Chapter 310

Ten minutes of fighting passed him by, but those ten minutes felt like an eternity as death’s door was hanging wide open for him to drop in at any moment.

[Malignant Prophecy has activ-]

[Malignant Prophecy has been blocked.]

[Malignant Prophecy has been blocked.]

[Malignant Prophecy has been blocked.]

[Malignant Prophecy has been blocked.]

BLOCKED?!

Riven had known it was bad, but with Malignant Prophecy trying to intervene on his behalf AND being blocked? It was less than encouraging, so now he was truly pulling out all the stops as he tried different combinations and attack methods at his disposal in a game of cat and mouse - where he was usually in the position of mouse. New gravity wells tried to catch him off guard and the clam would occasionally try to crush him by means of battering-ram style attacks whenever he seemed tied down by the missile barrage. The entire place looked like a madhouse of flashing lights and violent energies that shook the underground chasm at a constant rate. With his left arm missing and regenerating at a far slower pace than what was normal even for a grievous wound such as that, and with over half of the enemy’s bombardment still trailing him through the storms and swarms and ribbons and snares - he couldn’t wait any longer to take the fight to the enemy.

He had to go on the offensive, not just take pot shots at it whenever an opening occurred. Thankfully his gluttonous storm razors seemed to do some amounts of damage to the peak E-grade entity by stacking sin afflictions that ate away at the giant clam’s shell, and his critical storm lances hit even harder with piercing effects - but took longer to manifest than the swarms of razors he could summon with a snap of his fingers.

What really sucked was that Voodoo Doll, Hells Armor, Profane Glory, Black Lightning, and Legionaries of the Blood God all had either failed him in one way or the other - or simply didn’t penetrate the clam’s outer defenses. Riftwalk was sealed. Soul Clone Projections were down after Gluttony’s main projection had been banished back into Riven’s soul for taking out a large chunk of the barrage to save Riven’s life when he was embedded halfway into the wall upon losing his arm. His storm was great at taking out some of the incoming homing missiles the clam had sent out, but did only small amounts of damage to the clam’s main body with the passive aura effect. Furious Storm passive build ups from his staff worked to an extent, but only in moderate amounts and only at close range. Ravenous Beetle Swarm was very effective when the projected summons got close, but occasional pulses of blue energy would wipe them out in massive numbers whenever the swarm eating away at the clam’s exterior became too prevalent. Unlike the razors that left behind sin afflictions even if they shattered, the beetles did more damage but were themselves needed to maintain a steady stream of said damage. The beetles were also slower than the razors were and had a harder time catching the clam whenever it changed positions - because despite how large the thing was, the monster was certainly not slow.

There were the options of Gluttony’s Aspect of Demonic Heritage, his Tier 3 Sin skill, as well as his tier 3 Blood Nova for a hard hitter at range. The problem with these was that he had only a single shot at using either one of them for this battle given their significant cooldown times, and wanted to wear the clam down for a while if at all possible in order to make those skills count.

Funnily enough though, despite the real danger to his life - Riven was beginning to have fun in a way that only extreme joyrides had given him in the past. He’d felt this way from time to time since the system had intervened in Earth’s destiny, and he rarely got to go all out like he was now.

“COMERE BIG BOY!”

He spun, smashing through homing missiles with storm energy that surged out from his kicking leg as he flung another storm lance in a trailing arc straight into the oncoming clam. Dodging another projectile and creating a nova of flame with his staff when it connected with the shell, Riven skidded along the gigantic creature’s top layer and backflipped off of it before reattaching himself to the clam with a wretched snare from where his stump arm was.

The immense speed the clam’s charge had sent the creature ripping through the ocean beneath him, and Riven was violently tugged along for the ride when his snare went tight. Crashing back down onto the scarred, pockmarked shell where fissures and cracks were abundant.

One of those areas in particular was deeper and more riddled with damage than all the others.

In front of where Riven stood and exactly where he’d shot his last storm lance, there was a large crater in the clam that smoldered and crackled with remnant sin and storm energy. A stark contrast to the deep blue shell, the red and black crackling inside the pit Riven was digging had a solid twenty yards of depth into it and about twice as large a diameter. It was the largest of a few areas he’d been working on during the battle, and if he could just get through the shell into the softer underside… That was when things would get real.

CRUNCH

The clam smashed into another wall of the cavern, sending stone chip debris flying everywhere in a cloud of hail as the ceiling let off dust from spreading cracks.

He was flung forward, but the snare attaching him to the clam’s back kept him tethered like a seatbelt even despite the tremendous force - and after he regained his footing, he turned with a wild look in his eyes to point his staff downwards into the nearby pit.

“I’LL BE TAKING THAT PEARL!”

[Furious Storm: This staff can passively build up charges of furious storm, which utilizes a supercharged dose of any single energy from the pillars of Sin / Unholy / Shadow / Death / Blood / Infernal. You may only unleash one type of energy at a time. Power of furious storm depends on the amount of charge emitted.]

Riven’s staff erupted with built up energy for the twelfth time at close range, sending a healthy dose of Sin energy into the large crater with a beam of condensed purple light. The beam connected with the pit’s bottom, a laser twice the size of his arm eating away at the clam’s defenses and reinvigorating nearby gluttonous afflictions to further their corrosive effects.

“You are quite the pest…” The clam’s alien voice muttered as its body began to pulse. “I can see why you were allowed to access this hidden trial. Elysium chose well, but your test is still not over - you must kill me first. A task I am afraid you still might not be up to.”

The clam exploded with raw power, sending that strange foreign blue blood mana crashing into its surroundings along all directions and sending Riven’s body spiraling out towards the ceiling.

However Riven had already encased himself in an orb of crystalized red ice. His storm roared around him, twisters and cyclones ripping apart the oncoming missiles and gravity wells as an enormous, charged critical storm lance began to form along Riven’s outstretched arm.

Black lightning crackled along his limb with a red hiss as the lance began to form, and with a gesture the lance grew to extreme proportions with a flare of energy along his skin. It erupted off his body and condensed with a snap of energy at high speed - rocketing towards the largest of the craters with a resounding CRACK.

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A large piece of the shell shattered.

“HA-HAAAAAA!” Riven’s remaining arm spun the staff in his hand and smacked away another two missiles and he dodged another three with a blur to the left - instantly creating a dome of ice around himself before layering it to withstand the impact of yet another two. “GOTCHYA BITCH!”

Snares tore through the air in swaths, lightning danced around him and streams of energy swirled in the air behind trails of lances as he continued to snipe the clam with lances while beginning to build up another swarm of gluttonous storm razors. Pushing off the stone wall and landing on a platform of ice, he raced around a series of crimson pillars that sprang up from the walls and ground - maintaining a flight path on the side opposite the oncoming missiles tracking him. Pieces of the pillars ripped apart and sprayed into various directions with subsequent booms, and shifting his body weight while launching himself towards the turning clam’s body - he shot the swarm of razors out towards the shell’s crater again.

The crackling, spinning razors flashed forward, tinted with purple light while shredding through another barrier the clam tried to pull up.

Riven didn’t have time to see how much of them had landed properly before needing to speed away again as more of the nearby walls were evaporated in sprays of stone with dozens of impacts, and he raced into a nearby stormcloud to emerge out the other side.

Only to meet a long fleshy tendril that slithered out from the clam’s mouth that slapped him into the next century.

“UMPH!”

CRACK

BOOM

Like a speeding bullet he was sent smashing through two of his own crystalized pillars, though a chunk of detached wall, and cratered into the floor far below in a dramatic, earth shattering crash.

“How does it feel to be hit with my appendage, vampire?” The clam laughed in a booming voice. “It has been too long since I’ve used it! Ah, the thrill of this battle is quite stimulating!”

Riven, still in the crater, sent out an enormous discharge of black lightning and sped away from the crater while circling back around. He cocked an eyebrow. “Appendage? The way you talk about it makes things sound quite iffy.”

“If I am to believe this monster at face value…” Gluttony said warily. “I believe he just smacked you with his penis.”

“He did NOT! Clams don’t even have those.”

“He even used the word ‘stimulating’.”

“THAT WAS NOT A PENIS! It was just a strange fleshy tendril or something!”

The clam let out another laugh. “What if I were to say that it WAS!?”

“THEN I’D SAY IT’S RATHER SMALL FOR A CLAM OF YOUR SIZE!” Riven’s staff smashed through a gravity well right when it appeared beside him and shot ahead through the storm - narrowly avoiding a sharp blade-shaped pulse of energy released from the clam’s mouth when it opened up wide.

Bubbles blasted out through the blood ocean, popping and sending Riven into a concussive nightmare that he only barely penetrated by condensing the mana around him into a sharpened cone. Ripping out the other side and seeing the wide open mouth of the enormous clam in front of him, he was about to take a chance and send a blood nova inside when Gluttony intervened.

“UP!”

Gluttony tugged on Riven’s body, forcing him to veer off course and only barley avoiding the snapping jaws of the clam when it lunged forward. The impact sent a shockwave of energy through Riven’s body but he rotated with his change of direction and blasted energy into his feet - causing him to rocket over the clam’s dorsal shell again and straight towards the large crater he’d been working on all this time.

The fleshy tendril followed.

“Penis incoming.” Gluttony commented, just now starting to feel a bit more confident about their chances now that the tide had very recently turned to be on more even footing. Confident enough to make stupid jokes anyway.

Riven was not amused as he crashed directly along the crater’s perimeter and anchored himself again with another wretched snare - the sticky black ropes tying him down like an anchor. “That snake like thing is not a fucking penis, dipshit!”

“That’s not a very kind thing to say to your buddy, Riven.”

“You’re supposed to be the epitome of evil, but instead you’re here making dick jokes!”

“I’ve just never had a reincarnation get slapped by a penis before-”

“YOU’VE NEVER BEEN REINCARNATED BEFORE EITHER!” Riven ignored the laughter and sent yet another empowered lance directly into the deepened crater. The shell’s bottom this time actually cracked all the way through with a small spray of flesh, and Riven threw up a pillar of crimson ice to skewer the fleshy large tendril racing towards him from the front of the clam’s mouth - eliciting a pained roar from the monster he was currently latched to. “If ANYTHING that is a tongue! Nefajia crecus blood nova!”

His hand released the staff and underwent the proper motions as he spoke the words, finally seeing an opportunity to dig all the way into the clam from the outside. The area around him shattered, trembled and split. A huge shockwave smashed through the ocean and tore asunder all the nearby projectiles heading his way, and was followed by an enormous condensed globe of swirling blood mana that vaporized the entire interior of the crater with tremendous force.

KABOOM

Riven’s wretched snare tether snapped as he was thrown off by the impact of his own spell, but he took far less damage than the clam did. The fissure that’d been at the bottom of that crater was ripped open entirely, with fragments of shell and a purplish flesh underneath spraying out of the beast in dozens of house-sized chunks.

The clam let out a feral scream of rage and pain, whirling and spinning rapidly before crashing into the nearby wall again and then flopping onto the floor with yet another crash.

It was now or never.

[Gluttony’s Aspect of Demonic Heritage (Sin)(Tier 3): A martial art that enhances you through the power of your fully formed Mark of the Sinner. Your body merges with your soul clone for 1 minute, allowing you to take on an ultimate demonic form as an aspect of the Great Maw. Very long cooldown, which can be reduced by killing and eating others.]

His body exploded as the tattoos along his skin all lit up from black to violet and messenger ripped off his skin to fly into his spatial sack - making room for the change and taking Riven’s cloak with him.

His arm grew back instantly. Muscles tore apart and rebuilt themselves. A long black tail sprouted from his backside, his bare chest split open to reveal a vertical gluttonous maw with razor sharp teeth. Huge demonic horns sprouted from his head and his hair receded to reveal pitch black skin with glowing violet sigils emblazoned upon his skin, and his hands and feet exploded with claws. Legs snapped backwards and grew larger, inverting like a T-rex, and spines tore open across his spine while he grew to five times his normal height. Bone spikes tore out of his kneecaps and elbows, and his teeth grew like knives.

Flapping four black and violet demonic wings many times his own height to gain momentum, his demonic body surged forward with a scream of feral rage. Thirty feet tall and well over a few thousand pounds, he extended his claws and torpedoed towards the open, gaping wound in the clam’s shell.

It was time to finish this, and the glint in his eyes was a testament to the violence Riven was about to unleash on his absurdly tanky creature - even if it was the last thing he’d do.

The clam’s voice echoed within the chasm as it opened its mouth to expose the pearl. “I… Surrender.”

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CONGRATULATIONS

CONGRATULATIONS

CONGRATULATIONS

YOU HAVE DEFEATED THE HIDDEN TRIAL BOSS: BLUEBLOOD PRECURSOR CLAM. ELYSIUM HAS UNSEALED YOUR POINT OF EXIT. YOU NOW HAVE TWO CHOICES: FINISH THE BATTLE AND ATTEMPT TO KILL THE CLAM FULLY, GAINING FAVOR WITH THE BLOOD GOD; OR ACCEPT THE CLAM’S SURRENDER.

YOU MAY CLAIM THE CLAM’S PEARL NOW IF YOU WISH TO LET THE CLAM LIVE. SHOULD YOU CHOOSE TO GAIN FAVOR WITH THE BLOOD GOD FOR MORE HIDDEN PRIZES, PLEASE ACKNOWLEDGE YOUR WILLINGNESS TO CONTINUE THE FIGHT NOW.

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The missiles around him all exploded without preamble. The gravity wells disappeared too, and the clam kept its mouth open with the shining pearl on its… tongue… in full view for Riven to take should he accept the surrender.

Riven paused mid flight, veering left and flaring his wings to come to an abrupt and quite surprised stop. “Surrender with a boss fight? Is that even a thing?”

“Apparently for this trial, it is.” Gluttony said. “That is an identifiable system message. Elysium does not lie about things like this. If it considers the battle complete, then it is complete - should you want to take this out.”

Silence.

And then more silence.

Riven already knew what he was going to choose. Despite being royally pissed off at this monster that’d nearly crushed or eaten or blown him up a billion times, and even after having finally dealt some serious damage to the beast, he wasn’t stupid enough to try and continue a fight that he had a very real chance of dying in; despite enjoying having gone all out for the first time in quite a while. Even if the odds were now in his favor, the clam wasn’t something he’d want to tango with again anytime soon and a way out was something Riven would be more than happy to take.

“You’ll answer my questions if I agree?” Riven asked as the seconds on his transformation ticked by.

“Yes.” The clam eventually said. “I will answer whatever it is you wish me to tell you, and you may have the pearl as promised. My surrender is absolute, and I find you a worthy contender for the task at hand. I wish to converse with you about what it is I’m tasked to do here, and hope that we can come to terms before one of us is slain in prolonged battle. Please, accept my pearl and allow me to talk - so that you may understand what it is you truly hold in your grasp when the treasure is passed.”