OLD Chapter 197 (UPDATE AS OF 11/23/23 - These original chapters 195-210 will be pushed out to another future part of the book or recycled. New chapters starting at 195 are being posted after the original 210, and these original chapters will soon be removed. For now, skip ahead to the NEW Chapter 195 past old 210) (Patreon)

Chapter 197

Riven slowly stood, staring silently at his clone as they faced off against one another.  Riven was fully clothed with pale white skin and red eyes, while his soul clone was naked with pitch black skin and purple eyes.

“Your girl?” Riven repeated, taking two steps forward towards the clone and cocking his head to the side in absolute fascination.

The clone mimicked Riven’s motion, imitating it exactly with both facial expression and cocked head at the same exact time.

It was like looking in a mirror, and Riven pulled up a hand to wave it in front of his face with the clone doing the exact same thing in front of him.  Then the clone grinned and let out a chuckle.  “Just messing with ya mate.  You know that though.  You’re me, and I’m you, so you know everything I’m thinking as I think it and vice versa.  We influence one another’s thoughts and movements because we’re the same person, two sides to the same coin.”

A smile began creeping onto Riven’s lips, and they both began laughing with one another as they locked hands.  “Holy.  Shit.  It’s like controlling two bodies at once with one mind, but not.  You’re… my subconscious mind?  This is trippy.”

“Kinda.” The clone shrugged, then threw up his hands.  “Not really sure myself… Or is it ourself?  Ourselves?  Myself?  Though honestly this is pretty neat!  Think of all the combo attacks we can do-”

“All the things we can multitask-” Riven continued the sentence.

Then both halves of Riven’s soul turned to look at Athela with a simultaneous wink and suggestive eyebrow wiggle - both saying at the same time: “Or the things we can accomplish in bed!”

Athela looked on in shock, and a deep flush overcame her that was noticeable even despite her skin tone.  She merely let out an unintelligible squeak and clasped her hands while trying to compute this new change.

Both Riven’s laughed, and then they started rummaging through Riven’s bag of holding.  Something the others noticed quite quickly was that both Rivens could access the spatial bag, and this wasn’t something other people could generally do without stealing the bag entirely or killing the owner.

“Spare cloak-” Riven said, tossing it to his opposite self with a flick of his wrist.

“Spare… Eh, Spear?” Clone Riven said while yanking out a much lesser quality spear than the weapon they were used to.  “Fuck it.”

“Might as well.”  Riven said with an amused cackle that was simultaneously shared with his other side.

Allie, still coming in and out of lucidity, blankly gawked.  “I don’t think I’m getting better anymore.”

Both Rivens looked her way and spoke.  “What?  Do you need a health potion?  We could use one of those cure ailment supreme potions again, like the one you took earlier from Kathrine.”

She blinked, rubbing her eyes and staring again.  “I… Think I need a nap.”

Even Azmoth was baffled by the two Rivens speaking in tandem, and he grunted out a question with a raised hand.  “So… You same person and not copy?”

They paused, and each Riven looked at each other with a hesitant head bob side to side.  “We’re not entirely sure, but probably the same person - only split?  It’s… beyond us.  Or me.  We both think the same thoughts and can perform the same actions simultaneously, but we can also split our personalities and thought patterns when needed.  It’s like…”

Suddenly, Clone Riven stepped left and raised his hands while Riven stepped right and put his hands on his hips.

“Now we’re separated.” Clone Riven said.

Then their actions became in sync again and they both stepped backwards while pointing to one another.  “Now we - or I - am put together again.  I do it at will.”

“Trippy.” Allie muttered.

“Right?!  We have different abilities too.  Clone Riven is the same level as my normal body and has the same stats, but only has access to sin abilities.  Which… is none, considering the soul resurrection I have is on cooldown for a years to come.  But Clone Riven’s physical attacks cause soul damage and drain resources, and they can be channeled into the spear he’s holding, so that’s neat.  I’ll probably use Clone Riven as a tank for now.” both Rivens said, humming in contemplation and beginning to dig through the spatial bag again to outfit Riven’s other side.

It didn’t take too long after that to get himself outfitted again.  While Riven’s main body summoned his regular plate-armor getup of Messenger and Jackal, Clone Riven chose a spear and was outfitted in a very basic leather outfit due to lack of any good armor that’d make an impact in battle.

Not that they wanted to battle anything while here if possible.

Athela was a little more than curious now, and she got up to walk around and inspect Riven’s new copied body.  “Are you split or united right now?”

“United.” Both Rivens said, attaching some pulse grenades from Chicago to Clone Riven’s belt to be used as projectiles due to a lack of spells right now.

Athela grinned, raising a hand behind her and into the air.  “Then TIME FOR EXPERIMENT ONE!”

She smacked Riven with a loud *CLAP* across his backside, putting some real power into it and causing him to yelp.  Both bodies turned to glare at her, and she began to snicker.

“Ooooh this is going to be so fun!” Athela mused.  “As your princess, I DEMAND attentions when we get back!  DEMAND THEM!”

Riven’s soul split and his main body came over to wrap Athela in an over-the-shoulders hug, chuckling to himself while Clone Riven continued digging for supplies.  “You’ll get all the attention you want.  Now, let’s see what these demonic contracts have to offer.  I’m very curious as to how this is going to turn out.”

***

A stick-thin scarecrow made of metal hung on a cross of his own making.  It remained absolutely still, just as it had done for the past many millenia - not moving a single millimeter while contemplating the mysteries of life.  In his left hand, an unlit steel lantern hung loosely at his side.  In his right hand, a simple scythe was held - showing now markings or any semblance of just how powerful the weapon was.  A creepy smile with a hinged metal jaw hung slightly open, exposing an abyssal hole into the back of the scarecrow’s throat - and two X’s carved into the otherwise featureless face of the scarecrow signified its eyes.

Fimrindle watched in silence, peering through the void - through the abyss - and into other nether realms where his potential contractor was speaking to a winged devil much bigger than he was.

The devil, named Chavi, was boasting of his conquests with wings spread and aflame.  It caused the skies around it to crash with false power, as in your own nether realm anyone could be akin to a god.

Fimrindle wondered why the boastful creature was so infatuated with war.  What was so great about killing things?  Fimrindle had learned the hard way that it wasn’t fun and games like he’d been led to believe in the beginning, and it came rather easy.  Why did Chavi think it a glorious pursuit?  Fimrindle didn’t understand.  The way the titanic red ape with wings wielded that silly axe around was more for show than anything else, but then again - Fimrindle couldn’t necessarily judge the demon.  He knew very little about social norms and cues, and this in turn was perhaps the largest reason why he’d been banished to this soul stone.  He’d thought he’d been playing a game when he’d murdered all those people.  Fimrindle was akin to a small child in that aspect, a soul being ripped apart and formed anew so many times that he had a hard time grasping any of his previous memories over past lives.

The iron scarecrow continued to wait patiently.  Ever patiently.  He did not move, locked away in a cube of energy.  He did not rust, he did not rot, he merely waited - having been here an eternity already for the day that someone would meet the qualifications he desired.  For Fimrindle was not driven to act for his freedom by anything in particular unless certain qualifications were met, but he was very patient, and unless he found what he was looking for - why bother leaving this place?  It would otherwise only mean a repeat of what’d happened the first few times in the world above that’d so long ago forgotten about his existence outside of legend.

He did not blame his world of origin though.  He just didn’t understand.  He wished he did, and perhaps Riven would be the one to teach him just what he’d done wrong.  Perhaps Riven could be the one to provide Fimrindle insight into the thing he desired most.

But his thoughts were interrupted by the presence of another, and to Fimrindle’s mounting curiosity - Zrogmanthon, the Abyss-Lord and fellow archdemon of Riven’s final round, had somehow entered Fimrindle’s soulstone prison from across the cosmos.

The creature was akin to an enormous black mist, but shifting claws and a grinning mouth full of teeth could be seen like static through a fog when the abyss-lord entered Fimrindle’s tiny home.  It circled the scarecrow made of metal, letting out a low chuckle while Riven continued to speak to Chavi the devil in another nether realm.

“Ah… Little scarecrow… You aren’t in a true nether realm.  You remain here instead… a fatal mistake when combined with the fact that you are competing with someone as great as me!.” Zrogmanthon the abyss-lord hissed, causing the soulstone to shudder and crack as its black eyes greedily gazed upon Fimrindle’s stone-still body.  “Trapped in a weak prison such as this?  How have you not left yet?  An archdemon like myself would have broken out of such a place eons ago… but you, you’re still here.  How… pathetic, yet simultaneously exciting!  To think that I’d be able to travel through ripples in the void to take care of the competition!”

The prideful Zrogmanthon cackled and threateningly ripped a hole in space, exiting from a black hole to squeeze into Fimrindle’s home.  Enormous black claws, six arms, a body made of shadow and a shrouded, almost featureless face came forward -  smiling at the much smaller Fimrindle and rearing to its full height.  “How is it, knowing that someone so lowly as you will be devoured by one as great as me?  Have you ever experienced pain before, little scarecrow?  Because pain you will have… and your dying screams will be the foundation of my growth!  I will display your body before my new master and show him that I am the greatest of the five he has chosen to consider!”

Zrogmanthon let the words echo through the cube, his very presence causing the soulstone to break apart rapidly around them - shadow mana radiating across his body and passing over the much smaller, human-sized scarecrow beneath him.  “Do you have any words for me, abomination?  Before I cut you down?”

Fimrindle had remained motionless this entire time.  He remained hung to a cross, scythe in one hand and unlit lantern in the other, staring into nothingness as his mechanical jaw hung part way open.

Zrogmanthon frowned, tisking in irritation after five or so minutes of hovering over the other archdemon with an intimidating aura billowing out.  Fimrindle seemed to be unaffected by the display entirely despite the soulstone cage quickly deteriorating.  “I see you’ve been driven into speechlessness by my prowess… Understandable.  If you cannot escape a place such as this and cannot form your own netherrealm despite what you are, you deserve to be shocked into silence.”

The abyss-lord raised one clawed hand, and space itself tore open as his hand shimmered in the darkness.  “You are by far the weakest of us five, and I am doing you a favor by not allowing you to embarrass yourself.  Be grateful, fledgling, for your path will act as fertilizer to my own.”

Still the scarecrow didn’t move, but a ping of power caused Zrogmanthon’s head to abruptly shift right when the image of some ill-defined entity tore through reality beside him.

Zrogmanthon, being an abyss-lord and a creature who could control spatial powers, was shocked.  He didn’t know what that was, but something immensely powerful had just-

Zrogmanthon turned his head right when another blip of power was sensed near the scarecrow, and to his ever-rising and continued shock - the scarecrow was gone.  So was the cross he’d been hung to.  How had Zrogmanthon, as great as he was, not sense something like the disappearance of his-

Zrogmanthon died.

The abyss-lord didn’t even have time to scream,and his body shimmered and faded away while the soul stone prison began to reconstruct itself.  Fimrindle was back in his motionless spot in the middle of the cube room, hanging on a cross with his scythe in his right hand - his jaw slightly unhinged - and his lantern in his left.  Though this time, a small light in his lantern was seen repeatedly blinking until it finally winked out - leaving the room in the same state it’d been in only moments ago before Zrogmanthon’s interruption.

Going back to contemplating and meditating on the meaning of life while simultaneously observing Riven’s proceedings; Fimrindle waited for the fated moment that he would meet this ‘Riven Thane’ character: for better, or for worse.

***

Yattazi stirred, becoming restless as she felt a new entity enter her nether realm.  It’d been a long time since something had been allowed in, and the disturbance was… pleasing.

Lonely and hopeful, the gigantic serpent began to worm its way out of the volcano it’d constructed its nether realm around - a very similar one to the real version she was hibernating in every one in a while when out of the nether.

Gills along the serpent’s head flexed, and molten eyes opened.  Rising up towards the heavens, Yattazi broke out of the lava pit to display her majestic figure to the one who would potentially claim her as a friend.

Spines protruded from her back, black scales even harder than most dragons covered her enormous body like armor.  Frilled ears flared out to either side of her head, and lava poured down off her body as her head began to lower to get a better look at the summoner.

The man was tiny, many hundreds of times smaller than she was, but she did not mind.  She was just happy to have someone to converse with, and she gave an excited hiss while boulders and islands in the lava pool were crushed amidst the rising of her glorious figure.  Huge fangs on the snake were put on full display in an effort to show her potential master just how amazing she was, the teeth crackling with chaos energy in flickers of deep gray - and a molten inner core flared to life with orange and red hues inside the back of her throat.

“Welcome, vampire, to my lair…” Yattazi hissed rather happily, her body trailing out to rise and fall amidst roiling waves of magma behind her as she hovered over the tiny figure below.  “I have been expecting you, fellow follower of the gluttonous one.  We have much in common, you and I… and I am hoping that you may join me in my quest to feed.”

The vampire stared up at her with his other two minions and his soul clone appearing before her a second later to stand beside the man  “Yattazi right?”

“That is one the great system calls me…” Yattazi hissed excitedly.  “No need to tell me yours… I already know it, Riven Thane of the Blood Moon Requiem.  I have many questions, and many answers, to share with you on your road to power; and I hope it is me that you choose for your new minion so that we may one day become friends.”