Chapter 31
Pain flared across his chest like a hot iron, causing him to cringe. Yup, his ribs were definitely broken in at least one spot. It was painful to stand—let alone move around. It especially hurt when he leaned forward at all, so he did his best to keep his back straight and stiff as he walked over to the corpse. But, to his surprise, his body slowly started to regenerate. Small cuts and scrapes started to mend before his very eyes, his rib snapped back into place with a pop, and his ankle stopped swelling.
Riven was baffled. This was the second time this had happened today alone. Was it because of the fragment of Gluttony he’d absorbed? But he’d been kept alive before he’d actually absorbed it, when that creature had been sucking him dry like a sponge. Did it have to do with his bloodline that was still “partially locked”? He didn’t know why or how this was happening, but whatever the reason, he was glad for it.
Using his foot to roll the remnants of the creature’s face, he wiped his bloodied face off on the sleeve of his robes before kicking the mutilated skull across the room.
“God, that guy was tough…”
He was seriously glad it hadn’t full-on hit him. The hit Riven had received was half-assed and a sideswipe just meant to stun him for the follow-up killing blow. Even one of those real strikes would have easily ended his life in an instant, claymore or not, and he’d been lucky enough to come out with only a rib fracture. That rib and the bloodied nose left him in enough pain as it was.
Well, he was gunning for a mage-type class, after all. He’d have to be more careful about getting into close-combat encounters like that. Not that he hadn’t tried to in this circumstance, but he was hoping for a build that would eventually allow him to keep people at bay while he did damage from a safe distance. That included either more crowd-control abilities or more abilities involving maneuverability…or maybe even more minions that could tank for him and protect him.
He cleaned off his embalmer’s knife after ripping it out of the corpse, wiping the ghoul’s blood on his pant leg—then leaned back on his caster’s staff to support his weight, as his legs still continued to shake slightly due to exhaustion despite the healing he’d received. It’d been too close a call not to get his adrenaline going, and he’d come within an inch of death.
He inspected the claymore the ghoul had dropped amid the wreckage of the chandelier after he’d first blown a hole through the creature’s back and chest. The weapon was very, very large and looked ridiculously heavy. It had chips along the blade’s edges all the way down its surface but was made of a thick metal that was slightly darker than iron. At first he’d thought it just to be dirt and grime from ages of use, potentially even bloodstains, but upon a closer look he was absolutely sure that this metal was just outright different from the things he was familiar with.
“Identify.”
[Damaged Orchalium Claymore, 58 average damage, two-handed for full effect, 89 Strength requirement.]
This was the first weapon he’d seen thus far with a stat requirement—albeit he hadn’t seen many.
And eighty-nine Strength? That was way more than he had. Riven only had eight! He placed his wooden staff on a nearby pile of rubble and bent down just to get a feel for the weapon. Even when using both hands and straining, grunting, and getting red in the face—he was unable to pick it up more than a couple inches off the ground.
Then it started to slightly shock and burn him to the point that he definitely felt pain. The weapon got hotter and hotter to the touch, beginning to feel similar to the wooden ring back in the room he’d spawned in, until it became downright painful about ten seconds later.
“Holy shit!”
He let it go before his fingers broke off, and the weapon crashed into the ground with a bang. Flinging his hands out to the sides a couple times to get the blood flowing back into them, he just shook head in amazement. “Ridiculously heavy, by God.”
Reading the item information for the claymore did bring up an interesting question, though. It had a requirement, specifically the eighty-nine Strength to wield it. Was this burning sensation he’d felt the system’s way of telling him off for not meeting the Strength requirement and trying to use it anyways?
He could safely guess yes.
Regardless, the other weapons he’d seen up until now hadn’t had any requirements at all.
Pausing, his thoughts drifted to Jose and Allie. He really hoped his friend and little sister were all right, but he’d been trying very hard to block those thoughts from his mind. He needed to survive himself, and dwelling on something he could literally do nothing about would only damper his own mind when he needed to remain sharp. If what the system had said was true, as long as they all survived, he’d be reunited with them after the tutorials.
He shook himself. Glancing over at the caved-in room he’d been in just prior to this, he frowned at losing the books. He didn’t know if they were valuable or not, but now he’d never know. There was no way he was digging through all that rock just to try and find them, and he wasn’t sure he even could if he tried.
At least he still had the two scrolls he’d found. Maybe he could sell them to other people when he eventually found a way out of here… He certainly couldn’t use them. Athela wouldn’t be able to, either, as she was also bound to the Unholy Foundational Pillar and its subpillars. The Chi subpillar was in the realm of the Harmony Foundational Pillar.
[Martial Art Scroll: Quickstep (Chi)—Envision the path you want to take in a straight line from where you stand and blur ahead at great speed. May be used in any direction. Instant cast, high cooldown.]
[Martial Art Scroll: Calculated Shot (Chi)—Highlight vulnerable areas on your selected target, speed your reflexes, and slow time to perfect your aim as you fire. Must have a bow or gun in hand to use. Instant cast, medium cooldown.]
Regardless, he really needed to get the hell out of here to find that statue, and the longer he fucked around, the more of a chance Athela had of dying.
Yet he didn’t feel entirely guilty for spending time acquiring a new spell or experimenting with his abilities, as these things were the keys to helping him navigate this strange, dangerous place to find Athela. Without them, he had a good idea of what would happen—and it involved something similar if not identical to the numerous hanging corpses scattered across the ruins. He might have even ended up as a lunch for the creature he’d just encountered if he’d not come across the spell scroll for Blood Lance when he did.
Based on these few experiences he’d recently had, this was an area infested with undead—and that first zombie he’d faced had been quite weak in comparison to the ghoul he’d just fought. He likely wouldn’t last here too long if he stayed in these ruins, and finding Athela was still at the top of his priorities list.
Speaking of that zombie, where was his haunted saleswoman, anyways? Hadn’t she said she’d been looking for some kind of item she wanted to give him a special price for? She’d only been gone a few hours, though, so who knew when she’d show up again. He needed to find Athela and get out of this dungeon as soon as possible.
Riven palmed the polished wood of his staff and hoisted it up. Remembering he needed to distribute his stat points from his recent level gain, he pulled up his status page and placed them into Intelligence and Willpower and one point into Sturdiness. His boots crunched on shattered glass as he walked until he reached the opposite hallway that led around a dark bend. Taking one last look at the corpse behind him with a backward glance, having a minor amount of pride in his recent kill, Riven vanished into the depths of the stone skyscraper like a ghost in the night.
One day later
Screeches of the undead echoed through the halls, and Riven’s feet pounded against the stone panels, pushing him ahead with everything he had. Sparks lit up across his skin and his muscles contracted to their fullest, kicking himself up over an overturned crate with spilled-out pottery from another age and toward the exit.
“OHS VRASHAMA TU VASKI!”
Whatever language these skeletons were screaming at him in, it didn’t sound very pleasant. He rolled under a hole in a rotting double door and launched himself back to his feet just as skeletal hands slammed into the ground behind him, clawing at the ground and battling one another to try and fit through the hole he’d just gone through.
Riven sneered and spun in midair, launching a Blood Lance backward that shattered three charred skeletons with glowing teal eyes. More of the undead took their place, though, and the wave of enemies slammed into the remnants of the thick wood, causing it to splinter right before it burst. He swore and continued running, pushing harder than he’d ever pushed his legs before, and turned a corner while more of the bone walkers rushed him with deathly wails.
[Bone Walker, Level 3]
[Bone Walker, Level 4]
[Bone Walker, Level 1]
[Bone Walker, Level 3]
[Bone Walker, Level 2]
Hundreds of the monsters were hot on his tail like an ocean wave, having been waiting in ambush for prey in one of the larger citadel rooms he’d passed through. They’d nearly killed him in a mad rush when he’d first entered, and now he was struggling just to stay ahead of them while launching projectiles and counting on his blessing not to run out just yet. He’d been running for God knows how long, but the undead had almost never-ending stamina that kept them moving far longer than any human would have usually been able to match.
*BOOM*
The wall in front of him shattered, and he made an abrupt right, skidding along the hall and almost crashing into two minotaurs that bulldozed through the rubble in an attempt to figure out what was making all that noise in their domain. The huge nine-foot demons had rippling muscles, brown fur, curved obsidian horns, large double-sided battle-axes in their hands, and blazing orange eyes that shifted from Riven to the swarm of skeletons screeching down the hallway in a roiling swarm.
The monsters collided with one another, the two larger minotaurs taking sweeping swings that crushed dozens of the skeletons into the bulk of the swarm before they, too, were overrun by a tidal wave of ravenous, bloodthirsty bones that sank their teeth into the demons to begin sucking life force away.
Riven didn’t stay to watch, continuing down the ancient stone hallways, past grime-covered windows, over broken altars, and up a spiral staircase toward the top of a tower. He cursed when he saw that there were still dozens of the undead creatures following him, but he had nowhere else to go, and if need be he’d try utilizing his snares to drop off the side of the tower and stick himself to the outer wall. It was the best plan he had.
His heart pounded in his chest, his feet thudded against the stone steps, and he nearly slipped on the corpse of some imp-like creature that was sprawled out on the stairs with a cracked neck. He kicked it down for the undead to feed on, successfully drawing the forefront of them away from his flight, but more were coming, and they clambered over their undead counterparts in a primal hunger with bones clattering together in a mad rush.
Another undead latched onto his right leg, and he spun around to kick with his left, taking the skeleton full on in the face and sending it crashing backward as he landed on the steps. Frantically spinning and blasting another two of the undead with four of his Bloody Razors, he continued racing up the stairs to finally come to the top of the tower minutes later.
The top of the tower was flat, the sky above him red with clouds of black smog partially obscuring the flaming eye overhead. Battlements to his left were still intact, but on his right they’d been crushed or torn off by some great beast in millennia past, and it was here that he set his sights.
“Here goes fucking nothing!”
Dodging another swipe of a skeletal hand and wincing at such a close screech from the monster, he raced ahead of the swarm, and without even bothering to look and see what was over the edge, he launched himself off the building.
The ruined city was far below him, and he felt himself free falling with screams of the bone walkers behind him growing more distant the longer he let himself go. He’d always been afraid of heights, but he found himself letting out a sigh of relief while he plummeted hundreds of feet toward the ground.
Conjuring a multitude of snares and still being far up above the ground, heading toward a chasm splitting the earth of the hellscape apart, he wrapped his Unholy magic around his waist and then launched the other end at the side of the skyscraper he was falling from.
The snare stuck, and he felt an abrupt tug around his midsection when the magic stretched. He came to a brief stop and violently slammed into the side of the building for a moment, then sailed back upward like a bungee jumper. Thankfully he’d only been badly bruised by the impact, though he had probably shattered some of his smaller bones, which he assumed would heal due to recent experiences, but otherwise he hadn’t taken much damage. Bouncing a couple more times and watching three of the bone walkers fall to their deaths past him due to their zealous chasing, he eventually lost his momentum and hung along the side of the enormous stone ruin while laughing his ass off and catching his breath. This place, these experiences, the fights he endured: they were changing him. He was becoming somewhat fearless, and honestly, he was even starting to have a good time despite the many near-death experiences. It was thrilling to come so close to death, against such odds, and still survive due to his own efforts.
Turning and watching the screeching creatures explode into various bony pieces when they hit the ground, he saluted them with a grin and planted his feet on the tower wall. “It was a good run, lads. On to bigger and better things!”