Chapter 286 (2nd chapter of the day) (Patreon)

Been on call at the hospital after hours all week, I intend to try to do at least 2 chapters a week from here on out until I leave this job on August 30th. At that time the writing will drastically pick up, thank you to all those who continue to support this series, I hope you're all doing well :)

-Trent

Chapter 286

Crashing to the ground, Athela groaned clutching her head when all eight of her enormous white spider legs sank into  the decimated landscape.  The air was so thick with dust and mana that it was hard to get a hold of just what was going on, and she had a killer headache - but her mind cleared over the coming seconds as her eyes widened.

She’d been attacking Riven.

What the hell!?

Surprise turned to horror, and horror turned to panic when she realized what losing would mean to Riven’s future.  That was something she could not allow, and he was easily on the back foot even after having killed Azmoth, Nora, and the majority of the undead sent after him by the two necromancy specialists.  Narg, Fimrindle, Allie, Fay and Retesh were still out there - with Riven desperately trying to keep Allie at bay while the others supported her.  Since her transformation into an angel of death, Allie was incredibly powerful - possibly even being Riven’s equal at this time.  

…

Nah, not quite that powerful.  But almost, and when combined with all the minions… it wasn’t looking good.

He’d played his cards well so far in the fight by kiting the rest of them and not making a true stand, but It was only a matter of time before he lost if things didn’t change.  Eventually they’d catch him, and even through the haze Athela could see Retesh’s continued bombardment of greed globes soaring across the sky while the lich cackled like a madman.

Furrowing her brows, that’s where she would go first.  Fay was likely there too if she wasn’t supporting Allie directly, and both would be easy, quick kills if they didn’t suspect Athela was turning on them.

And when she rushed ahead - following the trails of green lighting up the sky as distant explosions echoed throughout the swirling dust storm - she quickly found her first targets.  Sitting on the hill right where they’d’ all originally started, was the laughing lich - and the succubus next to him.  Fay was in a meditative state, maintaining an illusion around the two meant only for Riven’s mind to see - while she continued to layer invisible traps around Riven’s position that he’d been flying into or stepping on randomly all throughout the battle.

Athela’s eyes trailed down to the succubus’s chest.  Fay looked absolutely stunning sitting like that, her long white hair trailing past her big breasts-

Athela slapped herself in the face.  “Get ahold of yourself, you horny spider!”

Shaking her head and feeling slightly guilty about what she was about to do, she sighed and stomped up the hill towards them with a determined expression set in place.

“Athela!” Retesh called out gleefully, raising his bone staff as the orb atop it flared with neon teal light.  “Are you coming back for a break!?  We have him on the ropes!”

Fay looked up too, smiling pleasantly Athela’s way.  “Oh, hello!  I thought you’d be trying to stab him from behind like you sneaks usually do.  Why are you back here with us?  And why are you in that body?”

“Surely you won’t be able to assassinate him while in that form.  You know he’s weak to assassins, there’s no reason to change course.”  Retesh agreed with the clattering of bones as his staff made repetitive motions in the air while summoning clouds of plague across the battlefield in Riven’s direction; before beginning to unleash another barrage of green orbs into the sky.  “Or have you truly given up on that tactic?  Fimrindle is going to rub it in if he’s the one that-”

CRUNCH

Athela’s leg came down on the lich, smashing his frail body with a single, brutal strike.  Despite the lich being on the leaderboards, he was a glass cannon that hid behind his summons, and she was a Panu World Boss with an insane strength amplifier in this form.

Fay looked stunned, staring wide-eyed at the obliterated lich with an open mouth and furrowed brows.  “ATHELA!  WHY!?  WHAT ARE- UGH!!!”

The succubus was picked up with one of Athela’s giant clawed hands.

Gripping her lover around the waist, Athela frowned and brought Fay to eye level - ignoring the cursing and small hands beating against her snow-white skin.  The four red eyes of the huge drider narrowed to glance down at Fay’s chest again with a smirk, and she cocked her head to one side while evaluating her girlfriend - Er, her prey.

“Unlike the last time, do know that this isn’t anything personal.  I don’t WANT to do this…” Athela muttered as Fay cried out - growing fearful and struggling against the giant grip.  Then, Athela smirked - and leaned in to give Fay a quick kiss and a wink.  “But I can’t say it doesn’t turn me on to hold you against your will… We’re going to have to try that BDSM stuff Riven was talking about soon.  This is kind of kinky.”

Fay was flushed with anger, and a little bit of embarrassment, as she venomously pointed a quivering finger in the larger demon’s direction.  “ATHELA YOU DIRTY WHORE!  PUT ME DOWN!  PUT ME DOWN RIGHT-”

With her other hand, Athela’s claws twisted Fay’s head - mercifully snapping her beautiful neck and killing the succubus instantly.

Reverently putting her back on the hillside next to the shattered pile of bones, and using her ice magic to seal the bones in place just in case Retesh had some kind of revival powers as he was a lich - Athela regretfully stomped off into the maelstrom of wind, dirt, and rampant mana.

She had a little scythe-wielding bitch to kill, and it’d been a long time coming.

***

Jackal hadn’t lasted long after killing Azmoth, falling to Fimrindle’s scythe only minutes later.  The canine had battled ferociously, but the reaper was just an opponent too far above the living weapon that’d truthfully not had any real experience using the new body it’d procured until now.  Jackal had then reverted back to a staff, and was in an even worse state than it’d began in before transforming into the abyssal winged hound.  It was, in fact, almost shattered at the mid shaft and had cracks spreading all along its body - so Riven was forced to withdraw it from the battle entirely and placed it back in his spatial sack.

Riven’s other temporary summons were dead too, all of the blood knights and assassins having been wiped out one by one until only a single knight had been left - before it too had disappeared after the 5 minute timer on the summoning spell had let up.  Two of his four totems were wiped out and shattered, while the other two had been withdrawn as well due to the severe damage they’d taken.

Only Messenger remained on his side, though the armor itself had taken quite a beating it remained active in its pursuit to swallow incoming spells or attack his enemies with the tendrils from its central maw.  This was particularly helpful against Fimrindle, who’d been the one to destroy Riven’s totems and most of his summons in quick hit-and-runs while Allie focused Riven himself.

But even despite all this, and despite things not looking good, Riven wasn’t out of the fight yet.

Blood coated his arm as Riven shot skywards, and his vision zoomed forward to unleash the blood lance with a flash of red light.  The snipe-empowered blood lance cut across the sky and smashed into another of Narg’s barriers, only for the next one to cut cleanly through and skewer the beholder demon’s body all the way out the other side.

Blood and guts flew out and the beholder seemed to explode in viscera, ending the relentless long-ranged attacks it’d been flinging at him from a safe distance this entire time much to Riven’s building irritation.

“God that guy is annoying to fight against!” Riven muttered, cutting through the sky and narrowly dodging another sword-swipe from Allie while she beat her wings ever faster in an attempt to cut him down.  “AND YOU CAN JUST FUCK OFF ALLIE!  GOD DAMN IT GIVE ME A BREAK ALREADY!”

Allie merely cackled from underneath her bone helmet, and the chase intensified.

“I will activate the transition to our ultimate form when needed.  We only have one shot at using it, and it will only last a minute; so keep it up.  You’re doing very well.”  Gluttony whispered within Riven’s mind, and clouds of ravenous insects were unleashed from a hundred black maws that appeared all around them - swarming towards Allie only to be met with an equivalent swarm of wraiths, ghosts, and spirits.

The sin afflicted beetles crashed into the souls of the dead and were neutralized, neither side giving way while tearing into one another as the chase persisted through the sea of writhing sands and unstable energies.  Lightning flickered through the arena randomly, created by uncontrolled power that’d begun to build up in the environment like a soda-can waiting to pop and with nowhere to go.

Yet, Riven suddenly realized there were no more green exploding orbs or plague mists being flung in his direction.

Was Retesh building up some other kind of spell?

And if he was, Riven wouldn’t be able to find them very well anyways given Fay’s illusions.

Clicking his tongue and speeding underneath a collapsing pillar, he rounded the large rock formation.  His hands circled and then thrust forward when a shockwave of energy blasted Allie backwards from the first part of the spell.  “Nefajia crecus blood nova!”

A huge blood orb rapidly expanded and exploded forward with a screech of power that lit up the storm of debris around them and created a wide zone cleansed of dust, leaving Allie’s cracked armor in full view as half of her face glared out at him from where the bone helmet had been partially torn off.  Her halo glowed brightly with deathly light, and her pale eyes remained fixed as she raised a hand in turn.

From far beneath them and from all across the landscape, through the swarms of battling souls and sin-created insects, the corpses of the dead began to shrivel and evaporate.  Their bones began to rise, and in an instant - they were upon him.

A bone cage created from the bones of the dead snapped shut around his position and began to compress, and Riven found that she was attempting to suppress his mana when the channels across his pillars became sluggish.

Panicking slightly and trusting that Gluttony would activate their supreme skill if need be, Riven forced Malignant Prophecy to activate.

The world around him quickly came to a stop, and the storm calmed.  Color seeped from the land, turning a stark gray, only for a notification to appear before him.

[Allie Thane has negated your Malignant Prophecy with her own activation of the skill.  Your bloodlines are on equal footing, and neither of you has come out ahead.  Both of you receive 1 additional Malignancy Point for this attempt.]

“GOD DAMN IT!" Riven screamed in rage, and he only narrowly dodged Allie’s claymore when it crashed through the bone cage he found himself in.

His right arm surged with as much energy as he could muster in that instant while the claymore was passing him by.  Ice began to creep up his arm, enhancing the claws and spiked knuckles of Messenger with deadly intent.  His red and black eyes connected with Allie’s gray, and time almost seemed to slow while they stared at one another.

“Hello, big brother.”  She whispered, and in the next split second they clashed.

Riven’s claws smashed into the side of her face, leaving large trenches in her flesh and tearing one side of her jaw off as her claymore swung around and cleaved through his opposite arm.  She was sent colliding into the ground hundreds of yards below with a scream, and Riven was sent spinning into a nearby column of rock that’d managed to survive the battle thus far.

He landed with a crunch, the wound where his left arm had been spraying blood and refusing to heal while lingering energies of true death rapidly ate away at his body’s regeneration attempts.

“SURPRISE!” The gleeful cackle of Fimrindle called out in raspy glee just when the reaper blurred into motion beside him.

Riven’s eyes went wide in shock, the grinning metal scarecrow glared back at him with X’s for eyes on his face being abnormally large, and the scythe was held in a horizontal swing that was rapidly gaining speed with an absolute finality set into what was doubtless a killing blow.

That was when another figure appeared right behind him, so fast that Riven could barely follow her movements.  The enormous silhouette of Athela’s drider form had opened its crystalline maw wide, bloody strings racing out from its numerous legs, and Riven in that instant knew he was a dead man.

Only for the iron scarecrow to be yanked back into Athela’ maw in an instant when the strings attached, making the scythe fall short of its strike with a shrill scream of denial being let out by the reaper right before an abrupt crunch.

Silence followed, and Athela’s legs buried themselves into the stone pillar Riven was plastered against.  Leaning down with her large but beautiful face pressed up against Riven’s position on the rock pillar, Athela giggled and gave him a wing with two of her four red slits for eyes.  “Didn’t think I’d be able to break out of it, did ya?”

A shudder ran down Riven’s body, and he nearly collapsed in relief.  That relief didn’t last long however, when a cataclysmic attack smashed into their position.

Athela immediately wrapped her body around Riven’s own to protect him, and her horrified wail lasted throughout the roller-coaster ride when they were sent skipping across the landscape like a stone across a lake.  Broken bones, charred insides, and a deep gash wound across Athela’s back was evident as her breaths became labored.

She looked down at him, clutching him in her arms, and let out a raspy breath: “Go!”

Riven barely had time to roll out of the way before Allie’s claymore skewered Athela right through the heart, from the back and out the front of her chest - right where Riven had been a second before.

Athela’s second form died, and before she could even fully finish warping into her third arachnid form - Allie’s bone-plated foot crunched down onto the small body with a splattering of arachnid guts.

Athela was out for the count.

Frankly, Riven couldn’t believe just how strong Allie actually was.

He hadn’t considered it before, not in depth anyways.  He’d always known she was powerful and had become even more powerful since her evolution into an angel of death, but instead of how she used to fight as a spell slinger - she was now essentially a tank.  Her skills had only grown since being trained by some of the best Gluttony’s Church had to offer, and she’d taken a very keen liking to that damnable weapon The Scythe had given her in an attempt to woo her to worship him.

Riven almost laughed, knowing full well that she’d not even attempted to contact the death god since then.  But then again, less than a year was just a blip to an entity like The Scythe.  He’d been around for eons, so waiting for such a short period of time probably seemed like nothing to him.

Neon teal and black fire began to condense over one of Allie’s outstretched hands, covered in a bone gauntlet while giving him a bloodthirsty smile.  Her black wings flared out in challenge, and her aura blasted out again in challenge.  “Riven, Riven, Riven… I’d expected better of you.  Come now, this can’t be all that you have in store for your precious little sister - is it?”

She poke with her jaw still unhinged where his claws and torn it off.  It was both fascinating, and gross, after seeing it on one of the people he loved.  It was almost like talking to a zombie version of his sister, and she hadn’t bothered healing the injury - or perhaps was just rerouting her magic to fighting him instead of dealing with what she likely considered an insignificant flesh wound.

Riven for his part, rolled his shoulders, glancing down at the missing left arm where she’d cut it off at the biceps, and a small smile crept across his lips.  Peeling the mask back through a mental command to Messenger, Riven gave her a fang-filled grin on full display.  “You’ve become rather impressive, little sis.  Too bad that to me, you’re just a brat!”

Allie tisked, and was going to reply when she quickly took a step back - as Riven’s body began to change.

His arm grew back and dispelled her true death mana lingering in the wound instantaneously - his skin turning a dark gray.  His body exploded in size as the tattoos along his skin lit up from black to violet.  Muscles surged, his skin ripped and reformed, and a huge tail tore out of his tailbone when Messenger peeled off to give his body room to expand.  His chest split down the middle to incorporate Gluttony’s visage with a vertical maw, huge demonic horns sprouted from his head, his legs snapped backwards and grew claws like a T-rex, and spine tore out of his back.  Bone spikes protruded out of his kneecaps, elbows, and his teeth elongated in a sinister snarl while huge bat-like demon wings sprouted out of his shoulder blades.  

Eyes shifting from red to purple, he looked down from five times his normal height - dwarfing Allie in less than a second.

“Let us finish this.” Gluttony’s voice said, overlapping with Riven while they simultaneously spoke as one entity.  “It is time.”

With stats souring and unimaginable strength, Riven took an offensive approach against Allie for the first time in the battle.  He had one minute to do it, and then he was shit out of luck.

***

Allie’s instincts screamed at her to move when the huge gray demon riddled with purple tattoos launched itself towards her like a missile from hell.  She rapidly backpeled and parried a strike of Riven’s claws, her divine blade only barely able to counter the enhanced demonic body before he whirled on her again.

She summoned the Eye of the Scythe, unleashing a deathly gaze from far above - only for the flaming teal eye to wither and die as it laid eyes on Gluttony’s reincarnated figure.  She flew back, sending screeching skulls ripping across the sound barrier in Riven’s direction - only for them to be swatted away like flies.  The phantoms and wraiths defending her were ripped from the air and held within Riven’s body as hostages ripe for the picking with wails and screams of the dead echoing in her mind, and she summed an unholy obelisk to empower her - only for it to shatter when Gluttony’s maw reached out with its dark tendrils and snapped it like a twig.

She felt her arm shatter blocking another strike, felt her leg snap after barely twisting out of Riven’s grasp.  She snarled, swinging her blade down and unleashing a miasmic roar that split the sky and created a line of deathly energies in its wake.

But Riven’s new form was indomitable, persistent, and her own strikes only scratched his skin like they were papercuts even despite the quality of her weapon or the enhancement of her true death pillar.

It was all she could do just to stay alive, and the fight quickly devolved into one where she was on the back foot and doing her best to deflect his own blows or redirect them in order not to take the full brunt of his strikes.

“What’s the matter, little angel?  Is doubt finally afflicting your mind?”  Gluttony’s laugh echoed from dozens of maws that began to rip open in space around them, and she found herself under assault by dozens and then hundreds of tendrils filled with sin energy.

Her halo sent out a pulse of radiating death energy, smashing them apart only for new maws and new tendrils to reappear in the sky - reaching for her like hands dragging her to hell.

“Come now, I do not have time to suffer you!”  Gluttony’s words were mocking, and he smashed through her next deflection with a tail swipe that tore out the side of her left rib cage - sending a piece of her lung through the air in a bloody mess.  “COME TO ME, ANGEL OF DEATH!  LET ME TASTE YOUR FEAR!”

Riven was nowhere to be seen, and Allie grimaced in pain while taking another step back.  The huge monster in front of her was none other than a being made in the beginning of time, an ancient evil that revealed in her fear while licking her blood off of its claws.  An origin of demonkind, the power behind its attacks was unstoppable at her current grade, and she was almost helpless to hurt it even despite her best attempts.

Gluttony’s grin grew wider, and the black teeth extended almost to look like Azmoth’s - unnaturally reaching its smile literally from ear to ear in a sickening display of genuine amusement and malice.  “Despite you being my reincarnation’s sister, this is a battle to the death - little one.  I hope you can later forgive me for what I am about to do…”

Purple flames began to build up in the back of Gluttony’s throat, roaring to life while they trickled out and up across the demon’s face and glowing purple eyes.  The power building there was made of pure sin, a thing of destruction that Allie had yet to ever come across before now, and the Abyssal Descent around them began to tremble and call out to it as the land recognized one of its masters.  An original sin had come home to it, broken out of its cage where Elysium had secluded it, and the rampant sin energies of their environment began to shoot towards Gluttony as the demon charged what was without doubt the final act of this fight.

Yet, despite the massive power behind the building attack, one that she was doubtless incapable of stopping by brute force - she did have one new skill that may help her come out of this mess after all.

Raising her head to the sky, she let out a shrill cry of her own.  Banshee’s Wail activated, echoing throughout the landscape and silencing all enemies within its vicinity for just a moment.

That one moment completely canceled Gluttony’s attack out, dispelling the channeling ability, and Gluttony merely blinked in confusion before an irritated snarl overcame him.

“Well played.” Gluttony sneered.  “We were… unaware that you had such a spell.  Well played indeed.”

Gluttony’s form immediately reverted, his body collapsing in on itself when the 1 minute timer ran out.  Messenger snapped back onto Riven’s body from somewhere out in the dust storm, covering him in a defensive layer while Riven remained in place - panting from exhaustion, and he didn’t have time to react when Allie’s sword came in for his chest.

Piercing partway through Messenger and almost into his heart, Riven was floored against the ground with a scream - and Allie desperately tried to push the large claymore further in with gritted teeth where her jaw remained intact.

***

The pain was immense, and Allie was pouring all the remnants of her strength through the blade - channeling it into his body.  His vampiric regeneration battled back frantically, and Messenger tried to expel the divine weapon as best it could - but it was a losing battle.  He felt weak, sapped of most of his strength, without Jackal for his normal mana regeneration - and without any significant amount of blood to call upon from the environment.  His hands were coated in red ice the next second and slapped themselves onto the blade, and he ignored the pain they felt even through his own magical layer while he attempted to push the blade out alongside Messenger’s own attempts.

Allie’s state wasn’t much better.  She had a broken wing, a leg snapped out in an odd angle, one arm dangling to the side and the right-side of her jaw completely separated from the upper half of her face.  Her bone helmet was wrecked, one of her pauldrons was missing where a deep gas of Gluttony’s claws had torn her flesh off, while part of one lung and her rib cage was missing and somewhere else entirely.

“You didn’t think I could do it, did you?” Allie said, coughing blood with a gleeful, menacing smile as blood dribbled down her chin where a few of her bottom-row teeth were missing.  “Well I did it!  I WON!”

She pressed down with her full body weight, attempting to suppress his mana with her own, but both of their auras were miniscule at best compared to what they’d once been at their initial clash.  The entire arena around them was a wasteland, with none of the jungle that’d once been there remaining, and only a few of the dozens of pillars still standing as the storm of rampant mana raged around them.  The occasional spirits and sin beetles that tried to assist their masters were often intercepted by the other, and the ones that did manage to get through were dealt with by the lingering auras that weakly fought at the epicenter of the battle, but even these were far and few between.

Riven gritted his teeth, fangs bared, and he weakly kicked at Allie’s broken leg - causing her to stumble back.  Rolling and avoiding another exhausted slash from his sister, he got to his feet and staggered backwards while spitting blood into her face when she lunged.

Blinding her in the act, he smashed an elbow into the back of her head and sent her sprawling - summoning a blood lance in the next instant that blasted out from his arm only for her to block with one of her wings.

The blood lance shattered against her feathers, but caused her to stagger, and they took measure of one another again as they panted to catch their breath.

“Die.”  Allie rushed him with a last ditch effort, throwing all of her remaining strength behind her attack as her body burst into a wraith-like apparition.  She descended as the hand of death incarnate, burning a small piece of her own soul to strike him dead, while her body radiated immense killing intent with a flare of her aura that should not be possible.

Eyes wide, Riven grit his teeth and prepared to dodge - when a flash of light and a familiar aura appeared beside him.  A beautiful, pregnant blonde woman wrapped in a black silk, form-fitting robe stepped out of a red portal.  The headdress was familiar and aztec in design, her red eyes pierced Allie with a judgemental sneer, and she brought both hands up in front of her with a praying motion to close her eyes.  The crimson tattoos of the blood god flared, and she muttered the words: “Sanguine Smite.”

The ground exploded underneath them and the enormous visage of the blood moon appeared behind her, before Allie’s body was torn asunder through the cast miracle.  Flesh was torn from bone, blood ripped from their vessels, and a vertical shockwave of energy ripped out from Genua to finish Allie off as the arena was split in half.

Allie’s attack fell short, her body split in two down the middle, as the angel of death breathed no more.

[Team 1 of group #9877 has won.  Team 2 of group #9877 has lost.  All combatants from group #9877 will now be resurrected.  A portal to floor 20 of The Abyssal Descent will be created.  An additional three loot chests have been provided due to your performance.  Lillith of the Black Skies remains trapped on Floor 50.  Congratulations.  Your Floor 2 Boss Fight has ended.]