Chapter 259
“Into a bloody oblivion.” Gluttony stated sourly, watching as their mana tugged Genua’s lower and upper halves together while both Fay and the blood priestess herself cast healing abilities in the forms of Dark Pact and Transfusion Zone. “That is where the child would have gone if I’d let your careless, carefree attitude take it from us. You may be strong in the eyes of these lesser beings, Riven, but you are nowhere near the point of infallibility. Not even with me. I truly hope that Elysium’s attempts to increase the difficulty of these trials even further is true, so that you may learn a lesson in humility. And I hope that lesson comes before it is too late.”
Swirling auras of red, black and green, manifestations from the two area-of-effect zones from Riven’s two contracted minions, flashed around them. At the epicenter of it all, Gluttony’s maw produced a bloody womb from the depths of the abyss - holding it back out to Genua’s body to place it back inside her as the flesh knitted itself back together.
Riven stood silently, meeting the invisible gaze of Gluttony upon him while taking the criticism in stride. His fists clenched, and his eyes became downcast as the healing powers ended. “I apologize.”
“Do not apologize to me, Riven. Apologize to Genua’s child. To our child. The child that bears not only your blood, but my own now that we are one being.” Gluttony’s vertical maw gritted its teeth in apparent agitation. “This has highlighted a problem that I was already meaning to speak to you about. Far too often you are caught off guard by way of stealth. Throughout your battles, over and over again, it is assassins and acts of subterfuge that pose the greatest threat. We do not know if that mage was truly an assassin or not, but the fact still remains that you are rather pathetic in the face of hidden knives and hidden attacks - despite your tremendous potential for mana control. You are an unbalanced scale, one that needs fixing.”
Riven failed to meet the eyes of his minions, with Athela and Azmoth having just returned to remain silent on the outskirts of the devastated building. Fay was keeping her head bowed low in reverence to the visage of the maw, and Genua was still recovering on the floor after having her body put back together.
There was a long silence, and Riven could feel his bonded sin’s irritation subside.
“You have potential, you merely need to focus on reaching it. I will let you dwell on your shortcomings, so that you may think of your own methods to fix this problem of yours.” Gluttony eventually said with a growl. “Perhaps making you think about it will give you better insight on the ideas that I myself have. Regardless of what you come up with, remember that my chastisement is meant to make you grow. Perhaps this next quest Elysium has in store for us will shed light on how you are not the height of power either. We will see.”
The rip in space shattered, and the visage of Glutony’s maw vanished with it in a split second. The shroud of mana that’d hidden Gluttony’s presence from onlookers also crumbled.
Behind Gluttony’s point of exit, another system message was left in the maw’s wake.
[Riven’s Quest #2 of The Altars of Despair and Hope:
A piece of the multiverse, taken out of the Narwali Sector of Universe 16, has been transported to this territory. Inside it you will find one of a few portals here in these Chalgathi trials that lead into The Abyssal Descent, and three ticket-holders who are waiting to enter. Kill a ticket holder, or barter for it, before the portal fully opens in 3 hours.
The Abyssal Descent, a monumental event that only happens every 300 years, is being hosted starting today. It is meant to help forge the lattice meant to transcend into E-grade, and helps give insight into the way of ascension.
Young elites of numerous factions across the multiverse still within the F-grade will be able to participate, as long as they hold true to any pillars associated with the Unholy foundation. Use your status page to find the option to teleport in. You will be escorted via Elysium’s own power into this trial within a trial where only those touched by unholy power may be found. Death in this trial will not result in permanent death despite being hosted on an outer world, but will disallow any re-entering of the descent at any time. Successfully completing The Abyssal Descent will result in 50 event points. Completing in the top 100 contenders will result in 300 event points. Completing this event in the top 5 contenders will result in 1000 event points. Finishing first will result in 3000 event points. Any other cultists of Unholy affiliation who enter this trial within a trial will also have a 1000% damage boost increase when attacking you or your minions.
Unlike other participants in this outer trial, you will be able to come and go between The Abyssal Descent and The Altars of Despair and Hope at will via your status page.
Total Event Points Already Accumulated: 39]
***
It took a while for Genua to calm down, with Athela and Fay doing most of the consoling as she sobbed in the back corner of the room in Gragle’s small house. The shock of being ripped in half, and then nearly having lost their child, was weighing heavily on her. Meanwhile, Riven was contemplating Gluttony’s words. The lecture wasn’t meant to be malicious, but rather insightful, and the more Riven thought about it - the more he realized that Gluttony was right.
Had he done anything wrong?
Not necessarily when you looked at it from a two-dimensional perspective. But Gluttony had hit it right on the mark when he scrutinized his actions more closely. Riven had become complacent in his own power as of late, having wiped the floor with numerous high powered individuals on Panu and even having cleaned shop with two off-world invading forces and the Azag hive cluster to boot. Yet here he was, nearly having lost his first unborn child if Gluttony hadn’t stepped in.
Even the anger he felt towards the unknown assailant was on the backburner, taking a second seat to the anger that was directed inwards instead.
He would improve.
He would learn from this.
He would figure out a way to make up for his weaknesses, would fix his lackadaisical attitude and his superiority complex that’d so recently developed, and would sharpen his senses. A spark of insight triggered in his mind, but then the flashing ping of a location marker burned into his head across the span of many miles at his left.
Setting a recall marker here in Outpost #84 on his status page, for whenever he wanted to return to this plane from whatever hell he was about to find himself in next, he motioned to his minions. “I apologize for the callousness, but we need to leave now.”
His eyes met Genua’s, where she was being held by Fay, and she sniffled with a nod while Athela finished up her patchwork repair of The Blood God’s clergy outfit.
“Riven.” A feminine voice turned him around, where he saw Nora Lang in black leathers with dual-wielding blades on either hip. She folded her arms, and displayed a notification screen of her own that matched his. “I don’t mean to be nosey, but if you’re traveling to that beacon out East - would you mind taking me along? It appears that Elysium may be pairing us up again, and I was hoping that we could enter the Abyssal Descent together.”
Riven nodded, ignoring the stares of many of the townsfolk who’d gathered around nearby to watch or work on repairs. Some of them even glared his way, after having lost family members in the attack on the pub, but no one said anything or accused him of fault. Not that he’d necessarily blame them, he’d be upset too, but he hadn’t been the one to strike them down either.
“Fine.” Riven said nonchalantly, reaching out a hand to place on her shoulder. “We’ll leave in a few minutes. Gragle?”
The scarred gnome, who’d been standing on the outskirts of the onlookers, came forward with a wary side eye. “Yes?”
Riven held out his hand. “I expect you can continue to improve that totem for me while I’m gone? I’ll pay well.”
The eyes of the gnome lit up with a gleeful expression, and he hastily nodded to take Riven’s hand. “Of course! Of course. How long will you be gone?”
Riven shrugged, letting go of the gnome and folding his arms. “I don’t know. I’ll probably check in from time to time because Elysium allowed me to set a recall point here in town, so probably not too long. Have you ever heard of ‘The Abyssal Descent’? That’s where we’re headed.”
Immediately the eyes of numerous onlookers shot back to him, some gaping, and others trying to mask ill-concealed jealousy.
Gragle just gawked. “You have an opportunity to acquire a ticket into the Abyssal Descent? Are you sure? Here? How is that even possible, while you’re already inside another system event?”
Riven and Nora shared glances. “I don’t really know…? Elysium has taken pieces of all sorts from different areas across the multiverse to place here in this Apocalypse Beasts questline, and I get the feeling there will likely be opportunities like this one scattered around from time to time. Why? Is it good?”
“Is it GOOD he says!?” Gragle said, slack jawed. He glared at the demonic minions and pointed a grubby finger at them in a hastily made gesture. “Have you not asked them?! Of COURSE it is a good opportunity! It is a roadmap for any F-grade being on the Unholy path for creating a high quality E-grade soul lattice! A soul lattice is required to ascend from F-grade into the E-grade, and will determine your future potential growth! Doing it wrong means you grow more slowly, while creating a good one means you can progress through the E-grade far faster! I cannot believe you got such an opportunity in an integration phase such as this!”
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Gragle sighed, shaking his head and rubbing his temples. “To think… Usually events such as this cost even the wealthiest of families tremendous amounts of money to acquire tickets from Elysium. Did the system at least make you BUY the tickets?”
Riven frowned more deeply. “No. I have to travel to a certain location to kill the ticket holders, or I have to barter for the tickets to acquire access when the portal opens in three hours. Same goes for Nora.”
“THREE HOURS!?” The gnome gasped. “THEN WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR?! Riven, I don’t know who or what you are to get such an opportunity but despite who you may have to kill - you need to acquire those tickets! The path of cultivation is a long and hard one, and you cannot let an opportunity like this pass you by! Go, and go now! I will see you when you get back. And one more thing!”
Gragle held up a hand to stop Riven’s departure, and he put on a silly grin. “Will you pay extra for duplicates of the upgraded totem you have provided for me?”
Riven raised an eyebrow from underneath his hood, red eyes glinting. “If you manage to duplicate that totem and make them better than what they are now, then yes. I’ll pay very well for them.”
“How much?” Gragle asked, grin growing wider. He stepped forward, eyes flicking about to make sure none of the onlookers could hear him while diving his voice into a whisper. “The materials alone will cost me quite a sum, and I’ll have to substitute for things that aren’t available here at an increased cost from the shops we have in town. No doubt they’ll become even more expensive as scavengers realize this new landscape doesn’t have the same types of materials available, and until our identifiers are able to make out what new materials are actually useable in totem crafting. Perhaps a small fee of one hundred thousand F-grade Elysium Coins per totem?”
Riven lifted an eyebrow.
“For labor as well, including my integration of graphics to each!” Gragle pressed more hesitantly. “I know it seems like a lot, but you won’t find almost anyone on any given planet capable of producing graphics like I can!”
Catching Athela’s nod, Riven let out a sigh and looked into his spatial sack to see just what the current number was at after all his battles and looting over the past nine months had come down to. All the monsters he and his minions had slain, the dungeons raided, the enemies killed - all the coins he’d collected during that time.
It amounted to a staggering twenty-two million.
His eyes lifted, and after mentally selecting three-hundred thousand coins. To his surprise, the sum came up as a small disc, rather than a pile of money, with the number etched into the platinum surface in turn.
That was odd.
Gragle’s eyes bulged and he quickly took it, stuffing it into his own spatial sack like a mantis-strike while rubbing his hands together eagerly. “This will do! I’ll have three prepared for you within a few weeks. Come back then, and we can talk more business!”
Riven gave him a thumbs up, then turned to Genua. “We’re leaving. Genua, use body fusion to merge with Fay so the flight there isn’t inhibited by needing to carry you. We’ll talk more after we arrive.”
***
A mile-wide platform of black metal floated far above the ground just above the peak of a mountain, where three individuals stood around a system-made warp gate that was just now beginning to light up with energy along the outer perimeter. The circular structure was made of unholy mana rather that anything physical, but the runes inscribed into its perimeter were a dark green color rather than the darker backdrop.
Gentry’s guard was up, his face just as sour as the rest of the ticket holders while they waited for the portal to open. There was only twenty minutes left before the portal into The Abyssal Descent opened, and given Elysium’s updates they’d be able to go back home to the Narwali sector if none of these integration-stage idiots showed up.
He could only hope they didn’t come. His family, despite being a major noble house of his kingdom, had used up their entire savings and political favors to garner one of these tickets - an investment in his future as the heir of their estate. He was confident in his abilities to fight, but then again so was any potential candidate that entered the descent. You had to be, or you were a fool for even trying, and not one single candidate that was given an opportunity to descend was a pushover.
Lacing a hand through his long white hair and letting out a long breath he didn’t know he’d been holding in, his drow features scrunched up when he caught sight of something bursting through the clouds on the horizon. His hand came down to rest on the intricate jade scimitar on his hip - while his gold-trimmed dark blue cultivators robes swirled around him amidst a surge of chaos energy.
His counterparts, two other drow men of even higher standing than himself, drew out their own blades and summoned protective jade armors to await the arrival of whatever was coming.
And as the clouds distorted like ripples on a pond, the sky split with a crack of power as a figure flashed forward with a burst of momentum.
The black platform rocked underneath the impact, sending up a cloud of metal shrapnel under the landing that left a trench behind the man until he came to a stop. Gentry’s purple eyes widened slightly as he took the man in, and his grip around the scimitar at his waist only grew more firm.
This man was still supposed to be in F-grade if he wanted to enter the descent, so why was there so much energy fluctuating around him? This kind of power was only supposed to be felt well into the E-grade, and yet…
Gentry absentmindedly gulped and took a step back. “Just what kind of integration phase planet has a participant like this?”
Ahead of him, a man blazing with the power of hellfire tore himself out of the self-made crater. Writhing ribbons of blood and shadow interrupted the outpour of flames as well, with a vertical maw splitting the chest plating of his armor and two large horned pauldrons on either shoulder. Red and black eyes peered back at the three men near the portal one at a time, before a third vertical eye of purple light ripped open across his forehead to glare out with even greater intensity.
The two other drow didn’t even give the newcomer time to speak before they dashed ahead, blurring forward with tremendous speed as they activated protective sigils along their intricate jade armors and utilized speed-enhancing abilities to clear the distance.
A jade claymore sparking with chaos swung down from the left, and a jade spear encased in blood rippled through the air with a sonic boom towards the newcomer’s throat.
Gentry watched, and his eyes went wider when the man’s body vanished only to appear ten steps ahead of him through a rip in space. With speed that defied the laws of physics, his own spear-staff lunged forward to take the spear-wielder in the chest.
The man’s jade armor cracked and he was sent sprawling across the platform in a tumble of curses, before the other drow scion flashed forward again with the visage of a towering demon at his back. Hellfire engulfed his body and he swung his sword down, the visage of the winged demon following his motion with a roar as magma and flame was sent out in a vertical wave that caused the air to hiss due to the heat.
The wave smashed against a wall of crimson ice, then crashed through it only to meet the snapping jaws of a red jackal that crashed down onto the attack in an instant. The spell was dispersed, and through the shockwave the three-eyed man burst forward with his rippling black weapon pointed at the drow warrior.
Three consecutive strikes quickly connected between spear-staff and claymore as the drow scion batted the attacks aside, only for hundreds of spinning blades made from black-red energies to bloom in the air around him. In an instant, they crashed into jade armor protecting his body in a cacophony of tearing, lurching attacks that sent sprays of blood in all directions.
It was akin to watching an animal go through a meat grinder, and the splattered remnants of the drow warrior hit the floor as the burning man turned to Gentry with narrowed eyes.
They stared at each other wordlessly, Gentry’s hand gripping the handle of his scimitar with even, steady breaths despite the building fear he felt, and he let out a sigh of relief when the other man turned around to retrieve a flashing, glowing tablet that hovered over the other scion’s body.
“So this is the ticket…” The armored man said from underneath his hooded helmet, casually turning it around in his hand. He turned back to Gentry, and then to the other remaining scion who had a deep gash in the chestplate of his jade armor. “I’ll be needing one more.”
Further up in the clouds, two more figures slowly descended towards the platform above the mountain’s peak. One was a woman who had the same style and make of hood as the first man, clad in dark leathers and wielding two thin blades in either hand as she was set down by the third figure. This third figure in turn was some kind of demon, probably a succubus - and she was carrying the other woman down on their descent.
Blue skin was splattered with patches of tanned white, like the spots of a cow, with eyes that had two sets of irises - one black and one red in each eyeball set side by side. Circlets of swirling blood divinity encased her ankles, wrists, and neck, while two black horns sprouted out of her head near pointed ears. A long slender black tail was also present, alongside a pair of black demonic wings, with flowing white and blonde hair that was mix-and-mashed like she’d dyed it to be that way. Otherwise she wore a purple witch’s hat, along with long leather-made and feathered boots, and a purple skirt that showed off her thighs.
And when the demonic woman spoke, her voice sounded like it was overlaid by two voices speaking at once. “This form is rather nice. We may stay this way for some time, it would help in our own insights while here. Two minds working together is better than one.”
Pulling out a book that flared with abnormally potent unholy energies, the woman started flipping through the pages - and he palmed a family artifact in his pocket that worked the same way an identifier’s class would to a lesser extent. Gentry’s breath caught in his chest when he began to identify it out of curiosity’s sake.
[Viper Grimoire of Curses and Schemes (Unholy Specialization Grimoire, Unique): +129% mana regeneration when held. +9% damage to all curses when held. Binding this grimoire and adding a single one of your curses to its pages, you will decrease the cooldown time on your chosen curse by 10% while simultaneously allowing for spontaneous evolution options of that curse with insights drawn from the Unholy Foundational Pillar and its related sub-pillars. Spontaneous evolutions will occur as the grimoire actively writes out different variations of the curse across its pages with random trial and error experiments in an internal, limited plane. Evolution options will occur in the form of insights once a breakthrough is made.]
Gentry blinked away his growing greed and surprise, then began to identify each of them in turn. What he saw made him very curious and simultaneously stumped. He didn’t know whether or not to laugh, or whether or not to be afraid. Should he attack and take the grimoire for himself? Finding such a treasure was a boon that he shouldn’t pass up, and he had no doubt after giving a sideways glance that the other drow scion was no doubt thinking the exact same thing.
[???, Level 56 Succubus-High Elf Chimera, Thrall Priestess of the Blood God.]
[Nora Lang, Level 113, Shadow Blade Duelist. ???. ELITE.]
Level 56 and 113? What in Elysium’s name were these two doing - attempting to get into the Descent? They’d be destroyed mercilessly! The thought was actually laughable!
A wide smirk set upon his face, and relief swept over him. But when he finally took time to identify the flaming man who’d demanded another ticket, Gentry’s plans of potentially taking the grimoire by force quickly died in his guts. His hands began to shake, and he visibly paled - stepping back involuntarily as his breaths became quick and short.
[???, Level 200 ???, ???, Pureblooded Vampire, ???. MYTHIC. ???.]
The burning purple flames of the man’s MYTHIC status made Gentry want to vomit, and he literally began to feel sick. Nearly everyone entering the descent was considered at least ‘ELITE’ by the system. It was even expected. Occasionally some of the greatest scions of the multiverse would send ‘LEGENDARY’ tier offspring into the descent as well, but most often they had artifacts or dao treasures to hide their LEGENDARY tag and affiliated red flames entirely so they weren’t targeted or mobbed by groups that worked together to secure higher footholds on the descent’s progress ladder. However, Gentry had only heard of the MYTHIC tag in old stories. He hadn’t even thought it to be real, much less to see one in person here and now coming from an integration world of all places. If it HAD been real, he’d have expected it to come from one of the ruling clans of the multiverse rather than see it here.
Just what kind of monster was he looking at, to have acquired the kind of raw power and potential for such a label by Elysium?
Fortunately for Gentry though, the other drow either didn’t have an identifying artifact of high enough quality that could identify this man as a MYTHIC tagged individual - or he hadn’t bothered to do so after seeing the quality of the grimoire the succubus hybrid had in hand. Greed took hold of the young scion as he vanished entirely, only to have afterimages numbering in the dozens rush the vampire as his true body appeared right next to the demon.
Gentry could only watch in awe as a giant black maw full of teeth opened up behind the jade-covered drow, pulling the screaming man in with tendrils of sin, before snapping shut and crunching down on the man’s midsection in a spray of blood.