Chapter 68 (Patreon)

Chapter 68

Shotgun guy just laughed, then he got tired of kicking – took aim – and fired again.  Another good-sized chunk of wood blasted off the door into bits and pieces, but the idiot had been too close when he’d fired and recoiled as chips of debris hit him in the face and eyes.  “Fuck!”

He staggered back, rubbing at his face and cursing loudly until he managed to clear his line of sight… only to blink rapidly as he came face to face with Riven to his left and Athela to his right.

“Hello chap.” Riven said with a friendly smile underneath the black hood, lazily leaning against the side of the building.  “Care to die for me?”

Athela’s claws extended and flashed up, skewering the man’s stomach and kidney before her arm protruded out the left side of his back.  Shotgun guy screamed in agony and horror, shock clear upon his features amidst Athela’s laughter right before Riven grasped onto the man’s neck and brought it forward – headbutting the guy’s face and breaking his nose in a gush of blood.

*RIP*

*TEAR*

*SPLAT*

“AAAHHHHHH!!!”

Riven found himself beating the man to death alongside his demonic minion.  He felt no sympathy, no remorse, only a deep sense of satisfaction knowing he was - at least in his mind - doing the right thing.  Meanwhile the screams and gurgles intermixed with the occasional small explosion of shadow whenever his staff would make contact with the man’s bloodied body.

Athela ripped a spleen out of the man’s gut as the guy tried to fumble with the shotgun he held onto for dear life, but Riven easily knocked it aside as it fired again.  Coming down hard on the falling man in a downwards strike, one of Athela’s sharpened arachnoid legs whipped out of her back and severed the man’s left hand to send the appendage flying.  Riven then brought his foot down onto the man’s neck with an audible crunch when the windpipe collapsed.

Surprisingly the guy didn’t die right away.  His eyes bulged, coughing up blood and he quivered there on the ground in disbelief.  Riven cocked his head to the side in confusion at how he hadn’t passed yet.  Shrugging and walking over to the shotgun – he picked up the weapon and inspected it.  Seeing that it had no bullets left in it, he walked back over and searched the dying man – finding only two cartridges.

“Good enough.” Riven stated flatly, then he stood up – gave his enemy a final swift kick to the face that sent his neck over at an odd angle with another crunch, and the man lay still.

Athela frowned his way.  “Hey!  That was my kill.”

“Sorry not sorry.”

From the holes in the door, within the dark interior, he saw the man and woman who’d warned him watching with wide eyes.  The man inside had been shot in the leg when they’d tried to make a break for it out the back door and was being bandaged by the woman on the kitchen floor, and both of them wore expressions of mixed hope and horror.

“Eyo!” Riven stated, smiling widely at the husband and wife with a thumbs up while Athela did her best to give them an innocent look despite the spleen in her hand.  “Just wait one moment and we’ll get to talking!”

Shouting from the front echoed out and the pounding on the front door stopped, with the sounds of footsteps quickly coming around the side where the entrance to the backyard was.

Riven quietly held up a finger, pocketing the shotgun shells and kicking the gun to the side as he turned to face the three men that’d come around the side of the boarded-up house.  They were all in a line as they ran, giving Riven reason to grin before scowling when a ray of sunlight dashed across his vision when his hood had been drawn back a little too far.  Regardless, it didn’t stop him from beginning to summon the magic as he prepared a blood lance in front of his outstretched fingers.

Wisps of crimson began radiating off of his skin, rippling down his forearm and into his hand as a thin, shimmering, blood-red spike a few feet across with sharp, lacerating edges materialized at his unspoken command.  This time instead of the usual form of magic, he began to concentrate on making it more solid - forming a more permanent projectile instead of one that fizzled out after impact.  He’d been thinking about practicing something like this and although it probably wouldn’t have much effect on the outcome - he thought he’d give it a try for the sake of science.

Mohawk, Cronie 1, and Cronie 2 all came to a sudden halt when they saw the display of power – confusion evident as they stumbled into one another, when the spear of blood launched forward into the first of them.

The lance ripped through Mohawk’s chest with ease, shredding his left lung and heart as the magic embedded itself into Cronie 2’s right shoulder.  Mohawk gasped in shock, dropping the machete he carried to the grass and fell to his knees while Cronie 2 shrieked and howled to stumble back.

Riven curiously cocked his head to the side as he realized his attempt at keeping the lance in a more permanent state had worked - as it didn't disappear, but remained lodged in the 2nd man like a flagpole.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS THIS!?” Cronie 2 roared, trying to rip the blood magic out of his shoulder before it vaporized right before his eyes when Riven snapped his fingers – leaving a seeping, bloody wound and exposing torn deltoid muscle.  “WHAT THE ACTUAL FUCK!?”

Cronie 1 was stunned, his eyes having grown wide at the sudden and unexpected death of his boss and the injury of his comrade.  He scrambled for the machete, catching sight of shotgun-guy who was bloodied, missing a spleen and dead with his neck at an odd angle behind Riven.

Cursing and adjusting his gold chain, Cronie 1 screamed and rushed Riven to slash at him, only to have his eyes widen further in surprise as Riven easily avoided the predicted attack with a blurring sidestep – letting the machete slide through thin air while Riven rammed upwards into the extended arm of the attacking man underneath the shoulder joint.

*CRACK*

Shadow magic erupted from the black, gnarled staff and ripped completely through the shoulder joint.  With Riven’s enhanced speed and strength, the arm was completely severed with a single blow – but the shocked cronie only had time to stumble forward before the staff whipped back around and slammed into the base of the man’s skull.

Riven didn’t bother watching as Cronie 1’s brains splattered across the dirt, and like a sack of potatoes his body lifelessly hit the ground.  Instead he kept eye contact with Cronie 2, who was staring open-mouthed and clutching at his wounded shoulder in utter disbelief.  That disbelief turned into horror as Riven gave his best impression of an evil laugh, extended his fangs, and pointed the staff Cronie 2’s way.

“Come here, child, I’ve brought cookies!”

It was a little ridiculous, Riven knew it, but he didn’t care.  He was having fun, and as Cronie 2 let out a horror-filled scream and turned to run – Athela dropped from the rooftop above in a dive attack that skewered the man in six different places.  Pinning him to the ground with her arachnoid legs, her hands and bladed tongue when into a flurry of motion as she tore his body into literal shreds that went flying like someone would see if you sent a log through a woodchipper.

“KINKY!” Athela exclaimed with an excited shuddering, beginning to let out a giddy laugh of pure amusement.

Seeing the body parts drenching his minion though, Riven had to take a step back and re-evaluate whether or not she would be able to get all that gunk off even with an hour-long bath.

He checked the dead men, not finding anything of value before proceeding over to the shotgun and picking it up.  Casually loading the gun with the two remaining shells, he hiccupped and nodded in appreciation at his new loot.

[Shotgun]

[Shotgun Shell]

He sighed, again acknowledging that the identification information was still not nearly as good as it’d been back in the tutorial.  He’d really have to find what the system had been referring to as an “Identifier”, because being able to compare items, enemies and ingredients for his totem crafting would be essential for the future.

Regardless he assumed the gun had stats just like his staff did.  He’d never thought of guns as having stats before, but now that everything else had stats in terms of items and weapons… he could safely say it should be the same way.  What DID surprise him was the abrupt sound of a strong heartbeat directly behind him that was inching closer… He whirled, and when he did finally see it… he froze.

There, not even five feet from him, was some kind of enormous cat creature.  It was definitely not a native to Earth, had six clawed feet, and looked like a cross between a leopard and a tiger but had four fuzzy ears – the back set of ears being twice the length as the front set.  Black spots intermingled with stripes along its otherwise yellow coat, and when it realized it’d been spotted – it lunged his way.

[Juvenile Wrath Cat]

Mana coursed through his veins and red sparks lit up across his skin amidst Blessing of the Crow.  Black lightning exploded out of his staff a millisecond later, taking the cat head-on mid-air that had a recoil effect which sent Riven slamming back into the side of the house.  It also knocked Athela head over heels, sending her cartwheeling down the alley with a shriek.  Meanwhile the cat had gotten the worst of it though, and its body erupted into smoldering pieces like fireworks of fleshy bits amidst a torrent of destruction out behind the path the cat had taken.  The fence behind it exploded and the ground underneath erupted to send dirt and debris skywards in a thirty-meter arc of desolation, and Riven’s staff hummed in pleasure as he coughed and picked himself up off the ground to shake himself off.

[You have landed a critical hit.  Max Damage x3.]

To any onlookers, it had appeared that he’d moved so fast that his body had defied time itself… and to Riven… Well, he was just happy to be alive.

Cursing jovially and getting up to evaluate the remains of the dead cat, he cackled gleefully at the dead monster and pushed himself up from the ground.  “You thought you had me, didn’t you – ya little bastard!”

Riven spit on the cat’s corpse, picked up a coin purse that’d dropped out of thin air as a reward from the system, chuckled some more, hoisted the shotgun and its remaining single shot onto his shoulder.  His chest heaved with the thrill and excitement of the brief but stimulating fight, and he regained his normal respiratory rate seconds later.  “Phew!  That was a close one.”