Elysium's Multiverse

Chapter 158

Chapter 158

The visage of the great maw in the sky echoed across the landscape with a roar that shook the heavens, and the landscape was painted red.

“I demand this sacrifice…”

Riven gingerly kissed the forehead of Athela’s limp, bloodied corpse through his mask, picked up her tiara to put it away with her body, then slid them both into his spatial sack before slowly standing up. A boom of power tore apart everything around him - the ground, the civilians hiding nearby, the general goods store his minions had been ambushed in - everything except the merchant who’d been hiding behind the barrels.

Lifting one hand, Riven summoned wretched snares that lurched forward and snagged the quivering man who suddenly began to scream in abject horror. Those same snares ripped him forward, dragging him onto his knees to violently slam face first into the ground at Riven’s feet.

“Where are they?” Riven said, his voice only a whisper of cold fury - but it still thundered over the ruckus and chaos of the city around him. “I heard what you said. Where did they go?”

The merchant was panicking, screaming, and his flesh was being eaten away by the black acidic needles. “YOU ARE MISTAKEN! I DO NOT KNOW-”

*CRUNCH*

Riven’s ice-covered fist smashed through the man’s skull with a blur, splattering his brains across the floor, and he slowly picked up the communication stone the man had been holding.

He looked left to a group of heavily armed guards rushing his way through the din of his maelstrom - spears and swords lighting up with energies as they began to charge martial arts in an attempt to stop him To stop the whirlwind of agonizing red sleet that blasted everything around Riven for miles. Even now they took damage, but when Riven raised his hand and the warriors were vaporized with a whirlwind of storm blades - upgraded versions of his bloody blades that’d incorporated the path of red and black.

The attacks were instantaneous, and the incoming guards were little more than scraps of metal and meat within a split second.

Something inside Riven had snapped. Something bestial had clawed its way to the forefront of Riven’s conscious mind, something beyond right and wrong - something that just wanted to kill. Wanted revenge. Wanted to tear the world apart.

Seeing Athela’s corpse… he just simply didn’t care anymore. It wasn’t that he wanted to kill those guards, or to kill those civilians that’d been trying to hide from his storm, they’d just simply been in his way.

They’d just simply been in his way.

And he was done caring.

“Chosen bringer of Sin… I can help you… if only you complete me…”

Looking up to the sky where the visage of the great maw of Gluttony continued to roar down upon Daskus, the City of Canyons, Riven held out his hands wide. He could feel the tug, feel its pull, it wanted to speak to him but he just couldn’t understand… yet it felt important. It felt like a great hunger, a yearning for… something, yet he could not put his finger on it.

Visions of murder. Thousands of bodies. A burning city. A swarm of souls ascending into the sky. The cube…

The cube.

The maw screeched and Riven immediately turned his gaze to the cube in the distance, still hovering in the city and churning its puzzle box pieces one after the other. He could see a number of hooded figures standing on it, performing some kind of ritual as green sparks began to light up amidst the red of his storm.

And there, bound and gagged with white glowing chains, was Fay.

The sky fell, and all hell broke loose as his wrath descended.

As one, his storm converged on the cube - thousands upon thousands of swirling shards of ice. Hundreds of spinning balls of black and red storm. Thundering arcs of black lightning. Dozens of lances crackling with electricity - they all sped towards it with an aggression far beyond what this world had ever seen.

The cultists atop the cube looked on in shock, and flashes of light from different spells and miracles lit up the cube right before his magic struck.

The cataclysmic impact was devastating.

A shockwave of enormous proportions radiating out from where his storm had converged, erasing the marketplace below and eradicating entire neighborhoods with cold wrath that billowed out like an atomic bomb.

“WHAT ARE YOU DOING TO MY HOME!?” Screeched a voice Riven didn’t recognize, and Riven turned slightly to see an incoming scimitar of blue flames rocketing towards him with speed that would far surpass any normal man.

Riven’s spear-staff Jackal met it with a snap of motion that broke the sound barrier and stopped the scimitar dead in its tracks. Staring back at a shirtless, dark-skinned man with a beard and wearing a crown, Riven easily deflected the next blow too despite an empowered martial art attack.

Three more warriors of equal caliber wearing exquisite golden robes shot past the shirtless king after that to engage Riven next - but Riven backstep and then activate Jackal’s lunge to double back with a cold, calculated blow. The black spear whipped forward and the visage of a red jackal’s maw opened up large, three times the size of any man, before snapping down and instantaneously eviscerating all three men in a single strike.

Black lightning pulsed from the spear-staff next and tore into the king, blasting him across the canyon at high speed to slam into the opposite wall - creating a crater that sent stone debris flying out in a cloud.

The exchange had only lasted seconds, and Riven turned back to the cube - all 7 eyes of his mask’s feathers trained on the remaining occupants still alive on the stone surface. With a swift motion, he opened up a rift and shot forward - almost instantaneously stepping onto the large, floating, system-made construct to stare daggers of extreme hate at the targets before him.

Two of the hooded cultists lay dead, a third was completely obliterated with body parts smoldering along the large stone platforms that created the various pieces of the shifting puzzle box. One woman remained, injured and heaving in deep breaths as she bled out on the ground. It was a testament to just how strong they were that they’d even survived, but the others were gone.

Feeling the threads of blood mana around him, Closing his eyes and concentrating, he searched. Pulsing rivers of blood swirled around him in an instant, with a vision that only he could see in a state similar to that of when he watched his soul complex undertaking changes. Here though, it was solely the blood pillar, the great maw above, and the whispers they spoke into his ear.

His eyes trailed the lines, listening to gluttony resonate with his blood pillar - feeling them sync as he traced the remnants of Athela’ blood that still lingered on the blade of her enemy.

They weren’t here.

He looked down to the stone cube he stood on. He could feel them… inside.

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They’d escaped his attack by going into the cube. Athela’s killer was in there, and Fay was with them.

A bestial scream of rage echoed across the chasm and Riven’s peripheral vision saw the king of Daskus rip through the sky on wings of blue fire. He tore towards Riven’s body like an angel of judgement incarnate, aura billowing out almost to match Riven’s own. “YOU WILL PAY FOR THIS, CHALGATHI CULTIST!”

Riven didn’t even look the man’s way, but merely opened a portal directly in front of the man and lifted Jackal to intercept.

The king didn’t have time to react when he abruptly teleported right into Jackal’s blade, and the maw of the blood jackal snapped down in a lunge that snapped the man in half. The king fell, lifeless, cut into multiple pieces that scattered across the torrential winds of Riven’s aura.

“I can tell you… *GASP* How to find them… *GASP*!”

Riven glanced right to where the last cultist left alive on the platform was struggling for life. He began to walk slowly towards her, and she nodded - gesturing to come forward so she could speak more clearly.

“Just help me! *GASP*” The hooded woman said, barely older than Allie with a short pixie cut of red hair that matched the blood filling up her lungs from puncture wounds. She raised a shaky, lacerated hand, reaching out for him to take it. “Please help *GASP* me, and I will tell-”

Riven’s blade snapped down, puncturing the woman’s skull and abruptly ending her life. Yanking the black blade with living, flowing streams of crimson encircling the weapon - Riven turned his gaze back to the sky where the great maw continued to whisper to him.

“Make my core whole… and I will show you the path you desire… You know what must be done…”

Azmoth landed on top of the cube next, having jumped an incredible height to get here from god knows where while holding Luke in his arms. The elf scrambled down off of Azmoth’s hold, then looked around with wide-eyed horror at the carnage that was still ripping through the city around them. “Riven! What is this!? Why are you doing this!?”

Riven only spared the elf thrall a passing, uncaring glance. “Do I need a reason?”

His cold voice echoed across the canyons over the din and howl of his building storm, growing again with every body that his aura consumed as screams of the innocent beneath him cried out for mercy.

“THIS IS SENSELESS!” Luke howled, trying to tug at Riven’s armor to get his attention - but the maw along Riven’s chest opened up and a black tongue smashed him backwards onto the stone floor they stood on - hovering in the middle of the city. “WHAT IS THE PURPOSE HERE!? HAVE SOME SENSE, YOU ARE KILLING SO MANY FOR NO REASON! THEY WERE NOT THE ONES WHO KILLED ATHELA! I FELT HER CONTRACT LEAVE, I KNOW WHAT YOU FEEL, I HAVE FELT IT ONCE TOO! BUT THIS IS NOT THE WAY!”

“I can save her… for a price…”

Riven’s glare did not falter, and raising his staff high above him - he began to charge a ball of flames. Hellfire surged across his body and through his staff, blinding Luke and even Azmoth as the fires of the damned roared to life amidst his storm of red and black. They crackled, licked at his body, and created a pillar many stories high that illuminated the darkness his storm cast on the world.

A sun began to take shape. One of wicked, writhing fires and unholy might that caused the bodies nearby to melt or burn. The only reason Luke was left intact was because the mana actively avoided harming Riven’s minions, and the vampire glared down at his subordinate only moments later after creating a raging, condensed inferno the size of the titanic over the cube to dwarf them all.

Riven calmly watched the violent fires of hell swirling above his head where his staff kept it focused. The weapon in his hand began to shudder, and soon the flames were too much even for Jackal to keep in one place. Fires began to flicker down its shaft and burned Riven’s own hand, but still he kept charging.

“RIVEN! THIS ISN’T LIKE YOU!” Luke screamed above the din of the storm.

“Are you willing to pay that price… child of the blood god?”

The pureblooded vampire smiled at the words gluttony whispered to him, then he looked down to his elf thrall with indifference. “Luke… You barely even know me.”

There was a silence between the two as Riven stared at the man he’d only recently begun to know.

“But you’re a good man!” Luke croaked out with desperation, waving to the carnage and destruction Riven had wrought and was continuing to spill down onto the surrounding city. “What's the point of this Riven? You’re killing indiscriminately because you’re upset? Because you’re angry at the world?”

Riven slowly cocked his head to the side. Then he chuckled. “That isn’t true at all. Let me pose a question, Luke. Just how far would you go, just how far would you push yourself, to save the ones you love? This… this is my answer to that question.”

Not bothering to wait for a reply, Riven looked back up to the writhing ball of hellfire overhead - and his free hand began to move. It created a circle of flames, pushed through the center of that circle with a clenched fist, and then his forearm twisted while chanting. “Rain fire upon mine enemies, cast doubt upon divine providence, and bathe the land in a blaze of profane glory.”

[Blaze of Profane Glory (Infernal)(Tier 3) - Detonate a massive ball of infernal power overhead, devastating the surrounding landscape and burning your enemies alive. This spell seeks out all living creatures, avoiding non-living material, causing soul damage as the fires of hell temper the innocent and guilty alike. 1 week cooldown.]

The sun overhead exploded, and the supernova blew in all directions before turning into streams of flame that sought out all living beings below. Trails of liquid fire dove inbetween windows, blasted down doors, ripped into cellars and chewed through stone to find and quench the life of every single screaming man, woman, child, and animal in Daskus. Immediately afterwards Riven’s storm erupted to new heights - and a shockwave of black and red tore through the city with a silent finality that left everything around them as still as the grave.

Luke looked on in utter shock, suddenly finding himself in a moment of utter silence.

The city of Daskus was gone, and in its place was a smoldering pile of rubble and ash.

“I am pleased. Bringer of Sin… Child of the Blood God… I accept your sacrifice, and I will now provide a path as promised…”

[Core of Original Sin: Gluttony, has been successfully created. Bonuses: ???. Gluttonous Sacrifice (Sin Miracle) has been created and etched into your Sin Core.]

[Gluttonous Sacrifice (Sin Miracle): Perform a mass execution and destroy at least 200,000 innocent souls in order to bring a soul shard back from absolute destruction. Souls beyond this number will increase the effectiveness of this miracle. Cooldown: 5000 years.]

[Gluttonous Sacrifice (Sin Miracle) has been performed. Due to low faith stat you have only managed to bring a very small sliver of Athela’s soul back from nothingness. Athela’s soul shard is now bound to your core.]

Riven couldn’t help but gasp in relief when a teeny tiny light was created from nothing right in front of his eyes. Beginning to weep, he held out his hands - cupping the immeasurably small and fragile thing between his fingers to cradle it as if it were the most precious treasure he’d ever had. Watching it fade, he saw it bind internally to his own soul core, and from there it began to pulse.

He didn’t know how to bring her back from this state of being, but he knew it was now possible. The damage done by the demon-slayer blade was now at least partially reversed, and that was all that mattered.

Athela could still be brought back… somehow.

Shivering, clutching his sides and falling to his knees, Riven began to sob uncontrollably. His masked head hit the stone floor of the floating cube - the lone remnant of the city he’d so mercilessly butchered.

Only Luke, Azmoth, and Riven remained alive in the city. Only their hearts beat within the clouds of ash that encircled them, billowing out from smoldering flames of wreckage that spanned across miles of terrain.

But despite all that he’d done, Riven wasn’t finished yet. His eyes snapped open when he heard Fay’s scream of horror and pain through the system’s vision concerning the cube. He watched, eyes growing to a brighter crimson as she was dragged naked through another portal within the cube’s boundaries.

He watched as the remaining cultists, led by an old Japanese man, raced through the rift in space while carrying away the bodies and relics of the two participants Riven had come to hunt.

He watched as they all disappeared from sight.

His vision grew cold, and Riven slowly stood as the maw of gluttony in the sky disappeared into nothingness - leaving only him and two of his minions standing above the burning wreckage of a once great city.

His breathing picked up, and the silence was permeated with killing intent that flashed out of him like a tidal wave.

“We are going to hunt them down.” Riven said with renewed hate, getting ahold of himself now that he’d secured Athela’s chance at a future again. Holding out one hand, Jackal slammed into his grip. Feeling the mana leaking out of the tear in space even from somewhere within the cube, Riven knew he could trace the signal. “We’re entering the cube and we’re taking Fay back.”

Riven shuddered, ignoring the tears of disbelief streaming down Luke’s shocked face. The vampire turned to Azmoth, who grinned wickedly back at his master, and the warlock began to access the system commands to enter the puzzle box event with growing fury. Looking up right before he selected the option to enter - he addressed the system and the viewers he knew were likely watching all around the world. He could feel their gazes on him, could feel Elysium once again targeting him as a person of interest, and he began to speak clearly - addressing the cultists who’d come to take what was his.

“I’m going to find you. And when I do, I’m going to do unimaginably horrible things to your bodies. I’m going to tear your souls asunder, torture you until you scream and beg me for death. I am going to piss on each and every one of your corpses, and when it’s all done I’m going to hang your bodies from the tower of my capital city for everyone to see as a reminder that you do not FUCK with Riven Thane. Run while you can, enjoy the short remnants of your pathetic lives while you can, because you are not long for this world. I’ll be seeing you soon, Chalgathi’s Chosen. It will be me who stands at the top in the end.”