the foreign energy. That would be annoying and distracting. My defenses remained solid though, so it should be safe to continue.

While I was willing to come out here for a fact finding expedition and to try and resolve this crisis, I was also prepared to turn around if I felt I couldn’t make any more progress. I was not going to throw my life away on a hopeless cause. Just like with everything else, I would measure the risks versus rewards. And unlike the unknown boss doorway in a level 7 zone, this issue was far more urgent.

Once word spread and new laws were implemented, people conscripted, there would be panic. While the government would continue, without organizations and people, it wouldn’t be much of a government. It would be like the Divine Empress and her Dragon Empire. A hallowed out shell. That couldn’t be allowed to happen no matter what.

There would be no rest for me now, until I got some more information. I raced forward along the road. It only took half the day, before it started getting soft under my footfalls. Everything was breaking apart, like I had seen once before. Like thick jello, it would support my weight to some extent, but was gooey and soft. I hadn’t seen any people or monsters either.

While I had been traveling, there had been some hope that I would run into people who were still alive, but I hadn’t run into anyone once I had crossed past the edge of the energy wave. Either they were dead or had already run away.

I stopped in the city of Esperanza and it was empty. No trace of anyone. I made my way to the store pillars in the center of the city. The city was becoming gooified as well. I put my hands on the store pillar. They felt soft beneath my touch.

ERROR-ERROR-ERROR

I just got the same message over and over again. That was bad. I checked all eight pillars to see if they gave the same message. It was on the fifth one that I checked, that there was something different.

#*#&+#!<>_O=#^}7_^}$b_}/#_%$&#_@&$*_#!}&p#!%/.!+_.}^#l@X

There was just bunch of random symbols that popped up flickering in my mind. It gave me a headache as I tried to focus on them, but that just made it worse. I quickly let go of the pillar. Whatever I had seen was headache inducing. I put my hands on the pillar once more, but I just got ERROR-ERROR-ERROR like the other pillars. Checking the last couple of pillars yielded the same result.

“Almighty System?” I called out. There was no response. I didn’t think there would be, but the I was becoming rapidly unnerved about what was occurring. I left the ghost city to keep making my way towards the epicenter of what was happening.

I tried to recall the message, but it was hard to remember a random collection of symbols. I hadn’t brought anything to write it down. Perhaps it was coded or scrambled, but there was no chance that I would be able to work it out. While I could think a lot faster than a regular human, my memory wasn’t that good when it had induced a headache.

Perhaps it was a critical clue, or perhaps it was just gibberish. There was no way to know now. It could even be the last dying gasp of the Almighty System, crying out for help. It was becoming dark and I had a choice to make. I could divert North towards the source, or I could check on Purgatory to see if the city survived.

It was a higher level, so even if it was destroyed and being gooified, there might be another clue. This time I would hold onto the pillar and memorize the symbols if I spotted them. Once I went to the source, I had no doubt that I would have to leave in a hurry. It was just a small detour.

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I turned East and began my way towards Purgatory. This was an information gathering trip. If the people were still alive or dead, then confirming that would be important. The gooification became worse as I traveled through the level 1 zone. Thankfully the road was there, so I didn’t get lost. The trees were all starting to bend slightly.

The sky itself was becoming a haze. No pinpricks of light, just gray. I paused as I saw a small hill of glowing white. No more like a tumor. The land was pushed up around the hill, and the trees were tilted away, some almost horizontally. Since they were being gooified it was worse, and several were starting to merge with the ground.

There was a lot of energy moving around and pressing down on the white tumor pushing out from the ground. It was a fairly steep climb up the hill to get closer. What the heck had happened here?

I made my way over slowly. And I quickly realized that the glowing white tumor, was the top of the city shield. Purgatory had activated the shield but had then sunk into the ground that had turned soft. Walls, buildings, and people had all been protected hopefully and sunk down into the ground. As the city had sunk, it had pushed up the ground underneath it, until it reached an equilibrium. That was why the soft ground had been pushed up and deformed around the outside of the shield bubble. Since it was actually a bubble and acted like one as well. I reached the shield and I couldn’t see through. It was a bright white. It felt strange being out the outside.

The shield was cracked in several places, but still holding. The non-system energy was pressing down heavily on it, but it was intact. The capital was still intact, that was a good thing. Most likely the people were alive as well. I didn’t want to give a thumbs up in case they turned it off. I shook my head back and forth while I made a fist and opened it up. I then nodded my head up and down while pointing at my fist and keeping it closed. I hope they got the message to not lower the shield.

After a minute of doing that, I left. There was nothing I could do for them. Their survival only indicated that I was on even more of a time crunch. I didn’t want to think about how the city would be fixed once we sorted out this crisis, if I could even sort it out.

Still it was amusing to think that I would have an underground city. New building technique. Build aboveground, then engage gooification while protecting something from the process, sink underground. A modern system building technique for the modern person.

Would another city form on top of the current city? How would the shields work? Future problems for a future Micheal. At least those problems would be more amusing, than whatever was doing this.

Dawn came as I reached the swamp just South of the epicenter of whatever was causing this. I hadn’t noticed an increase in the ambient energy until this point. The swamp water was boiling, leaving some kind of weird steam in the air. I swiped my hand through the steam and the energy was much thicker. I pushed some energy out of my hand to counter it.

There was a hand sized gap in the steam that just hung there in the air that slowly filled in. The air was above the swamp was being gooified as well. It made no physical sense that steam would behave in such a way. But it was being turned solid and kept in mid-air through energy shenanigans.

That meant going around the swamp area. Going back West, would lead to a level 3 zone and mistlands. Going North would lead up to Truth and then I would have to head West. I turned East to go back to the road, but once I reached the road, there was no protective barrier around it, and the road itself had sunk into the swamp water.

That meant I had to go further East to loop around the entire swamp. I quickly changed directions. There were no monsters anywhere, so it was just about running as efficiently as possible to get the best possible speed.

It had been a long time since the terrain forced me to take a detour around it. I made my way around the swamp to the North of Purgatory and then entered the level 1 zone of Truth. I hesitated for a moment but decided to ignore the city. It was cursed in my opinion.

Going there was asking for nothing but trouble. I turned West and began heading towards the epicenter of this disaster. Reaching the corner of the zone, there was almost nothing left in terms of a corner. To the West of Truth was a void zone, to the South was a swamp. I was cutting from Truth’s zone to the Southwest of it, bypassing the void and the swamp.

Normally there should have been a very wider corner between zones. Now there was a lot of void. A tremendous amount of the terrain, was just sliding into the void. It was also barely strong enough to stand on. If it got any worse, I would have to resort to using skills or some other method to transverse the terrain.

Thankfully I didn’t have to pass through any swamp as I kept heading Southwest. I knew there were void cracks and they could be expanding. Better to loop away from them. The terrain was getting even worse, and if I slowed down, I would definitely sink into the ground. As long as I kept moving I was above to avoid using skills thankfully.

No matter what I needed to conserve my energy. The pressure on me was getting much worse. It took serious effort not to take in the ambient energy. I couldn’t risk damaging my stats, not after I had just gotten a meta-point. I also knew that if I took any kind of damage, it would compound quickly as I lost focus and the ability to resist. Like a hole in a dam, it would quickly expand and get worse.

I saw the zone in question up ahead of me and for the first time in a long time I could see incredibly far. There was no obscuring effect. One moment there was just a blur in the distance and the next moment it was instantly clear. Thankfully I had the presence of mind not to stumble and kept moving forward.

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