Chapter 354: Elysium's Multiverse - Chapter 352

Chapter 352

Chapter 352

Bubbling magma over a broken peak, and hundreds of swirling streams of blood combined to make a fine reddish orange mist that shimmered in the light of the glowing runes he created.

Intricacies upon intricacies, intertwining layers and threads, with cores of mana and divinity locked into one another like a Japanese kumiki puzzle. Every piece had a place where it fit perfectly into another part of the mesh, and you could only remove it a very particular way without the rest of the mesh reinforcing and rebuffing Riven’s attempts.

And although Riven had a very hard time taking them apart, he could theoretically replicate the attempt to create not a soul lattice like it was modeled after - but a spell lattice of his own. With the pearl in his hand having a passive 200% bonus to Blood Dao insights when meditating, and Gluttony’s ever growing hunger pressing down on him to speed up his attempts, Riven was making serious progress.

[Trishard Blood Pearl (C-Grade Blasphemous Blood Artifact)]

Days passed as he meditated in an enlightened state of understanding and rapid learning. While using the lattice in front of him and inside his soul as examples to build the fundamental layers of magic off of, with trial and error being streamlined into an rapidfire testrun process that had multiple attempts at layering different weaves and spell lattices into one another. He utilized the concepts of graphics that Gragle had taught him as well, orienting himself to the three-dimensional axis dimensions of Ro, Vo, Tin, Nun, and Zika. His understanding of the three-dimensional purely magical constructs had been flimsy at best before now, but seeing the code written in the cage now trapping him had left him with a deep respect not only for the cultist, but for Gragle as well.

It was more than just Graphics, and more than just a ritual cage, it was a combination of the two that Riven drew on for his new key to enlightenment and the breakthrough he was enduring. Twice he felt the presence of Elysium hovering over his prison as it weighed whether or not Riven would be handed down a retribution for his insights, but in the end it left him be to meditate in peace as a network of runes formed from blood and shadow began to fill the interior of his cage. They rearranged themselves over and over again, becoming more complex as the pieces of the mesh he was creating failed and was dissolved only for a new form to take place. He was probing the cage, seeing how it worked and why.

And finally, when it was time, Riven opened his eyes and stood from where he hovered over a broken pile of stone - rubble, left over from the portion of mountain he’d obliterated when activating his ability ‘Orbital Hellstrike’ in conjunction with his aura. The attack had manifested his Infernal Pillar inside the enormous ritual cage despite the spell usually being called down from the skies, as he couldn’t project power outside this cage, and instead of breaking the ritual bindings it’d only vaporized the cliff face into a molten wasteland.

Now as Riven floated forward on wisps of energy, far slower than he could do with Messenger equipped but nonetheless flying, he stopped mere feet from his destination. The runic spell lattice around him faded into currents on the heated air, Riven watched the threads of mana and divinity winding together and embracing the nearest core. The cores of power that the threads connected to were widespread throughout the ritual cage and were keystones to the entire construct, and had by far been the most resilient when Riven had tried battering his way out with an immense outpouring of energy.

Riven reached out to touch the lattice, and felt it repel his body and soul simultaneously. But he kept pushing, beginning to straighten and his hand began to shake before his fingertips eventually settled on the lattice core teeming with energy that lashed out at him with every breath. Rippling currents of energy snaked up his arm as he closed his eyes, burning away his flesh with snapping electric jolts colored cobalt blue - only for his body to quickly regenerate the superficial wounds just as fast as they came.

From the Trishard Blood Pearl still clutched in his opposite hand, he heard the words: “Break the lock, and enter the shadow of the fallen branches.”

For a brief moment, only a flicker of time and a breath in the ocean of a second,Riven’s eyes went from a bright crimson to a radiant golden color. He felt his Blood Subpillar react, doing… something, but that change was like a whisper on the wind. Riven felt like he’d just witnessed something unique, something belonging to him but hidden away in the depths of infinity, and his brows furrowed in confusion as he tried to understand what had just happened.

Despite his period of enlightenment over the past days, he had not been delving into the secrets of the hidden branches. But it’d come to him anyways, teasing truth at the back of his mind as he dabbled in a different area of the universe’s mysteries.

Did this understanding he’d reached concerning graphics and the lattice structure of combination spells have anything to do with the hidden pillar branches of Blood?

He could not think of another reason the pearl would impart upon him such a strong vision of change.

Riven paused in his attempt to move forward against the ritualistic cage, grasping for another remnant of that strange feeling he’d just experienced, but despite his efforts he left the attempt empty handed. There would be another time to pursue that road, but for now, he had to get out of this place. He needed to finish this circus of the Chalgathi trials so he could move on to conquering Panu.

With renewed vigor, he pushed again at the core of the lattice cage - bright lightning still lashing out at him that tore into the skin, muscles and bones of his forearm. His hand burned, but he barely felt it as his nerves began to go numb from the effort.

Establishing a link, Riven began to replace the mechanisms of the ritual cage with code of his own.

The key wasn’t necessary if he could simply change the lock. The aspect of this creation being a three-dimensional projection of power meant it could be influenced and was outside the realm of current control from its creator. Unlike a spell that Riven decided to cast offensively, where that energy was under his control, this energy had been left behind and was separated from the origin source.

So he continued to push, until the cage around the mountain began to shake, ripple, and erode - as the containment zone around him faded into thin air with only a few sparks of protest.

[Congratulations! You have learned the system-recognized skill: Energy Hacking. You are now able to warp the rituals, enchantments, and infused items isolated from an origin source with sufficient skill and effort. This skill has been added to your status page.]

He blinked as he felt another surge of… something, from his Blood Sub-pillar. But just like earlier it was quick and fleeting, without true substance and only an inkling of a taste on his tongue.

He was free, but the fact that this skill, Energy Hacking, would bring about such things had implications. Was the Blood Sub-pillar’s other branches locked behind some kind of magical or divine construct? Had the Blood God put it there?

Or was Riven just reading into this situation way too much? Was he reaching for things that weren’t there?

“Break the lock, and enter the shadow of the fallen branches.” Riven repeated the words that the Trishard Blood Pearl had whispered into his head. Mulling it over, he descended from the sky towards the ground - and then began sprinting towards the dungeon village to head out of this place.

He just hoped nothing terrible had happened to his allies in his absence. Thankfully though he could still feel every one of his soul connections reconnecting with his previously isolated inner realm, and with a smile he increased his speed and flashed through the forest with ribbons of black and red mana trailing in his wake.

***

The air smelled like burnt flesh.

The broken corpses of two tiny children smoldered underneath Riven’s shadow as he stood on a hillside overlooking the city with a mixture of emotions. The city was nothing but ashes and cinder now, with only a few crackling remnants of the fire that’d bathed this place not all that long ago. The cultists must have butchered everyone here and set the city aflame quickly after trapping him inside the dungeon, though for what purpose Riven didn’t really understand.

He was no stranger to violence or murder by now. He even enjoyed it sometimes. He’d even been the one to wipe out Daskus, City of Canyons, in order to bring Athela back. But this just seemed so needless. Even if they were of lesser species than him, they were still thinking and feeling people with hopes and dreams. To see so many bodies of the defenseless for no reason was like a solid kick to the gut, even after so much violence throughout the last two years.

They didn’t have to murder all these people. They could have just left, or continued to use the people here as a conquered resource instead of just outright butchery.

This was what true evil was. Evil didn’t encompass Gluttony or his natural predatory urges to feed, it didn’t strictly match with the Unholy Foundational Pillar, nor did it even have a place describing the vampire kingdom his mother hailed from that conquered and enslaved entire civilizations to act as cattle. That all had meaning and purpose. Those things could be affiliated with brutality in many ways, yes, but they didn’t inflict pain just for pain’s sake. But this, this was without justification or cause.

It was just cruelty, plain and simple, without rhyme or reason.

Riven’s eyelids lowered and he lowered his head, letting out a sigh while staring down at the two small corpses clutched in each other’s charred arms. Looking out across the once pristine, beautiful city full of gardens that now stood as a burnt husk devoid of life - he had a profound sense of sadness.

Until he saw a wooden sign stabbed into the ground right outside the dungeon’s entrance from where he’d just come. On it were the painted words: “Thanks for the money. We’ve put it to good use, and hope you like the present we bought from the Elysium Altar for you. Enjoy!”

There was a smiley face painted in dried blood on the wood, and Riven’s eyes shifted to the looming Elysium Altar further into the city’s interior that he could only barely see through all the smoke rising into the air. Pushing out a series of directed mana waves, Riven couldn’t sense anything that stood out as a threat or trap. Nothing was visually obvious either in terms of the present the cultists had left for him, but after being tricked so easily inside the dungeon he wasn’t going to just blow it off.

The cultists had left something for him here, something that he probably wasn’t going to like. He remained rather curious about what they could possibly have bought with the 12 billion Elysium Coins that’d hamper him in some way, and the list was a very long one if the cultists decided to get creative. Elysium Altars supplied general items and goods from all around the multiverse, where a price was influenced by both the seller as well as Elysium’s tax - which was usually quite large, and the distance it took to transport goods through space.

Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Typically Elysium Altars were lifelines for rare materials rather than general trade due to the system tax and distance tax, but with that kind of money at their disposal the cultists probably didn’t give any single shit about the taxes in this case.

Riven felt the projectiles coming before he ever heard them, and heard the projectiles before he saw them.

He lashed out with a wretched snare, using it like a whip and smashed aside the speeding bolt with a clap of sound. The first silver flash embedded itself into the ground just on his right, sending pieces of the road skyborn as Riven turned his head and ripped apart space to swallow another two silver flashes - only for another one to nick his leg.

Hot searing pain flared to life as Riven’s flesh was torn from bone, and he hissed at the ever-increasing pain it exuded as he went to one knee.

[You have been afflicted with E-grade Liquid Silver, a potent poison when used against Vampires. Your regeneration in the afflicted area is significantly reduced, and you are slowed.]

His eyes flitted to the closest projectile embedded in the ground, and a fluid-like metal or alloy was slowly dripping off the steel bolt underneath.

A husky, hickish accent called out to him as heartbeats of over two-dozen people simultaneously came into earshot. “A pureblood!? Wow… Didn’t we get lucky this time! But still, they must’ve dun a terrible job keeping you holed up there if you already dun broke out. And they said you dun had at least another week or two before you figured out the cage thang. Typical of backwater fringe factions like them I dun guess, the newly integrated planets are full of incompo-tants.”

The sound of a hawking loogie being spat came next, and Riven slowly stood to face the speaker. He was a middle-aged man probably approaching 45, with a braided brown beard coming down his front and a slim build. He carried two very large silver knives, a hatchet that literally simmered with sunlight radiating along the blade’s edge, and had thick brown leathers on with studs. His pauldrons were made from the skulls of vampires though, and the front of the mask he wore was similarly made from the front of a vampire’s skull covering most of his upper face; with a golden cross placed into the front of the reinforced bone mask.

The heartbeats continued to grow in number around Riven’s position.

Three dozen.

Five dozen.

Over a hundred.

Then Riven stopped keeping track.

All around him along the city blocks, in the ruined towers and even in the air on small metal platforms or utilizing their own mana reserves - people in similar leathers wielding silver weapons or items infused with the power of the sun maintained a staggered distance of anywhere from 30 to 500 yards. All of them had some kind of trophy they wore on their clothing where vampiric teeth were on display - if not the entire skull like the man recently speaking. All of them had some kind of mask that hid most of their face, some of them had hats, but none of it was strictly uniform either.

But one thing was obvious even without Messenger’s identifying ability to help Riven out. These people were vampire hunters, likely from off-world. There were a couple ways to do that but most of them were complicated and hard to accomplish outside of one, especially in a system event like this. Riven’s guess, and he was pretty certain on this, was that the cultists had bought a guild hall - probably a large one to fill its employment slots with so many people - and had utilized the hiring feature to get the best vampire hunters they could find to stand guard here. That, or the cultists hadn’t used his Elysium Coins despite their claims and they’d instead used the event points to buy off options like this one - though he doubted the latter.

Riven’s eyes rested back on the bearded man with the mask, who was leaning forward on a large support beam that’d fallen out of a nearby building. “I was under the impression that the sign of the cross was strictly a thing from my homeland, and not a widespread thing.”

The man in the mask smiled underneath his skull mask, and then began to loudly bark out belly laughs as many of the others followed. “You don’t dun say! You wrong though, boy. The cross is a symbol of righteousness and the Holy foundation, and the Sun Sub-Pillar is just such a one. Seems mighty funny to me though that a vampire already in the E-grade don’t know that kinda thing, but we are on the border of civiliza-tian. You barbarians in these backwater worlds even know who we is? For a tooth fairy, you aint lookin too scurd to see us neither. Most o’ur kind goes and screams and hides when they see us. Or at least they try.”

More laughter from the sidelines along with a few hollars and whoops.

“Can’t say I do.” Riven replied coolly, hands in his pockets as he continued to feel the burn of the silver poison in his leg wound. “Enlighten me, oh bearded one.”

The man scoffed, then whipped out his silver knives and slit one over the other with a menacing smile - causing the metal to spark. “Integration planets for ya. We are the Skullborn Crosses, a vampire hunting enclave open for hire - and we pride ourselves of going from world to world ridding the multiverse of your kind. Your enemies just dun hired our squad. Too bad we can’t actualuly kill ya here with these event rules, but we’ll be sure to pin you down and spent lots’a time twisting knives in your gut! You consider yo’self a squealer!?”

Riven grinned. “Oh definitely. You caught me bro, I squeal all right.”

The man blinked and roared with laughter again. Then he took a step forward as the rest of the people around Riven drew weapons and aimed crossbows and strange looking rifles. “Time for us to make the pact then. Let’s get on wit’ it.”

He slapped a hand across his chest, and the cross there began to burn with brighter sunlight as did all the other people around them. Riven felt his mind sting and he winced at the blazing power as everyone around him began to howl to the sky.

[Nearby clerics have called on their patron for help. The Goddess Phrena, Lady of Wrathful Light, Purger of Vampires, is now watching you and has marked you for hunting. The Skullborn Crosses, a C-Grade guild in service to Phrena, has claimed the right of execution. All attacks done to you by The Skullborn Crosses will be amplified by 7% over the next hour. All snares, roots, stuns, and binding abilities are 20% stronger. You will be trackable for the next hour.]

Huh. Riven hadn’t ever seen a god or goddess directly intervene like this before. How peculiar. Perhaps it was some kind of miracle? He still wasn’t very well versed in miracles and how they worked outside of Genua’s own, but she didn’t have anything like this kind available to her.

Regardless there was no way any of these people were all C-Grade. Riven could tell just by their auras. They were at best early E-Grade and many of them were F-Grade, but he had to assume Elysium had not let in their big guns as this was an integration trial. That much was obvious, so this was likely just a relatively small hunting party affiliated with the guild.

Still, for most people in the E-Grade like himself - it wasn’t good to have a C-Grade entity mark him for death along with their goddess.

But wasn’t that the norm for Riven? He already had far more powerful entities such as Greed or the commandments out for his ass. So what was a bunch of vampire hunters to him now anyways?

He began to smile slightly as the first volley of silver missiles was unleashed, along with a few spears made of actual sunlight that burned when he looked at them. This time though, he was prepared - and wouldn’t be caught off guard.

The air around him exploded into a violent maelstrom of crystalized red blades and currents of black lightning as the sky darkened overhead. The sheer volume of mana he unleashed caused the ground beneath him to shatter as the projectiles collided with dozens of rotating ice shields and tears in space that swallowed them outright.

BOOM

The ground erupted in a wave of spikes in all directions, hundreds and then thousands of sharp spires ripping out from the ground where the red frost was creeping along. Buildings were crushed and screams erupted from all around him, but Riven was surprised when two of the silver bolts and a single sunlight lance pierced his storm despite the thick roaring tide of his affinities.

His hand twitched and curled, producing a critical storm lance that vaporized the piercing javelin of sunlight before it reached him - and a gluttonous maw tore open to devour the twin silver bolts with a snap of its jaws.

Using the ability caused Gluttony to ping his mind, but Riven gave the signal that he not need worry and continued doing whatever it was he was doing. Gluttony didn’t say anything in response, but his presence receded once again from Riven’s thoughts.

Riven’s mana sense picked up a figure moving through a ray of light just a second later, and he vanished into a rip in space to teleport back five feet - punching into the advancing figure just as the woman emerged. The assassin was completely caught off guard, and screamed when Riven’s hand punched through her leathers and into her heart from the back.

Ripping the woman’s heart out and stomping on her head, Riven summoned three enormous walls of ice from the ground in different areas to block another blast of radiant sunlight from mages positioned in the back.

The impact caused two of the walls to sizzle and shake, while the third one shattered. The roaring furnace barreling through Riven’s storm after it broke through was quickly met with a deafening crackle of black lightning that hit it head on - creating a shockwave that ripped through an entire street and decimated two of the archers hiding there.

Then Riven saw the five clerics that’d combined their attack to break through his barrier, and he let on a fanged smile - eyes glinting a brighter crimson as he channeled the blood energy to his hands.

Intricate gestures began racing across his fingertips as the skin along his arms simmered with wisps of radiant red mana. Using both hands in the intricate summon, Riven underwent the spiraling motions and thrust them forward in the direction of the clerics. “Nefajia crecus blood nova!”

KABOOM

A shockwave radiated out from his body in all directions, eradicating another two assassins that’d managed to get through the storm behind him as their bodies became specs of bloody gore. Immediately after that an orb of crimson rapidly expanded in front of him, creating a weight upon the area like a gravitational bomb. A split second later another explosion of power signaled the huge orb of blood that tore through the city, signaling the second part of the spell and leaving nothing but red mist and debris in its wake as the clerics scrambled to get out of the way.

They were too slow to dodge the supersonic bulldozer. Not even close.

CRASH

Five city blocks exploded about three hundred yards away, and two dozen more of the heartbeats in that area went silent.

“DIE, MONSTER!” the bearded man, who was probably their leader, screamed as he flashed through the opening Riven’s own attack made in the storm. The hatch glistening with sunlight was heaved over his shoulder and flung through the air, spinning with a whistling sound.

Riven backhanded it with a rapid slap and simultaneously jumped, spinning in the air and kicking the oncoming man straight in the face just as he drew his daggers.

The stunned warrior flat-packed the earth with his face as teeth flew everywhere, and tried to get up only for a net of wretched snare to slap down onto his position - keeping him pinned.

Riven’s stormed resumed its normal cycle around him as the sky began to rumble louder, more stormclouds of black and red crackling - and ravenous beetles created from sin began crawling out from Riven’s skin to fly into the air.

“Our goddess will have your ugly HEAD, YOU BLOODSUCKING COCK MONGER!” The man spat, rage in his eyes and all the bluster he’d had earlier completely gone now that the tide had so rapidly turned.

Riven could only laugh, putting his hands on his stomach and cackling as gluttonous storm razors began blooming like sharp, spinning flowers all around him to join the chaotic mess in his perimeter. He heard more heartbeats go silent as they tried traversing the storm and the bombardment of his position resumed, though Riven could already tell these people had obviously bitten off more than they could chew. They probably didn’t even know what they were really dealing with and had just assumed he’d been another pureblood to take out.

Too bad for them, but this would be their final hunt. Were they really what the cultists spent all that money on though?

What a waste.

“Vampire hunters?! Is this a joke? Just who have you been hunting with your measly amount of power!? But how about this. Do you want to see something really cool?” Riven asked, getting down on one knee with a manic glint in his eyes next to the wide smile he wore. “Let’s get rid of that little buff your goddess gave you. Can’t have any survivors tracking me, after all!”

Riven’s smile grew more menacing, and he snapped his fingers. With it came a wave of sin that pulsed out for miles in all directions over the course of a second.

[Farsight Banishment (Sin): Send a pulse of sin that eradicates all ties to the area around you concerning scrying, remote tracking, spying, karmic ties, or long-range visualization abilities. Very long cooldown.]

[The Goddess Phrena, Lady of Wrathful Light, Purger of Vampires, has been banished from this area. You are no longer trackable and her gaze recedes. All buffs given to The Skullborn Crosses have been removed.]

The enraged man’s eyes widened in confusion, and he struggled to get out of the black net of spikes viciously trying to dig into his skin. “IMPOSSIBLE!”

Riven clicked his tongue, and growing a spear from manipulating a piece of crimson ice - he wrested the pointed blade of the spear against the man’s head. “I’m afraid not my little human friend. See you in the next life!”

Riven pushed, piercing the man’s skull, and felt it crunch underneath him when he hit stone. It was like splitting a watermelon, and it was oh so satisfying.

He licked his lips as his hunger grew at the sight and smell of a fresh kill. Spinning the spear in his hand, his eyes darted to the next victim - and his smile was now from ear to ear. He was enjoying this, but he did have other things to do.

Best get it out of the way.

Infusing his body with Profane Blessing of the Crow and lighting up his body with wisps of mana, he catapulted out of the storm into the unsuspecting swordsmen trying to push into the howling storm. They were too busy hacking away at beetles and loudly cursing to even notice him before he was already upon their group, and with four swift strikes Riven’s blade punched through each of their hearts with pinpoint accuracy.

Turning heel and launching himself in another direction, Riven’s mad laughter rose to the heavens over the screams of the dying, and the sounds of explosions as he began to slaughter each and every one of them without mercy.

It was time for him to feed.