Chapter 290

The out of body experience was vivid, real, and it was almost as if Allie was living within someone else’s skin. She could not control her own body, but she could still fill her lungs intake air as the vision of a ritual long past was played out in front of her like she’d been present in that long-dead era.

The enormous hall she walked down was covered in golden blood. To a mortal, or someone who could not truly see, it would have seemed endless. But not to her, not to her sight that’d been born of darkness. Her pale, ghoulish feet splashed on the warm liquid inbetween the cold, hard stone of the dark passageway. Ceremonial robes were draped over her head and around her shoulders, brushing in a slight, cold breeze as screams echoed from the end of the hall.

Drums. Drums began to beat in the beyond, echoing with the chants and roars from the crowds began to ring against her ears.

For she was the bringer of the end times. The one to divine the will of the dark gods, to bring about an endless age of black that the lightbringers would forever despair to see. The age of celestial kingdoms was ending. Now… the age of the necropolis had finally come.

Even the demons would bow before the might of The Scythe.

Space split open before her, warping to her will as the overlapping false reality distorted. That reality then disemboweled itself and rolled upwards to let her pass into what the true corridor had in store for her, and when her pale, bare feet lightly crossed over the threshold between realities - she found herself standing on a heightened temple platform overlooking vast valleys out to the horizon. The sound heightened fivefold, and the very air shook around her as she stood before her disciples with hands raised on high.

Millions of undead chanted, stomping their feet while roaring in tune to the sound of beating drums. Far below her, the legions of flesh, bone and spirit all raised their hands in worship as the defiled dance of death continued in her name.

In the name of the Scythe, her mentor… her father.

Dozens of fabled angels of death, heroes of the unliving, decorated in splendid black and gold garb, knelt to either side of her with bowed heads and outstretched wings. Bone giants the size of skyscrapers standing beside the temple in rows slammed their giant ivory spears into tower shields, and a loud gong sounded over the crowds. Pyres of teal flame short skywards with the wail of innumerable souls, crashing into the black clouds above before exploding to illuminate the masses out into the dark world beyond.

There was no end to her legions. At least, not an end that she could see. They spanned across the horizon in all directions, having come to worship her name.

“My children… my friends… my family.” Allie’s voice called out as a whisper that all could hear, and an eerie silence overtook the once rowdy legions as their deathly gazes fixed on her at the top of the temple’s platform. A wide smile creased her lips, and she lovingly spread out her pale hands as if to embrace them. “I welcome you… to the beginning of the end for our longstanding enemies. To the ones that sought out a genocide against our people! To the ones that for so long evaded our reach in their high heavens while reigning down terror and flame upon those weaker than they! TO THE ONES THAT THOUGHT THEMSELVES UNTOUCHABLE! I welcome you all, to witness the SACRIFICE, of QUEEN EL-FAH OF THE GOLDEN LIGHTS, ARCHANGEL OF THE HIGH HEAVENS AND BRINGER OF RIGHTEOUS FAITH! BRING OUT THE PRISONER!”

If Allie thought the crowds had gone wild for her own arrival, they went ballistic at this call. It looked as though the sea of bodies beneath her that stretched out for miles had erupted into a frenzied storm, with palpable killing intent radiating off of them as they screamed in both hate and excitement for the prisoner to come forth.

A hole began to form in the stone of the temple’s platform beside her, and soon a figure began to rise out of it. A large altar carved from bone, stone, and steel rose from the depths with a scarred and burned angel chained to its top. Her once brilliant white feathers were covered in splashes of golden blood, her hair cut short, and her glowing eyes were aflame with unhidden rage. Deep cuts marred her once perfect skin in criss-crossing patterns, and she struggled against her shackless while snarling - teeth bared towards the body Allie was looking through.

“You wretched bitch!” The angel said, her chest rising and falling violently before her eyes darted around at the scene. “The heavens will not stand for this! They will find you! I WILL BE AVENGED!”

The woman Allie was seeing through, living through, let on a mocking sneer. She did not reply to the chained woman at the altar, but instead she turned her head upwards to the black clouds above. “Bestow my instruments to mine hands, father.”

Brilliant neon teal lightning tore across the sky from miles away and crashed into the temple Allie stood on. In an instant, Allie felt a surge of deathly energies unlike anything she’d felt before. It swirled around her like a vortex of the purest dao, an insight into the truest meanings of the end, and it bowed to her will as she stretched out a hand.

As she began to whisper, her words carried once more - even over the roar of the millions of her followers, as she used The Scythe’s power to bring about the means to her building ritual.

“The hearts of hell burn brightly this night.” Allie’s ghostly voice projected, with the angels of death repeating after her like a mantra. With those words a volcanic bath of molten lava, coated in infernal power, bubbled up from nothingness into being. Her pale fingers slowly lifted, and with them came dozens of red-hot metal spheres that floated up out of the bath. They glowed dangerously hot, flexing the power of hell from their cores as she bade them encircle the chained angel.

Queen El-Fah of the Golden Lights and Archangel of the High Heavens let her eyes go wide as she realized what they were. “YOU INSOLENT WRETCH!”

Allie continued to ignore her, moving on to the next empty space nearby. “The bones of the perished that we seek to avenge.”

The roaring vortex of deathly energies screamed in protest at the vast amount of energy she siphoned from her father, as the angel’s crimes were innumerable. The amount of devastation Queen El-Fah had caused the undead was not a number she even fathomed to comprehend, and it was proved by the sheer volume of bones that rained from the skies.

They started like falling snow, coming from the dark clouds above only to turn into a roaring avalanche. Countless bones of all shapes and sizes were materialized and began to condense over the temple in a swirling mass of ever-growing, cursed energies that sought to rip the holy archangel’s life energy out before she had a chance to get away. But the cursed energies, made from spite and malice as a retribution of the heavens, stayed its hand when Allie’s pale fingers lifted to them in warning.

“Not yet…” Allie’s voice uttered, and the growing mass of cursed bones heeded her command.

She shifted her gaze and pointed to the floor around the altar with a wide smile. “The pools of despair… the prison your body will ever know after this day, and a failsafe to make sure that you will never know resurrection even if the commandments themselves seek your revival.”

The bloodied, chained archangel began to shriek even louder, flailing madly against her chains in a futile attempt to get free with powers volatile enough to shatter mountains - but she was still unable to get out of the state she now found herself in. Her eyes were wide and frantic, and her chest continued to heave as the chains binding her to the altar began tightening of their own accord. “YOU CANNOT DO THIS! YOU CANNOT! THIS IS SACRILEGE! THIS IS AN EVIL EVEN YOU CANNOT-”

“Silence.” Allie’s cold voice came as a midnight’s breeze, crushing the celestial queen to the stone altar with an audible gasp. One white wing snapped under the sheer killing intent Allie’s body unleashed on the woman, before Allie let on a wicked smile. “I am not yet done. Bring out… the others. Your family and friends will join in your despair.”

From the back of the temple and through a set of large stone doors, bone golems dragging along other angels drenched in their own blood were being dragged forward by chains towards the altar and the platform’s drop off. Their wings were cut off and their faces terrified, all of them above the A-grade. Once they’d been supreme enemies of the underverse, and now they were sacrificial lambs - a conquered people - their honor and pride cut out from underneath them just as their wings had been.

A tray of various tools, imbued with the horror and sin of untold generations, was summoned by another of her followers and held before Allie’s eyes. Her wicked smile grew even more, and she picked out one of the many blades - shuddering as its intent filled her even as powerful as she’d become. Eyes aflame with malice and mana, she turned a crazed look on the bound, sobbing angel at the altar.

“A smile to carve, a smile to keep!” Allie flew forward to the roar of the crowds, gripped the woman’s face, and cut off her lips. Golden blood splattered all over the altar as the victim uncontrollably wailed, before Allie’s body lifted up the piece of carved flesh to the sky with a victorious pose. The swirling balls of red-hot hell-hearts stopped floating about the altar, each of them crashing into one of the other victims nearby to elicit sickening thurds - before the final one sank deep into the archangel’s chest as the last of them. Each of the angels began to scream and wail with unearthly cries as their holy pathways were burned away entirely, their cultivation stripped, and their souls flayed from the inside out.

“BRING FORTH THE GOBLETS AND BLEED THEM DRY! WE WILL MIX THEIR BLOOD WITH THE WATER OF THE ABYSSAL PONDS AND CREATE THE KEYS TO HEAVEN!” With a wave of her hand to the bone cloud that’d formed above the temple, the bones all condensed - and began to shoot down towards her position with a gleeful vengeance pouring out of them. Crashing into her outstretched hand where she held the lips of the angelic queen, they began to merge… and she began to chant, as she called out a singsong rhyme.

It was time to open a portal into the heavens, a ticket for them to strike back.

She turned her abyssal, dead eyes onto the horrified, screaming celestial queen beneath her as the metal ball, the hell heart, continued to burn her from the inside out. Smiling maliciously, Allie raised her cursed blade and then slammed it mercilessly into what remained of the angel’s heart. The reaction was immediate, and the angel vomited golden blood that was soon captured by angels of death in black goblets, whereas others took golden goblets and began scooping up water from the black pools that’d been summoned through the power of The Scythe.

Taking one of the goblets in her own hand, Allie smelled the intense aroma of fear that permeated her victim’s essence - and let out a sigh of relief. “Perfection…”

Bringing it to her lips she drank the golden fluid, and then watched as the carved-off piece of the angel’s face began to sing songs corrupted by the fused bones while the black skies poured down ribbons white light through forming cracks.

The breach into Heaven had begun.

And it was time to seek retribution for the crimes of the holy ones. She would butcher them to the last child, and none would be able to escape her wrath.

***

Black lightning and red frost encircled Riven in a vortex of violence. The storm tore through dozens of abyssal creatures by the second in an almost commercial spray of body parts that splashed across the room made of flesh, where it was quickly absorbed by the floors and walls themselves. It was as if he was standing inside the plugged mouth of a giant lamprey, where teeth along the walls occasionally flexed and shot forward on long tendrils to slash out at him before withdrawing or being destroyed. Occasionally the teeth would also spray acid, and when other champions did occasionally fall to the hordes of various black beasts or the teeth of his strange enclosure - they too were dragged through the flesh-made ground and absorbed into the realm with whatever had killed them.

There wasn’t even an opportunity to take their belongings or loot the others, which Riven found irritating. He’d even go as far as to try and protect the corpses of the dead from the beasts that’d ripped them apart, or had blasted away the teeth and attached tendrils with wrathful vengeance, but even rift-walking over to their dead bodies wasn’t fast enough to take their belongings as loot.

Briefly glancing through the mind links at his counterparts in the maze and the ritual room, Riven grimaced slightly at what he saw beginning to unfold. The maze was by far the most worrisome as he wasn’t sure that Nora and Narg were up to the challenge, being their weakest members - but that in itself held true across all groups. And the ritual room? They were all in and out of various trances and experiencing visions in short snippets… but the implications didn’t look good; even if seeing those caged high-charisma creatures gave him gross and even aggressive feelings on an instinctual level.

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He grunted, shoving one of his hands outlined in rigid crimson ice claws through the face of a muscular bear-creature before ripping out its bottom jaw and smashing it into the ground. Casually spinning the flaming horned skull head on Jackal’s top around - he brought it down with an explosion of hellfire that splattered the creature into charred mush.

“This is rather boring… Maybe I’ll get to fight that giant later.” Riven mused, bending backwards to dodge another hooked tooth that’d been shot out from the wall and frying it with a bolt of black lightning.

Others continued to enter his meat grinder one after the other with roars, wails, and splattering sounds, and his four totems were brought out after that to add to the carnage. The four, 20-sided polyhedrons rapidly began to flash and swirl around him as he let them go from his spatial bag, beginning to mix in their own sparks and ice with the storm to match his own efforts with the occasional rifts being formed to intercept other projectiles.

Increasing his mana output to an acceptable level and then commanding Jackal to take its abyssal beast form, the winged canine stretched and groaned - giving him a happy bark as it patrolled the inner perimeter in his eye of the storm. Floating up off the ground by five feet and crossing his legs, he leaned forward with his chin in one hand and yawned - growing comfortable in the fact that his totems and channeled storm of energies were more than enough for most creatures. He watched as Jackal tore down the bigger or more powerful beasts one by one whenever they managed to finally get through, and finished off his preparations by creating layers of a spinning sphere created from liquid blood. It wasn’t a registered skill and thus didn’t have the potency that it otherwise would have had, but instead was a film of pure blood mana that - if broken - would notify him of an impending attack in his blind spots if his regular mana-pulses didn’t pick up a hidden foe.

Beginning to meditate in a lotus position, he began watching the other champions in different groups as they struggled far harder to keep the monsters back.

There were two mindsets between the champions, of which Riven had opted to take option 1. Option 1 was to fight on your own, to stand alone in order to avoid backstabbing. It was highly likely that should another champion from a different group see you struggling, that they’d be willing and even eager to kill you in your moment of weakness to steal any insights or keys that your group had made while here. This was brutally obvious from those who worked together in Option 2, where the rest of the champions had tried to form a circular unit to stave off the swarms of beasts. And though the number of champions or groups fluctuated every couple of hours between newcomers and those who’d already been here as they either died or descended to the next floor, a solid third of those deaths were from opportunistic strikes landed by other champions.

Riven winced as another vampire was decapitated by a minotaur warrior after getting downed by one of the spear-like teeth and the minotaur in turn rapidly vanished afterwards; meaning his group had likely been needing a key. That key had just been stolen per the rules of this mini-event, and the demon had essentially just doomed the vampire’s group by sending additional waves of enemies into the maze and the ritual room.

[Abyssal Descent Trial for Floor 20 has been activated: The Crazed Giant’s Maze:

* The first to speak will fight for all five: As the one who has spoken the words aloud, Riven has been labeled ‘Champion’. You will be thrown into a pit of despair with other champions of other groups against a respawning wave of randomized abyssal enemies. Minions are unable to aid your champion here. If Riven dies, the rest of you will be set upon by waves of enemies every 10 minutes that increase in strength and number.

* The two of your weakest will be your guide: Nora and Gnar have been designated as Seekers. Your two seekers will be sent into the giant’s cylindrical maze, and will be hunted by the weakest of other teams and various abyssal beasts in their attempt to navigate to the end. The crazed giant will also attempt to eat anything it can get its hands on as the flight through the maze continues, including your seekers. If both seekers die, the rest of you will all be ejected from the Abyssal Descent entirely and may not ever return.

* The remaining three will make the keys, with any others obliged to be: The rest of the party, including all minions not already selected for other roles, will all be set to the task of creating a number of keys that unlock the doors at the end of the labyrinth with crafting materials provided by Elysium. The Seekers, your two weakest, will be unable to traverse through the last part of the maze without these keys.

* If this cannot be done, you unravel another one, in order to take their gift: Killing other champions in one on one combat, or killing other seekers in the maze currently on the twentieth floor of the Abyssal Descent, will take their keys and insights to add to your own party.

Do this, and pass into the 21st floor of the abyssal descent. Fail, and be devoured by the crazed giant in body and soul. Identification is nullified on this entire floor. At the end of this floor, you will gain an insight into one of your paths.]

Brutal. Riven remembered when such things would bother him. When he’d been naive to the truths surrounding his path. He’d been so soft back then, when the integration had first struck. Now… he had quite the opposite problem. He was more focused on getting the items of the dead instead of protecting them.

Could he protect these people?

Sure.

Was he going to?

Meh. They were just as likely to kill him while he used up all his mana taking on more of the fight. He couldn’t trust these people as far as he could throw them. And despite the Unholy Foundational Pillar not necessarily making it a point to only bind to those who were evil, Riven wasn’t dull enough to realize that the odds were stacked in favor of users being bloodthirsty and aggressive at a minimum.

He had to choose his own people and himself over strangers. It just was what it was.

Or… so he thought.

Just as he was pondering this, a startled feminine cry caught his attention when a stealth archer of some kind had been slammed to the floor under a large, snarling ape. He’d only noticed her due to the brief flashing arrows she’d shot out and the pulses he left off with his mana from time to time - but otherwise she’d been damn good at concealing herself. The large ape had noticed her somehow though, and was akin to an ogre in size and a seriously ugly mug. It was pitch black just like all of the other abyssal creatures and had a single large eye in the center of its forehead, with large spines sticking out of its back.

Riven’s eyebrows shot up in surprise as she began to scream, having been torn from stealth as she was battered with outstretched hands in a feeble attempt to block the enormous ape’s balled fists.

The creature roared, sending spit all over the poor woman as bone snapped and her terrified screams turned into outright sobs. She began to beg, to plead for help, and Riven saw one of the other champions on another team dive in towards her. But the horned man wasn’t aiming for the gorilla, rather - it was aiming its blade for the dark elf.

Riven sighed and raised a hand, then hesitated. Why was he interfering? It wasn’t his place to-

The drow woman let out another last cry of pitiful desperation. Her bloodied, battered body was forcefully turned by a fist strike as her pale eyes met his. “PLEASE HELP ME!”

He involuntarily winced. Did he have a soft spot for her because she was pretty? Or was it because she reminded him of Athela? He winced yet again. “I’m going to regret this.”

KABOOM

The enormous fleshy room blazed red as a shockwave of crimson ice obliterated the surroundings. Piercing crimson spikes roared from the walls and floor, and enormous ice novas collected overhead in blooming flash before nuking the place multiple times over in waves of shrapnel.

But the shrapnel wasn’t random, it was directed under his influence and avoided those who he wished to live.

In an instant the screams and roars of the abyssal creatures were cut off. Red mist hung in the air, and the horned man who’d been charging the brutalized drow archer had a spike sticking through his skull as he hung limply in place only a few feet away from where the woman lay. Everyone else was more or less untouched by his attack, and stood staring awkwardly or with incomprehension at what had just happened. A few shot unbelieving gazes in his direction, and it was quite obvious that none of these people were the top crop of the Abyssal Descent - so to speak. The fight against Amano, the half minotaur half gargoyle who’d kicked his ass numerous times, had given him a very keen idea of what the true powerhouses of this place were. At best, these ‘champions’ he currently stood with on the 20th floor trial were probably mid to low tier when compared to the best of what the descent had to offer.

Which was nothing to scoff at overall, considering they’d gotten this far in the first place, but they shouldn’t have been so awestruck at what he’d just done if they’d been worth a damn in a fight. At least, that was the case if they were worthy of his respect.

Cracks began to shake the outer walls as more monsters began to spawn and pound at the thick layer of ice keeping them out. Roars started to be heard once again, and Riven’s storm had already dissipated before he landed gently next to the sobbing drow woman clutching one of her shattered arms on the floor.

She looked up at him with a mixture of fear and confusion, and winced when he knelt down to get a better look at her.

“Here. Open your mouth.” Riven said, putting a hand into his spatial sack and taking out two bottled potions, one red - and one a bright sky blue. “They should help.”

“I will not be poisoned!” The woman hissed in agony, scooting across the ground as her blood-drenched hair covered half of her face. “I’m fine!”

Raising an eyebrow for the second time in a short period, Riven casually pointed a finger to his right and blasted a flying abyssal creature - splattering its guts all over the floor before it managed to swoop in. “I don’t think you are. And if I wanted to kill you, I wouldn’t have come to your aid when you asked. You’re being stupid, I’m not going to take your keys or your life.”

He moved closer to her, and she let out a hiss.

“Do not come any closer!” She barely managed to get out between ragged breaths before he smacked her into a dazed state.

Riven immediately forced the two potions down her throat despite her protests during the moment of silence, as she was on the verge of death and the slap maybe was a bit harder than he’d though; but he gave a satisfied nod when he saw bone begin snapping back into place with flashes of blue and red light. “There we go. Now… doesn’t that feel better?”

The woman was screaming in pain again as the bones reoriented themselves, but it was obvious by the end of it that she no longer had a broken arm. Her cuts and wounds were all gone, and with a wave of his hand - even the blood coating her face was wiped away and drawn into a sphere hovering over one of his hands.

She blinked at him in shock, and as the sounds of battle began roaring around them yet again - Riven nodded to Jackal’s canine form before snapping his fingers. His totems began swirling around him again as the vortex of black and red grew like a rose, encircling the two figures in a protective formation of lightning and razor-sharp frost.

The woman before him slowly sat up, flexing her hands and shooting nervous glances around her as she quickly realized that - should she anger him at all - she would immediately die. And she was still recovering with the aid of the potions he’d given her, even if her outer appearance showed little damage. Casting her pale eyes onto his figure again and frowning down at the shattered remnants of her bow, she wiped her facce of tears and reached down to pick the broken weapon up before speaking. “Why did you help me?”

If Riven had a record for how many times one could raise one’s eyebrows in surprise during a short period of time, he may have just broken it because he raised his eyebrows for the third time in a matter of a few minutes. “Because you asked me to. And because you look very much like my girlfriend. That may seem stupid, but it was certainly part of the reason.”

A winged serpent splattered onto the inside of their enclosure, not having made it halfway through the storm of energy as it landed in a smoldering, sliced heap.

He eyed the monster indifferently, and caught her gawking at him.

“What?” Riven asked curiously, leaning back and pulling his knees up to his chest. “Do I look funny or something?”

She slowly pointed his way. “I’ve seen you before…”

“Is that so?” Riven asked noncommittally. “Where would that have been?”

He knew the answer was coming before it came out of her mouth. She’d no doubt seen him in the battle in the first floor of the Abyssal Descent over the city, as many others had.

“You’re the asshole vampire who slept with me, stole my bag of holding, and then convinced my team to run off WITHOUT ME!” The drow woman screamed in a building rage, her pointing finger quivering in anger.

“Yes, I-” He held up his hand, about to admit that yes - he was Gluttony’s reincarnation, before he abruptly stopped with furrowed brows and confusion spilling from his face. “Wait. WHAT!?”

SMACK

The dark elf reached out and full-on slapped Riven across the face so fast that he barely registered it. Then again, he’d probably just been in a state of shock and the strike had taken him by surprise.

“You JACKASS!” The woman roared, getting to her feet and kicking at him with all of her might while simultaneously sobbing again. “I’VE HAD TO TRAVEL THE DESCENT ALONE BECAUSE OF YOU! DO YOU KNOW HOW HARD IT IS TRAVELING WITHOUT A PARTY?! DO YOU!? DO YOU KNOW WHAT IT’S LIKE?!”

“OW! Stop that!” Riven protested, smacking her kicks away before he froze her to the ground - causing her to fall over - and giving Jackal a shake of his head when the winged beast glanced questioningly their way.

Jackal shrugged, then went back to patrolling the perimeter of their eye of the storm - snatching out abyssal creatures the totems or vortex weren’t able to catch early.

“It’s in there, isn’t it!? Give me back my bag!” The elf said, reaching forward and attempting to snatch it from Riven’s side with angry tears building up at her eyelids. “You have RUINED this experience for me! And I thought we had something special!”

“I WAS NOT the man you-”

“I’LL NEVER TRUST A VAMPIRE AGAIN! NOW UNFREEZE MY FEET SO I CAN KICK YOU A THIRD TIME!!!”

Rolling his eyes and facepalming, he let out a groan. “Jesus Christ. Look, Karen, I don’t know who you think I am - but let’s get one thing clear. I have NOT slept with you, nor have I-”

He was cut off as through the mental link, he saw Genua, Athela, and Fay all turn their inner sight upon him.

“YOU SLEPT WITH HER!?” Athela screamed at the top of her lungs while still trapped in the ritual room. “You cheating PRICK! We’ll be talking about this, Riven!”

“Pervert.” Genua muttered.

“I haven’t had the good stuff for a week! THAT’S NOT FAIR!” Fay exclaimed.

And Riven could only facepalm as the three of them starting laughing at his unhinged situation from the other side. He was already regretting saving this crazy bitch, and it took the others no time to capitalize on his misfortune.

“Isn’t this supposed to be the Abyssal Descent?” Riven said over the shouts of the still recovering and enraged dark elf. “Feels more like Jerry Springer right about now. Listen, lady, I don’t know who you are or what-”

SHUNK

He paused, startled, when a dark blade punctured a shield of ice he’d summoned right before the elf had impaled his left eye. Moving the shield of ice with her black blade imbedded in it, he glared at the seething, rabid young woman with a flare of his crimson eyes.

“That… That was a mistake.” Riven said, lifting his hand in her direction. “A very, very, big mistake.”