Chapter 309
He pushed himself to his absolute limit just to stay upright under the massive amounts of pressure the clam’s aura was exerting. The mere action of lifting his head was strenuous against a force that could crush mountains, but his own aura was maintaining its hold.
Profane Blessing of the Crow exploded around Riven’s body to enhance his speed and stamina with wisps of red and black trailing off his skin, shimmering amidst the storm as he raised his staff towards the beast. Dozens of critical storm lances bloomed around him, drawing back on tightening wretched snares that prepared them for launch. Thousands of gluttonous storm razors erupted in a swirling vortex, spinning their blades at extreme speeds while rotating around his position. Black lightning strikes snapped out at random amidst a booming roar produced by his aura’s storm, and pillars of crystalized red ice began growing up through the chasm all around him.
Finally at an equilibrium with the aggressive foreign energy trying to crush him, Riven breathed normally. His mind sank into a state of zen, becoming one with the blood around him, as he fed upon the ambient energy in big swaths of intake that flooded his soul pillar like a tidal wave.
“This is a peak E-grade monster.” Gluttony said into Riven’s mind. “Almost at the cusp of evolving further. Be wary, it will not be an easy fight and I don’t want to lose my prized new host to an early death.”
Riven was thinking the same thing. His life was truly on this line this time, and despite his greed at wanting that blasphemous pearl in the Clam’s mouth - he decided to take the risk of summoning his legionnaires from the Blood God’s realm anyways.
The pearl wasn’t good to him if he was dead. And the wards here might very well block the Blood God from seeing inside even if he did summon the legionnaires.
Riven grunted his acknowledgement to Gluttony’s information, let go of Jackal to hover in front of him, then smashed both his hands together. Tearing them apart with strings of blood and death mana ripping through space between his fingers, eight flashes of light appeared - four to either side of where he floated.
[Legionaries of the Blood God (Death / Blood)(Tier 2): This is a temporary summoning spell that does not require minion slots. You may summon up to 8 Elite-Class Bloodstricken Undead from the Blood God’s realm, equal in combat level to your own, and may designate whether or not you wish to summon Blood Knights, Blood Sorcerers, Blood Assassins, or a combination of the three when you do so. Undead are non-sentient and last for 5 minutes before disappearing. 1 day cooldown time. Very high mana cost.]
[Summoned Blood Sorcerer, Bloodstricken Undead, Level 200. ELITE.]
[Summoned Blood Sorcerer, Bloodstricken Undead, Level 200. ELITE.]
[Summoned Blood Sorcerer, Bloodstricken Undead, Level 200. ELITE.]
[Summoned Blood Sorcerer, Bloodstricken Undead, Level 200. ELITE.]
[Summoned Blood Sorcerer, Bloodstricken Undead, Level 200. ELITE.]
[Summoned Blood Sorcerer, Bloodstricken Undead, Level 200. ELITE.]
[Summoned Blood Sorcerer, Bloodstricken Undead, Level 200. ELITE.]
[Summoned Blood Sorcerer, Bloodstricken Undead, Level 200. ELITE.]
Eight hooded skulls etched with unholy crimson runes on their foreheads stared with crimson orbs for eyes in their skull sockets. All eight sorcerers wore crimson robes of shifting runic black sigils and held staves with ruby orbs that flickered blood mana. He only ever used this spell when he was in truly dire need, and now was as good as any to get them on board.
Yet the Clam before him seemed content just to watch and wait, only having unleashed its aura up until this point that continued to pound into his own with continued furiosity.
“I have not seen bloodstricken in quite some time.” The clam mused, rumbling from its position on the floor in the miles-wide chasm. “But they are not enough.”
Then, the clam moved.
The stadium-sized beast launched itself off the stone floor, rocketing towards Riven as its mouth closed down tight. Blue ribbons trailed out behind it to propel it forward as its shell gained a solid layer of protective power.
“SHIT!”
Riven unleashed his own attack to stall the monster’s advance. Arcs of black lightning rumbled throughout the storm clouds and veered towards his opponent with thunderous booms. Enormous pillars of ice surged upwards and forwards to crash into the oncoming clam like a train, exploding with crystalized shrapnel and clouds of frost when they buckled under the pressure. The needle-like rain oriented itself to hail down on the clam as it pushed forward. Gluttonous storm razors smashed and cracked through the top layers of the clam’s barrier defenses, adding corrosive sin afflictions with each strike that continued to stack by the thousands.
But still the clam continued to fly through the ocean unhindered, despite large chunks of its barrier tearing off and burning away under the assault.
Riven tore a black hole through space behind himself and each of his sorcerer summons just before the clam made impact, teleporting them and their mass of gathering lances all via riftwalk as a crash resounded on the opposite side of the room. Debris and rubble began raining down from the ceiling and walls where Riven had just been, where the clan had created an enormous crater along the back; but underneath it all - an exposed additional layer of Elysium’s seal was seen under the rock layers. This entire chasm likely had the seal underneath the outer rim.
He would have been utterly crushed if Riven had stayed where he was.
Raising the free hand that didn’t have Jackal in its grasp, Riven clenched his fist - and detonated all the razors still embedded in the clam’s remnant barrier.
[Gluttonous Storm Razors (Blood / Shadow / Sin): All of your Storm Razors will acquire stacking gluttonous afflictions upon impact. This affliction slowly eats away and corrodes your enemy over time as Sin damage unless dispelled, and the affliction can stack. Should you decide to detonate a selected razor, that detonation will burn through the nearby afflictions as fuel for an additional burst of Sin damage.]
The monster’s defenses were torn asunder in a flash of purple light, launching pieces of solidified mana in all directions as Riven grinned. “Fire!”
His sorcerers all followed his lead at the command, each shooting off somewhere between ten and twenty blood lances each that raced across the chasm at high speed with piercing tips. Riven’s own critical storm lances were far faster given the imbuement of Snipe and the propulsion of the slingshot snares attached at their backs, and the crackling black arcs of lightning and blood trailing behind them started to attack the residual mana of the clam’s aura in explosive strikes.
CRASH
Dozens of Riven’s lances blurred forward and made impact, piercing through the rebuilding barriers the clam was constructing on the fly and tearing through into the clam’s shell. The monster made a rumbling noise and continued its turn towards him though, seemingly unbothered by the attack as it completely ignored the other lesser blood lances that his summons were firing. Some of the normal blood lances flung by his summoned sorcerers didn’t manage to even pierce the barrier at all as it rebuilt itself, and others that did manage to break through the barrier didn’t manage to proceed further into the shell - only shattering when they made contact. He silently thanked his lucky stars that his own lances had a serious piercing upgrade with his latest evolution, and realized that his sorcerers would be somewhat useless against this opponent outside of simply draining its mana barrier by knocking chunks off.
[Critical Storm Lance (Blood / Shadow): Your third evolution of blood lances are now wreathed in double the amount of black lightning as they previously were, have twice the flight speed, travel 50% farther when imbued with Snipe, and leave trails of lingering Black and Red storm energy in their flight paths that can strike out at enemies for a short time should they get too close. Chance for armor piercing strikes and critical strike damage are both drastically increased with this evolution.]
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“This thing is an absolute tank!”
CRACK-SNAP-WHOOSH
Three sorcerers on his left collapsed in on themselves amidst the loud snapping of reinforced bones when a swirling orb of blue blood tore a hole in the ocean like a gravity well. They didn’t even last more than a second, putting up minimal resistance before they were snuffed out like flies.
If it wasn’t for Riven’s enhanced reflexes under Blessing of the crow, he would have likely met a similar fate when another one of those blue gravity wells appeared right in front of him too - sucking all the blood in the area into a concentrated pit of devouring magic.
He flashed backwards, using messenger’s flight to further reinforce the power he was putting into manipulating the environment around him for faster movement. A series of barriers from his sorcerers engulfed two more of the gravity wells that popped up in adjacent areas he was soaring through, delaying and containing the clam’s mana long enough for Riven and the other casters to get out of the way.
He dodged, rift-walked, and spun around to return fire when his eyes went wide and his jaw dropped.
From the shell of the creature a mile from his position, large bumps the size of hills were forming along its shell. Those bumps were opening up with charged energy underneath the hard outer layer with a power spike that was rapidly increasing to surpass even his own maximum output.
WHOOMPH
KABOOM
In an eyeblink, the clam discharged - and it was like watching a futuristic battleship unleash an entire payload all at once. An intake of ambient Blood mana caused the clam’s shell to expand and then contract, releasing tens of thousands of pointed short missiles that blew apart the area surrounding the clam in their expansion. Riven watched in horror as tens of thousands turned into hundreds of thousands, and his gut sank further when all of those missiles that’d been expanding out in all directions simultaneously turned to home in on his location.
They were locked on.
“Holy shit…”
“MOVE!” Gluttony screamed as the missiles began to pick up velocity, each breaking the sound barrier with individual sonic booms that shattered space inbetween the clam and Riven with a maelstrom of ear-shattering sound.
Riven immediately opened another rift, only for the clam to let out a pulse from its shell - creating the visage of a blue moon behind the clam like a sunrise peeking over the horizon. Riven’s rift shut down instantly, and his horror mounted as a system notification appeared.
[You have been afflicted with the debuff: Blood Curse of the Blue Moon’s Exchange. This debuff can only be active on a single target and a single ability, at the cost of 10% of the caster’s maximum Health. Blueblood Precursor Clam has paid the blood price and has selected Riftwalk as its chosen ability to lock down during this curse’s duration of 30 minutes. This curse cannot be dispelled by any means below the caster’s own grade, the maximum health lost by the caster cannot be healed for 30 minutes, nor can the caster re-use this curse for 60 minutes.]
“WHAT KIND OF BULLSHITTERY IS THAT!? THE BASTARD JUST GIMPED ME!”
The enemy’s barrage was beyond Riven’s maximum output. Gravity wells were appearing around his position to trap him inside the area. And 30 minutes of not using Riftwalk was a nail in the coffin he was about to be buried in after he was ripped apart by the mountain of missiles headed right at him.
His sorcerers attempted to stall the oncoming barrage in a valiant sacrifice to save him, but were wiped out like flies before a tsunami. Riven cycled the vast majority of his mana into one singular ability sigil on his pillars, eradicating all of his forming missiles in a quick gambit for speed. Profane Blessing of the Crow exploded with energy as the soul sigil was fed to maximum capacity, causing Riven’s muscles to bulge and tear before rapidly repairing themselves as he turned to flee.
Innumerable missiles bore down on his location, his body radiated with energy as his aura continued to battle the ever-oppressive clam’s will, and it was suddenly game time.
Riven rocketed backwards with an earth shattering explosion of mana that eradicated all the closest missiles in a shockwave of energy as he rushed headlong into the forming storm clouds of his aura.
The missiles followed.
He ducked and weaved, using Jackal’s passively stored energy reserves to blast more of the enemy missiles as icy pillars rose up from the ground to intercept the wave of carnage homing in on his body. Black lightning strikes with enormous twisters of shadow and red ice crackled and boomed, tearing apart hundreds of the speeding torpedoes that actively tried to swerve around these obstacles while trailing his flight.
Riven considered his options.
His summons were gone, and he couldn’t call on any of his other minions either. He’d just tried again to no avail. Blood Nova was something he was keeping in reserve for a hard hitter given its cooldown, and if he was given the opportunity - possibly even a finishing move due to the empowering effect the ambient blood mana would have on his explosive projectile spell. Blaze of Profane Glory would have been a good option if he wasn’t literally swimming through an ocean of Blood right now. He guessed that the flames would do SOMETHING, but may be snuffed out rather fast given the potent, wet environment of almost purely foreign mana when regarding the Infernal Sub-Pillar.
He banked left when he came up against the wall, still thinking fast as he felt an impending series of missiles at the forefront come within range.
CRACK-SNAP-CRASH
Riven’s spiked gauntlet from Messenger whipped out with his left hand to literally punch the speeding projectiles before contact, and his right hand used Jackal to bat them away with explosions of hellfire on contact with each strike. Watching the ambient Blood mana snuff out Jackal’s passive fiery blasts with each smack, he was doubly sure that Blaze of Profane Glory would be a no go.
CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK-CRACK
Stone exploded behind him like the wall was hit by a gatling gun, with shrapnel blasting out in a wave that followed his trail by mere meters despite traveling faster than the speed of sound. Dozens and then hundreds of missiles smashed into the stone wall he was speeding along, pressed up to it and flying by with only inches between himself and the outer perimeter as the storm of black and red raged overhead - a limitless hail of blue roaring through it. The storm filtered a good amount of the missiles, but it wasn’t as much as he’d like considering his own aura storm was being suppressed by the clam’s aura in turn.
But the sieve effect wasn’t insignificant even despite this. Passing through that storm with all of the lightning strikes and twisters ravaging the barrage across black thunderclouds and deadly red hail - it reduced the number of threats by about a fourth.
What else could he do to get rid of these things? Surely the clam had used some kind of trump card, there was no way it could cast that ability twice. Even if it was peak E-grade.
Right?
If that wasn’t the case, if Riven was wrong, he was rather fucked. But he had to think positive here and banked on the idea that the barrage the clam had sent was a one time deal for the remainder of this fight. Attacks on that scale generally were single use with long cooldowns, or they were trump cards.
He needed to lead the projectiles repeatedly through his storm, through swaths of wretched snares, into swarms of his ravenous beetles, and across the paths of critical storm lances with lingering energy trails until the bombardment was dealt with. Anything to whittle away the number of homing missiles hot on his ass. The key to this plan was making sure he didn’t die in the process until he’d exhausted the enemy’s barrage, and giving that homing effect and that hundreds of thousands of missiles were currently locked onto him - it was going to be a rough patch.
Riven began to-
SMASH
His left arm was nearly ripped off in a spray of blood and tendon when a missile smashed through it and detonated. He was sent spinning, skipping like a stone on a lake until he came to a skidding halt half-imbedded in the rock wall. He also felt a cold sensation spreading up from the wound of his shoulder where Messenger had been mangled, and the flesh began to freeze as the blue discoloration wrapped itself along his blood vessels.
[You have been poisoned by Oathseeker Missile. 3 Stacks of Freeze Venom have been applied.]
That was only a single missile that’d landed, potent enough to tear through sin-affiliated armor that was easily some of the best - if not the very best - that Panu had to offer. If any more of those missiles managed to hit him, Riven was very likely a goner.
Gluttony’s soul projection intercepted the next oncoming swarm as his maw ripped through space and opened wide, black tendrils spilling out with a demonic roar. Riven was dazed but not completely out of it, and despite Gluttony taking out tens of thousands of the missiles by smashing them aside or swallowing them whole - Riven and Gluttony were still too weak at this stage to compete against the monster head on as it was.
Gluttony’s visage evaporated with a shriek of rage when the barrage became too much, as his soul clone projection was banished back to Riven’s inner realm.
But it’d given Riven time to get his bearings back.
“ffffffFFFFFFFAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”
His good hand gripped the mangled shoulder, fingers digging deep into the already exposed wound. Withdrawing Messenger’s extension at a mental command to his armor, he formed claws along his fingertips and ripped off his own left arm to stop the freezing poison from spreading further.
The pain was extreme.
Panting and sealing the wound closed, he tossed aside his limb and blurred to the right - avoiding another series of impacts as the stone wall once again shattered like exploding glass in a trail behind him.
“I’M NOT DONE YET!” Riven yelled, laughing like a madman as the adrenaline spiked. He wove around another incoming formation of the barrage, twisting through five of them and smashing aside the rest with another explosive blow of Jackal while maintaining his extreme speed via Profane Blessing of the Crow.
His body was basically a nuclear reactor at this point, pumping out so much energy that his very skin was starting to peel off - and if not for his vampiric regeneration it likely would have already done so numerous times over. His eyes darted about, catching movement in his peripherals that he constantly dodged or blasted away. It was only when he had a moment to think clearly that he enacted his previously constructed plan, and opened his mouth to unleash a swarm of ravenous beetles from his insides.
The insects erupted out of him like he was belching one of the plagues of Egypt. The sin spell cast them out, projectile vomiting thousands of the tiny creatures that intercepted the missiles one by one in massive detonations and explosion as Riven continued to peel off and zig zag through the storm - with the lightning strikes, hail, and twisters continued to batter the following blue torpedoes.
Numerous massive nets of wretched snares were cast out at clumps, expanding with black, sharpened, prickly ropes that entangled entire clusters of the missiles to bring them down.
Critical storm lances were cast out at the clam’s distant shell whenever he got a chance to peak at it through the absolute shitshow around him, leaving trailing ribbons of raw storm energy behind the supersonic projectiles of blood and shadow that struck out and lashed at the barrage too.
Explosions and shrapnel went everywhere. It was all encompassing, a part of the storm he found himself in, and it was absolutely maddening the kinds of maneuvers he was using to zip around giant pillars of crimson ice rising off the walls and floor. Those same pillars continued to shatter just as fast as they appeared - while the stone outer wall continued to detonate all around him in a massive roar of sound and fury.
This Floor 22 had been something of a joke up until now. Unfortunately, the way things were currently going, he’d be lucky just to get out alive.