Elysium's Multiverse

Chapter 145

Chapter 145

“It appears the information your cult had was wrong.” Riven cracked his neck, and let out an audible sigh when his left arm snapped back into place with a click. He let out an amused chuckle when his staff hummed in anticipation, hissing and flaring with power as it mentally urged him to kill the creature in front of them. Flashes of images rippled across Riven’s consciousness, and he grinned at what the weapon was telling him. “It appears my weapon wants to feed on you, your body is going to allow it to evolve.”

Richard Longhollow snorted in turn, and he readied his four scythe-like blades while channeling power into the orb he held at his chest. “Let us finish this and see just who feeds on who.”

***

Minutes later, and the entire western edge of Chicago had become a devastated wasteland that continued to tremble under the momentous clash between two high end S-tier combatants.

Azmoth, for the first time in a long time, was just a little bit nervous. He’d never seen an opponent this fast, this strong, or this durable. Richard was as strong and sturdy as Azmoth, as fast and nimble as Athela, and every time he took a hit the mantis-man creature would rapidly repair itself just as fast as Riven’s own regeneration would. The only advantage that they had was Riven’s ability to manipulate mana and cast hard hitting spells, but his master was constantly on the back foot - constantly needing to portal out or defend with walls of ice and snares to avoid being cut in half. This made Riven unable to focus entirely on offense, and despite both Azmoth’s and Athela’s best efforts - Richard was hard-lined on taking Riven down over the demons.

*CRUNCH*

Azmoth flung Riven out of the way and snarled when his left chest plate was penetrated with a five-foot long stinger, and the roaring demon’s maws snaked around to snap onto the stinger and hold Richard in place. “STAY STILL!”

Azmoth violently body-checked his enemy and simultaneously swung his maul up to crush the stinger that was stuck in his body, and he felt the weight of his huge stone weapon smash the appendage off cleanly with an audible snap.

A blurring side-kick with one insectoid leg sent Azmoth’s head backwards into the ground, too fast for the large demon to react only for Athela to undercut Richard’s posterior legs with her blades. A long pointed lance of crimson sparking with black electricity broke the sound barrier and tore a hole in Richard’s chest, but the monster shrugged all of the attacks off and aggressively moved in Riven’s direction while healing his injuries in mere seconds.

“GET UP!” Athela screeched at him while passing by to tear after the creature chasing their master.

Azmoth’s head was dented and one of his long, sharpened obsidian teeth was laying on the ground. He shook himself to clear his mind, grunted, and roared while pushing himself off the ground and turning to find the threat. He needed to give Riven time and an opening to let out another full force strike, because despite Athela’s speed and Azmoth’s strength - Riven was the real heavy-hitter when it came to damage output.

*BOOM*

A shockwave radiated out from where Riven’s magic infused staff knocked aside a blade-strike martial art that left fifty-meter gashes in the earth behind him. Portaling away again and charging up dozens of swirling red and black balls of mana - Riven sent the chaotic, sharpened projectiles off in a swarm. They were upgraded versions of his bloody blades, and thus locked on to Richard and tore left when the mantis overmind tried to evade.

Athela was there to intercept too and she tried to slow the creature down - a flurry attacks flinging sparks and blood off of Richard’s body with her limbs before yanking herself out of the way of a counter attack with bloody strings; avoiding a life-ending strike.

The half-man insectoid screamed in anger when the swarm of red-and-black balls crashed into him, sending pieces of his chitinous armor in all directions as his three serrated mouths bared teeth. He flashed forward, ripping through space itself with a dual-strike cleaving attack from abruptly shimmering scythes.

Azmoth saw Richard refocus on Riven’s position and charged with a vicious lunge. The demon slammed his maul into the earth, causing it to quake while a wave of magma blasted forward to rip up the ground.

Richard easily dodged, retracting his attack and countering with a pulse of unholy energy that blasted out from his chest. Azmoth was flung backwards, head over heels and screeching to a halt with claws digging into the cement only for a shadow to close in on him with a flash of black.

Azmoth grinned, and he poured everything he had into his infernal pillar while roaring at the top of his lungs akin to a tyrannosaurus rex. Just before the advancing shadow was in striking range, Azmoth’s body exploded into a pillar of flames.

The landscape around him exploded and a searing heat caused all plant life even outside the immediate radius to wither and die. The shadow was blasted backwards, sending Richard’s body speeding out of the shadowy dimension he’d entered while still aflame and crashing through a small office building beyond Azmoth’s line of sight.

“AZMOTH WILL CRUSH YOUR SKULL AND FEED ON ENTRAILS!”

Activating his kinetic shockwave and infusing his clawed feet with explosive flames, Azmoth inadvertently created a new skill.

[You have created a new Infernal based martial art. Propulsion (Infernal): Activate this ability to infuse infernal energy into the stamina channels in your legs, launching yourself at high speed in one direction that empowers any physical attack with additional flame damage. Medium Cooldown, High Stamina Cost.]

*BOOM*

A shockwave erupted from Azmoth’s position, a cloud of flaming debris shot out the back, and a trail of ember followed his wake as the armored demon launched himself through three brick walls to slam a huge stone maul right into Richard’s face.

“PAYBACK*

*CRASH*

An explosion of flames rippled out of his maul with the remnant energy of the martial art, and he returned the gift Richard had given him earlier with a scream of satisfaction. Riven followed up from far off with a well placed snipe - using a supercharged, long ranged blood lance from over 90 yards away and tearing off one of Richard’s legs in a spray of body fluids.

But Richard only laughed, and he glared up at the flaming demon as Azmoth began to bring around the maul with all four clawed hands for another swing. “Not good enough.”

Richard’s body exploded with rampant unholy power, black and green light lifting Azmoth off the ground effortlessly before hundreds of acidic spines appeared out of black portals all around Richard’s position. A sea of projectiles ripped forward in all directions, and Azmoth was thrown up into the sky with numerous spines impaling him while he heard Athela’s pained scream.

[Your co-contractor Athela has fallen. Your master, Riven Thane, must pay the blood price to have her re-summoned back into the mortal planes.]

***

Riven watched helplessly as Azmoth’s smoldering figure continued to sail farther and farther away. Then, watching Richard pull himself up out of the burning wreckage of the nearby city, Riven couldn’t help but frown. Richard’s regeneration grew his leg back in real-time, frankly it was even better than Riven’s regeneration was and he simply didn’t understand how it was possible.

Regardless of how, this posed a serious problem for Riven. Two of his demonic familiars were temporarily dead, while one of them was no doubt seriously injured and probably would have to stumble back over here across the length of half the city. He’d been holding on this entire time because of the help of his minions, but Riven had to admit - he’d be hard pressed to fight Richard one on one even with his recent dao insights and spell upgrades. He’d roasted, lacerated, frozen, blown up and electrocuted this guy dozens of times over already. He’d torn off limbs, blown a hole in Richard’s head twice, and had even annihilated half the man’s insectoid body from the chest down. Each of these interactions had resulted in the same outcome: Richard had regenerated almost instantly.

But that didn’t make sense. Riven knew that even his own regeneration had limits, and the same rule must apply to Richard. It had to, Richard couldn’t just regenerate fifty times over like that under normal circumstances, and so unless he had a source he was drawing from to fuel his regeneration…

Riven’s eyes locked onto the black orb with swirling green lights that Richard always kept on his person. He hadn’t seen the Chalgathi blasphemer use it or activate it even once, he’d only seen brief power fluctuations being infused into it, so just what was the purpose of him holding the orb like that during this entire fight?

Was that the key to this battle? Was it somehow enabling Richard to continually heal, or was it fueling his own natural perks to a greater extent and allowing the insectoid monster to keep his energy stores high? At first Riven had only assumed this item was the profane artifact Chalgathi had sent him after, and that it somehow created the ‘sanctuary’ the system had talked about. But that ‘sanctuary’ hadn’t been created yet, so Riven had also assumed it had value later instead of now. Perhaps he was wrong.

Riven didn’t have much more time to contemplate this when the familiar shadowy blur of Richard’s movement skill activated, and Riven muttered a curse while flinging up a wall of spiked ice pointed in Richard’s direction.

Richard easily jumped over it when exiting the skill, but this gave Riven ample time to create a reinforced wretched snare and fling it like spiderman. Up until this point, Riven hadn’t been actively targeting the orb and whenever attacks had been launched Richard’s way - the insectoid would defend it with his hand while attacking using his scythes. When the orb had previously been knocked out of Richard’s hands once or twice at a distance, the man had simply picked it back up quickly afterwards. But now as he flung the snare over - latching it onto the black orb in Richard’s arms, Riven was attempting to steal it. The snare was reinforced with the Profane Cyclone modifier from his new path, and the net began to electrify his target on top of the burning, acidic-like effects it usually had.

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The reaction was far more immediate than Riven had expected.

Seeing Riven’s ability latch onto the orb to try and pull it away, Richard let out a screech of rage and used all four of his scythes to cut the snare off. He also rebounded backwards off his original rush, and released blades of energy at a medium-range attack that tore through the air and left unholy wisps in their wake.

Riven’s staff spun in the air and smashed the waves of energy apart, hissing with hunger and urging Riven to kill this man faster. Vampire’s Escort wanted to feed on this man desperately, and it kept sending images of Riven impaling Richard’s heart with the bladed tip with increasing momentum.

“I’m trying my best!” Riven grunted at the weapon, sidestepping another energy blade and jumping onto a nearby rooftop while releasing another swarm of spinning storm balls. “I’m going as fast as I can!”

The building he stood on shattered when the auras of the two S-tier combatants collided with one another, Riven building his own to counter the building pressure from Richard. Whereas Riven’s aura was a pressure that felt of predatory hunger, blood, and cold violence; Richard’s was one that stank of mutation, change and cannibalism.

Cannibalism?

It was an odd sensation to feel, as usually Riven was the one putting his aura out to others and hadn’t experienced many if any others use their auras on him before. The concepts were tangible though, and it spoke to Riven of alternate paths that he himself could have chosen if he were to abandon the recent dao insights he’d acquired not only today - but over the past few months.

“THIS IS MINE, AND IT BELONGS TO ME!!!!” Richard screamed, his whirling aura of green pulsing and rocketing skywards as a thick layer of energy that slammed into Riven’s own aura zone of rippling red tides. “DIE!”

Riven landed just as Richard opened his mouth, and out of it came a swarm of…. Hornets? The swarm immediately grew to enormous proportions, not only coming out of his mouth but soon peeling off his very body. The chitinous armor he’d been wearing warped and shed off his outer layers - moving into an offensive ability and tearing away his defenses in the process. The swarm grew to the point that it clouded out the light from the multicolored dome overhead, creating a shadow that spanned for hundreds of yards and then well over a mile. Thousands of winged insects with claws and little stingers rushed about Richard’s position, creating a literal whirlwind of tiny bodies that each hummed with Richard’s aura. It was then that Riven realized these insects were actually smaller pieces of Richard’s real body - otherwise that aura wouldn’t be present on them. It was also here that Riven realized Richard was going all out in an attempt to end the fight.

Richard then stuck out a hand to point Riven’s way, and the buzzing swarm rocketed towards him in a dark cloud of wings.

“Oh shit.”

Riven’s eyes widened and he tried to portal away, but his portals abruptly sputtered and died away when he tried to summon them. They simply wouldn’t work even after four attempts to open them up, and not sure why that was - he began to run at breakneck speed.

He was traveling far faster than any normal human could, but it wasn’t fast enough. Looking over his shoulder and speeding by broken buildings and decimated streets, he pumped his legs and cursed while trying to think of what to do next. The swarm was gaining on him, fast, and just as the first of the insects got to him - he burst into flames.

Hell’s armor bloomed along his body with an explosion of heat, covering it with obsidian plates and hellfire that killed most of the insects that got close without much problem - but a few of them latched on anyways and started to chew away at the clothes he had or the blood-laced skin-tight layer his mask provided him with. Whipping around to face the oncoming cloud of insects, his body crackled with black lightning and he unleashed a torrent of energy from his staff that shredded thousands of them - only to be outdone by the maw on his chest.

The vertical, sharpened rows of teeth spread wide - causing his ribcage to crack open to extreme lengths as tendrils whipped out to devour the incoming insects. Simultaneously a black vacuum from within the mouth began sucking the cloud in like a faucet sink would water.

Riven watched, dumfounded, as the vast majority of the millions-strong cloud was simply sucked away and eaten by the gluttony-attuned Chalgathi artifact on his chest. Those that weren’t sucked in were either burned to ash by the flames coating his body as he stood with his arms spread wide, or dragged in by the thousand of tiny black wisps reaching out from the abyss within the maw.

Seconds later they were all gone, and the maw snapped shut with a crunch.

The area was very silent after that, with Richard just looking on as equally dumbfounded as Riven had been. It only took Riven a second to realize that he was out of hot water though, so he pointed over to Richard and began to loudly laugh.

Meanwhile Richard, who was now devoid of the outer chitinous armor layers, glared at him with all four yellow eyes. He looked far less bulky this way, and no doubt would take a lot more damage than he had before now that the outer layers were gone unless he could somehow regrow them. That’s also probably why he turned to run with a hiss of rage, only to meet Azmoth’s claw.

*CRASH*

The flaming demon had leapt from atop a building across the city, activated his new propulsion martial art, and exploded forward to land sharp dagger-like fingers right into Richard’s unprotected neck.

Richard’s soft body was slammed backwards into the stone, and quickly began screaming in agony as Azmoth’s flames burned him alive. He flailed against the larger demon, only for Azmoth to double down on his grip with other sets of claws as he began to yank on the spine.

Riven didn’t waste the opportunity and charged ahead, portaling forward now that he could suddenly use the ability again. That cloud of insects must have had some kind of spacial locking trait, but he doubted he’d ever find out the real truth.

There would be no interrogation here.

In a flash he was on top of the struggling duo, and without pausing he speared Richard in the ribcage. His staff shuddered and let out an audible screech of delight, and the dagger-tip end began to dig and worm itself into Richard’s body - wrapping around vital organs and anchoring down while sucking out the man’s life force.

Yet even now, Richard was still beginning to regenerate.

“GET THAT ORB!” Riven yelled, attempting to blast it out of the man’s hands only for Richard to yank it out of the way in his flailing. “NOW!”

Azmoth, who was struggling to keep Richard down, nodded and swat at the black and green ball with one of his four hands.

The item was knocked free, and Richard’s burning eyes went wide with alarm as he began to scream far louder than he had been only a half second ago. But if the insects that’d been part of Richard didn’t come back even when he’d had the orb - perhaps the orb had nothing to do with it. Richard was able to heal his softer, fleshy wounds even now to some extent, but couldn’t regrow the armored outer layer? Even if the item was influencing Richard’s ability to heal, giving him the ability to continue that regeneration, something about consuming those insects with the maw of gluttony had left Richard unable to grow his chitin again.

Azmoth continued to roar, using all the strength he had to keep the flailing monster underneath him pinned down while the stinger and scythes continued to stab at him frantically. Meanwhile Riven’s staff continued to drain and suck energy out of Richard with a hungry hum, and Riven himself created a long blade of red ice along his right arm that extended three feet. Not wanting to accidentally hit Azmoth with the two being in close proximity, he chose to close in for the kill and quickly made his way over to the head that Azmoth was trying to pry off by the neck.

With a couple quick lacerating jabs using the sword attached to his right arm, Riven helped behead Richard with a malicious grin. “Gime that, and hold the body down in case he regenerates again!”

The screaming head of the insectoid literally spat blood at them, and Riven took the large face from Azmoth by the sides of the skull with a shrewd, cruel laugh. “I’M NOT TAKING ANY CHANCES! IN YOU GO, ADIOS MOTHERFUCKER!”

Opening the abyssal jaws on his chest one more time, the maw of gluttony peeled his ribs apart with a hungry growl.

“NOOO!!!! FUCK YOU! FUCK YOU AND EVERYTHING YOU STAND FOR!” Richard’s head screamed while his body still thrashed on the ground. “BURN IN HELL! BURN IN HELL!”

“Been there, done that!” Riven guffawed merrily as he let the black tendrils from his chest encircle the screaming head. He watched with a giddy smile as they dragged Richard in by the neck, and then saw the jaws snap shut to end Richard’s screaming abruptly.

The body immediately went limp underneath Azmoth, and the scythes digging into Azmoth’s body slowly fell out with a clattering sound. Then, from the depths of the city and the surrounding landscape where thousands of people had come out to watch - a roar of excitement was sent to the heavens. In the distance, where the remaining mantis-monsters still tried to swarm the military base - rays from the heavens began burning them away with lightning-quick efficiency.

The purge of the losing side had begun.

[Richard Longhollow has been killed in battle by Riven Thane. 0 of 5 battle targets for the attackers remain.]

CONGRATULATIONS

CONGRATULATIONS

CONGRATULATIONS

THIS CLASH OF FATE HAS ENDED, DEFENDERS: THE POPULATION OF CHICAGO, HAVE COME OUT VICTORIOUS. ALL ENEMY TARGETS HAVE BEEN DISPATCHED. ALL ENEMY FORCES NOT ALREADY DECEASED WILL NOW BE PURGED. THE CURSED SANCTUARY STONE HAS BEEN SET BACK TO DORMANT. CHICAGO HAS BEEN UNSEALED, ALL DEFENDING SURVIVORS WILL NOW BE GRANTED BOONS BY THE SYSTEM BASED ON PERFORMANCE.

[You, Riven Thane, have been deemed the one who contributed most to this battle. You have been awarded the following: The ‘Snipe’ upgrade to your blood lance spell has been added. All Elysium Coins dropped by azag hive cluster forces have been placed inside your bag of holding with an additional 1 million. The rest of the Valgeshia Armor Set is now available to buy from your Elysium Altar (1 of 5 pieces already obtained). Once bought, all vampires in your empire will have the opportunity to buy the Valgeshia Armor Set for themselves directly from the system.]

[You have gained 23 levels. Congratulations! Be sure to visit your status page to apply points.]

[System Notice: You have ascended tiers and have climbed out of the S-rank. Elysium has re-assessed your level of power when compared to the many billions of souls living on your planet, and you are now ranked as a Paragon on this world’s power ladder. You are currently listed at spot #72 on the power ladder. This shift of power on the world stage is noted by Elysium, and video footage of your climb to the peak has been uploaded to the world forums along the main page for anyone to view. With this increase in rank will come better opportunities for you in the future provided by the system as Panu’s integration continues. Congratulations! The ranking categories are as follows: Apex Rank (Top 10), Paragon Rank (Top 1000), S Rank (Top 0.0001%), A Rank (Top 1%), B Rank (Top 15%), C Rank (Top 30%), D Rank (Top 50%), E Rank (Bottom 50%)]

[Chalgathi Side Quest, Savior of the Weakhas been completed. You have killed the Chalgathi blasphemer, and may take the cursed sanctuary stone to do with it as you see fit - but beware its corrupting power if you choose to do so.

You have once again successfully played a hero’s role to those who do not deserve it. That is the path of the selfless, I am afraid. However, your success will still reap you rewards even aside from the cursed sanctuary stone.

• Completing this quest has pleased Chalgathi, has saved many thousands of innocent lives, and will establish portal-points you can access both here in Brightsville as well as across the world through the staff you carry. These portal points can also be made into permanent stationary portals that allow travel between the different sides of Panu if you choose to do so, but this is up to your discretion. Please notify the system of what your decision will be.
• You have been given a tier 3 infernal spell scroll: Blaze of Profane Glory]

[Your staff, Vampire’s Escort, has consumed the essence of Richard Longhollow. Your staff, Vampire’s Escort, is now evolving through its trait ‘Sacrificial Kill.’ Your staff is entering a stasis mode and will be unable to wield in battle until it exits the stasis.

• Sacrificial Kill: Killing strong opponents has a chance to imbue this weapon with additional attributes, stats, or bonuses.]

[Your previous request for uploading video content has been re-evaluated and accepted. Reasons for acceptance and re-evaluation: The population of Chicago sees you as a hero and are willing to follow at a percentage of 96%. Control over this area has been established based on reputation and influence. Conflict of interest with parties holding control of this area is no longer an issue. Footage of Senator James’ assassination will now be posted to the cortex forums.]