Chapter 98 (Patreon)

Chapter 98

Azmoth’s bellowing roar and the gleeful screeches of Athela intertwined with one another as sounds of battle climbed higher, and Riven teleported through a black rift in space as an axe from another charging enemy rounding the corner sliced across his robe and nicked his shin.

*CRUNCH*

The back end of Riven’s staff crushed the orc’s skull in completely with an explosion of shadow that radiated out upon impact - a relatively cost-free enchantment of the weapon whenever he struck a physical blow.  The ice hadn’t slowed the others down as much as he’d though it would though, and he was growing irritated because of the amount of mana expenditure he had and the lack of time he was given to rejuvenate it.  However he also couldn’t count on close combat to relieve his mana expenditure for too long, as he honestly knew very little about handling a staff of this size other than the utter basics of swing-for-the-hills.

But why was this so much different from back at the hospital?  With this many bodies, he shouldn’t be having mana concerns… there was plenty of blood to fuel his spells with a reduced cost.  Yet here he was, resorting to physical combat and notably having sluggish mana regeneration.

That’s when he noticed a little flashing icon in his peripheral vision.  Focusing on it, he saw that he’d been hit with a debuff - likely from those frozen arrows that’d hit him in the chest and shoulder earlier.

[You have been afflicted with Frostbite.  Mana, Health, and Stamina regeneration are all reduced by half for the next 29 minutes.]

By half?

Jesus.  Well, Riven didn’t really use much stamina, and his health regeneration was insane.  So it made sense in some regards that his mana loss would be most noticeable.

He whirled upon hearing a heartbeat turn the corner he’d just passed by, blocking a strike from a sword with the shaft of his weapon and knocking the man back with an on-contact explosion of shadow.  Cursing and sending another spinning disc at the man that ripped through his ankle, Riven’s eyebrows shot up in surprise when his target’s body glowed green for a split second before the orc was launched to safety in a blur of motion even despite minor injury.  The orc looked back, flinging his gladius to the ground in a panic and turned to hop as fast as he could in the opposite direction despite the useless right ankle just as another roar of challenge echoed from within the cabin.

Riven barely had time to dodge when a huge battle axe tore through a wooden support beam of the cabin wall.  Frantically conjuring a series of acidic snares around him and attaching them from wall to wall of the short alley in layers, Riven watched the new warrior bulldozing through the shoddy construct come to a standstill and glare his way.

“Vampire scum!” The tusked, heavily muscled orc brute spat as he hoisted his battle axe with hatred in his eyes.  “A GENOCIDE AGAINST YOUR KIND, UNHOLY CREATURE!  I DO NOT KNOW WHY YOU ARE HERE FIGHTING TO HELP THE ELVES, BUT TODAY WILL BE YOUR LAST DAY IN THIS REALM!”

The enraged man roared, his battle axe shifting to a bright red color as he brought it down and sent an arc of energy tearing through the snares and rupturing another piece of the opposite wall of the tree-house in a spray of debris.

Riven shifted left to avoid the attack while laughing loudly at the attempt, enhanced by his electrified movement buff; and he began pouring mana into Crimson Ice.  The red crystals of ice around his feet began rapidly spreading again, covering the entire alley, walls, barrels and rooftops around him as the warrior roared and charged ahead - but was quickly set upon by concentrated flurries of red snowflakes that bloomed all around in the air to blind the orc.

It was instinctive and a very first.  The blood magic had responded to Riven’s will just as the idea popped into his mind, and as Riven focused the spell on a singular area in a way that he hadn’t realized he’d be able to do before now - the magic obeyed.  The command had just felt right… and his mana had reacted without second guessing him at all.  It wasn’t a new spell, it was the same as the normal Crimson Ice he’d already acquired, but utilized in a new way - and his chest swelled with pride in that instant at having found a unique use for it.

He could create snow with Crimson Ice too, and could partially blind his opponents with it.  That was something he’d have to continue utilizing if he made it through this fight.

Riven’s opponent swore and cursed, waving his axe around and battering aside an iced-over barrel before slipping and screaming in rage when the blade of his own axe made a shallow cut into his right hand upon hitting the ground.

*WHAM*

The warrior’s head was rocked back with a spartan kick to the face as the snow briefly cleared - stunning the man just as a Riven’s staff came crashing into him with a brutal horizontal swing that sent additional explosive shadow magic up through his weapon on contact.

*CRUNCH*

The orc's brains were immediately plastered against the side of the house, the entire front side of the orc’s head gored and caved in with nothing but his lower jaw remaining of his face.  This was pretty brutal.  Even since he’d been engaged in close combat and needed to watch his mana reserves, even then - when his ability to kill mass amounts of people dwindled to only a few at a time so he could regenerate, it was still a slaughter.  Fay’s black mists continued to soak into orc and goblin alike from somewhere in the sky above, many of their withered bodies rotting with silent screams on their faces.  Athela and Azmoth were still putting in work too.  Other bodies were cut in half, blown up, burned to death, heads lopped off, body parts strewn across the ground in mounds, the list went on.

Riven then looked around to all the dead elves, children and women alike.  His heart grew cold, and his determination solidified.  There was no excuse for killing people who couldn’t fight back.  What he was doing was right and just.

“ORC MAKES GOOD PUNCHING BAG!!!!”

Azmoth barreled through the adjacent building, sending it crumbling as he crushed two enemy fighters into the ground simultaneously - two hands apiece.  Flaming claws ripped and tore pieces of the flattened orcs out even as their broken bodies lay splattered against the ground, and the building fell around them to reveal Athela blurring across the ice with hit and run tactics; dancing up walls or trees, over rooftops and inbetween archers to leave headless corpses, venomous wounds afflicted with necrotic poison, or needles of hardened blood webbing that she was shooting from her fingers protruding from her targets.  The red-robed orc mage she’d been sent after was also very dead, having been left limp and impaled on a large broken tree branch far above them for all to see.

“KILL THE VAMPIRE, AND THE DEMONS WILL BE BANISHED!!” The remaining shaman screeched his encouragement over the clatter of battle while he accumulated a large ball of elemental lava overhead.  He snarled and unleashed it a second later, tearing into Riven’s position - but the shaman’s hands were jerked left at the last moment.

Riven’s body took the hit - sending him through the other adjacent building and tearing it down as well with a loud crash and explosion of wood when the condensed ball of molten metal struck.  He was flung through the near wall, through a support beam, into a bed and out the next wall before coming to a rolling stop as he slightly twitched from the attack.  Broken bones quickly began to mend, and he let out a gasp when his crushed, burned lungs reorganized themselves - but although he was healing from the attack, he could tell that his regeneration had taken a big hit.  He was healing more slowly now even despite the darkness, still had the frostbite debuff plaguing him, and he seemed more prone to damage from that type of magic than any other attack he’d ever been hurt with before.  If he had to guess, the shaman was using magic from the Volcano sub-pillar of Fae, though he didn’t know why it would do extra damage to him when compared to other varieties he’d been hit with before.  His status page concerning his vampiric bloodline had never mentioned a weakness to volcanic-type spells or abilities, but it may just be that the spell he’d been hit with had some intrinsic properties itself that caused his healing to slow and wasn’t an actual weakness concerning his race.

In fact he was pretty sure he may not have survived at all if he’d been hit a little higher up in the neck or head.  Thankfully Athela had managed to throw the mage off with strings of  webbing from her fingers - pulling the shaman’s hands to the side at the last second and keeping his aim lower than it had been.  Whatever that magic was, it was powerful.

He dismissed the pain from his mind and pushed himself up to a staggering stand, cursing as he saw a smaller orc rogue wielding daggers try to get the drop on him from behind.  He responded in a split second, conjuring yet another two nets of black, acidic needles.

The wiry rogue was sprinting ahead and threw a spinning dagger that embedded itself in Riven’s right arm when he raised it to block, causing Riven to stagger back again just as the nets of wretched snare finished conjuring right in front of the rogue’s trajectory.

The hooded orc, who was likely a little older than Riven without any tusks and a well-trimmed crew cut, evaded the first conjured net by blurring three feet to the left with some kind of ability Riven was unfamiliar with.

Fortunately Riven’s second net had manifested itself slightly behind the first one and the Rogue’s momentum took him tumbling face-first into the acidic black magic.  It wrapped around the dagger-wielding man, puncturing his skin with innumerable, tiny, shifting needles as the snare dug in and began eating away at his flesh.

The rogue yelped and then began to scream and fall, begging for mercy while the black magic wrapped him up before finding his own dagger - the dagger he’d thrown at Riven’s arm - brutally cutting across his neck.

Riven glared down at the orc, pushing the blade up further into the carotid artery and then into the esophagus as sputtering and coughing replaced the screams with wide eyed flailing.

“Nighty night!”

Riven sneered, yanking the dagger back out and plunging it into the rogue’s left eye.  He panted for just a moment, collecting the snare up in his hand.

The black net of unholy magic was easily ripped off of the dead rogue with his fingers - as easily as picking up a pebble off the ground - and Riven whipped it back over his head to send the snare crashing onto yet another lightly armored fighter in studded leather that appeared on the other side of the ruined building.  He watched the next man hit the ground in a panic while trying to tear the acidic black magic off of him.  It burned and sizzled, peeling away his skin rapidly as the needles dug into his flesh and finding the man’s muscles next.

The orc dropped his short sword as well with a pained grunt, fumbled for something in his pouch and slammed whatever he had in his hand down on the ground right before Riven got to him with the gnarled head of his sharpened staff.  Smoke billowed out from the scout’s position, obscuring Riven’s sight as he coughed and wheezed before retreating to a safe distance and sending a torrent of black lightning out of his weapon into the gray cloud.

When Riven got another, higher pitched grunt of pain - he smiled to himself and sent out a single bloody razor that ended its trajectory with a wet thud and a scream of agony.  He then imbued the embedded shard with more magic.  He may not be able to see the man he’d hit in the thick haze of the smoke bomb, but he could still sense the magic he’d thrown out.

The disc erupted in bloody shrapnel, turning the scream into an abrupt silence as pieces of the man in the smoke field flew out and about around where Riven stood.

Azmoth was having a rather easy time with the melee fighters and archers, though not so much against the mages.  He’d taken it upon himself to kill the shaman, which was one of the few casters Athela hadn’t already assassinated, and was continually thrown back with blast after blast of molten metal.  The heat certainly didn’t hurt the hellscape brutalisk, but each impact was like a god-damned cannon ball and hit just as hard.  The demon was exhibiting wounds underneath the flames and dents in his armor, but he would still shake off the brutal attacks and charge in time after time.  He was even slowly healing his own wounds to an extent due to the passive trait his hellfire gave him, though not nearly as fast as Riven’s own vampiric regeneration could muster under a night sky.

Riven watched Azmoth get blown back three more times, admiring his defensive capabilities.  Even despite not getting close enough to take the caster out, the shaman was still panicking due to the constant pressure and was likely expending tons of mana trying to keep Azmoth at bay.

“KEEP YOUR MIND ON THE BATTLE, BOY!”

*WHAM*

Riven felt the front of his face take a heavy impact as a blurring object slammed into him, again sending him sprawling onto the ground and causing the world to spin.  If the mask hadn’t been there to take the hit - he would have had a much worse injury.  He dizzily flailed back to his knees and gaped up at the large two-handed mace being wielded by a shirtless, bald hulk of an orc that grinned down at him from a short distance.

“I can’t believe you survived that, vampire!  The stories about your kind are truly accurate, though I hadn’t believed them until now!” The hulking orc warrior said as he brought up his mace again while another shirtless warrior with a braided ponytail wielding a large hatchet walked up beside him.  “I’m sorry for your loss, boy, but don’t take it personally!  It’s just part of the job!”

The mace swung down, crushing the spot Riven had just been in with an aftershock of martial power right after Fay yanked him out of the way to the enraged bellows of Riven’s two pursuers.  She rapidly flapped her wings and swung Riven around the side of another cabin, gliding through air between two burning tents, pulling him at breakneck speed up the side of a tree-house like he was on a brutal roller coaster ride until coming to an abrupt stop on top of a roof jutting from a tree.

The demoness dropped him, quickly inspecting his bleeding body and the wounds he’d accumulated that still hadn’t healed completely yet due to his regeneration slowing down.  Her nervous expression soon changed to that of relief though when she saw he was ok.

Riven picked himself up, dusted his shoulders off, and gave Fay a head nod.  “Thanks.  Your hallucinations are still on cooldown, right?”

“Yes.  I usually am able to use that ability once per battle, unless the battle goes on for more than a half hour.”  The succubus nodded, gesturing to the battle below them where Athela was continuing to assassinate people at random while rapidly dashing in and out of the village terrain for cover.

“Ok.  Stay with me and set up some defensive traps until I regain more mana and the ability to cast.  My mana regeneration is being slowed down significantly.”  Riven glanced down at the ice still coating his chest and shoulder, grimacing when he touched the mana infused wounds.  His regeneration hadn’t completely rid himself of it, and the frostbite debuff was still in effect.  “Who’d have thought those pain in the ass arrows would be what cripples me this battle.  Never would have guessed.”

Fay nodded eagerly and her muscles relaxed, simultaneously withdrawing her long black wings to fold them behind her.  “As you say, master!”

She raised her hands and began to point.  Unholy green runes flashed in the air around them and along the tree before becoming invisible again, with Fay’s sky-blue hands twisting in front of her - starting to cover a large area before connecting different groups of them with mana-made tripwires for more of a punishing effect.

Meanwhile the screams and roars of the battle a couple cabins down echoed across the village as Azmoth continued to tear through poor souls stupid enough to get close.  The brutalisk was an absolute beast of a creature, and he was now keeping well over half of the enemy party occupied as he rampaged through their midst while breathing fire or tearing greenskins apart in a masterful display of violence.  He’d moved on to chewing on goblins midfight now, swallowing bites off the relatively smaller creatures while they gave out terrified shrieks and tried to get away and attack at range.  The elves were still fighting on their own front too, though they were regaining a foothold in the fight and were pushing the greenskins back - simultaneously trying to make their way across the forest clearing towards their imprisoned loved ones.

“Fay…” Riven muttered under his breath, letting the seconds tick by and studying at the absolute carnage of Azmoth’s doing.  “Is it normal for all hellscape brutalisk infants to be this kill-hungry?”

Fay let out a laugh and came to stand beside him, finishing her network of defensive traps.  “Yes… it is.  Just wait until he gets bigger though, those creatures get rather large.  Athela has already been talking about how she’s going to make Azmoth her battle-steed.”

Riven snorted a laugh, shooting the grinning succubus a smirk and let out a long sigh.  “Well, that sounds a lot like something Athela would say.  Does Azmoth know of her master plan?”

“Not yet.”

“Figures.  Can’t wait until the day she tries, I’d pay money to watch that episode unfold.”

The sound of multiple nearby heartbeats and rushing footsteps interrupted their idle chat mid-battle and alerted Riven to an advancing enemy at the back.  Before he could even turn though, a series of explosions sent shockwaves and debris from along the treehouse roof.  Branches, body parts and tiles blasted apart as two orc bodies were sent spiraling outwards onto the ground dozens of feet down, but he noticed the third attacker almost too late.

It was a rogue, a young orc woman with flowing raven hair that’d managed to avoid the traps.  She had been stealthed somehow, making herself completely invisible until she’d gotten too close and the ability’s influence broke.  Her fur-clad body and tusked, sneering face shimmered into existence only a couple feet away mid-sprint.

Riven was surprised, but startled even further when a glass vial of purple liquid was thrown at his feet.  It didn’t hit him, but exploded on impact to release a cloud of purple mist.

*SPLASH*

The potion quickly started absorbing into his skin, and his mana channels felt like they were on fire as he screamed and dropped to his knees.  His veins felt like they had sludge moving through them, and he tried to summon magic to kill this new opponent with a rage - but quickly found out that he couldn’t use the mana at all.

[You have been afflicted with Gulsh Lilly Toxin.  Your mana and stamina channels are now blocked completely for the next three hours.]

Oh.  Oh fuck.

He looked up, wide eyed, and brought his staff to bear.  “THESE FUCKING ROGUES!”

With a snarl and only a moment later she leaped forward for his throat with a dagger pointed directly at it.  “FOR ANTHAS!”