Elysium's Multiverse

Chapter 43

The next moment was a blur as Riven came back to the land of the living.

He gasped as a brief flash of a vision blipped across his thoughts, giving him a moment of pause as his soul acquired its third subpillar. A torrent of screaming souls, the image of a land bathed in hellfire, and the impression of eternal torment all burned into his insides in an excruciating moment of molten pain. Hot crimson lines were then etched into his sternum, right above the spider pentagram he’d gotten through Athela’s contract—this one leaving the image of a grinning four-armed monstrosity within the pentagram burned into his skin right between and underneath his collarbones. He felt knowledge flood his mind in a whirlwind of thoughts and information as the system granted him the means of using his newfound gift. He felt his back wounds seal up, and the bleeding immediately stopped, along with the previous notification denoting the damage-over-time effect.

He was healing so fast…it was just like that time in the pool of blood. Why hadn’t his body been healing earlier? Why now?

He still managed to watch in temporary slow motion as the harpy’s talons shot down out for the killing blow to finish him off—just as one huge, clawed, armored hand shot forward in an explosion of flames as a dark portal erupted right on top of where Riven lay on that cobblestone ground.

The headache under the influx of information he received was killer, but even under the mind-numbing effects of his new achievements…Azmoth was quite a sight to behold. The demon stood over him protectively…eagerly…smashing the harpy’s leg aside with an audible snap like a psychopathic child would a forsaken toy in anticipation of the violence to come. The Hellscape Brutalisk was an absolute tank of a creature—almost literally.

It had huge, thick, obsidian plates and jagged, bladelike protrusions of what looked like metal fused all over its body to the more fleshy, muscular parts seen in between the plates and underneath. It had four enormous arms, two enormous legs, and a humanoid form—more or less in the shape of a bodybuilder that ate steroids for breakfast with his Cheerios.

Azmoth’s arms ended with hands that lacked fingernails but came to sharp points of black and hot-red metal, with the claws being created from the gauntlet-like obsidian or whatever the hell created those plates that were cast along the extensor surfaces. Rippling red and gray muscles lacking skin flexed at various points where the obsidian metal plates weren’t present, giving him somewhat of a sickening yet simultaneously aesthetic appearance with the eight-pack abs he had.

The demon’s face was covered from the upper lip upward in a helmetlike obsidian plating that fluidly formed a dorsal spine down the center, and it completely lacked any eyes. The armorlike plates then proceeded down the back of his neck and onto his chest, before intermittently being spaced along the rest of his back. He had two slits for nostrils right above a set of strong jaws with rows of gleaming, black razor-blade teeth. A feeling of dread accompanied the demon’s presence—like a palpable presence, one that Riven hadn’t felt in the void realm he’d just been in moments before. It was like a tidal wave of unease that physically shook not only him, but Athela and the nearby harpies as well. Even knowing that this creature was on his side, even having bound it to him with a contract, he could feel his hairs stand on end just being in Azmoth’s presence.

But the catch to all this, and the most intimidating thing about Azmoth, was the flames that burst into life as the demon’s roar echoed from the beyond. The afterimage of a dying forest in its pocket dimension behind the monstrosity began to fade away when the portal fizzled out, and in its place, the huge demon’s entire body was quickly engulfed in blazing fire, rippling along its arms and searing the stunned harpy only a few feet away from the larger monster while maliciously grinning.

As the abruptly terrified harpy began to screech and frantically flap its wings—trying to get away in a hurried state of panic—Azmoth merely began to laugh. The deep, demonic laugh was filled with a mixture of joy, malice, and hunger. With a lunge and a violent yank, it pulled the larger orange harpy toward its opening jaws and snapped down shut—turning the hunter into the hunted as Azmoth’s rows of teeth sank into the soft meat of the squealing harpy’s neck.

Rearing back and yanking out the other monster’s vocal cords with the sound of shredding flesh, Azmoth took time to savor the harpy’s lifeblood as it trickled into his mouth. Then, with the roar of an apex predator, he took the dying harpy’s body and swung it hard into the other, utterly shocked and newly arrived female harpy nearby—sending both of their bodies violently bouncing with a loud crunch across the cobblestone in trails of singed feathers and blood.

Riven had crawled back out from underneath his new demonic friend, watching with a mixture of amazement and relief as Azmoth utterly clobbered the two unfortunate monsters with a bloodlust that made him shudder. Bones broke, feathers burned, and flesh loudly tore all amid the laughter of his new demon and the squeals or gurgles of the terrified harpies as they were violently manhandled. It was like watching two human toddlers trying to fight a fully grown rhinoceros—utterly and completely one-sided.

He absent-mindedly let his finger slide down to his sternum, gently touching the second pentagram burned into his skin, before coming back to reality and reeling. He got up as fast as he could while picking up his staff, scrambling to find Athela and bolting over to where his minion was fighting a losing three-versus-one battle. Another harpy had joined the fray in attacking Athela, which had turned the tides in the harpies’ favor.

But Riven could feel the power welling up within him, and confusingly enough, his mana felt like a faucet had just been turned on—pouring it in.

He sprinted forward and sprayed three consecutive attacks of five Bloody Razors apiece. The discs of sharpened, solidified blood erupted forward like a woodchipper come to life with killing intent, shredding the first of the harpies and catching it midair as it tried to dive down at Athela when she dropped to the ground.

Feathers, bone, and spraying bodily fluids shot ahead of him as the harpy essentially exploded from its many lacerations, falling to the floor dead and giving Athela an opening to dodge another attack before countering with a spray of sharp, solidified webbing.

The remaining two harpies shrieked and dived in together, both missing the agile spider as she jumped to the far wall and continued to spray—but this got their attention focused on Riven as he ran headlong into their path.

Aiming for his soft belly with its claws, the first of the harpies lunged forward, snarling. It already showed signs of battle—a missing eye, numerous needles made from webbing protruding from its body, and a wound with part of its thorax having rotted right off.

Riven took this moment to imbue himself with the new trait and ability Azmoth’s bond had given him. Hellfire bloomed along his skin, intermixing with the red lightning of his speed-enhancing blessing. His staff also lit up, blazing to life with fire as he met the charge and slammed it into the harpy like a baseball bat.

He took no damage, but his Strength wasn’t up to par with his defense, and the two basically collided and each fell over as the next harpy in line reeled backward to get away from the flames. Definitely not what he’d been wanting to accomplish, but it kinda worked. Riven shook his head from the jolt of the impact, but as he got up to attack his target again, he found that some of the feathers had lit up with flames that were spreading along the stunned creature.

The harpy struggled to get up, and Riven cackled like a maniac as he brought the staff back up, overhead, and struck down to begin ruthlessly beating the creature to death with the extra infernal damage and speed of the blessing empowering his strikes despite how physically weak he was compared to the monster.

The creature died flailing around on the ground, burning to death as it was repeatedly bludgeoned, and eventually let out a hiss of agony as its neck cracked and its lower body went limp.

Riven howled skyward in victory and turned to attack the final, fleeing enemy—but the flames immediately faltered and died when he deactivated the spell. It’d been chewing through mana at a rapid pace, and he didn’t want to continue it needlessly.

His head swiveled as the fleeing harpy let out a screech when silky webbing shot out and entangled its wings. Athela was latched to the floor like glue, and despite the harpy’s attempts to fly away, it was still being dragged down toward the cackling Blood Weaver as she gnashed her teeth hungrily and chittered at her entangled prey.

When the harpy got within jumping distance, Athela launched herself off the ground and slammed into the harpy—using all twelve legs to bring it down as she tore at it with her fangs—and they fell to the ground in a squirming mess of bodies.

Seconds later, Athela had gotten the upper hand, easily avoiding all the harpy’s strikes with her rather impressive agility and leaving numerous bite marks that were spreading venom and necrosis along the quickly dying creature. Athela even jumped off and hissed at it, watching with greedy eyes as the harpy’s efforts to move quickly devolved into nothing but twitches and sputtering breaths before she went in for the final kill.

There was a quick gush of blood, and then the harpy went completely limp. What followed…was rather surreal.

He’d actually lived.

Riven looked left and saw Azmoth feeding on the two harpies he’d killed and drawing out their entrails to rip and tear between chomps. Slightly closer down the alley was where Jalel’s mutilated remains had once been—though, for whatever reason, the body had disappeared. Perhaps taken away by another of the monsters? There were also four bodies of the harpies and the various remnants of magic he’d used. To his right, Athela was sucking the harpy she’d killed dry—almost inhaling its blood as she danced a little victory dance with her twelve legs excitedly tapping the ground around her.

Already knowing he’d slam most of those points into Intelligence, Riven opened up his status page and applied them. Then, waving down his minions, he told them to guard him as he got some rest. He was utterly exhausted, and he felt rather confident that all their enemies were dead. “Hey, Azmoth, Athela, see this crevice in the wall over here? I’m going to take a nap. Guard me while I do.”