Elysium's Multiverse-Chapter 359

Elysium's Multiverse-Chapter 359

Chapter 359
Chapter 359
Drums beat in the hollowed out cavern to the tune of deep, guttural chants that echoed off the walls. A huge pentagram burned with flames rising off the unnaturally smooth floor, and stakes had been erected with crucified greed acolytes at each of the star’s points - their blood dripping down off their nailed bodies into crevices below before slithering away to the central pool.
“It is almost time.” Greed’s priest said with a raspy voice through a veil of black cloth Crendir’s eyes could not penetrate. A gaunt, frail hand placed itself onto Crendir’s shoulder with surprising grip strength, and shook the vampire while coming up to his ear. “The summoning will proceed on schedule. Two heroic souls approach us now, and we need only kill one of them in order to achieve our goals.”
Crendir’s face was literally sweating blood, and he coughed violently into his hands as his bare body shuddered with a chill that shouldn’t be there considering the rising flames right in front of him. He had known the risks upon absorbing the fallen god’s blood while not being pureblooded. He’d known it, accepted it, and followed through with it anyways. The ancient being’s essence was alive though, and it stirred more and more as Crendir grew ever closer to fully ingesting the malefic substance.
The fallen god’s blood was consuming Crendir from the inside out, soul and all.
“Elder Thune’s temporary solution to modify my body isn’t enough.” Crendir rasped, clawing at his neck and digging deep trenches into his skin - scratching an itch that never went away before his body’s natural regeneration sealed it shut. “I’m dying. When you say the heroic souls are approaching us, will they be here tonight? I’m not sure I can last another two or three days at this rate, I’ll implode and rot away.”
The obscured priest nodded, retrieving his gaunt hand and making some kind of religious gesture over his chest to the sin of Greed. “They are right outside, even as we speak. Tre’Zix of Gluttony, and Amelia Deathfeather of Wrath. Our martyrs are giving up their lives now in order to make it seem like they didn’t expect an offensive approach, but the ambush is set. Our forces in the wider multiverse have succeeded in securing The 7th Wing, Purity’s Reincarnation, and have already prepared the vessel for transport. Once we acquire one or both of the heroic souls and burn it for fuel, we shall have means of transporting Purity here through the ritual. Do you remember the plan?”
Crendir violently coughed again, nodding while wiping away the red sweat forming on his brows with a shaking hand. “When she arrives, tell her that it was me who sacrificed your alcyotes and killed those of Wrath and Gluttony. Tell her that it was me who brought her here, and she will likely - hopefully - stabilize my soul.”
The Greed priest nodded. “Correct. This is something of a gamble, but it is the best we can come up with. Purity is known for her ability to purge a soul clean of… well, impurities. You need to do your best to convince her that you will be useful to her, but regardless of whether or not that happens - she will likely pursue a path of violence and try to eradicate the vessels of Gluttony and Wrath like any good fanatic would do. Our guess is that she will see what you’ve done here, hopefully with the bodies of the enemy’s best, and take you with her in that pursuit. Having a fallen god’s essence running through you, it shouldn’t be too hard to imagine The 7th Wing putting you to her own designs. She doesn’t know it yet, but that’s exactly what we want.”
“And what do I tell her about why I did it?”
The priest shrugged. “Isn’t it obvious? It isn’t even entirely a lie. You want to purge the evil of the sins from your lands. However, you must be sure to impress upon her your value before she fully emerges from the summoning. If you do not, she will doubtless strike you down as she will see you as a tainted and inferior creature. Purity is not known for her kindness, and is without doubt the most ruthless of all the commandments. But she is smart too, and would not look a gift horse in the mouth should you ask for her help in eradicating her eternal enemies to set them back in acquiring adequate vessels.”
Crendir arched his back and grimaced as new, bone-chilling pain ripped down his spine. “What if we don’t manage to kill them and acquire a heroic soul?”
“Then you will likely die within the week. Your S-grade vampire friend did a piss poor job of keeping you intact despite his promises to uphold his end of the bargain, something which Greed is not happy about.”
Rage shot through Crendir at the complete lack of caring in the priest’s tone. But he quelled the impulse to take his sword and behead the tiefling priest with a supreme flex or his willpower. “And what if we succeed? What then, with Purity here on Panu?”
The priest gave a low chuckle. “You’re getting ahead of yourself and we’ve been over all this before. But since you want to hear it again: should all our attempts bear fruit and we do manage to do all the things we set out to do… such as kill the two overlords bearing down on us even as we speak, if the summoning of Purity and convincing her goes as well as we could hope, and then we do manage to combine your stabilized power upon full absorption of that accursed blood with the power of a commandment in order to strike down both the vessels of Wrath and Gluttony - then we will kill Purity next of course. With her body in our possession, we’ll be able to permanently reanimate the effect she used to stabilize your soul through a transfusion ritual - as long as she used that ability within a month of having killed her.”
There was a long pause.
Sounded like a bunch of bullshit to him, but Crendir nodded anyway. It wasn’t like he had a better plan and Crendir was growing desperate. “What is to stop me from just taking Elysium’s way out with the quest reward? Are you not afraid that I’ll just get up and leave with the way off Panu provided by Elysium should I successfully absorb the fallen god’s blood properly? What would stop me from leaving and giving it to Elder Thune, bypassing our need to work together?”
He could almost see the demon’s mocking grin behind that veil staring down at him.
“You could do that, the quest rewards for success in absorbing the god’s essence are plain. There’s not anything I could do to stop you.” The priest said nonchalantly through the beating drums and chants of other clergy around the flaming pentagram’s perimeter. “First you’d still need to summon Purity for any chance of a stabilization, so part of our plan would already be fulfilled even if you choose to run afterwards. If you chose to leave early though, your death would almost be guaranteed. Your incompetent master Elder Thune does not know how to stabilize your body, as is already seen by his lacking efforts here and now.”
The priest waved a hand dismissively at the sweating, bloody body that was not Crendir.
“It is obvious he has no idea how to save you, is using you in a desperate attempt to reconstruct the lost extensions of the Blood Subpillar, and will likely extract that fallen god’s essence from your corpse if you go back without a second thought; before murdering that fiance you had back in the Blood Moon Requiem in order to keep things quiet. I know that to be true, you already know that I’m right, and so does everyone else involved. No, the only way you come out of this alive with the one you love intact is by completing this out to the fullest, gaining Greed’s favor, and taking your fiance somewhere that Elder Thune won’t be able to reach once this is all said and done.” The priest lowered his head to whisper in Crendir’s ear again. “We’ll even let you keep that accursed blood god’s essence as a way of thanks, should all go according to plan. But now is not the time for anymore talking, Tre’Zix of the Purple Claw and Amelia Deathfeather lead their clans into the maw of our trap. I need to go make sure everything goes according to plan, so just sit tight and stay put… hopefully this doesn’t all blow up in our faces within the next hour. I truly don’t wish to die so early in my cultivation journey, but you never know with monsters like those two in the mix. Best be prepared.”
***
Six human men, a naga ice mage, and a female drow deathknight were shoved forcefully to their knees - all bloodied and bruised with blades pressed to the back of their necks. Some were even missing limbs and two of them were loudly sobbing. The skies were the brilliant shades of sunrise, and the altar of despair cast a shadow from where it’d been wedged into the side of a mountain. It looked like a building carved into a clawing skeleton's hand reaching for the sky, and had quite the artistic take if Riven had to say.
“Is this all of them we were able to find?” Riven asked, casually lifting a finger to produce a puff of fire from his fingertip and lighting the cigar he’d stolen off of a corpse. Infernal energy was his least proficient of all the affinities he had, even when compared to his death mana, but practicing conjuration from time to time even with tiny acts such as this would likely enhance his ability to manipulate it in time like he did so easily with Blood and Shadow.
Or so he hoped. Otherwise the act just looked fucking cool, and he felt like a mafia boss as he smoked that cigar while puffing smoke into the faces of the eight broken cultists he’d managed to wrangle.
Stolen content alert: this content belongs on Royal Road. any occurrences.
Tao was too busy sweet talking Fay’s grandmother to pay any attention, but Justin sharply nodded with a grimace. The metal-coated man was a lot less eager to fight Riven one on one after he’d been beaten a subsequent three times in a row, rather ruthlessly, after his first death - but Riven had spared him other deaths afterwards to avoid any permanent trauma. That being said, Justin was now akin to a whipped dog. He knew his place, and Riven intended to keep it that way.
Otherwise he’d just kill Justin outright, permanently, after this was all said and done. Just like he was going to do to these sorry sods once the event for this world quest finally ended.
“That’s all of them that’re here, aside from one guy who holed up in the altar itself. I can’t drag him out though. The others are elsewhere.” Justin confirmed after talking to one of the scout leaders under his command. “We have the entire perimeter ringed for miles out in multiple layers, there’s no way any of them are getting past unless they can fly or tunnel around. Even then, I doubt any but the best would make it through.”
“BASTARD TRAITORS!” The deathknight spit through a set of missing teeth, directing her absolute ire at Justin and Tao. “HE’S JUST USING YOU! AND YOU LED HIM HERE!!!”
Riven raised an eyebrow, glanced at Justin who remained stoic, and then pulled the cigar from his mouth with another puff. “Why is it that you decided you wanted the world to burn?”
Justin took a second to realize Riven was talking to him and not the drow woman, and his response was quick when he did. “The world’s done nothing for me. If anything it’s only shat on my life repeatedly. It’s a terrible place, so I wouldn’t mind seeing a massive beast or set of beasts go destroy everything before I get out.”
“Is that so?”
“Aint it?” Justin asked, turning to face Riven fully and folding his arms. “Were you born rich, Riven?”
“No.”
“You American?”
“I was.”
“Me too. Did you ever see a rich guy come do something good for you in your life personally?”
“No.”
“But you had a third of your money taken away by the tax man every paycheck, yeh?”
“I suppose that’s right.”
“Ever been to the ER because of somethin like a stomach virus? They charge you about 4000 to 5000 bucks even with insurance, say fuck you on the way out, and they spent about 30 cents on the bag of IV saline and another few bucks for the zofran for nausea. Can’t pay it? They send you to collections.”
“But that’s more of a corporate decision rather than an American one.”
Justin shook his head. “No, it was an American one because our country gave the middle finger to anyone who was poor and spent billions of dollars on wars that they could have taken a tenth of the budget from to pay for universal health care.”
Riven chuckled slightly and bobbed his head from side to side. “I guess so.”
“You guess so? Stop being a pussy about it.” Justin boldly stated, spitting onto the ground beside them and swinging out his arms wide. “My friend’s mom died of cancer because the AI algorithms auto-declined her treatments and imaging three times despite her doctor’s orders. Doctor said she could’ve been saved but the insurance company purposefully extended the claim in hopes she’d either give up or die, and either way they don’t have to pay it. You have politicians corrupt as fuck, a medical system that’ll bankrupt you for life if you have a single bad car accident, a populace who drinks the coolaid of one cultish news source or another and-”
Riven held up his hands to silence the other man. “Alright, alright. I get it, you hate America.”
“I hate the world!” Justin snarled, spitting again. “America was just the place I experienced it, but most the world has the same shit in better or worse variations. So I’d love to see it fuck’n burn, Riven. That’s why I’m a Chalgathi cultist and not some pussy-ass non-cultist like y…”
Justin reeled in finishing that sentence and harumphed when Riven made eye contact, and grudgingly folded his arms. “I lost fair and square. You don’t have to worry about me, a deal’s a deal and I won’t do somethin stupid. No need to beat my ass again…”
Riven tapped his cigar to knock off the ash from the front end. “Good. I’d hate to have to hunt you down after this event is over to kill you too, buddy.”
Justin snorted, but otherwise didn’t reply.
One of the cultists who’d been listening in on the conversation cleared his throat despite the blade placed against his neck from behind. “Aye… You really think you can spawn camp us and win like that? There’s a lot of ground to cover and we aint weak. This is only a setback, and you can’t keep us trapped for too long without Elysium teleporting us out.”
Riven took a final puff off his cigar, walked forward, and put out the cinders by pressing the smoked object against the man’s forehead - causing him to wince as it burned his skin. Riven smiled. “Yes, I do think it’ll work. That’s why I’m doing it, you fucking cockroach. But as I said before, if you choose to willingly submit and stop trying to escape we can work something out to where I don’t purge you in the aftermath of my upcoming victory.”
He then waved his hand at the men and women holding the cultists by their hair. “Kill them.”
The conquered people standing behind the cultists all simultaneously slit the throats of their captives, before using move heavy-handed strikes to the cultist skulls. The captured cultists that’d been magically suppressed by Riven’s aura were corpses in the next two seconds, and he tore open a rift in space to appear a hundred yards away under a tree next to Athela.
“The third Chalgathi altar has been taken. Our forces march on the last.” Athela said with her hands behind her back, stretching with a groan and a crack of a joint. “You still want me to stay here and keep them quarantined?”
“If that’s alright with you.” Riven replied. “The offworld normies we took over by conquering or persuasion could really use you. You’re more capable than any of the cultists in a one on one fight, even that Greed puppet Netithi - the naga, wouldn’t be able to take you on anymore.”
“Anymore?” Athela repeated with a teasing smile, nudging him in the side. “You think he could have beaten me before?”
Riven shrugged. “If he could have, he certainly can’t now. So if Gluttony ends up finding him after all this hunting he’s done, hopefully this game of cat and mouse can come to an end and you can keep the naga bitch grounded. Fay, Sanguine the drake, and General Caltan are meeting up with Fish, Lizard, and Brute to take on another conquer mission.”
“As for you?” Athela asked.
“As for me, I’ll be heading over to talk to Nora about a high point mission she’s kept others from trying out. Something about another off-world portal she found regarding a vampire ballroom? She said the description makes it out to be a two-day affair at most. Seems to be a good fit for me too, for obvious reasons.”
She laughed.
“Ballroom!? Well don’t get too carried away then!” Athela said with a wink, wrapping her arms around his neck and drawing him into a kiss. “Now go have fun honey. I’ll stay here and kill the baddies while you go play blood sucker. Hopefully we can get out of this Chalgathi event within the next week or two?”
Riven smiled and ruffled her hair. “Yeah. At this rate I think we’ll have enough points to leave this place far faster than what Elysium probably intended.”
“You’re a bit of a cheat you know.” Athela said rather accusingly. “Having a dozen or so people go and collect points for you because they’re your system registered servants is just unfair.”
“And if Genua, Kara and Azmoth weren’t babysitting it’d go even faster.” Riven acknowledged with another chuckle. “Yeah I’m a bit of a cheat. Whatever. Anyways I’ll see you when I get back, and before you know it we’ll be back to Panu. Take care babe, and see you soon.”
***
Riven’s body sang through the air like a black bullet, ripping behind a sniped critical storm lance he’d connected his hand to with a wretched snare. The momentum carried him through multiple portals he conjured one after the other about every few seconds, eating up large gaps in the sky and traveling many hundreds of miles an hour if not faster. Absentmindedly he wondered if he was even going thousands of miles an hour, but had no way to tell at the moment - as unfortunate as that was.
After another block of space was eaten up through another portal, he unattached himself from the critical storm lance and let his momentum die while beginning to dive downwards. Those storm lances were great for one-direction traveling but weren’t able to maneuver very well when he put half his mana into the strike for a rudimentary propulsion system. Letting Messenger’s flight ability take over, he banked left and cut through the clouds - descending faster and faster towards a large pit where a dark portal was giving off tumultuous swaths of energy.
Landing in the crater without breaking, he slammed into the ground and caused the ground he landed in to crack - sending a mountain of dirt and stone skywards and creating a smaller creator in the larger crater that already been there.
“QUITE THE ENTRANCE!.” Nora said, waiting for him there in her main body with one of those creepy smiles she always gave. “LEGION LOVES IT WHEN THE GREAT ONE SHOWS OFF LIKE THAT!”
Riven brushed falling dirt off his right shoulder, tipped his left shoulder, and kept Messenger’s mask up to the bridge of his nose while the shadowy cloak he wore blocked much of the debris from hitting his red eyes. “I’m not showing off. I just didn’t feel like braking hard. Is this it?”
He gestured at the flickering orb of power not far off to his left.
“WHY ELSE WOULD I BE HERE!? I TOLD YOU TO LOCK ONTO MY SOUL SIGNATURE TO GET HERE!” Nora quipped back with a cackle. She held out both hands to either side, and spun around like a top. “I’VE HAD TO KILL SEVEN OTHER PEOPLE TO MAINTAIN THIS ONE JUST FOR YOU! I THINK YOU’LL LIKE IT, GREAT ONE! PRAISE BE! PRAISE BE TO THEE!”
“Whatever you say, you creepy bitch.” Riven said teasingly, slapping her on the shoulder before walking forwards. Inspecting it and reaching out his hand to place it against the orb of darkness, a notification came to his vision - and he smiled wide. Very, very wide.
It looked like the system, Elysium, had finally thrown him a bone. It had to be, this was no coincidence there was just no way. His name was even dropped in the prompt!
[Riven’s Quest #28 of The Altars of Despair and Hope:
The Vampire’s Masquerade: A vampire by the name of Prince Rantali is hosting an ongoing ball in Universe 70. There he is celebrating his return from what is called ‘The Abyssal Descent’ with high scores, and is rumored to be making an announcement about his fiance’s health. But there are others attending the ball that will try to assassinate the prince, and possibly his fiance. Entering the portal will change your outward appearance into that of a vampire (if you aren’t already one, I’m looking at you Riven Thane), and you must then figure out what the plot is and who the players are before they act. Likely time until the assassination attempt occurs: 25-31 hours. Preventing the assassination will produce 39 event points, and killing all those involved in the plot without letting any escape will produce 54 event points.
Total Event Points Already Accumulated: 7998. 10,000 event points are needed to leave. You are now in 3rd place overall. Netithi Bluskish, Level 205 Naga, Apex Rank, Champion of the Kraken, and a Chubin Cultist, is in 1st place at 9062 event points. No participants have managed to leave The Altars of Despair and Hope. Yet.]

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Chapter 359