Chapter 143

Chapter 143

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 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.]