Chapter 75 (Patreon)

Chapter 75

Visions of towering monoliths flooded Riven’s mind as his mana channels surged and reformed themselves.  He wasn’t passed out or out of action like his minions seemed to think him to be, but rather he was attempting to craft an evolution that was rapidly taking shape even as he lay convulsing on the couch.  After he’d thought the fight was done when he’d basically blown up the entire parking lot, he’d had to make a choice due to a surge of inspiration that came with his massive attack: grasp the moment when it’d come to him and immerse himself in the visions - or ignore them.

He was guiding that evolution, molding it to his body, and simultaneously he was experiencing scenes that were not of this world.

He couldn’t quite interpret them yet, but he felt like he was on the precipice.  Oceans of blood, tidal waves of death, and the birth of new life.  Blood was the key to mammal physiology, the life-bringer, and when it was taken away it stripped that life with it.  Even certain plants and elementals had blood in their bodies, though it came in different forms and shapes.  Different colors flashed in front of his eyes while he occasionally glimpsed the real world around him in flashes of heat and light, but he struggled to continue the visions - one after another - while doing his best to interpret their meaning.

Each vision held immense amounts of meaning.  Meaning that he could only glimpse snippets of, but held the truths of the universe in quantities far surpassing his own knowledge.  His mind was expanding, his soul structure reaffirming the rightful place as the master of the sanguine while his pillar began to churn and change.

He almost had it… and yet, he grew frustrated as the minutes rolled by in what seemed like eternities to him.  He was so close, yet could not reach the summit of that knowledge.  He was only able to grasp part of it.

Not yet.  Riven wasn’t able to unlock the entirety of the greater truths and insights of his pillar despite how hard he tried.  Just not yet…

His eyes rapidly blinked and he came out of his pseudo coma with a frustrated scream that shook the room around him when his soul pulsed, giving off an aura of rage that wasn’t necessarily directed at anything in particular other than himself.  Yet the people around him, the humans, all scrambled backwards with terror in their eyes while Azmoth continued to brace himself against Athela’s makeshift plug in the stairway.

The creature on the opposite side was now done massacring everyone upstairs and beating on the plug’s opposite side, tearing away little by little with its immense strength while Athela fidgeted nervously and children around the room began to cry.  But upon his scream she whirled around, wide eyes not understanding how he was even awake after burning through his mana channels so thoroughly.  Then she gawked as an aura unlike anything she’d ever felt out of the nether realms before began to simmer around Riven’s body - and it was the same power that'd been carried on his voice when he'd yelled out in anger.

Crimson eyes flared, and the vampire slowly sat up.  When he stood, the floor underneath him shuddered and quaked, and the couch underneath him shattered  while being flung back as his aura exploded.  A vibrant red cloud of power engulfed his body, and everything within miles of their current position came to a standstill as he took a single step forward.

Even the beast on the other side took pause, and stopped its hammering to let out a low whine.

With lightning speed far faster than he’d ever done before, a blood lance charged and rippled up his arms with wisps of energy before ripping out of his outstretched hand to collide with the plug Athela had made.

It passed right inbetween Azmoth’s armored left arms and a feral scream of rage was heard on the other side of the plug as it shredded and began to fell apart.  Riven’s staff shuddered with an influx of mana and his demons both hastily stepped out of the way when the blade blasted out from the top of the shaft and crashed through the decaying plug, whipping backwards and dragging a gargantuan beast back through with it.  It was large, a grotesque clown’s head snarling with long, yellow, carnivorous teeth while it squealed and tried to latch onto anything and everything it passed by.  Eel-like appendages with bulging muscles and maggot-ridden flesh whipped around and sought Riven’s death right before impact.  But right before the monster reached Riven - a torrent of red ice torpedoed through the conduit of fleshy, whip-like rope attaching the impaled blade to the rest of the vampire’s staff.

*BOOM*

The room shook and Riven’s aura faded slightly when a torrent of power collided with the creature in the underground basement, eviscerating and mutilating the creature with thousands of spikes, needles and blades all created from the blood magic he’d just unleashed.

With a crash, the dead dream monster smashed into the cement walls of the stairway and then was buried in rubble when the stairway collapsed.  Dust and debris was sent scattering amidst shards of solidified crimson magic, and when it settled the mangled remnants of the beast were partially seen scattered through the glass-like portion of the underground passage.

Riven glared at the dead foe, continuing to seeth and radiate power that rippled the very air around him.  Slowly though, as Athela's hand genetly touched his shoulder, he calmed down and closed his eyes.  The rout up was sealed off, and the monsters in the immediate vicinity were all dead.  

At least they were still alive.

***

A final blood-curdling scream and a bestial roar of excitement was heard from up above while Riven and the few dozen others present silently watched the ceiling above them.  More of the dream creatures, the hive mind, had come looking after their initial battle was ended - and they were truly pissed off.  But it appeared they either didn’t know where Riven or his forces were for some reason, perhaps being another of the same species but a different hive mind, or they just simply couldn’t find a way down into the basement after Riven’s magic and the collapsed stairwell had led to an impassable blockage.

Dr. Brass had come out of the room shaking his head in dismay after the loss of the last woman he’d tried to save.  He was in bad shape, and his hollow eyes accepted the strangeness of his situation despite not knowing how it was being done.  “There were hundreds of people up there that we left to die.”

Riven frowned in consideration, but felt a tight squeeze of reassurance from Athela to his left.  “We did what we could.  Would you rather have died as well with them?”

“You did what you could.  I just hid down here like a coward.”  Dr. Brass scoffed, taking off his glasses and slowly walking over to the desk at the front of the surgical waiting area, plopping down into a cushioned rolling chair.  “Obviously I would have rather not died too.  It’s just incredibly sad, frustrating, and somewhat unbelievable.  How has it come to this?”

The old man threw up his hands to either side as the staff, families, patients and one other doctor present all listened to the exchange in silence.  “What the hell is even happening here?  What IS Elysium and why did it do this to us?  We all saw the messages about that bullshit apocalypse, half of us even went to some forsaken tutorial event, but am I really supposed to believe that our world merged with two others and is now connected to some sort of intergalactic labyrinth of planets?”

The old man then pointed to Riven accusingly.  “And you!  You come in here with a two demonic pets and have the ability to do shit like cast APOCALYPTIC MAGIC!?  We watched your fight through the kid's mapping ability!  You took on hundreds of those beasts by yourself!  And WHY do you have elves with you of all god damn things!?”

Dr. Brass slammed his fists down onto the desk in frustration, biting back tears and flaring his nostrils.  He then pointed to where the door had once been, now being sealed completely shut by stone to form a thick wall.  “How!?  Why?!  What the fuck is going on here?!  I demand answers!  My friends just DIED up there god damn it!”

People around the room began to murmur, with only an occasional groan from the guy who’d recently had surgery to remove a piece of metal from his arm in the next operating room over.  Riven didn’t know how to approach the situation.  He knew the doctor was hurting.  This entire situation was fucked up.

Athela, fortunately, was there to explain things for him when Riven found he lacked the words.  “I believe I may be of some assistance in explaining our situation, now that I’m at liberty to divulge slightly more information with the tutorial being over.”

Lightly nudging Riven’s side with a finger of hers, she turned around and happily hummed.  “My name is Athela!  I am a rather young demon, which is an immortal entity that generally isn’t allowed into the mortal realms unless certain requirements are met.  This is my master, Riven Thompson, who contracted me so that I could safely get out of the nether realms and then saved me from being cannibalized by another group of demons in the realms of hell.  The big guy who occasionally lights himself on fire is Azmoth, he’s another of Riven’s demons and he’s basically a dumb ape.  It is very nice to meet all of you!”

Nothing but awkward staring and silence ensued, other than an irritated and guttural growl from Azmoth behind her.

“Well then!” Athela stated sourly, her sharp feminine features become visibly irritated at the lack of reply.  “Tough crowd!  Anyways, I’ll start with some of the already posed questions and statements.  Yes, your planet Earth has been incorporated into Elysium’s multiverse.  The multiverse is a vast and sprawling universe of planets that you can travel between at different portal zones.  However, because your planet of Panu is newly formed from Earth and two others – Panu will have a cleansing of sorts in the form of trials.”

Athela waited with a pause again for questions, but there were none.  So she continued with an eyeroll.  “I don’t know what those trials will be, but they will either be surpassed or billions will die for every one of them that isn’t passed.  I’m not at liberty to say what those trials will be, and a lot of the time they even differ.  I could even be wrong with my own guesses, but you’ll all find out soon enough.  Moving on - now that you are all part of the multiverse, you are part of a magic-dense existence.  Ambient mana can be controlled and wielded into various useful tools, such as ascensions, but many forms it takes materialize as monsters such as the creature that killed most of the people upstairs.  You will also soon find yourself able to cultivate and grow various Dao pillars, which are insights and pathways to power that stack on top of your normal stats, levels and magical abilities.  Unfortunately for most of you, the death rate for newly integrated worlds is very high and you likely won’t ever get to begin leveling - and you’ll likely get nowhere near cultivating.  But fear not!  If you take a pledge of allegiance to my master and allow him to feed on you regularly, we will keep you safe.”

The demoness turned gracefully to focus on Riven ignoring the shocked looks of horror written on the mortals around her.  “Was that a Dao vision you were experiencing earlier?  You’re able to produce an aura now.  Oh, and I highly suggest that you keep these people as subjects.  Finding cattle to feed on regularly will mean you don’t have to hunt, and it can make finding a good thrall or two a lot easier.”

He ignored her first question and narrowed his eyes.  Riven didn’t even know what a thrall was, but he was more concerned about how she was openly talking about turning these humans into cattle and scaring the living daylights out of them after they’d just been trapped in a basement with him and his demons.  He gave her an openly angry glare, and her smile turned sheepish when she realized she’d fucked up and mouthed the word ‘sorry’ his way with a pout.  She truly looked bad about it too.  Habits were tough to break, but at least she was trying.

Even the teenage kid who’d come up and shared his mapping ability with them for a bit looked visibly shocked at Athela’s words, and people began silently looking for another way out soon after.

A small child with a pink bow in her blonde hair, about 6 years old with a teddy bear held to her chest, slowly inched out from behind her mother near the cushioned chairs on Riven’s left.  “Are you a vampire mister?  I heard that lady talking and she said you were.”

“A friendly vampire!” Riven said awkwardly, taking off his mask and smiling gently down at the little girl.  “I promise.”

Another burly man with a basketball logo on his shirt scoffed nearby and folded his arms.  “Vampire?  Really?  You’re going to make us buy into that?  You just look like a creep in a cosplay outfit to me.”

Riven’s smile turned to the man and he extended his fangs for everyone to see.  A couple people took in sharp gasps and even more backed away, but Riven’s smile returned to normal seconds later.  “Is it really that hard to believe after everything that’s happened?  I cast magic, have demonic summons with me, and you're questioning... that?  Are you a fucking idiot?”

He shook his head with a snort.  “Unlike all of you, I was flung into a hellscape.  I was changed because of it.  If you don’t want to stay due to that, I’ll let you all leave after this is over… but you’re all going to have to wait for those monsters to leave first.”

Murmurs flooded the room as they looked to the area where the door had been and then to Riven.  Some of them continued to inch back with fearful looks cast his way, while others were just simply curious.

“So you were human at one point then?  How does that work, exactly?” The doctor that’d been performing surgery not even 5 minutes ago asked with a curious glare.  She was tall, thin, middle aged and had blood spots along her blue scrubs with a nametag that read ‘Dr. Beth Waters’ and ‘Physician’ across the front.  She stepped forward, brushing her brunette hair to the side and peering at Riven’s face.  “Open up again.”

Athela sneered at the absolute lack of awareness on the doctor’s part for personal space.  Or at least that’s what Riven assumed she was sneering for.

“Sure…” Riven stated hesitantly, opening up and extending his fangs for the doc to take a look at.

Ten seconds later Dr. Waters nodded absentmindedly and shut his mouth for him by lightly pushing up on his jaw.  “Fascinating.  We should talk later, but I have to make sure my patient in the other room remains stable.  Keep me posted if anything happens.”

The woman walked back into the operating room with a nurse in tow, obviously a no-nonsense kind of person and seemingly not bothered at all by everything that was going on around them.

“I’ll not have my kids around monsters like you three.” A latina mother snarled from across the room, holding a little boy in her lap as her heavily tattooed husband next to her sat tensed and ready to spring.   He was with another mean-looking bald man that wore no shirt and carried a baseball bat on his left.  “You’ll keep your word and let us out when those creatures leave?”

Riven snorted, partially in amusement and partially in disgust at the way she was talking to him.  “You’ll be more than free to leave.  I could give less than a flying fuck about where you go, lady.  For now, I’m going into OR 5.  Don’t come in without knocking first and try not to bother us unless something interesting happens.  Athela, Azmoth, – let’s go.”