Chapter 64 (Patreon)

Chapter 64

Senna had never been so scared in her life.

Her world had been flipped upside down, with the land that the tribe had known for generations being mix-and-matched with new landscapes and sceneries overnight.  The new creatures and dangerous monsters now appearing out of nowhere… appearing from ambient mana in what the Elysium System had called the world of ‘Panu.’  These creatures had already killed many of her kin already, with numerous people mysteriously going missing.  Her tribe was just one of many nomadic elf groups in the area though, and they’d sent messengers to the other surrounding tribes to see who was still around… and who’d been taken to some other part of this new world.

In the meantime, she and her hunting party had been one of many to scout the surrounding area.  It’d only been two days since the great migration, the apocalypse, and merging of her world with two others, and their safety was their first priority.  After discovering a human city within the nearby valley and having seen the chaos ongoing there, they retreated and tried to inform the elder council… only to be intercepted by goblins of all things.

Goblins were native to her own home world, and they’d been a plague upon her people since as long as she could remember.  She’d grown up hating the little green devils.  Often taking prisoners as slaves or meat, goblin raiding parties were not to be scoffed at.  Though their individual strengths were weaker than an elf’s, they made up for it in sheer numbers and could spawn infinitely like rats.

A lesson that their hunt leader had learned the hard way, having fallen into what Senna had considered an obvious bait and trap while bringing the rest of the party with him.  They should have never chased… She’d tried to dissuade him from taking the bait, but she was low in the tribal hierarchy… and she was a woman.  That alone made her opinion worth less to her peers in the eyes of the elder council.

Because of it, because of prejudice and arrogance, they were all going to die here.

“Ethel!”  She screamed and began to sob, trying to stab at one of the goblins that was violently beating her with a small club just as another goblin latched onto her ankle, sinking in its sharp teeth and claws as she screamed.  Blood stained her silver hair as it leaked from a head wound and matted it against her face, partially her in one eye.  “ETHEL HELP ME!  PLEASE!”

*CRACK*

The young woman felt her clavicle snap as the goblin’s club was brought back down with a jerk.  She screamed again, horror filling her as pain radiated up her body.  She kicked and flailed, desperation filling her as she began to hyperventilate, only for the goblins pinning her down to laugh at her misfortune with jeers and snarls.  She felt the teeth of the goblin on her ankle sink deeper through muscle and into bone, and she felt the goblin with the club slam it into her scrambling arms as she tried to get away.  Bones shattered, and the pain was unlike anything she’d ever experienced.

“Please let me go!!!” Senna went rigid with a squeal of agony as her wrist snapped.  “PLEASE!!!”

Her words trailed off, her chest heaved with every violent sob, and she watched the bloodlust in the goblin’s eyes under the forest canopy as it raised the club for a final time.

“Elf go die die!” It snickered – right before a crimson blur of motion abruptly slammed into the creature standing over her.

The goblin’s chest rippled and exploded within the time of a single second, a torrent of red magic tearing through the small humanoid with a brief torrent of bloody wisps and a savagery that caught its peers by surprise.  What remained of the goblin went slowly limp after that, dropping to the ground as its eyes went cold – the club going with it to thud into the dirt next to Senna’s bloodied face.

She blinked twice, shock overriding her other emotions and senses as she tried to adjust to what had just happened.  Had that really been blood magic just now?  She’d seen it used once before when their tribe had expelled a man for meddling in the forbidden magics of the Unholy Foundational Pillar, but they’d been banished many years ago… No one in her village knew anything but nature magic from the Fae pillar.

So what had just happened?

By this point the elves had been completely overpowered.  Ethel, Senna’s best friend, was being tortured just as she was a few feet away and was missing a hand – pulsing blood from a lacerated wound with three goblins atop her.  Bortris, who’d been speared earlier, now lay dead and unmoving in a patch of moss nearby.  Then, lastly, there was Vorthem… the youngest son of a village blacksmith.  Vorthem was beaten black and blue, barely breathing, and was being bludgeoned to death with his arms and legs at odd angles where the bones had snapped.  However, all activity immediately ceased as the collective goblins realized what had happened… and settling their gazes in the same general direction, all of them began brandishing their weapons to silently step back.  Even the goblin latched onto her leg seemed to see something that made it go visibly tense, and it left her bare, bloodied leg a moment later to join its fellows as they grouped up.

Senna, still rigid with pain and silently crying as she clutched at her broken hand, was able to sit up with excruciating effort and a lot of pain radiating down from the shattered clavicle.  Letting out a high-pitched grunt of pain and wincing, she came about to see what had put the goblins in such an obvious scare.

Two figures stared out under the morning shadow of trees.  One of them was a demon, a spider-humanoid variant of some sort with toned bare musculature, six blade-like appendages coming out of her back, and a wicked smile of teeth that was slowly beginning to sharpen.  She had one of the goblins strung up between her outstretched fingers as either hand produced thin crimson strands of silk, and she was toying with him by making the terrified three-foot green man dance for her as if she was maneuvering a puppet.

The other figure was cloaked and carried a black, wooden staff that radiated shadow energy at the gnarled tip.  His features were hard to make out because of the runic mask he wore, but the pale skin and glowing crimson eyes…

She felt her blood run cold as she looked upon the newcomers.  All hope faded, drastically and immediately, as she realized that it wasn’t help that’d come… rather, it was another group of even more dangerous foes.

Apex predators.

Vampires were widely regarded as some of the worst opponents to go up against.  Their senses, strength, speed, tracking abilities, and natural affinities for the Unholy Pillar’s magics meant that they were often incredibly dangerous.  Add on that they could live for many millennia and weren’t the mindless monsters that most creatures of the Unholy Pillar represented: it meant that their collected knowledge, intelligence and experience over their vast lifetimes was incredibly ominous for any who wished to fight them.  On top of that, this vampire had a god damned demonic summon with him.  Demonic familiars were incredibly hard to acquire even for the most experienced of black magic practitioners, to have one with him made things all the more bleak in terms of outlook on her situation.  Demonic familiars under contract could be banished, but they couldn’t truly die unless the summoner died first.  It made them expendable frontline fighters, ones that could and would without hesitation sacrifice themselves temporarily in order to save their masters from otherwise permanent deaths.

She’d heard the horror stories and had even seen a young vampire once, a long time ago in a trial that’d ended in its execution after being caught feeding on one of her tribe… and this figure fit the bill perfectly.  His eyes were a little bit more red than normal, as the only other vampire she’d ever seen hadn’t had eyes that glowed like that, but he was still no doubt the real deal.  The goblins had certainly realized this as well based on their reactions to the newcomers, which were all a mix between anxiety, fear, and anger.

With a flick of her wrist the demoness yanked on a couple of her crimson threads, and the yelping goblin she was using as a marionette abruptly exploded in gore.  The otherwise beautiful demoness crowed with laughter, a malicious and heartless laugh as the little goblin’s body rained down around her - and she sneered back at the other greenskins with bared teeth before putting one of her long arachnid limbs forwards in an aggressive gesture.

There was a long silence after that as the remaining, wide-eyed six goblins continued drawing back into the trees of the forest, away from the beaten path, while the vampire and his demonic familiar slowly progressed forward.

Senna felt a lump in her throat forming as she stared, dumbfounded at what would probably be the last thing she’d ever see.  She knew she couldn’t run, not with the way her leg was mangled as it was… and her friends were all either dying or already dead.

This was the end… or so she thought, until she snapped out of her trance as she felt a gentle hand on her shoulder.  She’d been staring off into space with sullen acceptance of her grim fate, and coming back around to reality – she saw that the vampire was now kneeling next to her.

“Are you able to move?” Riven gently asked in a low tone, removing his mask to reveal handsome features, his red eyes holding her gaze captive as he spoke.

Senna took in a deep breath, combatting her fear and natural urge to scream, and all she could manage to do was shake her head no.

Why did he care?  Was he just making sure she wouldn’t get away whenever he finished doing whatever other business he had here?

The man frowned slightly and gave her a firm, reassuring squeeze – then withdrew his hand from her shoulder and stood back up.  “You’ll be ok.  I promise, we’ll get you out of here.”

***

The elf just looked back, dumbfounded, and Riven seriously began to doubt that she understood him.  He could have sworn he heard them speaking the same language that’d been incorporated into his mind ever since the transition, but maybe he’d been wrong…

A guttural barking voice called out to him from the line of goblins as they stood at the ready, warily taking an assessment of the newcomers for any weaknesses amidst the cries of the elf they’d sawed a hand off of – and the croaking, labored breathing of the broken man on the ground.  “Why vampire here?”

The fact that Riven and Athela had killed two of their number already and the goblins remained almost frozen in fear and hadn’t retaliated was an obvious give away to who held the cards in this standoff.

Riven snorted in disgust, snapping his fingers out in front of him to briefly sparked with a crimson ribbon that quickly dissipated into thin air.  His time in Negrada over the past month had jaded him.  These goblins may be the same level of the ones he’d fought earlier, but the quality of their power was on a completely different scale.  To see such relatively weak monsters in front of him when compared to the things he’d been killing back in the modified tutorial dungeon… it gave him no room for second guesses at what he was about to do.

“Bleed.”

His hand shot into motion as a wave of crimson blades bloomed around him in the air, rapidly closing the distance between him and the little green men.  Shredding the first and blowing off the leg of the second, Riven drew his staff up off the ground as it crackled with black lightning that ripped through another goblin and tore him into paste.

*BOOM*

The trio of blasts sent the goblins shrieking and scattering, only to cry out when Athela blurred forward and ripped into another  to cleave off the goblin’s head with fingers-turned-claws, – then she did it again, blurring forward and impaling a goblin’s skull with one of her arachnoid legs all while cackling loudly as she did it.  Her perfect set of human white teeth had abruptly turned into a lipless snarl of a piranha, with rows of razor sharp fangs underneath her red eyes that’d each grown to twice their normal size.  The beautiful features of the woman look-alike had turned into truly a monster, and her feminine muscles tensed while her six arachnid limbs turned rigid at their tips to produce spears of black, sharp, needle-like appendages.

“SHRREEEEEEE!!!!”  Athela blurred forward with a screech of relish.  Like a whirlwind of crazed rage, she ripped through another two goblins that’d been hiding in the bushes - ones Riven hadn’t even seen or taken note of as he’d been caught up in what was happening in front of him.  It was something he’d have to work on because he knew if he’d paid attention, he’d have noticed their heartbeats.

Limbs and heads flew skywards in sprays of blood, and the demoness hooted with laughter while simultaneously flipping head over heels in a cartwheel to rip entirely through a small tree with her claws - along with yet another hidden goblin that’d been hunkering down behind it.

The rest of the goblins screamed and scattered.

Riven walked over with a malice to the sneer underneath his mask, whipping his staff around while grinning into a groaning goblin’s eyes as it clutched at the bleeding stump of what remained of its leg.  “Say goodbye.”

The once-innocent man plunged the butt of his staff into the terrified goblin’s chest, ramming it into the shrieking creature’s body that sent an explosion of shadows down into the fallen creature.  The blunt force impact of the on-hit shadow magic shattered the goblin’s ribcage, jaw and pelvis in one go - quickly sending the pathetically weak and broken creature into shock.

Licking his lips and letting his body slide down to the ground, his lips peeled back to expose his fangs.  His hunger gnawed at him, and he felt a need - nay, a compulsion to drain the small body of all the lifeblood it had.  His hand shot forward, quickly latching onto the dying goblin’s neck… and he began to squeeze.