Chapter 253 [I'm considering doing half-chapters (2k words ish) at a more frequent pace instead of the usual 4k-5k word chapters to put them out faster. LMK if this is something you want me to do.] (Patreon)

Chapter 253

The four remaining cultists looked right, to where Riven’s carpet-bombing of the swarm had devastated hundreds of golden, flying serpents that were in large part still recovering just as Athela and her spiders plowed into them.  Abilities from both sides activated as arcs of yellow lightning crashed into the archdemon, while a pillar of sin, ice and flame shattered the field and began decimating even more of the monsters.

“Did I hear that demonic mouth right?” The drow death knight asked, cracking her neck and turning her teal eyes on Riven’s flickering position not far off.  “He’s not going to use those mass-casualty spells he’s so famous for?”

The larger naga, the ice mage, snickered as he held out a large white staff in front of him - creating floating orbs of crystalized water that began orbiting his position.  “To use us as training dummies, what arrogance!  But it is not something we should take lightly, it gives us more of a fighting chance.  RIVEN THANE!  I WILL ENJOY COLLECTING THE POINTS ASSOCIATED WITH YOUR DEATH!”

“RAAAAAHHH!!”  The dwarf bellowed, his body exploding in size as he tripled his bulk as bones cracked and chaos energy radiated off his being.  “I’VE BEEN WAITING FOR A REAL FIGHT SINCE THE INTEGRATION STARTED!  BRING ME A GLORIOUS DEATH, OR I’LL BE CARVING THAT PALE FACE OF YOURS OFF TO HANG ON MY WALL!”

With that, the dwarf crafted another apparition of the bull - this time much larger - and blasted forward as he activated a martial art with his battle axe.  The axe began spinning around and around with his muscular body until he span so fast that it became a tornado of violence, empowered by chaos, and the gap between himself and the vampiric warlock quickly narrowed.

Tendrils of sin wrapped around Riven’s soul core, his pillars, and started spreading into his physical body as Gluttony’s very being intertwined with Riven’s own.  Riven’s neurons hastened their signals, his mind seemed to expand, and the deep sense of hunger enveloped him as a wide, fanged smile lit up his face.

With a roar of his own, Riven’s body burst forward in a torrent of flame, blood, and dark lightning.  Space ruptured, and a killing intent tore out of his body in a wave of malice that was so potent it made the very heavens cry.  As the world shuddered underneath Riven’s lust for violence - a raven with orange eyes drifted down to land on a far-off tree to look his way.

“DODGE, YOU IDIOT!” the drow death knight screamed, eyes widening in shock at the absolute malice pouring out of Riven in almost physical form.

But the barbarian’s spinning swings only carried him forward in an enraged state of his own.

Riven shot forward, empowering his muscles and body with the physical enhancements he’d given himself and the flood of sin energy roaring across his energized cells.  The ground beneath him exploded, and Jackal’s blade swung down in a hiss of power.

The earth tore open as the two powerhouses locked weapons, and the dwarf was absolutely flattened - crushed into the ground like an insect along with the visage of the bull behind him that dispersed instantly.

Riven scoffed at the groaning idiot half buried in the ground, then kicked dirt into his blinking eyes with a shake of his head.  “How pathetic… but I’ll give you another chance.  Get up and try again.  We’re not done yet.”

Turning his three eyes to the other cultists, Riven’s flickering, mana-charged body exploded with power as he lifted a hand and pointed.  “Don’t waste my time.  All of you at once.  Come.”

***

Just like the two naga casters to either side of where she stood, Chasindir gaped at the absolute domination of her compatriot in a physical confrontation.  Sure, that brutish dwarf had just charged in swinging with a rather up-front attack - but he was still a berserker.  His build was literally made for close combat, the runes and aspect of the bull he used were made to make him stronger.  That martial art was one she was familiar with, and with every spin of the axe it built up both momentum and power until it finally made a strike.

And yet, Riven had charged headlong into it - as a warlock, a caster, to completely smash the dwarf three feet into the ground.

Casters weren’t supposed to be physically strong.  Even with the buffs they could utilize as a mage, it wasn’t ever supposed to be up to par with the classes of physical fighters like herself or the dwarf.  Yet with a single blow, Riven had downed one of the strongest melee fighters on Panu.

She shuddered involuntarily, then gritted her teeth and glared daggers at the vampire taunting them.  Her hand gripped her bone claymore tightly, and she raised it up to be eye level.  If she was to be beaten here, she would at least get a good measure of what he was capable of so that she may try again in the future.  Even a single win against him would be the equivalent of dozens of kills that he landed against her during this event.  And, perhaps, if he really did stick to his plan of not using any massive area-of-effect spells or swarms of blades like how he’d killed off entire armies and cities in the past with; then perhaps she still had a chance.

“Rite of the Soul Weaver.”  Her soul core screamed as it was dragged out of her inner domain, coating her body in a thick aspect of her pillars and her dao.  Her eyes flared with teal fire, and she lunged forward with a quickstep and deathly strike - sending arcs of death energy at the vampire as the two naga spread out.

Thunderclouds rumbled overhead, a blizzard began to build around them, the wailing souls of dead victims rose up from the grave to empower her, and the visage of a maw echoed across the shuddering landscape with laughter.

He merely stared at her passively, like a man who thought himself above her.

Her anger only rose, and she screamed in rage while reaching deep into the soul enveloping her for more power.

Her deathly strike shattered against Riven’s body like glass on forged steel, and her claymore tore through the air to follow up the wave of death energy like a viper strike.  Riven’s own blade spun rapidly in the air and intercepted her strike, causing sparks to light up the darkening arena of their own making as their magics blotted out the sun.

In an instant Riven countered, and Chasindir sucked in a quick breath - barely matching his speed to intercept two more of his blows before she exploded in a dome of pale light that blew him backwards a couple feet.

The storm mage took his opening and uttered a chant, calling lightning from the heavens that surged through the air with a snap of sound that reverberated across the land.

Black lightning tore from Riven’s own body and met the charging pillar of yellow electricity, the two colors intertwining hundreds of feet above them as a wall of ice rushed in from the other side.

It was like watching a tidal wave of cold death encroach upon an insect.  The surge of ice formed spikes right before it struck Riven’s position, only to be met with an opposing tide of red frost that tore through the white ice and snow in an absolute rebuttal.

Chasindir flung two death balls at the man and lunged again, roaring out a battle cry and quickstepping left to swipe at his side at the same time a huge disk of lightning tore through the air and crashed into his side.

To Chasindir’s surprise, Riven smashed the lighting disk apart with his fist while simultaneously flipping over her attack in a horizontal, acrobatic motion before landing on two feet.

She tried to engage him the moment he landed and smashed her blade into the ground, opening a rift into the underworld as souls of the dead began springing up around him - dragging him into the rift, only for the rift to shatter as the visage of a maw came up from underneath the rift to snap down on it.

Chasindir spluttered in denial.  “THAT’S NOT FAIR!”

Riven caught an ice lance with his free hand, side stepped another, and flung the one he’d caught directly at her with a force that caused the air to hiss.

The ice lance shattered against her right pauldron, but a searing pain set in as the cold magics caused her shoulder to nearly go numb.  She violently swore, rolling, and getting back to her feet right before she saw his downward swing.

Discharging her ‘Reaper Waltz’ martial art with the sacrifice of two captive souls from her reservoir, time slowed down around her and she vanished from her position.

Three ghostly replicas of Chasindir appeared in different positions around Riven’s body with a speed enhancement that sent their blades smashing down into Riven’s armor, shattering against it but causing him to stumble right when she reappeared behind him.

Grinning at her first big success of the exchange, she backed off and watched the lightning mage create four hounds from sparks.  The mage unleashed the howling dogs, their paws creating thunderclaps as they ran and tearing up the ground upon their passing-

The visage of a red jackal snapped out and obliterated the incoming dogs in an instant, and Riven turned to open a black shadow-made portal on his other side.

The ice drake that the other naga had summoned lunged its open jaws directly into the intercepting portal before it was closed off, and the beast crumbled in an explosion of frost when the black rift snapped shut around its neck.

The decapitated sculpture’s jaws landed dozens of yards to her left, crumbling just as the larger body did into a pile of snow that blew away in the roaring winds of the building thunderstorm above.

Chasindir spat at the amused twinkle in Riven’s eyes as he turned his gaze upon her, and her body flickered as it absorbed a nearby soul to use as fodder for her next attack.  Her free hand made the proper motions and building pressure lit up across the tip of her extended blade.  “SPIRITUAL RIFT!”

Her feet lifted off at blinding speed, her body a blur, and a huge cone of necromantic energies surged ahead at the point of her weapon that was lowered at the vampire ahead of her.  Twenty yards cleared in less than half a second and a snap-fire flurry of attacks crashed into one another as she entered into melee combat with the warlock in building resentment.

She would not be looked down upon.

Claymore clashed with spear-sword in a storm of bone on metal, death energies smashing against blood energies in rapid, miniature explosions while the two weapons sang promises of pain.

She grunted, weaved, dodged, blocked, and hit back as the elusive figure of the fully-plated caster ahead of her began to laugh.  Her efforts grew more impulsive, more furious, and she began to hit harder as the sparks lit up the darkened landscape.  Lightning bolts expertly tore out of the thunderclouds above when gaps in their exchanges allowed for the naga Merris to strike Riven without hitting her, and spines of frost shot up from the ground or were launched in a myriad of directions and from all angles whenever Riven had his back turned - but the vampire seemed to be growing more and more impossible to hit by the second with any of their attacks.

The first real hit they’d made had been when she’d used Reaper Waltz to use a trifecta of simultaneous attacks with her soul, and by sacrificing two other souls at the same time from her soul reservoir.  But it’d only worked once, with the next two attempts at the same attack only having minimal effect as he anticipated her strikes; and struck out to deflect one attack while using the space it created to dodge the other two.

“STAY STILL!” Chasindir screamed in frustrated anger, spinning her blade and launching it like a boomerang.  Riven raised his spear-staff to strike it down, but she clapped her hands together with a chant and caused the blade of bone to explode instead.

Fragments of the bone claymore flew into him like shrapnel, many of the pieces going out to either side of his flaming, flickering, sparking body - but she tore her hands apart a moment later and reformed the blade with the will of thought.

The weapon reforged itself on his other side, keeping its momentum and slamming into his lower thigh right where the armor was weakest.

The blade sank in deep, and Chasindir let out an excited squeal of delight and victory when it pierced through his leg entirely in a spray of blood.  “YOU’RE NOT SO INVINCIBLE AFTER-”

*CRUNCH*

The hilt of the blade that’d been lodged in Riven’s thigh between the metal plates smashed into her nose, breaking it cleanly and sending her reeling as a spray of blood erupted out of her face.  She fell to her knees crying out in pay and backpedaling only to feel a swift kick to the back of her armored skull.

The was sent sprawling, flipping end over end until she smashed into a boulder with a dull thud and the snap of bones.

Groaning and feeling her shattered spine beginning to repair itself, Chasindir coughed blood and spat it out before glaring up at the laughing vampire in the distance.  His laughter grew louder, climbing over the roar of the lightning strikes and thundering snow as he caught lightning bolts and flung them back, shattered ice lances with the spin of his weapon, crushed summoned elementals with mere fluctuations of Hell’s Armor, and redirected entire barrages with summoned shadow rifts.

Then, with a sinking heart, Chasindir realized that during this entire fight - Riven had barely moved from the same spot over the last five minutes.  He’d simply stayed there, taking them all on as they unleashed powers that would devastate entire armies back on Panu, only for this vampire to mock them now with his uproar of smug amusement.

***

*BOOM*

*CRUNCH*

*THUD*

*SNAP*

“AHHHHHHHHHH!!!”  The drow deathknight screamed in agony as he tore off one of her arms and slapped her across the face with it in a spray of blood.

Still laughing, Riven turned - deflecting a desperate barrage of lightning as his spear-staff blurred to meet the incoming projectiles.  Gluttony whispered in his mind, sharing his movements and empowering his reaction time to meet the energized magics as he swat one lightning bolt after another down from the sky like they were bugs.  The barrage ended just as a cage of ice sprung up around his position, and a wave of oppressive energy bore down on him when the glacial mage erected a domain.

The bars of absolute cold formed a dome and began to fill in, compressing on his position in an attempt to kill him despite potentially sacrificing the flailing death knight behind Riven, but with a mere flex of his own aura - the domain of the naga caster shattered as the ice was converted from white to a bright crimson red.

Taking charge of the mana in a forced conversion, Riven twisted his hand and shot a stream of red ice back down upon the glacial mage.

A wall of white came to meet Riven’s attack as the naga deflected Riven’s attack, and Riven winced at the backlash of having forcibly converted his enemy’s attack so quickly.

“Probably not a good idea to do that again unless absolutely necessary…” Riven muttered to himself, getting an internal confirmation from Gluttony that he was spot on.  Riven had only done it on a whim after feeling the connection there, similar to his own Crimson Ice control, but it was from another source entirely and a foreign aspect at that.  The lingering headache he had was testament that maybe just creating new crimson ice instead of converting actual elemental ice would be a better way to go about it in most circumstances.

His flaming, spiked gauntlet shot forward, fist smashing into the battle axe of the dwarf that’d peeled himself out of the hole in the ground to attack Riven once again.

It was like watching a home run, where the bat was Riven’s fist encased in Messenger - while the battle axe was the baseball.

The weapon tore out of the dwarf berserker’s hand in a spray of shrapnel as the weapon was obliterated, and the roaring dwarf’s right arm snapped out of socket as he was flung back around.

Riven’s eyes narrowed on the man beneath him, the pathetic, disgusting excuse of a warrior on the ground.  Fangs sliding out and his smile stretching beyond what should be normal for any human, Riven peeled back his helmet as a rumble from his stomach began to drive him forward.

He slapped the death knight warrior into the next time zone, sending her flying when she went in for another strike - and retaliated against another thunderclap of electric power with a strike of his own black lightning.  Again the two spells canceled each other out in an instant, and his foot crashed into the back of the dwarf who was just about to pick himself up again.

Once again, the dwarf found himself embedded into the ground like a bug under Riven’s heel.

Riven cocked his head to the side, staring down at the man squirming underneath him, and sneered.  “You’ve been deemed inadequate for training.  Perhaps you’ll find a way to weasel into the graces of your apocalypse beast, to claim it as your own by a stroke of sheer dumb luck despite your lack of thought on your approach.  Perhaps you will by a lottery’s chance be the one that causes the civilizations of Panu to fall as your own quest dictates.  But for now, I think not.  Because for now, you’ll need to go through me.  And you cannot brute force your way through this one, buddy.  This is my trial to claim, and you unlucky fuckheads are all trapped inside here with me for the next year!  How great is that?!”

He knelt, and Riven’s abnormally wide smile unhinged with another cackling laugh, making him look monstrous as his jaws snapped down onto the struggling dwarf’s neck.

The dwarf screamed as he felt himself being drained, and then began to flail in a panic under Riven’s hold as meat was stripped from bones to be swallowed whole.  Clawed gauntlets tore muscles off in wrenching motions, blood was drained by the bucket between large chomps of flesh, and gluttonous beatles began to climb out of the corner of Riven’s mouth - helping him devour the man even faster as they swarmed across the horrified dwarf’s body.

***

[Invitation to the Blood God’s Temple: Your weekly session of worship, combat training, and scripture has come about.  Please access the clergy system and teleport in so that we may start.  We would also like to discuss recent events involving a certain angel on your planet, and hope that you can discuss the things we show you with Riven after the fact.]

The inside of the Blood God’s temple was vast, with sculptures of monsters and vampires in abundance all along the walls and pillars that held up the high ceilings of many interconnected rooms.  Crimson creatures of nightmares the size of skyscrapers loomed in these halls, and their many eyes often centered themselves on her in passing curiosity before settling on other clergy - relatively ant-sized to their massive figures.

Genua knelt at an altar underneath the sculpture of a giant blood moon, in front of an indoor lake of blood, surrounded by other priestesses with similar red-metal headdresses and form fitting black silk robes.  Crimson tattoos littered all of their bodies in the places that the clergy outfits didn't cover, and all of them were women.

She had seen actual priests before, gathered in long flowing robes that only differed slightly from her own, but it appeared that men were in the minority here.  Why that was, Genua was unsure.

“That is enough scripture for now.” the elder priestess stated, snapping her small black book shut and letting it flicker away into wisps of red that vanished in front of her face.

Genua did the same, though she stored her own in a small back on her hip rather than some fancy schmancy miracle work.  “Very well.  Is it time for combat training?  I am rather intrigued about what it is you have to show me, Priestess Lithania.”

The beautiful, but rather old, priestess scowled deeply - emphasizing her wrinkles by doing so.  The other women around Genua in a semi-circle all turned to look at the lead priestess of their group - ignoring the other clergy bathing in the lake or walking between rooms akin to entire landscapes given the size of it all.

“You will have your combat training in time, but I wish to speak to you about both Riven and Allie first.”

Genua didn’t frown back, she’d been expecting this, but she couldn’t say she was looking forward to this conversation either.  “Very well.  Please, let me know what it is I can answer for you or assist you with.”

Priestess Lithania solemnly nodded, then stood up - being lifted up by tendrils of blood mana instead of actually using her muscles, until she smoothly came to a graceful stance ahead of the rest.  “Follow me, Genua.  The rest of you are dismissed.”

The older woman gestured for Genua to come stand beside her, and the other women all got up to leave before heading off to wherever the hell it was these clergy lived.  Though Genua knew some of them were like her and had vampiric masters in the mortal realms, most of the Blood God’s clergy actually lived here permanently for reasons she could not fathom.

Stepping in line with the old woman, Genua and Priestess Lithania began to walk along the lake’s edge in a slow but steady gait.

“Tell me…” The old woman eventually said, turning a red gaze upon Genua’s slender figure.  “What is your opinion of Riven?”

Genua raised a questioning eyebrow.  “I had thought this conversation was to be about his sister, Allie.”

Lithania didn’t miss a step, nor did she blink.  Instead, she turned her gaze ahead of them - watching the path underneath their feet glide by with purple grasses on their right and the lake on their left.  “It primarily will be.  However, I’d still like to know - as it is still relevant.  What is your opinion on Riven?”

Genau pursed her lips at this, eyes flicking between the old woman and her own feet as she walked.  “I suppose he has been kind to me, and to Len, over past months.  However I still cannot fully forgive him for what he did to my eldest daughter and husband.”

“Do you blame him?” Lithania asked, with a flat expression, not bothering to look over at the other priestess as they went.  “I’m surprised you still feel animosity towards the man after becoming his thrall.  Usually, those feelings go away rather quickly as the thrall contract imbues you with other, more positive emotions.”

Genua scoffed.  “Perhaps in the beginning that was true, but not recently.  Not ever since the pregnancy, anyways.  Regardless I do not hate him, nor do I blame him, but I still cannot forgive him.  I look back at that time as my own family’s fault, as my clan’s fault, for initiating the violence and betraying him for a reason that wasn’t just.  However, a mother’s love knows no bounds - and Ethel will always be my little girl.”

Lithania nodded.  “The pregnancy is certainly an oddity.  It is not often that a thrall can become impregnated by a vampire.  Thralls can, in time, become vampires if the master wishes it - but until then it is supposed to be an impossibility.  For you, however, that seems not to be the case… Why that is, we are unsure.”

“We?”

“Myself, and the others watching over you.  Those assigned by the Blood God to monitor Riven and Allie Wraithtide.”

“Are they truly important enough to warrant a god’s interest to this amount?”

“They are.  The malignant bloodline is a priceless treasure, kept sacred by one of the Blood God’s most devoted followings in the form of the Blood Moon Requiem.  Should that bloodline escape from our grasp and fall into another sect of the multiverse, such as the Reapers, or the Phantom Legions, who now have their sights set upon Allie as a recruitment candidate.  That cannot be allowed to pass.  And yet, we are unsure of what to do.”

She paused in both step and sound.  “Even the great one, The Blood God himself, is unsure of what to do - now that Gluttony has chosen Riven as its candidate for reincarnation.  The risk of offending Gluttony is not out of the question, but if we can come to an agreement of some sort… Perhaps we’d be willing to look the other way concerning his sister.”

The priestess turned her head to Genua to make sure she understood.

Genua nodded. “I am more that certain Riven is hoping for a similar outcome.”

“Are you sure about this?  That he would compromise?  Gluttony is not known for such things, and although he is weak - he will not remain weak for long.”

“I am certain, Lithania.  Riven is not Gluttony, they are merely partners.  Riven does want to follow the path of blood, and hopes that you will overlook his sister’s transgressions if he can somehow appease our church.  Are you not able to see this?”

Lithania’s smile grew wide, and she nodded in approval.  “Our god was banished from viewing Panu for some time, along with many other gods, by Gluttony when he and his demonic servants came back from the Abyss.  The effect is wearing off, but anti-scrying measures - if done properly - are easily made and hard to deter.  Even weak mages may block the scrying of high tier beings if the technique is right, but that is neither here nor there.  Tell me, what exactly is he willing to negotiate with?”

The old woman’s slender hand lifted, pointing to Genua’s barely protruding stomach that was beginning to show a baby bump.  Lithania held eye contact for quite some time, and her smile grew wider.  “Perhaps, just maybe, he would give us the child of one blessed with the sight of Malignant Prophecy, who also retains a true inheritance from The Great Maw itself.  What do you think he would say, should we ask?  Our god is quite interested, and we’d be very certain to forgive Allie of all her misgivings immediately should Riven agree to our terms.”

Genua’s eyes widened in alarm, and she took an involuntary step back while clutching at her stomach.  “My child?  You want my child?  You cannot be serious.”

“YOUR child?!”  Lithania laughed, throwing her head back in genuine amusement before lowering her wicked gaze upon Genua once more.  “No, Genua.  It is Riven’s child, Gluttony’s child, though neither of you knew it when Gluttony had already begun to settle into Riven’s soul at the time of conception.  It is not your decision to make.  Rather, it is Riven’s, and it is Gluttony’s, and it is a bartering piece that we would settle for in order to turn a blind eye for Allie’s transgressions.  You’d, of course, still be able to see the child here in the temple as it grew up… after all, you are one of our clergy too.  It wouldn’t be like you’re completely giving the child away, you’d just be allowing it to… develop differently, but living here under our teachings and training.”