OLD Chapter 204 (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 204

Riven’s clone body shot ahead of the others with his armor set on full blast - pouring flames out the back of the armor like a jetpack as he roared and swung Jackal down in a landing arc into the angelic monster’s hide.  The creature was ten times his size, and its incredibly agile wing-swipes left arcs of gold in the air that radiated a brilliant vengeance; destroying the surrounding cliffside and splitting demonic bodies apart one after another.

It was a swarm mass of feathers, wings, and teeth - a truly monstrous creature despite the holy nature of the beast.  It was also at minimum in the E grade, possibly even D grade, letting off an aura of power dwarfing Riven’s own while he remained in the F grade.

However, Riven was far from alone.

Demons swarmed the creature as a battle of epic proportions raged across the ruins.  The two armies were now in an all out brawl, with each side desperately searching for something.  Riven’s guess was that it was him, but the sin shards inside him… the sin shards that resonated with his new, cloned body, and the armor he wore, they hid him.

They let him blend in, at least while using this particular body.  His other half still had to hide, as seen through very brief trial and error.

His blade took the form of a crimson jackal as he lunged ahead again at speed so fast that none on Panu would have been able to keep up with the attack, and he further empowered the strike with even more sin energy from his core as an ominous black and purple energy roared through the weapon and into the angel he pierced.

*CRASH*

A fellow demon, a hulking red-skinned devil with four horns, covered in thick natural bone plates, and a toothy mouth that could eat him in one swoop, followed up Clone Riven’s attack by barreling past him with a shriek of victory.  The large archdemon body slammed the angelic beast, claws ripping into flesh, both of them crushing a nearby tower and sending rubble off the cliff’s side while they tumbled over the edge to the next level below.

Gluttony’s maw roared in victory from the armor he wore, and Clone Riven’s purple eyes blazed furiously with violent sparks radiating out from the armor.  He grinned and let out a cackling laugh, only to have another large imp-like demon - skinny but tall and dressed in flowing robes land beside him with a scowl.

“MAGGOT!  WHAT ARE YOU DOING!?  YOU CANNOT LET SHARDS OF SIN FALL INTO THE HANDS OF THE ENEMY!” The demon hissed in irritation, pausing to launch an infernal torpedo skywards before spinning on Riven.  “THE WEAKER SIONS OF SIN ARE GATHERING BELOW, YOU DO NOT BELONG ON THE FRONT!  IF THE ELDERS FIND YOU HERE, THEY WILL FLAY YOU ALIVE!  GO, NOW!”

It obviously thought Clone Riven was one of their own, but the warning fell on deaf ears.

The skinny demon scowled in irritation when Riven’s clone didn’t budge and launched itself skywards again with a flap of its wings, only to be blasted out of the sky in a spray of golden lightning and viscera.  A frilled white dragon swooped down and blazed by - flashing with power and snapping up the corpse as two more dragons of similar proportions and darker unholy fire roared while following behind it.

Everywhere Clone Riven looked, the war raged.

“We are being tracked…” Fimrindle said softly as a whisper in Clone Riven’s ear, appearing beside the clone body instantaneously out of the blue . “By a follower of Gluttony… I believe it knows… it senses your kindred spirit.”

Clone Riven’s purple eyes narrowed, and he turned while motioning Allie and his counterpart to go on by.  His main body and other half of his soul sprinted alongside his sister, teleporting them through rifts in space time after time, letting the sin-oriented aspect of Gluttony have more sway over the clone body as to not split his focus - and this in turn let Clone Riven’s senses become all the more keen when using Messenger’s aspects.

The armor could sense both bearers of sin, and bearers for the commandments.  They were highlighted like neon billboard signs, and the creature that hid in the shadows of the cliff had been staring directly at him for almost as long as the battle had raged.

“Yes…” Clone Riven said, glancing at Fimrindle with a nod under his armored helm.  “It has been watching us.  Me, in particular.  Can you get a gauge on its power?  Or what it is?  The shroud surrounding it obscures the beast, but I can tell it holds many shards of Gluttony within its soul.”

“That is dangerous, and no - I cannot.” Fimrindle muttered, ignoring the corpse of an armored incubus when it crashed through a nearby stone wall - burning with holy flames.  “Gluttony above all others wants to consume the counterparts of its kin.”

That was certainly true.  Riven’s own 11 shards were at constant war with him since the battle had started, they ached and cried out to him, wishing him to kill and absorb the other aspects of Gluttony that’d suddenly appeared by many hundreds all around him.  With the millions of incredibly high caliber combatants battling it out in the sky, there might even be over a thousand shards of Gluttony here and now - but Clone Riven was by far the weakest of them all.

And yet… the creature watching them did not attack.  It merely stared back at them through the haze surrounding and obscuring its body, knowing full well they were aware of its presence.

“Whatever it is, it is much stronger than us - yet it hasn’t killed us yet.  That is encouraging.” Clone Riven replied with a shrug, starting to follow in his other half’s footsteps at a sprint - not seeing Fimrindle there as he ran but feeling his minion through his link travel in blips and spurts of motion at random intervals.  “Hopefully it stays that way.”

He and the others dashed through the dark alleys and crevices, through the edge of the city closest to the cliff.  He was ever watching, ever vigilant with an eye to the sky - communicating silently with his other half as they continued to make their way across the ruined city on the cliff face to the hidden door of their vision.

They ran, they hid, and they repeated.  Over and over again they continued to creep forward, sometimes being forced to entirely halt and wait for well over a couple minutes at a time and diminishing their auras as much as possible to avoid detection.  All the while though, that same demon from up above on the cliff’s edge in a crevice watched them silently.

Their eyes met again, the perched demon remained unwavering, yet neither half of Riven sensed any malice from the creature.  When their eyes met, what he felt was a keen sense of interest.

*BOOM*

The ground underneath them shattered and buckled when a fireball the size of the titanic blew a mile-wide hole to their left, sending debris flying skywards.  Clone Riven’s armor took the brunt of the damage as he blurred ahead to try to stave off the impact from Allie, but her right leg was ripped clean off at the hinge where here legendary E-grade bone armor was weakest.

“AAAAAAAHHHHH!!!” Allie’s cry of terror was shrill and high pitched, blood splattered across the ruined ground as she landed - and then the wave of rolling flames came in like a tidal wave from hell rolling across the landscape.

“GET DOWN!” Riven’s main body cast a glacial wall of crimson ice, pouring all of his mana into it and creating layer after layer of the barrier right before impact.

Infernal power of a magnitude far beyond any of them surged forward, and it tore through Riven’s ice walls like they were nothing.  The flames roared through towards their group and were about to make impact when Fimrindle appeared in front of them and lifted his lantern.

It was the first time Riven had seen Fimrindle move in real time, and with a flash of brilliant light - all the magic in the area disappeared.

The lantern in the iron scarecrow’s grip glowed a molten red-orange just like the infernal wave had been, and the lantern shuddered in his grip before sizzling out and dying down.

“I won’t be able to do that again for a long, long time.” Fimrindle stated flatly.  “Next time something like that happens, we all die.”

Allie’s leg was beginning to reattach itself while Clone Riven put the leg up to her stump, and she groaned while clutching onto Messenger’s plate armor - being picks up by her brother’s more sinister half.  But the regeneration was relatively slow.  “The burn is infused with some kind of anti-healing… I won’t be able to run like this Riven…”

Her red eyes squinted shut in pain, fingers clutching at her brother’s second body while his main body looked around for anymore danger.

“Then I will carry you.” Riven stated, giving Fimrindle a nod of appreciation.  “We still have half a mile to go, and-”

*CRASH*

The ground shuddered yet again when two clawed feet buried themselves in the rock beside them.  Stone chips and bubbling flesh sprayed into the air around them, and four pairs of bright green eyes glared at them from above through the dust.

“I have found you… interlopers…” A sinister, deep voice said with a chuckle and a flood of aura.  Gigantic spider legs erupted from the monster’s back - and the demon poked its head through the murk to reveal enormous mandibles and a bulbous backside.  Dropping an angel’s mutilated body from tiny arms on the underside of the demon, the creature’s dark gray chitin glinted in the fires of war.  Six pairs of clawed, abnormally long, humanoid hands of the same gray chitin swiveled and reached forward - slowly bearing down on Allie and Riven from above.  “The elder gods will be pleased…”

Riven immediately unleashed the full extent of his mana - hurling a torpedo of blood lance he’d been charging for the last half hour at the creature with a scream of rage.  It was enough to leave an entire valley back on Panu in a state of wreckage.  Black lightning encircled the spike of blood and it let off a sonic boom before splitting the air and crashing into the beast - but despite all the power Riven had, the attack didn’t even scratch the demon.  Instead, the blood lance merely shattered across the monster’s body - and the arachnid variant demon began to loudly laugh.

Fimrindle appeared behind it a second later only to be swatted away with a single swipe - smashing the scarecrow and flattening him into a crater in the ground.  Three flaming skulls were unleashed from Allie’s wand only to be brushed aside with a wave of mana that misdirected the attacks and sent them hurtling harmlessly into a nearby building.  Clone Riven dropped Allie a moment later and lunged ahead with Jackal - aiming for the nearest leg of the spider only to be speared through the back - going right through his plate armor Messenger and all.

The maw of Gluttony screamed in rage and pain as the demon’s leg pierced it through, and Riven’s soul aperture roared with the protests of his Gluttony shards.

“Vampires?” The monster asked aloud, ignoring the raging battle around it and picking up Clone Riven like a kabob - speared completely through.  Another snap of its leg speared Riven’s main body through the gut a moment later, despite having Riven seen it - the attack was far too fast to avoid.

The arachnid looked from one to the other, and then down to Allie who was quivering and gaping up at the huge monster.  “Yes.  Vampires.  So it is true then… Wrath has been waiting a very long, long time for your arrival.  You must be delivered-”

*SPLAT*

The spider’s head was torn off with the swipe of claws each the size of a buss, and a looming figure shrouded in darkness stood over the group - not having been there even a second prior.  Both of Riven’s bodies fell to the ground as the arachnid’s body dissolved, and the holes in his bodies began to regenerate quickly  as he coughed up blood and began getting to his feet.

The shrouded demon glanced over at Fimrindle, a pair of yellow eyes piercing the veil of shadow that still obscured its massive form.  Then it looked back to Riven, specifically to Clone Riven - and pointed a single claw that dwarfed him many times over.  “Harbinger of Gluttony… yet still a newborn babe in the eyes of the system.  The great maw sends his regards, and commands that you not fail him.  Should Wrath come and seek your mother’s promise, you will decline - for you belong to the ever present hunger.  And should you disobey, the great maw will end you all.  Do you understand?”

Other demons were now swiveling in the air and tearing towards them from different parts of the battlefield, and with them came some of the angels as they began to realize something was going on in the direction of the small party.

Riven sputtered and coughed, getting to his feet while his gut finally sealed shut - and wiped the blood off his chin that’d been dripping out of his mouth.  He glared red eyes up at the demon, then glanced to where the other monstrosities were heading their way.  Even despite the natural mana density in the air significantly reducing the amount of raw mana one could produce here, their mana signatures were the equivalent of his own on Panu when compared to mere classless mortals.  Only in this comparison, he was the mere classless mortal - and these demons were all city-ending abominations with eyes focused on him.

Wait.

Huh?

“Mother’s promise?” Riven repeated while a soft film of shadow enveloped him.  “Did I hear you right?”

The shrouded demon scowled, then gently picked them up.  Tendrils of darkness encompassed each of their relatively small bodies, and the giant sent a wave of darkness in the direction of the incoming, shrieking demons and angels alike - creating a wall of black inbetween them and the oncoming horde.  “There is no time.  You are Gluttony’s prize, remember that, or else you will bear the consequences.  No matter what happens, child of the maw, do not give in to Wrath - lest you leave your very soul to be devoured for it.  This is not a threat, but a promise from the very top.  Now begone, only one in the F grade may enter the temple.  I will hold off the pursuers.”

An enormous black maw ripped down the shrouded demon’s midsection as gluttony screamed over the battlefield, unleashing a cyclone of profane darkness right before the enormous monster reeled back and launched the small party from Panu in the direction they’d been traveling.

It wasn’t exactly at the secret door, but it was close, and the launch was so fast that the Riven’s mind was unable to keep up with the sheer speed of the throw until he came to an abrupt stop - the shadows from the enormous demon disappearing when they bounced right off the side of the cliff and tumbled to the ground.

The experience was nauseating, and Riven’s head whirled about, but his other half - Clone Riven - quickly tugged him to his feet and picked Allie up to carry them forward at a dead sprint.  Messenger, though damaged, was still able to produce enough sin flame to launch them ahead like a rocket - and soon they were at the hidden door along the cliff’s face.

Clone Riven mentally banished Fimrindle after a look behind them clarified the scarecrow was still out for the count, and Allie was in a state of shock - so he put a hand against the door and shoved.

The door creaked open, having been completely invisible to the naked eye but being identified by the red thread of fate.  In the distance across the city - the shrouded demon clashed with other demons and angels alike as they screamed and howled, trying to get to Riven and Allie as the door to the cliff face snapped shut behind them with a bang.

Explosions rocked the rock wall on the other side, and the door shuddered with each impact, but it held completely.  It, for some reason, had opened up to them without fail - yet now it was acting as an impenetrable barrier far beyond what any of them could ever hope to conjure themselves.

“I don’t suppose you can tell me where I am?  This is still the Abyss, correct?” An unfamiliar voice echoed in the dark, and though they were all shaken and panting - both Rivens and Allie turned in unison to look.

They now stood in a dark hall lined with ancient corpses, rusted weapons, and broken armor.  It led far down to a sharp right, and before them stood a man with teal skin, pitch black eyes, and rusted but heavy and well made plate armor.  He gave off the aura of death, and Allie was the first to speak as she stepped forward with a confused frown.

“Are you an undead?” Allie asked hesitantly, pulling off her skull mask to get a better look at the man.  “You certainly feel like it… and an F grade like us.  Your aura is like our own, or at least it isn't like those monstrosities outside.  Who are you, and what are you doing here?”

The black eyes shifted to Allie, and the undead soldier scratched the back of his neck with his free hand not holding a longsword.  “My name is Thale.  I… don’t remember much else.  I woke up here not too long ago.  I’m afraid I can’t answer that last question, as I don’t know what I’m doing here.  I was hoping you’d be able to tell me that yourself.”