Elysium's Multiverse

Chapter 142

Chapter 142

The red dot overhead was traveling in a straight line, and Riven didn’t have much of a hard time finding it due to the size of the creature.

Six legs in the back, four bladed arms along the sides, two sets of yellow eyes, a long wingless carapace of gray chitin armor, and long pincers were all set onto the body of a gigantic mantis that was rushing over the rooftops and roadways at breakneck speed towards him. Easily the size of a tank and likely just as bullet proof, it was closing in fast with the air shimmering around its body.

Riven’s eyes narrowed, and it activated a martial art that sent it tearing through the air with a sonic boom towards his location on the prison’s roof.

“If he’s going to send one of his lieutenants, I’ll match it with some of my own. Don’t want to give away all my tricks just yet now, do I?”

Calmly watching the bullet-like creature ripping through the air, he raised his hand. “Azmoth.”

A portal of fire flared around him and the titanic demon launched out of it to meet the azag mantis. Riven saw the creature’s yellow eyes go wide in alarm just before they met, and a shockwave of fire and magma erupted when Azmoth’s infernal maul crashed into the monster’s skull.

[Riven Thane has been engaged in battle. Click to view.]

[Tiklik Longjaw has been engaged in battle. Click to view.]

The recoil was the equivalent of a baseball bat making a home run with a baseball. One moment the large mantis was rocketing towards him, the other moment it was rocketing in the complete opposite direction while aflame with a third of its face caved in.

Riven loudly cackled in amusement, watching the streaking, flaming, screeching creature bounce like a stone on water through roadways and ruined buildings. “Athela, Azmoth, kill it. Fay you stay here.”

Athela’s black tongue whipped out of her mouth with a screech of glee and she blurred forward - jumping off the roof and tearing towards the injured monster who was still writhing on the ground blocks away. Azmoth pursued them afterwards with a boom when he landed from the 2 story jump, then effortlessly bulldozed his way through the layers of barbed wire fences while bursting into flames.

“You don’t wish to kill it yourself?” Fay asked curiously, side-eying her master with a cocked eyebrow and folded wings.

“Nope. We have other targets to draw out.”

***

Tanya clutched her two small daughters in the corner of her family home’s basement. Her red hair was frazzled, her kids were crying, the house was literally shaking from the battle being waged right outside their doors. Being woken up in the very early hours of the morning by her husband to the sound of blaring sirens, system notifications, gunfire and unearthly screams from a monster swarm was not something she thought she’d ever experience - but here she was.

“We’ve barricaded the door down here with everything we have!” Derrick, her husband said with a grimace and heavy breathing. He looked over his shoulder to where Tanya’s stepfather John was still inspecting the makeshift barricade - adjusting things here or there on the pile to feel useful in a situation where they were all rather useless.

Derrick grunted, then leaned against the stone wall of the basement and slid down to a sitting position next to his eldest daughter - wincing when the house shook again under the crash of a large body outside. His daughters were already silently crying, and he patted both their heads with a loving smile - one that’d won over Tanya’s heart when they were younger. “It’ll be alright girls, the military will save us.”

Off in the other room the rest of the family, including Tanya’s mother in law and two sisters in law were all huddled together around the cortex forums that were rapidly uploading video feeds and information with live streams of the battle. System notifications had already been coming and going with different battle targets being engaged or killed off, while two of their own targets had died within only a few minutes of the battle having started. Being caught in the crossfire was certainly a worry, but they may all be gonners regardless of whether or not they were found by monsters if the military couldn’t hold these attackers at bay from killing all 5 of the defending side’s targets. If that were to happen, Tanya could only hope the system’s ‘purge’ would be quick - because by the looks of things it wasn’t going well outside and she couldn’t bear the thought of her children dying a horrible, agonizing death.

They were such good little girls, and they deserved to live. They deserved to grow up and find husbands, bear children of their own, laugh and cry and enjoy all the little things that were important in life. But Tanya wasn’t sure if they’d make it, even after all they’d been through with the tutorial and frequent monster attacks up until now - they still might not make it.

Not with this army of carnivorous creatures tearing through the outer suburbs,killing and devouring anyone they came across.

“You should go watch with the others…” her husband said, smiling Tanya’s way and gripping her hand. “I’ll stay with the kids. You keep looking over at my mom and sisters, I know you’re nervous and want to watch it. It’ll make you feel better.”

Tanya’s pale face shifted his way, lips quivering into a smile of her own, putting on a brave face for little Elsie and Sara. “Yeah, I think that’d help a lot. Thanks honey.”

Kissing each of her daughters for a brief goodbye, she then bent over and gave Derrick a long, drawn out, passionate kiss - one that they hadn’t shared the likes of for a long, long time. “If we make it out of this alive…”

She whispered, putting her forehead against his. “Let’s spend more time together. We let work life get in the way of the important things, let’s not make that mistake again. Ok?”

Derrick choked up, but nodded and pushed her away. “Go watch, you can bring me updates from time to time. Hurry! Go!”

Cries of horror and outright denial abruptly erupted from around the corner, and Tanya startled only to realize why her husband’s family was so upset a split second later.

[Governor Banks has been killed in battle by Azag Hive Cluster forces. 2 of 5 battle targets for the defenders remain.]

Derrick and Tanya shared a pale look, only for Tanya to dash around the corner and bring up the notification showing Governor Banks’ demise.

It’d been an assassination. Although the Governor had been on the opposite side of the city, he’d been run down in the street with an entire escort of military personnel being ravaged in the process of trying to protect him and escort him to one of the towers downtown. The scene was bloody, gore-filled, and just outright horrible - and Tanya had to cover her mouth while watching the people there get eaten and slaughtered as they fought back to kill as many of the azag hive cluster as they could. Even some of the braver civilians had come out of their homes with shotguns, pistols, submachine guns or whatever else they could find - and the groups of adventurers, mercenaries and makeshift guilds that’d formed in preparation for the coming ‘Guild’ system had also taken to the streets to help defend their homes.

Tanya collected herself, and was offered a seat at the table by a teary-eyed sister in law by the name of Amanda. Her twin sister Samantha was on her left, and Tanya’s mother in law Debbie was across the table - with all of them looking at a series of screens and scrolling walls of text.

“Can you catch me up to date?” Tanya whispered, looking over her shoulder at the corner she’d just come around where her daughters were still crying and clutching their father. “What’s going on? Is it as bad as it looks?”

Samantha sniffed, using a quivering hand to whip away her tears and cleared her throat. “Uhm… It’s pretty bad. Only Lieutenant General Bruner and that Riven Thane guy are left on our side. Bruner is holed up in the airforce base and they’re carpet bombing the major roadways that are leading into the city, that’s where the swarm had originally gone. Most of the frontline defenses we had set up for monster attacks are overrun, except for a couple, and the army is preparing a last stand with the police and whoever else can come help.”

“A lot of civilian groups have bravely gone out to fight.” Debbie said with a nod, her eyes glossy while staring at the screens and her hands white-knuckled to grip the table’s edge. “The forums are talking about how they’ve stationed all their new mechs there, and they hope the fighter jets and helicopters will be able to provide enough support that the swarm can’t just roll over the ground forces. So far, it’s only working because of that other guy…”

Debbie shifted the screen she was looking at so the others could see - and Tanya quickly realized that they each had their own version of this screen pulled up beside her. Her father in law came into the room just as Tanya’s bloodshot eyes went wide, and she took in a quick inhale of breath.

“Whoever he is, he’s definitely bringing the heat.” Her father in law, John, said while sitting down next to his wife with a firm jaw. He pulled his wife in by the shoulder, and kept a brave face on for them just like Tanya had done for her own daughters. “And those demons he controls are something else. We may just make it out of this battle yet, I just wish he’d been at the front line when all of this went down. Maybe the general would still be standing… but then again, the general had been hunting him down not long ago for the assassination of our senator. That doesn’t really make a lot of sense to me, looking at what he’s doing now… And it makes me wonder why this Riven person stayed.”

“The front lines were overrun in less than five minutes, he wouldn’t have made it to the outskirts in time.” Amanda muttered, gazing at the screen with a mixture of amazement and anxiety while clasping her hands in front of her. “He’s doing what he can, and the system notifications said he didn’t even have to stay. He volunteered to fight for us, the forums are going wild right now about who he is and why he chose to fight, or if the allegations against him were false for a power grab on the general’s part. You know how the conspiracy theorists were getting even before all this when the military only released pieces of the footage and not the entire thing. Anyways Elysium said he’s a vampire prince, from somewhere called the Thane Necropolis - but no one has heard of anything like that around here. It’s all very confusing.”

Tanya only nodded silently, continuing to be more awestruck as time went on.

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The cortex screen in front of her was split into three parts. One was of the roiling forums that were going crazy with viewers, mostly non-combat civilians, who’d not come out of hiding and were waiting anxiously for the battle’s outcome. The second part of the screen was a live feed of two demons - one the forums were calling ‘Athela’ by means of hearing them talk to one another, and the other one they were calling ‘Azmoth’.

Tiklik Longjaw, which was supposed to be an ‘Azag Broodfather’, was currently engaged in a battle of epic proportions inside a burning landscape as it desperately fought off the smaller of the two demons in what was mostly one on one combat. The broodfather was much larger than a lot of the other Azag mantis creatures, and had an extra pair of scythe-like arms in the front, but it wasn’t quite a match for the speed of the pitch-black woman with blades coming out of her back - and the furious exchanges of blindingly fast strikes between their limbs was like watching a cyclone of swords crash into one another over and over again. Usually the demoness Athela would come out on top - scoring deep gashes along the body of Tiklik to add to its oozing wounds that bled profusely and started spreading black poisons across the azag's flesh. Occasionally the demoness would activate a martial art of some kind that caused her to glow green and enter a combination of strikes that were so fast no one was able to keep up with the hits - but the mantis creature would retaliate by activating a martial art of its own that would harden its body to infinite proportions over the course of two seconds to counter her flurry - resulting in a blinding spray of sparks when her blades met the temporarily hardened carapace. Then whenever she switched over to spraying red needles or threads to try to pin the creature down, the mantis would counter by spraying acid at her webbing to dissolve it mid-air. Still, the demoness had the upper footing - and though it was a war of attrition: the azag mantis was slowly being worn down.

Meanwhile hundreds of the smaller mantis monsters had come rushing in from all sides, and occasionally they’d get to Athela to take away some of the pressure she was putting on their larger commander - but most of them were being ripped apart and smashed to bits by the titanic, flaming tank of a demon that had set entire blocks of abandoned neighborhoods aflame. His maul crushed, his claws ripped, shockwaves erupted underfoot and most of the scythe’s attacks just bounced off his large obsidian plates as he cackled and bowled over the monsters by the dozens.

It was incredibly impressive, seeing two allied demons fight off hundreds of other monstrous creatures in a battle of competing nightmares - no doubt they were to see which type of nightmare would win out soon. But what was even more impressive was the next screen over, and Tanya couldn’t help but gawk at the absolute display of might and power.

The vampire prince, Riven Thane, stood on the edge of an abandoned five-story office building. Beside him an absolutely stunning succubus with blue skin and black wings stood by, weaving her hands through the air to produce a fine black mist; and all around the two of them - an absolute storm of chaotic energy crashed into a horde of enemies that were ripped apart the moment they got too close.

The black mists produced by the succubus were swept up in a tornado of crimson energy that billowed about them in the form of ice and blood, causing the bodies of the insectoids to soften and wither away with rot before being eviscerated by the madding howl of blood. Some of the armored insectoids made it through the outer storm of black and red though, only to enter a minefield of invisible sigils that’d flash green and explode on impact. Those that made it past the minefield and tried climbing the building found themselves torn off in sprays of viscera when red spinning discs with serrated edges came billowing down at them from above in a swarm of their own - ripping the hardened armors of the azag monsters into scraps before rising again to circle the warlock overhead.

“Jesus Christ almighty…” Tanya gasped, holding a hand over her mouth in absolute astonishment. “Just how strong are these things?”

“The demons and their warlock master? Pretty damn strong!” John gave a nervous laugh, trying to lift the mood, but Tanya could easily tell he was just as worried about the outcome as any of the rest of them. “Just look at him! He could take on the entire swarm by himself!”

Amanda grunted - eyes glued to the screens. “Why do you think he just stays up there on that tower? Do you think he’s waiting for them to come to him?”

“Definitely.” John said with a stern nod. “Why go to them when he has the high ground? None of these creatures seem able to fly, which is why our aerial units are doing so well aside from the few that’ve been shot down with acid projectiles or spines that some of the stinger-variants have. If I was him, I’d stay up there too. Eventually the azag bigshots are going to have to go meet him, otherwise he’ll just continue mowing down their forces like he’s been doing for the last 30 minutes.”

“Won’t he run out of mana though?” Tanya asked hesitantly. “He is a mage, right? Warlocks are a type of mage?”

John opened his mouth to reply, but then gave an uneasy smile. “Not sure.”

“The forums are talking about how he’s utilizing the blood of the fallen creatures to draw more mana out.” Debbie said, scrolling through the text boxes that were still going wild on the sideline. “One of our own native warlocks has been talking about it while he waits with the military at the base for the azag assault. He says that this warlock has to be an S-tier classer as well, probably on the higher end of S-tier, otherwise there’d be no way he could hold off that many monsters at once for that long. And none of the warlocks here have been able to get more than 1 demon companion, while this vampire has 3.”

“Why would a vampire want to help us though? Aren’t they evil?”

“Evil is a relative term, who knows. All that matters is he’s here and has chosen to help. Realistically speaking, the base would probably already be overrun by now - and we’d all be dead already without him. Let’s just hope he and his minions can keep it up, because the enemy side still hasn’t lost a single target yet.”

***

Athela was growing frustrated.

Blurring left and avoiding another pincer strike from more of the smaller mantis creatures, she fired off hardened needles of her threads to impale them like a gatling gun - only barely dodging another lightning-fast strike from Tiklik Longjaw.

“WHY DO YOU RUN FROM ME, TINY DEMON!” The azag broodfather hissed through mandibles that reminded her of one of her uglier sisters back in the nether realms. “STAY STILL AND FIGHT ME!”

Tiklik was obviously a poor sport and venting because of the necrotic venom debuffs she’d repeatedly stacked. Each strike with her blades, tongue, or claws added more and more stacking over-time damage. And although this monster had some sort of poison resistance as well as a regeneration property - it wasn’t nearly enough.

One of her limbs shot out a thin red thread, sticking to the wreckage of a burning building to her right when she launched herself into the air. Tiklik began spraying acid again when she feinted with another offensive cloud of needles, but she tugged on the string and caused her body to abruptly jolt right. Clear of the acid burst and activating her martial art ‘Flurry’ when she had a clear line of side - Athela ripped forward mid-air into a combination attack that she’d preset.

It was one of three combination attacks she could program into the ability. Flurry drastically increased the speed and strength of any pre-programed 9-move combination, moving faster than a normal brain could process or her normal body could move without the martial art. This particular version of flurry included a lunge forward that was meant for aerial attacks, not needing any kind of solid-footing to do it as the stamina literally propelled her like a rocket would.

*CRASH*

The azag mantis activated its own hardening ability just in time to avoid most of the flurry, but not all of it. Athela smiled when she felt one of her claws rip through the front of the armored thorax and into softer tissues right under one scythe-like arm, only to feel the rest of her slender arachnid blades bounce off the quickly hardening body in a spray of sparks.

She cackled and kicked off, backflipping dozens of yards away onto a tiled rooftop and abruptly rolling to rip the throat out of another mantis with a wicked grin Tiklik’s way. “GOTCHYA THAT TIME BITCH!”

Azmoth’s maul exploded with flame and a shockwave of kinetic energy blasted through another wave of the incoming enemies further down the street - leveling an entire burning block of the neighborhood in an instant with a shower of debris.

“AAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!” Tiklik screeched in agony, stomping the ground with its six legs and cursing in a language she didn’t understand while its limp upper-left arm snapped off by the thin thread of meat she’d left behind. “MAY YOU BE BLASTED BACK TO THE HELLS FROM WHENCE YOU CAME, YOU DIRTY BITCH!”

“Hey, only my master gets to talk to me like that!” Athela winked, then cackled again when she imagined what Riven would say after reviewing the footage later. “I am quite hilarious, I know. Don’t mind me!”

Her hand blurred again, knocking aside a spine projectile that’d been launched her way from one of the stinger-variants these monsters had for ranged units. The spines were covered in acidic goo, were anywhere between two and five feet long, acted as the actual stinger tips until fired, and were just as fast as bullets were when shot - but Athela’s claws were faster and it only took a slight nudge to push the spine off course and redirect the trajectory.

She retaliated with her own spray of threading needles from her six spider legs, jolting the mantis with the stinger that was starting to harden yet another spine in real-time to replace the projectile it’d fired. The mantis screeched angrily and started yelling back at the demon as it died, but it quickly slumped over - riddled with holes and dozens of needles that leaked blood.

*BOOM*

The tiled roof she stood on shook, and Athela’s eyes widened in surprise when she saw Tiklik had used yet another martial art to close the distance in an instant while she’d been distracted. Her mind almost blanked upon seeing a blade closing in for her neck only a couple inches away, and with reflexes akin to a cat on crack - she bent her back at a 90 degree angle to avoid the swipe and counterattacked with blades of her own.

The roof collapsed under the weight of the monster’s landing, but a spray of blood and a loud gurgling sound met Athela’s ears over the snapping of wood and rising dust.

She unloaded everything she had through the cloud of debris, swiping and slicing blindly at the flailing body in front of her while dodging retaliatory strikes to hit her that were just as blind as her own.

The two combatants crashed onto the stairway of the second floor, only for part of the stairway to give next when the railing snapped off. The huge body of Tiklik Longjaw unceremoniously flopped and smashed face-first onto the cracked, burned side where Azmoth had hit it earlier - and it let out a pained wheeze just before Athela’s claws hand shot forward into the back of its skull.

*CRUNCH*

Athela’s evil smile widened from ear to ear, far wider than any normal human could do, and she let out a delighted screech of victory as she pulled out the brain of the creature for the entire audience of Chicago to witness. Doing a little happy dance, she flung the gray matter over the spasming body of the monster to splat against the wall, then trot out of the ruined building that crumbled behind her to fully collapse while she dusted herself off.

[Tiklik Longjaw has been killed in battle by Thane Necropolis forces. 4 of 5 battle targets for the Attackers remain.]

Athela could literally hear an excited roar of faint cheering in the distance that rose up towards the heavens immediately as the notification appeared. It came from miles away and from multiple directions, and she posed for the system’s camera she knew was there somewhere. “Yes, yes, I’m great - I know!”

She tossed her long black hair to the side and humphed, hands on her blood-covered hips to pose yet again. “Princess Athela to the rescue! HEY, ASSHOLE!”

She pointed to Azmoth who was munching nonchalantly on a bug carapace while silently staring her down from a couple yards away. Raising his maul with his left hands, he smashed it down onto another bug that was trying to bite one of his flaming, armored legs.

“WERE YOU THERE JUST WATCHING ME THIS ENTIRE TIME!?” Athela screeched angrily, stomping over to the larger demon with a scowl. She then threateningly whipped one of her sharpened spider legs out to point directly at his face from an inch away. “THIS ISN’T SNACK TIME! THIS IS A BATTLE GOD DAMN IT, YOU GOTTA HELP ME OUT!”

Azmoth stopped chewing, then gestured over to a field of flaming, dead mantis monsters who were scattered amongst the remains of the burning neighborhood. “Azmoth did help. I fight many monsters, Athela just slow to kill big one. Not Azmoth’s fault Athela is weak.”

“YOU TAKE THAT BACK!”

“Azmoth not take it back. Azmoth stomp Athela like little baby. Now come, we go find Riven and help kill more.”

Athela opened her mouth to retaliate, a quivering blade-like leg still pointed in Azmoth’s direction, but eventually harrumphed and started walking towards the storm of blood magic and cursed cloud that’d intermixed about half a mile away. “This is not over you god damned sasquatch-wannabe! When we’re done here, we’re having a 1 versus 1 battle to the death! Then once one of us is sent the nether realms, we’ll see just who is the weak one and who is the pussy ass bitch!”

Azmoth heaved his large stone maul, etched with lines of magma, over one shoulder and grunted his agreement. “Fine. We make bet though. If Azmoth win, Azmoth uses Athela as chair for whole month.”

“And if I win you have to be my little-wee-baby that I get to stomp on every night for a month! You’ll have to pretend cry like a little-wee-baby too whenever I do it - and you’ll have to beg for my lullabies. IT’LL BE HUMILIATING! Now shut up and let’s go!”

“I just said we go. You the one holding us back by taking long time to kill single bad mantis monster while Azmoth fight army.”

“SHUT IT TWIRP!”