Elysium's Multiverse-Chapter 325
Chapter 325
Chapter 325
Riven wanted to reply to that, and though he felt like he’d overreacted to an extent - he’d certainly been justified in being somewhat angry. However he didn’t get time or the opportunity to discuss it, because an incoming lance of silver light vaporized the western wall and came straight for him over the heads of the people he was suppressing.
There was an audible crack of air and a thunderous aftershock as the silver light spiked right into a hastily constructed crimson barrier, and the ice shattered a second later to smash right into his armored chest.
He was sent spiraling, flipping head over heels as the peak E-grade attack cut a hole through Messenger and struck adjacent to his heart. A searing pain radiated through his body as he barreled through the opposite wall in a spray of stone debris and came to a crashing halt in a crater outside.
Sirens continued to blare, and he felt more than saw his minions leap into action as they began to engage the incoming cultivators he felt with his mana sense. He felt Athela shift forms into her enormous drider state, felt Azmoth take on his titanic building-sized stature with flared wings, and felt Fay’s dreamwalker zones encompass him to hide him with layers of illusion.
Within a split second over a dozen E-grades had literally ripped through space overhead with dimensional tears in reality, riding brooms of all things with wands and staves at the ready. Azmoth immediately launched himself skywards through the ceiling, causing the building to explode upwards in a shower of tiles and wooden beams as a huge clawed hand snatched a screaming wizard out of the air to crush the man in a splash of crimson that silenced the cry. A huge stone maul of flames tore upwards to catch another two closely flying witches who erected barriers in an attempt to thwart the attack, but their mangled burnt bodies were sent spiraling like comets into the ground as the gigantic archdemon ripped skywards after the others with a roar that shook the city.
“Well that hurts!” Riven grumbled, feeling his flesh re-knit itself together from the attack and wiping the dust off his armor before looking around. Cackling to himself at the sight of the giant flaming demon in the sky taking on E-grade wizards and witches far beyond what Azmoth should be capable of doing, Riven had to acknowledge that his minions were truly a step beyond the norm. Fay was joining Azmoth in the sky to take some of the heat off her counterpart, she began creating minefields of invisible curse traps that the enemy combatants had to either take time dispelling, blasting through, or detecting them outright. She also traded attacks - fake copies of herself zipping around the sky in dogfights to dodge elemental strikes, arcane blasts and gravitational bombs while retaliating with cursed affliction fireballs and lashes of her extending bladed tail.
The resulting spectacle was something of a light show that painted the otherwise blue sky in a myriad of different colors.
“Curious…” Riven said aloud, extending his hand to summon Jackal to his open palm. In his opposite hand, the trishard blood pearl - his C-grade blood artifact, appeared in his other. Those he’d been suppressing began to do battle with Athela on the ground and met his ears as an uproar of sounds in the ruined adjacent building went to a fever pitch. “Once upon a time, I’d have cared that these people didn’t deserve to die. Now, all I see are lesser creatures standing in my way. I don’t necessarily want them to die… but I don’t feel nearly as bad about killing them anymore if it gets the job done. Gluttony… does that make me evil?”
The sin internally laughed into his skull, but gave no response as Riven’s feet began to lift up off the ground and into the sky at a slow and steady rate. As Riven rose up above the nearby buildings, a sight of a sprawling magitech metropolis filled with a mixture of medieval fantasy and advanced magical technology met his gaze - and it was truly wonderful to behold. Hover-trains on neon purple railways, floating castles and noble estates high up off the ground with elevators and sky ships docked in various places, and the people… There were so many of them. Millions at the very least. The air felt clean, the landscape between city blocks was dotted with parks and greenery, and…
And there were tons of screaming people trying to get away from the chaos centerpoint around his position. The entire city was on full alert, as more and more spellcasters took to the skies from different points around the metropolis. Mostly they were on brooms, giving the whole thing a Harry-Potter kind of feel, but there were a few flying swords, platforms, giant leaves, and bonded flying pets as well. He even saw a few wyverns, but when some of the larger flying ships of war turned their cannons on Azmoth - Riven couldn’t just watch any longer.
Lifting his staff in the direction of the two ships in question just as they began to rain down cannonballs and magical weaponry onto Azmoth’s armored hide as he dove through the clouds, Riven’s arm lit up with black lightning - and a bolt of gut wrenching power flashed forward a mile out like a scar of void through reality. One of the ships was snapped in half with wooden debris and screaming bodies flying out from the explosion, while the other warship reacted in time to lift magical barriers to deflect the attack. The shields went from 100% to flickering and barely there, and the second ship was sent spiraling out in a spinning arc - destabilized and fighting frantically to stay skyborne.
He didn’t pull on his aura, not yet. He wasn’t a complete monster and there was no need for mass civilian casualties, so Riven decided to keep his strikes as direct and precise as possible to target other combatants. He also started supercharging another critical storm lance with the trishard blood pearl, and felt the skill begin to manifest inside the swirling ball of crimson to immense effect.
[Supercharged Blood: Take an additional 30 seconds of channeling a Blood skill through this item to create a supercharged variant. This skill is incredibly potent and overuse may damage your mana channels.]
This chapt𝙚r is updated by freeωebnovēl.c૦m.
A man’s upper half was sent spiraling by his floating position from beneath him without warning. “AAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”
Following the blood trail and flailing arms of the man’s half-body, Riven looked down on the wrecked hall where Athela was finishing off the last of the people who’d stayed behind to try and fight after they’d murdered Fay’s last warlock summoner.
What was his name again?
Jarrod?
Fuck that guy. Riven just wished he had more time to fuck him up before Athela gutted him, and the dead warlock’s body was still imbedded in the stone wall where Riven had launched him with a punch.
“AAAAAAAHHHHHHHHhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh!!!”
Riven dodged another screaming severed body just like the first, and glared down at the uppity spider lady throwing dying bodies in his direction. “Athela, you’re doing that on purpose. Stop throwing them at me.” Ȓ𝓪NŐ฿Èʂ
“YOU DESERVE IT FOR BEING AN ASSHOLE!” Athela said, smashing down on another wizard and ripping him apart before throwing both halves at Riven one after the other. “YOU’RE A JERK!”
Riven avoided the bodies easily and flashed down to float in front of her. Smacking the enormous figure of her drider form across the face, Riven unleashed his aura and suppressed his minion entirely through the bond. “Stop trying to attack me. That is an order, since you aren’t mature enough to realize this is not the place or time.”
She went as rigid as the icy flowers covering parts of her body, still glaring at him with the four red eyes outlined by bright white skin. “You aren’t supposed to use your commands like that, Riven.”
“I do what I want, you uppity bitch.” Riven grinned and gave her a wink, before bonking his bipolar lover on the head with the horned skull of his staff. “That’s what you get. Now act serious and stop fucking around, you’ll need to buy me time while I absorb Jarrod’s piece of soul lattice into my own. Oh, and I love you too babe.”
He snapped his fingers and administered the command yet again, and with a shrill snarl Athela whipped around and tore into another group of spellcasters rushing through the building’s entrance. Riven did not care in the slightest about their screams of pain and their begging to whatever gods they worshiped, and felt his supercharged lance manifest within the pearl of his left hand.
Riven didn’t bother using it, seeing no reason to yet and feeling the influx of E-grade signatures coming in hot and fast as the battle in the skies went into overdrive. He’d be unable to beat them all even going full tilt - especially if he wanted to avoid mass casualties concerning bystanders, and would probably end up running pretty soon to avoid such a conflict. Using strings of blood to bring up Jarrod’s body like a puppet, Riven began to feel around the body for the man’s soul - and then closed his eyes to focus on the particulars of what he was looking for.
The soul was found within ten seconds. Beyond this realm and in the void on the other side of the veil, thousands of spirits swirled around in inky darkness - but Jarrod’s physical body was still acting like an anchor. The soul hadn’t had time to completely detach.
Fishing around with tendrils of mana, Riven extracted the soul from the void and drew it into his on this side of the veil - where he began to dissect little pieces of the man’s spirit as agonizing unearthly screams wailed from the tiny ball of light. Chuckling malevolently to himself for the pain he was causing the bastard who’d talk about Fay in such a disrespectful manner, Riven peeled back layer by layer to unearth what he was looking for.
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The screams became louder and more agonized, but despite how long it seemed - the reality was that only a minute passed before Riven found a part of Jarrod’s being resonating with Fay’s lingering soul signature. Curiously, Riven picked it out and began cutting the piece of soul lattice off the screeching soul with wisps of sin and death. For most, destroying a soul was no easy task. Souls naturally resisted destruction like this - but for Riven it was doable. Tedious, and it took a lot of effort, but doable. Even now Riven realized that if he was to truly go after complete destruction of the soul in his hands, it would take him a very long time just to get it done - but thankfully this was just a surgical dissection of a tiny piece of the other warlock’s soul so that Riven could cannibalize the piece. This was also his first time trying, and it was like Gluttony’s teeth were saw blades as he slowly shredded the essence of what the enemy warlock had once been.
He’d have to ask Gluttony if there were any safeguards to this method. Riven was sure there were, but he didn’t know the specifics and would need to find out in case anyone tried this kind of thing with him in the future. Otherwise weapons like the demon-slaying sword that’d been used to kill Athela, the one that Riven had in his spatial bag right now, wouldn’t be so valuable - right? The commandments had blessed the blade and made it tear not only through demonic contracts, but through demonic souls too - making Riven hard-pressed to bring Athela back with only a fragment of her soul left over via Gluttony’s miracle.
Riven again drew Jarrod’s weak spirit further into his own, closing his eyes and feeling the bastard’s soul quiver as Gluttony’s presence wrapped around the tiny light - snuffing it out in Riven’s inner realm. It would be safer there as he dissected the piece he wanted away from the original owner, before completely tearing Jarrod apart piece by piece for daring to talk about Fay like he had. Riven then let Jarrod’s corpse fall like a rag doll to the ground far below, splatting against the stone rubble remains of the building while focusing on the ethereal surgery.
Tilting his head backwards just an inch, Riven narrowly dodged another piercing lance of silver light that came out of nowhere - but he’d been waiting for the enemy mage to reveal themselves after the initial strike and wasn’t caught flat footed. Eyes blazing red and letting out a madman’s laugh, Riven pointed the orb in the direction of the cloaked assailant and unleashed hell in the form of the pearl’s supercharged critical storm lance.
The sky was ripped apart, instantly cleaved in two with a wave of crimson and black cutting across the blue expanse out into the horizon with trailing ribbons of storm energy. A massive shockwave followed, then a cloud of red mist with silver robes began to fall to the ground where his cloaked assailant had been hiding in the air. Simply put, the attack had been too fast to react - and even Riven’s senses had a hard time following the magically empowered strike.
CRACK
Riven’s eyes widened when another silver bolt of energy just like the first two smashed into his shoulder - cutting clean through armor and musculature with ease. Burning sensations began traveling down his limb, and he grimaced before launching himself to the left in a dizzying display of agility as magical missiles locked onto his position.
He tore through a rift and disappeared, only to reappear dozens of yards away while refocusing on the mage in silver robes he thought he’d killed not long ago with his empowered lance. The enemy combatant was sitting cross-legged on a broom with a witch’s hat and long flowing robes, and she looked rather young.
“That hurt.” A feminine voice called out from a tear in space that began opening up a half-mile out. “And my clones are hard to make. I don’t appreciate you vaporizing them. But… I’ve always wanted to kill a vampire.”
She laughed while twirling a wand inbetween her hands, and her peak E-grade aura skyrocketed with suffocating prowess. Smiling widening, she stopped spinning the wand and pointed it at him. “One as powerful as you should make a good whetstone! A MYTHIC F-grade warlock? You don’t see that ranking title often. It’s too bad your cultivation will be cut short, now that you’re facing me! Prepare to die for your transgressions, monster, and for daring to take on The Blue Swan Wizarding Court!”
The sky over their direct location turned black, and a silver moon burned brightly against the dark backdrop as the witch lit up with a flash of light and exploded into ten thousand needles - scattering in all directions.
Just as fast as the witch exploded, her moonlight condensed in an instant beside Riven and her newly formed body reached up to place a hand on Riven’s hood. The move was so instantaneous, so fast, that even though Riven registered the movement he barely had time to react. A piercing lance of silver moonlight ripped through the side of his hood at point blank range and burned through a piece of his skull’s edge, but he’d whipped around to retaliate and flash-froze the surrounding area to hold the witch in place.
Surprised that her attack had been off by a mere inch, the witch was unable to follow up with another attack and instead dematerialized again with another flash of moonlight - relocating with whatever teleport ability she was using and shivering violently. Peeling off the crimson crystals that were accumulating on her skin and clothes, she glared at Riven as he glared right back. “I should have expected as much from a MYTHIC, even if you are an entire tier below me. This should be interesting.”
Riven reached up to touch the back of his head where a hole still simmered with that strange moonlight the witch was using, and rubbed the coagulated blood between his fingers. Checking internally, the soul lattice dissection was progressing slowly. He could feel more E-grade enforcers homing in on his position, and weighed his options. If this woman was indicative of what their best warriors were like, there was no way he could handle more than one or two at a time. Maybe not even one, she was likely around level 350 to 400 to his 200 and was obviously not a slouch - but he couldn’t be sure because she wore some kind of talisman that was interfering with his identification attempts. Her speed was slightly better than his own, and he still didn’t want to get the local citizens caught up in a fight if he went all out.
Recognizing the soul signatures and general cultivation levels of the people racing towards him versus the ones keeping his demons at bay, he could also tell that the best of them were coming directly for him. Knowing that taking the warlock summoner out would get rid of the demons, they were designating their hard-hitters to deal with the source of the problem.
“As much as I would like to stay, I have a date to catch.” Riven called out to the witch who was staring him down and probably trying to buy time for reinforcements. He gave a slight bow. “Let’s just chalk this up to a misunderstanding. Toodles!”
“Misunderstanding!?” She gawked as he gave her a wave with his fingers. She pointed her shimmering wand in his direction. “You just murdered- WAIT! HEY! WHERE DO YOU THINK YOU’RE GOING!?”
“Ba-buuuuyyyyy!!” Riven laughed, flipping her off and stepping into a rift before she could catch him with her own teleport ability. In an instant he was an entire mile to the south, and turned on the thrusters to full throttle while channeling mana into Messenger’s flight ability.
He felt the singed material of his decimated shadow rift when the moonlight tore through, forcing the riftwalk shut. But he already had another rift open and was preparing another jump when the witch blurred in his direction with a scream of anger - looking like an enraged firefly as she used her short-ranged teleports and flying broom to catch up with scathing speed.
“Athela, Fay, Azmoth. Come back.” Riven blurred through the skies as enforcers turned to intercept and airships began to unload arsenals in his direction.
His minions heeded the command and were sent back to their nether realms from whatever fights they were engaged in, only for him to re-active two of the pentagram minion sigils tattooed onto his sternum.
Athela appeared first, utilizing her blood-shifting abilities to turn into a pool of the liquid that wrapped protectively around Riven before extending a tendril of her body into Riven’s skin. Burying a piece there, she initiated Body Fusion. Body Fusion was technically a miracle and used divinity and Faith to fuel the ability, and Athela had very little Faith to use. So with someone as strong as Riven was, she couldn’t fully converge like Genua could. It’d only worked on the would-be thralls in Fay’s dungeon because they’d been weak. However, Athela could still connect with Riven to a small extent - enough to where she could also grant him another one of her boons:
“Blood Art - Mark of the Hunted.” She whispered into his mind.
The world around them abruptly changed to various shades of red, and the demoness marked the targeted witch pursuing them - highlighting their primary pursuer. With each jump they could tell where the insanely powerful witch was going to materialize next, and Riven shifted course accordingly to avoid the enemy caster’s teleporting abilities while picking up speed.
Fay appeared next, tearing out of her nether realm at full blast with wings stretched out and flaring bright-blue along her tail’s spines. She looked over her shoulder, laughing at the entire armada of pursuers in the distance, but her laugh was cut short when the moonlight witch nearly tore a hole through her wing.
Riven was able to pull her to the left through another rift before that happened though, and he called out over the rush of wind: “Throw out some illusions and hide our main bodies as we cut downwards. They’ll be unable to follow us as closely or fire off as many attacks if we’re amongst the buildings.”
“How much time do you have left with Jarrod’s soul?” Fay called back, disguising them from most of their pursuers with an illusory veil as their team dove downwards and copies of them continued soaring in a different direction.
Riven checked over his shoulder and cursed when the moonlight witch wasn’t fooled by the illusions, but a large chunk of the enemy pursuers continued off towards Fay’s decoy as a handful of the broom-flying bastards tore through the skies towards his position. “It’s slow going. Maybe another hour?”
Fay winced. “That’s not good. Will we be able to hold on for that long?”
Riven began to supercharge another ability within the blood pearl he held, and wrapped his arms around Fay to hold her tightly against him. He kept his eyes forward as the cityscape blurred underneath them. “We don’t have a choice. I’ll need you to keep throwing decoys out, but I think I can travel faster than you can with a trick I’m about to pull. Wrap your legs around me and hold on, we’re about to try something really stupid.”
The succubus did as told and wrapped her legs and arms around Riven’s body with her wings tucked in. Athela’s blood-body extended to wrap around Fay too, keeping the succubus tight against Riven’s chest while they continued to jump through portals and made it to the upper limit of the city’s skyscrapers.
CRASH
A tower’s roof next to them was obliterated in a spray of stone when the moonlight witch misfired from hundreds of yards away, and the screams of civilians were lost over the displacement of air.
“Apparently she doesn’t care about hitting bystanders after all.” Riven raised an eyebrow and continued to push, flickering in and out of the city skyline in multiple locations while portals and illusions continued to spring up around them.
When he felt the critical storm lance manifest inside the pearl, Rivne grinned and wrapped a layer of wretched snares around the output point. “Hold on tight.”
Holding the pearl forward and leveling out to a horizontal level over the magitech city below, he unleashed the supercharged spell and felt the roar of power erupt from the item he held.
Just like the first time, the sky was ripped apart with a wave of crimson and black. Riven’s snares latched onto the sniping ability as it took off, and He, along with Fay and Athela, were ripped along right after the lance as it eviscerated space at extreme speed. Before Riven knew it, he was miles away into the horizon with trailing ribbons of storm energy crackling in his wake.
