Chapter 143 (Trying to channel some cultivation here, let me know what you think and if anything can be changed to fit it better) (Patreon)

Chapter 143

The shrill cries and screams of the oncoming swarm echoed around him, like a faint memory on a wayward breeze.  Flocks of beautiful red blades continued to wash away the enemies that dared to try their hand at his life, wiping them off the face of the building and ending their existences effortlessly.  He only needed to think about it, and the blood magic reacted to his will.

Blood, Shadow, Death, Infernal, Depravity, and Chaos.

Out of all the elements in the universe, why was Blood one of Unholy’s pillars?  Was blood an inherently evil thing, or was Athela wrong about what the Unholy Foundational Pillar actually was?

Unholy didn’t necessarily have to be evil.  That had been proven over and over again, time after time.  Though Riven was an unholy-oriented vampire he’d say he was generally a better person than many of the humans in this city.  He was certainly no godsent hero come to act as savior to the world, he was no bastion of moral excellence, but he was proud of who he was as a person.  So what was the Unholy pillar really?  What was the Blood pillar’s relationship to it?

Despite the immense internal calm he felt as he contemplated these things, eyes glazed over and heartbeat slowly pumping at the epicenter of untold carnage while his magics wrecked havoc amidst the enemy - he felt confused.  Ribbons of crimson whipped around him and his aura sang to the heavens in a storm of red that washed away the cursed clouds of black his succubus produced - incorporating them into his own torrent of energy…

To make them his own.

He studied them, barely registering a spine projectile that somehow made its way towards him.  The spine was utterly crushed, obliterated when it made contact with his living, thriving aura that encompassed him and the area he stood on while looking down from the building’s fifth floor rooftop.

The clouds Fay was producing… they had an inherent code to their production.  He could see it, see the way the mana roiled and folded in on itself - adding layers of restrictions and conditions to the spell production before being gently incorporated into the massive typhon of his own energy that cradled and used Fay’s own.

His head tilted slightly.  Why was it that curses created pain while cast?  Why did it exact a price of emotional turmoil in order to create and produce a cloud that would rot away enemies down to their cores?

Was it magnifying internal turmoil and pain, eliciting a strong emotion and pumping that emotional state to create something new?

Why was it that her clouds of unholy pain and rot mingled so well with his blood magic?  Blood was a biological thing, a lifebringer, something that brought warmth to one’s body to make muscles move and flow.  It was the exact opposite of Fay’s magic, which should by theory be eating away at his blood mana - yet that was not the case.  The two entities twisted and swerved, with the blood mana incorporating Fay’s clouds like one would see when stirring sugar into coffee.  The sweetness, the cold rot, the flavor of the unholy curse was within his flowing ocean of red - swallowed to be made one.

Merged to be made one.

His eyes shifted from the moving whirlwinds and ribbons of mana, back down to the oncoming swarm that continued to mindlessly and desperately push past his cyclone of death.  He watched them wither and rot, watched their bodies shred apart, watched as even when the best of them made it to the tower.  Even when the flood of swirling blades sometimes failed to knock them off their climbing ascent, he watched when they finally came into contact with his aura.  He watched them rot, watched them disintegrate as piece by piece their bodies fed his growing storm.

Riven could feel how the area around them was infused with a slight undercurrent of unholy power even aside from himself or the minions he had.  It leaked out from the corpses, permeating the area with a taste of the profane as the blood of his enemies was drawn skywards to obey his will.

No doubt it was due to these creatures being related to the man he hunted here.  Richard Longhollow by definition had to have an unholy bloodline, just by way of making it into Chalgathi’s trials.  So it would make sense that his spawn would be inherently unholy.

Yet here they were, creatures with blood flowing through their veins and inherent unholy properties permeating their very fabric…

Just like him, actually.

There on the rooftop overlooking the carnage, watching these creatures die by the hundreds, Riven had an epiphany.

He understood.

Holding up his right hand: a crackling, snapping surge of red lightning traveled along his fingertips - then surged along his arms as he pulled blood mana into his unholy ability ‘Blessing of the Crow’.  The Unholy Foundational Pillar shifted and churned inside his soul apparatus, resisting the command at first - but within seconds, it started linking and forming new pathways with the blood pillar beside it.

The pillars… They were one in the same.

Fay’s cloud of cursed mana, his blood typhoon, his aura that wasn’t even a true skill by definition of the system - they were all connected.  Even his minions, who by contract were an extension of himself now, were connected to him - each of them a new arm or leg to utilize like a piece of his own body.

Rapidly his soul aperture began to shift, expanding, connecting threads quickly tearing across the pillars to weave an intricate web from the Unholy Foundational Pillar, the Shadow Sub-pillar, and his Blood Specialty Pillar - and a vision flashed before his eyes.

6 comets rocketed through the heavens, all coming together and crashing in an explosion of red, black and green - creating an abyssal monument that radiated profane might.

3 hooded skeletons rotated around a floating vampire of immeasurable beauty with golden hair, pale skin and brilliant golden tattoos that wrapped around her bare body.  Each skeleton held a scythe that dripped with flowing blood - leaving patterns over the floor that began to congregate underneath the vampire’s hovering feet.

The nude vampire in the middle of the room slowly lifted her red eyes towards the ceiling, and the roof of stone exploded - revealing another six comets that crashed into one another overhead amidst a star-laden sky.

Riven felt his soul explode as a storm of black and red crashed down from the heavens from the point where the comets had collided.  He screamed, an influx of pain shattering his psyche and crumbling his bones.

Slowly, as Riven continued that scream in an ethereal state of being - the vampiress descended to the floor.  The ball of crimson collected from the three scythes turned black and created a pool as knelt inside it with clasped hands and a bowed head.  Then she began to pray before she too began to wither and rot, disappearing into the pool of black that grew into an abyssal maw while her body crumbled to nothing.

She and the pool were swallowed by the maw, and the world became silent.

Then, attempting to do what the vision of the six comets had done in their own merging - Riven attempted to replicate it with his own pillars - but the struggle was too great.  He tried and tried again, only to fail repeatedly over and over, until finally he reduced the number of pillars to three.  His halfway-fusion between pillars was a success, he was able to control them at a lesser extent than the vision of the comets that were each imbued with one of the major sub-pillars that created the Unholy Foundation - but he was happy.

He had seen the path, and it was glorious.

***

[Blood Specialty Pillar has gained an ascended ability modifier through Dao insights: The Path of Red and Black: Profane Cyclone (Ascended Ability Modifier), which is automatically applied to any and all Unholy / Blood / Shadow abilities for additional mana cost unless mentally choosing not to.  All Unholy / Blood / Shadow abilities have been upgraded to Profane Cyclone’s modified version of each spell.

Notice: Only one ability modifier may be active at one time.  Mana channels have been enhanced.  Meditate and contemplate upon the concepts you have understood to further evolve this path.]

The building underneath him shattered as the sky exploded red above him into a red and black storm, and his body radiated with killing intent as his succubus screeched in surprise.

*BOOM*

Fay was the only thing not affected in the immediate vicinity when a shockwave of epic proportions leveled the building Riven stood on.  The cyclone of blood surrounding the building pulsed and exploded - shooting off in all directions and ripping apart entire city blocks in a wave of black and red.

Thousands of azag hive cluster forces succumbed in an instant, and waves of red and black mists with crackling black lightning were left in the aftermath that quickly caused any creature that came inside to wither and die as a necrotic husk or be ripped apart.  Numerous mantis immediately attempted this, dashing across the decimated landscape towards their enemy, only for almost all of them to succumb within less than a minute.

Riven’s ears rang, and he hovered dozens of feet in the air off the ground with rippling tides of crimson intermixed with smaller black clouds or sparking energy.  The power of his blood magic pulsed and rose with new additions, rotting the very ground away as buildings cracked and roads decayed.

Lifting a hand as he floated mid-air, he commanded the blood magic to come to him.  Wisps of crimson mana shot up his arm instantly, with flickers of black inside the red like little worms or flames that refused to be entirely beaten down by the more dominant color.  The intent behind his mana was more palpable, more malicious, and hungered with a craving that simulated the cravings of Gluttony in past experiences.  The three Chalgathi artifact pieces oriented towards gluttony all screamed with envy and approval, and Riven felt his still-forming gluttony core shiver upon the mental touch of the Path of Red and Black.  Blood was somehow connected to Gluttony, Unholy was connected to Blood, and the six

The ringing slowly started to fade, and he abruptly became aware that Fay was roughly shaking him - wings flapping and outspread while trying to get his attention.  Below, Azmoth and Athela looked around in utter astonishment at the devastation Riven had unintentionally caused - gazing about a wasteland that continued to crumble and decay all around them.  A crater-like hole was forming in the ground beneath where Riven was continually pulsing mana at extreme proportions with power rising skywards in rippling semi-translucent waves.

He ignored his minions, he couldn’t hear them anyways, and he was still on the cusp of ascending even further… he could just feel it.  The power was just one step away from achieving a bonding momentum with his gluttony core, yet he couldn’t quite figure it out.

His brows furrowed and he gently shrugged Fay off, concentrating on the inner workings of his soul.  His aura was so palpable now, so alive, consuming everything around it to feed the growing power that he commanded at his fingertips.  Bloody blades condensed and widened - forming shadow-like vortexes with sharp edges that rather looked like spinning balls of black and red storm; sharpened miniature balls of profane cyclone that shredded everything they touched.  Multiple simultaneous rifts through space tore open around him, bathed in black and red that sucked and pulled things through with currents of profane storm based on his will.  Blood lances were summoned, forming much faster and with thick black trails of lightning indicative in the very fundamental foundation of his ideology behind ‘Blood’ magic - having integrated it with ‘Unholy’ and ‘Shadow’ upon achieving a step towards the greater truths.

The greater truths of one-ness between the profane comets he’d seen in his vision.

Fay’s clouds intermixing with his own had been the catalyst, and he felt like the potential to achieve more was there - but despite all the mental pressure and his racing thoughts there were no further results.  He was just so close… and minutes ticked by as he tried to corner the aspect of gluttony that was still escaping him.

[Riven Thane has been engaged in battle.  Click to view.]

[Clidra Mutishbane has been engaged in battle.  Click to view.]

He saw it coming before it got there, like a buzzing fly coming to irritate him and draw him out of his budding insights.  Blessing of the crow, usually conjured with red streaks of sparking lightning, now rippled along his skin with red and black streams of blood that moved like silk ribbons and felt like death.  Not only did his reaction speed up far more than usual, but his concept of time slowed down - and he casually tilted his head to the right with what was witnessed as blinding speed to anyone watching in order to avoid an incoming strike of boiling, dark green liquid.

He stared at the monster below him while power crackled along his body - all seven of his feathers focusing their eyes on the monster in turn.

[Clidra Mutishbane, Azag Broodmother, Level 35]

Clidra Mutishbane was even larger than the first of the offensive targets had been.  She had a large, elongated abdomen that dragged out behind her and three stingers that bubbled and ozzed green liquid radiating unholy power.  Yellow eyes glared back up at him, and the basic casting staff in her claws was a stark contrast from normal scythe-like attachments of the rest of her species.

“Who are you?  All of you.  We have no qualms with demons and vampires, we are of the same flock.” Clidra clicked between mandibles with a sneering gesture directed towards the demons on the ground.   She was like a beacon amidst a gore-filled storm, dark green mana rippling around her to combat Riven’s own tide of blood and decay.  A small horde of azag warriors surrounded her position, bladed arms out to the sides and awaiting their commander’s call.  “We can still settle this peacefully.  There are too many of us, and only four of you.  We do not wish further bloodshed between us and your own kind, and we are all of unholy affiliation.  Let us speak terms, and then we may negotiate with the system through a fee to withdraw your volunteer ballot.  Withdraw your minions and I will withdraw my own forces, so that we may finish this discussion without-”

Riven’s voice echoed across the landscape as his power began to rise, and the visage of a great semi-solid maw appeared behind him - as if to devour them all and swallow them whole.  “I do not negotiate with genocidal maniacs.  Chalgathi has sent me, I come for the artifact your master has - as well as your master’s head.”

Clidra’s mandibles abruptly stopped clicking when her eyes went wide upon witnessing a surge in power above her, and she took an involuntary step back when the vampire’s aura spiked.  “Chalgathi!?  You are one of the cult!?  You should not have been able to find us here!  Our allies-”

Riven’s sinister laugh tore through the building storm and cut Clidra’s speech off.  “Cultist!?  No, I will kill all of them too.  I am merely caught up in a greater Broadway play on Chalgathi’s grand stage, but as an involuntary side character.  But I must say, what my choice of selflessness has led to is both amusing and satisfactory.  Your master and the cultists will all have the same fate, you are all destined to become fertilizer for my path.”

A clap of thunderous power exploded overhead, causing many of the azag mantis monsters to instinctively flinch and duck.  Meanwhile, Riven continued to stare down at them like a vengeful god of judgement as more and more power began to accumulate in rippling waves around him for hundreds of yards in all directions.  “Do you think yourself strong?  Do you think yourself amongst the powerful in this world?  Let me show you what true power is.  And when your souls are ground to dust and your spirits enter hell - tell my friends there that it was Riven Thane who sent you.”

Hundreds and then thousands of spinning storm orbs and crackling red-and-black lances congregated in the sky above them in a rapid flurry from the power gathered there.  The storm of crimson heightened, creating snowflakes and ice shrapnel that crashed across Clidra’s green barrier with rot applications causing her own power to quickly decay.

In an instant, two dozen portals ripped open through space and the offensive projectiles were launched.  Hundreds tore through the portals - exiting out at different angles all around Clidra’s position to fire on the azag from all directions with shockwaves of ice, lightning and berating waves of decaying mists and blood.

The city shook underfoot, and Riven looked to the west.

[Clidra Mutishbane has been killed in battle by Riven Thane.  3 of 5 battle targets for the attackers remain.]