Chapter 112 - Beginning of Book 3 (Patreon)

Chapter 112 - Beginning of Book 3

Justin’s gigantic body roiled and churned, warping into something greater as dark metal tore through the air around him and through him like a cyclone of the profane.  He was a walking apocalypse, a titanic of a man, born from the unholy powers of this universe to pass judgement on those weaker than himself.

And he would not be undone by this nobody.

The cobblestone street beneath him shattered and Justin launched himself like a rocket from hell, swinging his enormous spiked mace with a thunderclap of power with a cloud of shrapnel tearing through space around him.

The shrouded rogue he was fighting, another participant of the Chalgathi trials, dove left in a blur of shadow that sent wraith-like daggers whipping out from his trajectory in a torrent of shadow mana.  The man easily avoided the first titanic swing, flipping onto a nearby thatched roof and then shifting through space twenty meters away.  Whipping around and pulling out a crossbow laden with putrefying bolts, the rogue used an ability to rapid-fire  replicas of the enchanted bolts in a hail of projectiles.

Despite the enormous amount of incoming missiles, Justin’s cloud of whirling shrapnel was fiercer and the majority of the bolts were easily blocked.  Those that did land either bounced off his thick metal armor entirely or only lodged partway.  Unfortunately for the rogue though, this was not nearly enough.  The putrefaction did not take hold, because what kind of poison would affect a body created from unholy metal?

Justin’s muscles flexed and with a roar, he swept his enormous mace in the rogue’s direction that sent shockwaves of kinetic energy ripping through the town structures and blasting the rogue skywards in a scrambling and uncontrolled flight.

“Forsake the heavens and bring me fury!”  Just finished the miracle’s incantation with a sweeping gesture of his arms into the sky.  In an instant, demonic hieroglyphs lit up in the center of a flaming pentagram high above.

*CRASH*

The sky above the rogue exploded and the clawed, flaming hand of some untold behemoth ripped out from the infernal pits of hell to smash down into the screaming man.  The rogue was flattened from above in a fiery explosion that leveled entire streets, dissipating into a tornado of infernal flames that continued to billow into his enemy, and Justin’s whirling cloud of black metal soared higher as he yet again exploded forward to cover the distance.

But just when he was about to reach the site of impact his danger sense screamed at him to dodge left.

Unquestioningly he pivoted and rolled, narrowly avoiding a black laser beam that left remnant holes in the fabric of space itself for seconds afterwards.  Justin’s eyes narrowed, looking at the burned figure of his opponent who was stumbling out of a street alley and spitting blood.

Just glanced back to the still-raging tornado of flames, then to the rogue again.  He picked himself up and leveled his mace, easily weighing over a thousand pounds, with just one arm at the agility user.  “How did you get out of it?  That miracle is supposed to keep you locked in place.”

The smoking man, let out a raspy, gasping fit of laughter, then fell to one knee and dropped the crossbow in his hand.  His eyes slowly lifted, part of his face still burning while he sneered.  “Fuck you Justin… You fucking prick… *GASP*...  When the others find out what you’ve done, they’ll hunt you down… Just like… *GASP*... You did to me…”

Justin couldn’t help but let out a low chuckle, and he shook his head in disgust.  “Daniel.  You don’t understand… The cult was only a means to an end in the beginning.  That end was to reach Chalgathi, and we accomplished that.”

Justin held up both hands to either side, turning around and gesturing at the ruined town where family members sobbed over loved ones and the injured cried out for help.  “All of this world, Daniel, is for the taking… but there can only be one king.  Outside of ideologies, the cult is no more now that its purpose is solved.  The goal is the same, it always has been for men like you and me, but we were never friends.  We were allies of circumstance alone, and after the trials were completed… I had no more use of you.  Just like the others have no more use of me.  No doubt they will hunt me down, but so am I hunting them.  So are we all hunting one another in order to acquire the artifacts needed to breach the resting place of destiny.”

He turned back around and began walking towards the other man with his mace resting on one shoulder.  “There can only be one to lay claim to the prize Daniel.  There can only be one king.  I am sorry.  Well, not really, but I need your Chalgathi artifact… and we both know you’d come after me if I let you live after taking it.”

Justin approached with a malicious smile from underneath his layers of fused armor, his cloud of shrapnel began tearing the smaller man apart - ripping pieces of his body off in a gore-laden spray.  Daniel didn’t scream, but merely glared while he was violently torn asunder.

The cloud of shrapnel receded soon after Daniel died, pulling back into Justin’s body.  He smiled wickedly and knelt down, picking up the items he had come for.  They were completely undamaged from his assault on the prior wearer, and he could feel the mana-bond between the two that kept them as a single unit despite being physically separate.

They were gauntlets, and each gauntlet was a masterpiece.  A testament of unholy might.  When the rogue had worn them, they were made of red leather with small knives protruding from each knuckle and green runes adorning them, however when Justin picked them up the gauntlets changed into a solid iron-like substance.  However they were still adorned with the same green, flickering, unholy runes and casting an ominous aura of malice just by looking at them.

[Chalgathi Cultist Claws: ???]

He frowned, but not for long.  No doubt he’d have to go back to that trashy identifier again to get a read.  Still, he’d acquired what he’d come for.  It was one more piece to the set, he had 2 of the 5 now including his breastplate, and the questline hadn’t even propagated fully yet.

He was way ahead of the curve.

Putting the gauntlets on, his metal body fused over each of them and incorporated the pieces into his shell.  Feeling a pulse of power and a chilling sensation overcome him, Just let his mind frolic in the feeling of success and let out a long sigh of contentment.

“THERE HE IS! HE’S OVER HERE!  CALL THE-”

*CRASH*

The soldier’s body splattered across the cobblestone street, leaving a bloody trail behind his corpse.  Justin blinked, snorted, and slowly turned away from the burning town to make his way south.  He still had an agenda to keep, and although he was way ahead of where he thought he’d be at this point in time - that didn’t mean he could get lazy.

It was time to set up the ritual again.  It was time to find more targets.

***

[System Quest, Eradicate the Greenskins: has been disbanded due to failure to hold up your end of the bargain with the High Elves of Greenstalk Village.]

[Hidden System Quest, Backstabbing Pointy-Eared Racist Bastards: has been successfully completed by defeating the elves who tried to trick and kill you.

System Regional Quest, Crusade Against the Undead: has been defeated after killing Benjamin, otherwise known as ‘Prophet.’

You have angered the minor holy god Petori due to your actions.  You have pleased the apocalypse beast Chalgathi due to your actions.  Your B-Ranked prize previously promised through the failed quest ‘Eradicate the Greenskins’ has been upgraded into an A-Ranked prize due to your actions:

• Your Elysium Altar (currently in rod form) has been given the Unholy orientation with terraforming abilities, and strengthens those of the Unholy Foundational Pillar as long as they are within its area of effect on terraformed land.  Your Elysium Altar will now increase your ability to cultivate all Unholy Foundational Pillar and associated Sub-Pillar Daos within its area of effect.  Terraforming landscape is permanent when chosen, gives different unique bonuses depending on which type of unholy landscape is chosen, and may be selected between randomly rolled options of ‘Haunted Forest,’ ‘Hellscape,’ and ‘Shadowlands.’  Additional options are available for purchase if you wish to pay the appropriate fee.  Your Elysium Altar now has the ability to forcibly orient willing participants towards the Unholy Foundational Pillar for an appropriate fee, rewriting their original orientations completely but with similar affinity percentages.]

The army of goblins, orcs, and undead marched on either side of the lines of shackled elves chained together while making their way north towards Brightsville.  Not only had the greenskins brought their fighting force, but they’d brought their entire civilian population as well that took up the rear end of the columns while simultaneously having some small groups of escorts protect them from local monsters.  The humans following Prophet had all been butchered mercilessly, while the majority of the elf village had been successfully subdued without much resistance given their loss of manpower over the last weeks.

Looking out from underneath his hood, Riven’s glowing red eyes gazed impassively across their ranks from atop a hill in the light of midday.  Allie’s distant tower could be seen from here, shimmering even in the daylight with teal and black power while her bone garden continued to terraform the structure.

How fast that would speed up after he planted the Elysium Altar’s rod was only speculation at this point.

Sniffling and the rattling of chains to his left caused Riven’s head to turn, and beside him the elf Genua - mother to Ethel, was wiping away more tears while glaring bloodshot eyes his way.  Her usually silky blonde hair was frazzled and cached with mud, and her occasional glance towards the group of elf children being gently herded by skeletal undead caused her brows to furrow in worry.

He stared at her, undisturbed by her source of mourning.  Her scantily clad body that he'd once upon a time found attractive, just as her daughter Ethel's had, now did nothing but disgust him.  She, her husband Farrod, her eldest daughter Ethel and the entirety of their village had tricked him and tried to kill him.  For what?  For helping them and saving their lives?  They’d played themselves off as victims when they’d started the war with the greenskin village in the first place, and then they’d tried to murder him simply because of what he was even though he’d shown them nothing but kindness.

Well his kindness was gone now.  It was long, long gone.

“Will you eat her?” Genua’s voice cracked with emotional pain, head-bobbing towards the large group of children that’d been separated from their parents.  “Will you kill Len like you killed my husband and my other daughter?”

Riven snorted with derision, hands remaining shoved into the pockets of his cloak while his staff ‘Vampire’s Escort’ remained hovering in the air at his side.  “Please.  You all had this coming and your punishment is more than generous after what you tried to do, do not act like the victim here.  As for Len, no.  I absolutely will not kill her.  I intend to re-educate all of the elf children so they can grow up into adults with futures inside our community, we can’t have you racist fucks raising a bunch of future enemies that’ll try to rise up against us.  My sister Allie wanted those kids immediately killed, but I refused.  This was the compromise.”

Genua’s knees shook, her cracked lips trembled, and she fell to her knees with an audible, single sob.  She’d long cried any tears she had left and was becoming dehydrated.  “Will I ever get to speak to her again?  To my darling daughter Len?”

Riven raised an eyebrow, then followed her gaze to where the spunky little blonde girl in a reed dress that he’d become so fond of was marching in sight with scared glances up the hill towards their position.  He didn’t know what to think of Len, honestly.  She’d only done what her family had told her to do, perhaps she was too young to really understand the meaning and consequences behind her actions.  Could he expect anything less of a child after she’d lied to him as well?

He let out a long, drawn out sigh.  “Yes, you’ll be able to see her.  But only under certain circumstances.”

“Which are?” Genua pressed with a shaking voice.

“You’ll either be proctored with each visit, or you’ll allow yourself to be made into a thrall.  Stay a slave with supervision on regular visitation periods, or become a thrall and allow your mind to be warped so you don’t hold us in a negative light.  I hear it isn’t so bad, and some people even actively pursue such a route for power.  Or so I’m told.”  Riven gestured out towards the hundreds of enslaved elves marching inbetween the military columns.  “The same goes for all of them.  The adults of your village won’t be forced into backbreaking labor, but they’ll still be forced to work and will be allowed to live simple but happy lives if you choose to make it that way.  I can make that promise because you’re all my charge now, you’re my cattle, my personal slaves, or to better think of it - you all belong as slaves to the new government of the Thane Necropolis.  That government is split down the middle between Allie and myself, and Allie wants nothing to do with you.  She thinks your bodies would be better used as more willing, undead participants rather than the souls you have inside you now.  But it was my decision to keep you alive.  The people of your village that can’t work because they’re too old and weak will be made into cattle for the vampires as we create a coven within this necropolis we’ve built, but you’ll all be treated fairly enough.  For those of you who wish it, becoming a thrall will be an option if you manage to persuade one of the vampires or future vampires here to do so.”

Genua took her eyes off the column and gave him a scathing glare again.  Her fists trembled in rage, and he could tell that she was holding the venom back from her words.  “You want to turn us into monsters like you.”

Riven shrugged.  “Talk about it or think about it however you want.  I don’t give a shit.  This is your life now, the consequences of your actions.  We could not just leave a fanatic group of racist elves and holy warriors wandering the wilds nearby our newly established faction, so pucker up and deal with it.”

He blinked her way, and waved back to Fay when the succubus flew overhead - gliding over the columns and circling back around towards the mountains.  Then he turned his head to look at her one more time.  “You know Genua, I had hoped this would be very different from the way it turned out.  However it didn’t go as either of us hoped, and now we’re here.  You’ll get to see Len regularly regardless of whether or not you choose to become my thrall, but if you want unrestricted access that’s the only way to go about it.  Either way I’m going to feed on you weekly, or daily, or whatever suits my needs.  Because I don’t care anymore, because I need blood to survive, and because I want to make you remember who it was that you fucked with at the end fo every day before you go to bed.  The others are dead, all the other elves I knew are now dead.  Gone.  You and Len are the only ones remaining, and call it petty if you want - but I want to rub it in your face every time you see me succeed.  I want you to know that I could have been your friend, a friend to your family, but instead you and yours chose this.  You tried to murder me for nothing but my good will, and now you pay the consequences.”

He gestured to Azmoth, who was standing behind them and listening in on their conversation curiously.  “Come on Azmoth, pull her along.  We’ve still got a long march ahead of us and we have to make it to the meeting with that rat-man Snagger in time.  No need to dilly-daddle.”

Azmoth grunted in acknowledgement and the large demon yanked on Genua’s chain to follow Riven down the hill, dragging the elf along by her shackles until she managed to get her feet under her again and stumble to a walk.

For the captured villagers of Greenstalk, it was going to be a very long trip.