Chapter 183
Lahn gasped, lurched, and screamed as Fay’s mana tendrils literally ripped the worm out of his skin. The sightless brown creature was long, the width of Fay’s arm, wicked looking with numerous thorns, and had a gaping sucker that pulsed and slurped at the air using its tongue. Lahn’s mother Shovi gasped in horror-stricken awe, and even the two rogues assigned to escort Fay were a little unnerved by the sight of the disgusting creature. But the succubus reached out a slender blue hand to grasp the thing by its throat as it wriggled, not thinking twice and smiling victoriously as she held it aloft.
“I told you so! There it is!”
The magics of the ritual circle died away, and she quickly pulled out two healing potions to pour onto Lahn’s numerous wounds where the worm had been taken out of his withered side. They were pretty high grade, kept in glass vials with cherry-red liquid that smelled quite nice as they washed over his skin. She also had Shovi help feed him another one so it’d work from the inside out, and within seconds - Lahn’s body began to heal.
It was literally right before their very eyes. His shriveled limbs remained skinny due to years of muscle atrophy, but they were covered in new HEALTHY skin without the shriveled look. He gasped, almost seizing on the bed as his mother and Gleetus just gawked - but when Gleetus made a move to leave he was abruptly kicked in the gut and sent sprawling back along the floor.
“You’re not going anywhere.” The skresh assassin said as a faint whisper, its skull chattering as a blade twirled in its hand. “My lady Fay? Do you wish us to proceed as planned?”
“Yes… Take him to the designated spot for now. Allie wants to do it personally.” The succubus nodded, handing the worm over to the human rogue before the two stealth personnel dragged Gleetus out of the room kicking and screaming - while also carrying the odd squirming creature she’d ripped out of Lahn.
Shovi only stood, dumbfounded, staring with tears in her eyes at the young man in the bed ahead of her. Reaching out and touching Lahn’s completely cured left arm, she pulled down the covers to reveal his leg was the same. The bed was soaked in blood and potion, but neither she nor Lahn cared as he continued to sweat and pant in a puddle of his own sweat. “Lahn… Lahn you’re healed! YOU’RE HEALED!”
Shovi screamed and barreled into the laying young man, hugging him and sobbing as Lahn grimaced - but even he had tears in his eyes as he shakily examined his left hand.
“I… I don’t know what to even say…” Lahn muttered shakily, voice quivering. He hugged his mother back, then glanced down at the foot of the bed where Fay was warmly smiling at him. “You know, I’ve been thinking a lot about the first time I met you and Riven at that dinner. A lot of what you said now makes sense.”
Fay blushed with embarrassment and rolled her eyes. “Yes, well… I’m a bit obsessed over Riven. I will admit it.”
The strode over to the bedside and sat down on the edge - caring to give Lahn and Shovi their space as she straightened out her silver dress. Night was falling now, it’d been many hours since the ritual had begun and still Lahn’s father and brother hadn’t come back. She stared out at the night sky, up above at the starlit heavens, and snorted at the memory of her mental breakdown. “Sorry if I came across as crazy.”
Lahn smiled and shook his head. “No. Not crazy. Just stricken, and even if you were crazy - I wouldn’t care anyways. Not after what you did for me.”
Fay turned her face in the candlelight of the lanterns around the room. Her small obsidian horns glistened, and she tucked her long white hair behind her ears with a smooth dual motion of her hands. “I appreciate that.”
There was a moment of silence as Lahn let his mother continue sobbing into the bed while she laid on top of him to hug him tight, but then he cleared his throat and looked around - realizing finally that Allie was gone. He’d been so out of it and in so much pain during the hours-long ritual that he’d lost track of time, and his frown deepened at the note of her absence. “Hey Fay… where did Riven and Allie go?”
Fay cocked her head to the side, amused. “You really don’t remember?”
He shook his head.
“They’re fighting right now.” Fay replied absentmindedly, turning her gaze back to the starlit sky. “Spearheading the fight against one of the invading forces on the southern coast of this continent.”
“The invaders!?” Lahn asked, bewildered. “They’re already here!?”
Fay raised an eyebrow. “Oh yes. They’re here all right, though this particular group I believe bit off a bit more than it could chew having selected this area of the world to start in.”
***
The heavens roared with conflict, and the battle raged to new heights.
Riven and Azmoth both crashed through the deck of the flagship as it began to fall from the sky. Sinewy flesh snapped and metal ominously creaked, fires raged and the injured screamed.
Rolling to his feet he blurred to unleash a wall of crimson ice that blocked an incoming scimitar. The weapon smashed halfway through the wall, lodging itself into the magic before he countered with bloody razors that quickly morphed into their storm-ball variant - tearing through the air and smashing into the lightning-fast blade of the vampire expedition leader.
“I AM JESTUS BLOODRAIN, SON OF THE GRAND DUKE AND A SION OF RIPPENVIRE - YOU INSOLENT WELP!” Jestus screamed in rage, wisps of black exploding out of him in a cloud that rapidly hid his location right before a torrent of blood lances blew holes in the ship where he’d just stood.
The voice of Jestus echoed out again through the unnatural darkness that even Riven’s eyes could not see through. “I WILL TEAR YOUR HEAD FROM YOUR BODY AND FEED IT TO MY DOGS!”
Azmoth cackled and charged four more paladins that rushed them through the black, colliding with one via a shoulder charge and snapping another man’s head with a maul strike. Riven’s wretched snares rapidly incapacitated the remaining two paladins, leaving them as easy prey for the brutalisk to tear apart as Jestus leaped from a position behind Riven’s own.
The scimitar whistled forward, and the vampire’s red eyes gleamed underneath his tophat as he struck out at Riven’s neck.
Riven’s own body exploded with crackling lightning and blood-wisps as he activated Blessing of the crow, forming a smoothly flowing cloud of energy that rippled along his armor and shot him left before a supersonic counterstrike with Jackal caused the enemy leader to stagger.
Blades collided, and Jestus found his arm missing a second later in a spray of blood.
The vampire screamed, and then cursed even more furiously when Messenger’s maw opened up and shot out black tendrils to wrap around one of his legs. “NOOOOO!!!”
Unhesitating, Jestus cut off his leg to get rid of the snaring gluttonous armor and kicked off the floor to launch himself up into the air by twenty meters - before freefalling overboard to be lost from sight.
Riven grimaced, tisking in annoyance as he lost track of his enemy in the madness surrounding him. Fires continued to flare up and the flagship was still creaking ominously as it fell from the sky. Not far off, Allie’s drake Tyranus was breathing neon-teal blasts of flame onto any ships that remained - or she’d downright land on them and let the drake have a buffet as it gorged itself on the screaming vampires. F-35 jets raced through the retreating enemy fleet, a few less than they’d started when entering the fray but still largely intact across all squadrons - and the merfolk were ravenously picking off and killing any of the invaders that fell overboard into the ocean.
Riven’s peripheral vision and an uptick in a nearby heartbeat caused him to turn and block an incoming sword strike - catching the blade in his free hand while glaring out at the vampiric female officer as she hyperventilated.
Yanking her sword out of his hand while he stood watching her with apathy, she screamed and drove the blade forward again - only for him to catch it yet again, rip it out of her hand, and behead her in a single swift motion.
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The woman’s body staggered and fell, and her head spun through the air to bounce along the metal floor.
*CLANG*
Riven grunted and spun as a bullet slammed into the back of his helmet, bouncing off of it completely and giving him a slight headache. Seeing another man in a buttoned coat stationed on a deck above with a large, ornate, wooden rifle similar to the pirate-styled pistols so many of the others carried - Riven’s eyes narrowed.
He began to activate ‘Launch’, an inherent ability his suit had, and sin energy began gathering along four panels at his back. Black and red churned and writhed in streams of power, building up and then bursting into red flames as the suit torpedoed him through the air first-first into the man’s face.
The blow would have been enough on its own to completely tear the man’s head off, but with the ‘Ripping Claws’ buff attached to his gauntlets - the vampire quite literally was torn apart in a blur and explosion of rage.
Riven exited the falling flagship the same way he’d come - in a blaze of profane glory and red flames while his suit torpedoed him through the air like a jetpack. Air whistled by and he narrowly dodged another falling ship, zipping over Allie as she rode her dragon through the mess of skybound debris and giving her a thumbs up before readjusting his trajectory towards the half-destroyed city. There were still a lot of Rippenvire survivors, including their expedition leader - the self-proclaimed duke’s son, and he was intent on finding and killing them all.
[Messenger (Mythic Heavy Armor Set, Gluttony Aspect) (Evolving Symbiote) (World Quest Item: Panu) (Unique Soulbound Sentient): This Mythic tier armor set was created on the world of Panu during its integration cycle by the pureblooded vampire Riven Thane. Having far surpassed the realm of normalcy, this armor set has been afflicted with the original sin of Gluttony. As a messenger of sin and a holder of a sin shard, Gluttony has blessed this armor to even further heights so that the wielder may one day become the tidebringer of wanton destruction Gluttony seeks. All shall perish before the great maw, all hail the abyssal depths.
> Devour - This amulet can use shadowy tendrils to attack and pull in prey for devouring. If bitten, a potent paralytic poison is applied to your enemy. Devouring enemies allows this item set to slowly grow.
> Identifier’s Clause: Wearing this item increases your ability to identify information concerning items or living creatures, being the equivalent of a low tier identifier class. Your own basic information will be much harder to identify.
> Blood in the Eyes: These pauldrons absorb blood mana passively from your surroundings up to a maximum of double your normal mana pool. These pauldrons act as a reservoir for your passive vampiric regeneration, this suit’s Launch ability, and acts as a mana font to pull from like you would environmental resources. Once the pauldron’s eyes dim, your extra resource pool has run out.
> Ripping Claws: Punching someone with the spikes of your gauntlets will cause massive hemorrhaging damage over time.
> Launch: The back of your suit can open up, creating a blast of sin energy that damages enemies and acts as a propulsion method to blast you in a given direction at speeds dependent on how much energy you drain from the stored reservoir of your pauldrons.
> +20% to all base stats
> +300 Strength, +600 Sturdiness, +300 Agility
> +1858 Defense to all Plated Areas of Armor
> + 965 Defense to all Bloodsilk Areas Between Plates
> Natural sunlight does not affect you while wearing this suit
> Liquid breathing is bestowed upon you while wearing this suit
> All senses enhanced by 40% while wearing this suit
> Allows passage free from harm in any underverse controlled by Gluttony
> Immediately identifies and locks on to any nearby Sins or Commandments
> This armor set will occasionally urge you to undertake feeding frenzies. Wear at
your own risk. A high willpower is needed to combat the urges.]
***
Jestus Bloodrain watched in horror-filled fascination from a rocky outcropping along the coast while his body regenerated. Watched his fleet, the one his father had vouched for him to command, burn to the ground in what was probably one of the most humiliating defeats of any integration invasion mission to date. Rippenvire hadn’t ALWAYS conquered the planets they visited, but they’d never been defeated so soundly in any battle that’d been recorded to his knowledge.
Simply put, he was doomed. He was no doubt going to bring his house shame after this major blunder, and although this had just been a relatively small harvesting force of the military might Rippenvire had brought with them - that wouldn’t be an excuse he could use.
The huge flagship hit the plains with a brilliant plume of flame, the shearing sound of metal tearing across the landscape in an ear-piercing screech. Jestus had to cover his ears and winced when a shockwave of radiation tore through the ground and into the ocean, no doubt caused by the large generator meant to power the shields of that behemoth.
The same shields those fucking monsters had ripped through like it was nothing.
Specifically, the armored vampire who’d nearly killed him.
Thinking back to the brilliant crimson eyes of his opponent, Jestus shuddered. That was, without a doubt, a pureblood. How one even existed on this planet, and as a self-proclaimed native was an absolute mystery to him. How the natives here knew of the Blood Moon Requiem to make false claims about their origins was an even bigger mystery… and it made him second-guess himself concerning their true origins.
Perhaps the message that Allie bitch had sent out was true. Perhaps she really was a princess of the Blood Moon Requiem and the man with her had been one of her champions… but that simply didn’t make sense. Invasion tokens were public knowledge and the Blood Moon Requiem hadn’t been one of them. Not only that, but that kind empire would never allow their sions - especially their princess, to engage in a world-conquering activity like this. Their bloodlines were too valuable to risk due to the heritage of Malignant Prophecy, and entire sector-ending wars had been started in order to retrieve their lineage from the hands of other forces millennia past. There’s no way the high queen of the Blood Moon Requiem would allow it.
So who the fuck were those two?
A slight breeze, a ripple in space, and a cold sensation tearing down his spine sent Jestus into an abrupt panic. Whirling around and limping when his still injured leg hit the rock he was hiding behind, his eyes darted left and right. But at his back had only been the slowly crashing waves of the ocean.
Sending out tendrils of mana, then divinity, and then stamina - he didn’t catch any significant signs of life… so he began to relax. Turning back around to watch the rest of his humiliating defeat at the hands of these unknowns, he-
*CRACK*
*SNAP*
*RIP*
Jestus fell limply to the ground, a hole in his chest where his heart had been and his skull caved in with large claw marks torn through his bone and brain. And there, standing over him, was a woman with pitch black skin. Her brilliant red eyes bore down into the dead man laying at her feet, and six blade-like limbs gently brought the man’s heart to her opening mouth - utterly silent - before she chomped down onto it. Raven hair billowed in the wind while she absentmindedly chewed, staring at her victim with distaste.
Looking towards the city where she felt the tangible presence of her master, Athela wanted to run to him. She wanted to find him, to hug him, to cry in his arms… to tell him how she really felt about him. To let him know that she was back, and to grovel in the reaction she knew he’d have once he saw her. And her feelings only welled up to greater heights when she replayed the video of the moment he’d confessed. The video that was circulating Panu’s cortex like wildfire, one that she would not put aside now that she knew how he felt.
“But you’re a good man!” Luke croaked out with desperation, waving to the carnage and destruction Riven had wrought and was continuing to spill down onto the surrounding city. “What's the point of this Riven? You’re killing indiscriminately because you’re upset? Because you’re angry at the world?”
Riven slowly cocked his head to the side. Then he chuckled. “That isn’t true at all. Let me pose a question, Luke. Just how far would you go, just how far would you push yourself, to save the ones you love? This… this is my answer to that question.”
Not bothering to wait for a reply, Riven looked back up to the writhing ball of hellfire overhead - and his free hand began to move. It created a circle of flames, pushed through the center of that circle with a clenched fist, and then his forearm twisted while chanting. “Rain fire upon mine enemies, cast doubt upon divine providence, and bathe the land in a blaze of profane glory.”
She watched Riven burn that city in the canyon to ashes, sacrificing his morals and all the people there to save a small piece of her soul so that she would one day return. He’d killed them all… for her. She smiled with giddy and warm sensations she’d never experienced before now, emotions that boiled up to a precipice inside her evil little heart. Then it clenched, and a livid rage overtook her when her thoughts turned to Fay.
“That bitch.” Athela sneered, clawed fingers curling, turning her athletic hips to walk down the coastline along the beach - northwards, to where she knew the other contracted demoness was. Since Athela’s mutation into an archdemon, she could hide her presence from the others. She was simply that powerful now, and had even blinded Riven’s own sight to her return after wanting to surprise him. But what she’d found was… was this pretender, this succubus cunt that’d stolen Riven while Athela had been dead.
This would not stand. Riven was HERS.
Athela’s body began to crack, snap, and shift - rapidly mutating from her stealth variant into her new siege variant. She grew to be thirty times larger, dwarfing even Azmoth and equaling the size of a small house. She retained the upper body of a beautiful woman, though she grew another set of red eyes for a total of four and her entire body became a brilliant bright white - a stark contrast to the otherwise pitch black of her original form. Her lower body in turn grew the abdomen and legs of a spider, and crystalline flowers began blooming all along her body and the path she walked. A large, crystalline, vertical maw erupted across her lower abdomen and won into her arachnid half - groaning as she hungrily rumbled across the beach. Picking up speed and summoning the power of blizzards and wind to her - she raced northwards towards her new target in a storm of fae magic.
Fay had known how Athela felt. Athela had seen their interactions through Riven’s memories in her time dead, and Fay hadn’t tried very hard to correct Riven’s assumptions that Athela wasn’t head over heels for him. The succubus very well knew what she’d done, and thus had whatever punishment Athela could devise coming.
Fay had crossed a line.
She had this coming.