Elysium's Multiverse-Chapter 355

Elysium's Multiverse-Chapter 355

Chapter 355
Chapter 355
Justin Mathers had grown up alone. A typical tragic story about a boy from the South Bronx, where there were no rules except for one: fight for your life, or be squashed.
But even back then, before the system had truly come to light, Justin knew he was different. He could shift metal objects with his mind little by little, more and more as he went from being a kid into being a young man - and then even more when he grew into his twenties. He vividly remembered a time when he’d been jumped walking home from his job at the gas station, when he’d been beaten so badly that he thought he’d die - it was only then that he’d realized his true potential. That bullet aimed at his head had just stopped mid-flight, hovered there for more than a fraction of a second as he cried out in terror, and with the force of a bazooka it eradicated the two people who’d set out to take his life.
He remembered thinking to himself that he was destined to be some kind of superhero. That the world would embrace him as their new savior if he went off to stop wars and save lives.
How wrong he had been.
The United States Government had seen what he could do in a private setting when he’d turned himself in on good faith and had locked him away in a plastic container where they’d performed numerous experiments. Torturous ones more often than not, as the drugs they used to sedate him didn’t always work on what Justin eventually realized were magical rituals. Other people like him with odd demigod-like powers were trapped there too, and it quickly became apparent to him that many of them were being manipulated or even mind controlled in two instances with means that he couldn’t at first identify. It turned out to be one of the CIA higher ups in the end, an admission from the man on the day that Justin had been broken out by the spirit of a dragon and the promise of power.
Chalgathi had come to grant Justin his blessing as one of his cultists, and Justin’s life was suddenly given purpose.
He would burn this world down. It had only taken from him, and now that the dragon promised new life beyond the one he had always known - he would leave it in ashes and would rise beyond to new planes of existence.
The other cultists he’d met previously to the integration were a mixture of oddballs, and oftentimes violent or crazy. Not always, but he’d say about half of them were cold blooded killers with a few screws loose in the very beginning. That Tao Zhang guy was a perfect example of that, and after Justin had met the man in person after months of speaking in online chatrooms - it really sent the message home.
These people were fucking crazy. And Justin was loving it.
Months turned to years, and the cultists worked together in preparation for the end times. New magics were unlocked, resources were gathered, government facilities were raided for what little magical artifacts were present before Chalgathi’s time would come. They were a true menace, and powerful, but overall they also lacked cohesion as they all knew that one day they’d have to kill one another. That made working with each other harder than it should have been, but Chalgathi’s decree made it so that they didn’t outright butcher one another before the designated time. No, Chalgathi had plans for them - and they would have other foes to face aside from one another in the future too.
Then the system had arrived, and Justin had quickly found out that he loved the chaos it created.
And the power it brought with it.
All those years of preparation amounted to so little, comparable to parlor tricks, when the real magic of the system set in. It was like a quenched man in a desert had finally found an ocean of water to work with, when comparing the energy difference once had to work with before and after. Martial Arts and Miracles were also quickly unraveled as primal energies once locked were unleashed by Elysium’s presence. His power grew in leaps and bounds instead of tiny baby steps now, and the more he killed - the more he rose up above the rest.
He was strong.
He would grow stronger.
Even now, two years later as he sat upon his throne in a claimed Chalgathi Altar - harvesting it for points as the others did silly quests, he knew he was likely the strongest cultist here. Even moreso than that Naga spellcaster attuned to a different beast than Chalgathi, more than the crazed abomination of shadows calling herself Nora the cultist-hunter; and perhaps more than even the proclaimed Reincarnation of Gluttony. He couldn’t be sure of it, not truly, but he was excited to find out.
Because his bloodline, ‘Cursed Iron Forge’, hid his status information from the power ranking boards just like it did most other things. Even from himself, so he didn’t have a direct comparison to other people during the integration. Now that the number 1 Apex Ranker on the planet of Panu was finally here in direct opposition to Justin, he would finally be able to put his theories to the test.
He’d been hoping this moment would come for a very long time.
Justin’s metal-wrapped finger lazily tapped against his throne on the 24th floor up, and he watched through an indestructible glass window as the enemy finally made their move. They’d all gathered on one end surprisingly enough, and were making a front-run at the lower gates.
He could literally taste the fear in the air from the people he’d subjugated and forced to be here, to defend his tower. When his vision zoomed in on the approaching army he could literally see the terror in the eyes of the attackers as they pushed ahead through the volleys of arrows, explosive fireballs and ballista bolts.
But his attention was quickly diverted to the man at the very center and forefront of the charge, a cloaked shadowy figure with glowing red eyes and a skull-topped staff. Justin’s heartbeat sped up in excitement as he identified the man from afar.
[Riven Thane, Level 209 Warlock of the Malevolent Storm, Incarnation of Gluttony, Pureblooded Vampire, Lost Prince of the Blood Moon Requiem. MYTHIC. PANU WORLD BOSS.]
The draconic golems around Justin stood stock still on guard with halberds in hand as he leaned forward in anticipation, and the commanders began to mutter worriedly to one another when the warlock slammed his staff into the ground at the forefront of the charge.
The ground exploded with thick walls of red ice that intercepted the oncoming barrage from Justin’s forces across a mile-wide area, cracking the earth and splitting the clouds. Then the wall began to move forward, rushing towards the tower to completely cover the invading army, clocking well over 50 miles per hour. The display was… beautiful. Impressive. Awe inspiring for someone of their level.
Justin’s mouth dropped underneath his metallic shell at the sight and he began to silently, gleefully laugh to himself at the fight he knew was sure to come, and watched as the defending barrage cast a shadow over the ground and crashed into the oncoming red wall.
The series of explosions were deafening, and the air vibrated with noise that caused even Justin’s metal coating to creak. Pieces of the enormous blood construct shattered and sprayed out as shards of shrapnel in repeated bursts all across the mile-long push. The barrage didn’t let up, but even Justin was surprised when very thin rips in space inserted themselves across the wall and began to let loose a barrage of their own.
Stolen novel; please .
Black lightning tore out of the spacial tears to rip apart and smack down much of the tower’s defensive onslaught, buying time for the blood construct to reform itself as it continued to push forward. Then Justin’s eyes went wide in delight when he saw what came next:
The infamous gluttonous maws. They were a symbol of the man who inspired fear in all the other cultists here, the symbol of the greatest obstacle of what would make their own dreams of attaining power come true. The vertical maws opened up with black teeth and writhing tendrils that launched themselves through the ice like devouring demons, coming out by the dozens as manifestations of dread that gave off terrifying auras of bloodthirsty hunger. Largely ignoring the barrage many of the lightning strikes were aiming to knock down, the tendrils from the screaming ravenous mouths went straight for the tower’s battlements where most of Justin’s defenders were positioned from over a thousand yards away.
The screams began to pick up.
Hundreds of golems and people alike were skewered, smacked off the battlements, or yanked back into the mouths where the aspects of Gluttony ate them alive in gruesome displays of carnage or sheared metal.
But the tower would not be taken so easily.
Despite the sincere pleasure at seeing the beautiful masterpiece of death constructed before him, even wanting to see just a bit more, he had an apocalypse beast to catch. Justin regretfully pulled up the tower’s menu hologram and activated the secondary defenses based on his own powers, felt the tower draw on his soul, and an aura of metal chips infused with extreme decay pulsed out of the altar to combat the warlock’s rushing wall of grim tidings. Like a glittering silver smokescreen, the metal shards slammed into the oncoming wall like a tsunami. The decay focused in on the warlock’s conjurations and began to eat away at the wall rapidly, causing it to crack and crumble at an extraordinary speed while dulling the lightning smacking away the flurry of defensive projectiles - but the gluttonous maws seemed not to be effected in the least.
In fact, the infusion of unholy energy seemed to only empower Gluttony’s projections. The tendrils grew more furious in their attempts to rip apart the ramparts and gates, and an ear-piercing screeching noise came from far below when one of the hinges snapped. Three black tendrils tore the front gate off the tower’s base and threw it aside before a torrent of flames from a powerful defending mage banished the closest conjurations, but by then it was already too late.
The front door was wide open.
Justin activated the outer barriers and set it to max power, and watched as sickly green barriers of lacerating Unholy energy snapped into place around the tower - severing many of the tendrils this time and blocking the oncoming lightning. It did, unfortunately, stop the defending barrage from going outwards, and the entire tower shook when the wall of ice crashed into the shields like a battering ram.
Justin grasped the throne’s armrests with both hands, laughing like a madman as his breathing picked up speed. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d been this excited, and was growing ever more anxious with anticipation - but in a good way. “I see you’re not called number one and an absolute monster for nothing! Good! GOOD! I won’t be disappointed after all!!!”
The shields and the ice wall spouting off tendrils and lightning bolts came to a crackling, grating stop against one another as the two powers were locked in an intense struggle. The sheer amount of mana that Riven guy must have to put on an offensive like this was just mind boggling, and Justin had the feeling that it may even match his own stamina reserves whenever he used his martial arts to their fullest. There was even a small moment in time that he seriously wondered who of the two of them would win, but the thought didn’t bother him at all.
It was about time he had a real fight.
The sky darkened a moment later, and a catlike orange eye flared to life - splitting the black clouds gathering there as the air rumbled. Raindrops of fire began to fall from the heavens with a pitter-pattern against the tower, which soon turned into a downpour. Dozens and then hundreds of orange catlike eyes, all smaller than the first central one but still quite large, opened up from above in the shuddering black clouds to release tens of thousands and then hundreds of thousands of fiery droplets a second - crashing into his tower’s shields with a maddening outflow. Justin had actually seen this spell before in a larger and less frequently cast version, it was called Hellspitter - though the mage he’d fought for his amulet piece had only used it twice before Justin smashed the other cultist’s head in. To see hellspitter cast so rapidly and in such a condensed form to create a rain-like effect, it was absolutely marvelous.
Justin’s eyes narrowed while staring at the sky. That was without a doubt an archdemon, and the system identification only proved it a second later.
[Narg, Level 204 Archdemon, Abyssal Eye Beholder. ELITE.]
He scratched his head.
The thing was, Justin wasn’t aware of a demon of this type being owned by Riven. s and videos on the world feeds had suggested that Riven had three demons: Azmoth the brutalisk, Fay the succubus, and Athela the arshakai-dryder. He hadn’t seen any of those yet though, and by Justin’s best guess: this new demon must have been an addition after Riven hit the E-grade. So that would make it four archdemons that Justin would have to contend with before killing the warlock today.
Things just seemed to get ever more fun. He was loving this.
“Pull the defenders inside and abandon the battlements.” Justin said to his commanders, who quickly relayed the message as they stared awestruck at the clash of power nearby.
The barriers weren’t going to last and were flickering as is. The mile-wide wall continued to grate in showers of black sparks and ice shrapnel, and the rain of fire caused dozens of heated explosions every fraction of a second. Justin gave his defending team about twenty seconds to get inside before he detonated the outer barriers with what energy still remained, and they exploded outwards - causing the wall of crystalized blood to shatter backwards onto the army behind it.
Or so that’d been Justin’s plan, anyways.
As the wall exploded backwards into crushing pillars and razor sharp fragment pieces like an avalanche onto the terrified, screaming attackers - a pulse of red energy snapped forward and caused the falling pieces of debris to float in place. Justin saw through the breaks that streams of mana were pouring out of and around the warlock in the front line - the man was exuding absolute authority over the blood mana to an extreme degree, and slowly the icy debris began to melt into actual blood.
The falling pillars and house-sized fragments that would have lacerated or smashed the oncomers were brought about and reshaped once Riven saw that the rain of fire had caused all the defenders to flee the battlements. Pouring all that blood mana into a single, massive sphere over the course of the next minute, Justin’s enhanced vision saw Riven’s eyes meet his own.
To Justin’s surprise, Riven winked directly at him, and with a flurry of hand gestures Riven kept eye contact and said something Justin couldn’t hear.
A shockwave of red erupted from the ground in a forward momentum and catapulted the enormous orb of swirling blood mana directly into the towers base-
BOOM
The entire tower shook once again and knocked Justin off his feet, as a river of blood violently crashed up through the tower.
It even tore into the throne room, and Justin smashed his huge mace down and braced his heavy frame against the torrent to send the blood magic back. All around the tower, areas that hadn’t been sealed off in time exploded outwards - sending shredded people and golems out the destructible areas all around the tower such as the battlements or certain windows with the energy of a popping soda bottle after it's been shaken.
When Justin’s head cleared and he looked around at the sopping wet, bloodstained room, he saw that most of his commanders were already dead with only a few of the stronger ones left alive. Body parts, scrap metal and guts were splattered all over, those that hadn’t been swept away in the current, but a quick look at his Chalgathi Altar interface showed him that he still retained over 3/4ths of his forces that’d properly brought up their defensive seals in order to defend against an attack such as this one. Different areas of the tower could be and had been quarantined for a situation such as this, also making it harder for any attackers to control the control panel segments that could be used to shut off his golem respawn generator.
The inspired attackers roared battlecries and rushed forward, with Riven blurring forward at the head of them like a wraith. But they’d not take this place so easily, and the tower’s inner nullification zones put a cap on how much power output one could even create within these walls - making Riven less useful the farther in and closer to the throne room he got. It was an equalizer of sorts…
Which would make his advance through average fighters a lot tougher. Knowing himself though, Justin would very likely take that nullification zone down to use his own prowess if Riven actually made it as far as the throne room. He’d would not balk at a once in a lifetime fight like this where he’d be able to test his metal to the fullest while not risking death, and he excitedly began to bark orders as the clashing of magics and metal from far below rang through the staircases as defending platoons smashed against invading forces like a bull and bear in a fighting pit.
Soon, Justin would put his metal to the test literally and figuratively.
He was bound to, at the very least, give Riven the biggest surprise that vampire had since getting here. He would show the number 1 Apex Ranker just what it meant to be a true warrior, but only after he wiped the floor with whatever demons he’d brought with him first.

Chapter 355