Elysium's Multiverse

Chapter 53

Riven hadn’t realized that only one specialty pillar could be obtained beyond normal subpillars, but he didn’t dwell on that for more than a half second.

The exploding corpses nearly blew Riven’s eardrums out and tore into the satyr with intense ferocity that covered the surrounding walls in layers of red. Simultaneously, streams of blood from all around the room began icing over and flowing across the floor at insane speed to race up Riven’s legs. The thick red ice crept up all the way past his knees only momentarily to act as a pair of brakes, stopping him right before he hit the opposite side of the room, and he grinned. The crystallized ice fluidly followed him as he rotated his body, using his projected mana to hold the Wretched Snares intact, and spun around with the momentum of the club in a way that most magic casters at his level would have never even dreamed of doing before now.

Usually, catching a club that size would require a Herculean amount of strength. But when he was using mana to do the heavy lifting for him, he only needed to reinforce his spells.

With a grunt from Riven, the caught club rotated with his pivot and circled around his body before being launched from the snares back at the demon like a stone from a slingshot.

*WHOOSH*

*CRASH*

The badly wounded warlord’s right arm was taken off as the club smashed through it like a high-velocity hammer into a sponge. Cries of disbelief erupted from the shocked onlookers. The blinded demon staggered backward, looking down at its missing stump of an arm despite not being able to see.

But the demon was not done, and in fact it became even more enraged.

“PUNY HUMANNN!”

The satyr initially slipped upon the sheet of blood ice covering the floor but rammed a foot into the ground, which shattered the magic Riven had imbued. Flecks and shards were sent skyward, and Riven was thrown back along with Athela just as she’d tried to ambush the creature. With another scream of rage after that, the satyr didn’t let up, blindly barreling toward him at breakneck speed that far outmatched Riven’s own.

Riven had anticipated this and rolled to his feet.

He summoned another sheet of red ice along the floor and felt it surge up his legs again; he could literally feel the blood surrounding him and mold it to his will with the spell he’d created through sheer willpower. With narrowed eyes and a snarl, he felt the Blessing of the Crow kick into high gear along with his newer ability as they both shot him forward. The blood ice molded to his skin and pumped his legs harder, giving them more power as he vaulted ahead to slide underneath the oncoming satyr’s body between its cloven feet. Simultaneously and with a victorious scream of hate, Riven sent razor-sharp discs firing into the creature’s crotch as the monster tore through the air over him.

The satyr stumbled for only a moment. It looked down—trying to pinpoint his location—then turned to Riven again and brought an injured hoof up with a bleating noise to slam the foot down into the stone floor yet again.

Riven’s knees buckled as the room shook again amid a brief shock wave of unnatural kinetic energy, and he scrambled to pick himself up from where he’d been thrown before the satyr closed the gap in a sprint of its own.

Athela screeched and launched herself at its back, sinking her venom into its neck and creating a quickly spreading area of necrosis before weaving in and out of its strikes as she continued to crawl all over the creature at breakneck speed—interrupting its charge as it slipped on the ice again and slammed onto the ground. The satyr continued to roll, flail, bleat, and swing its weapon in an attempt to crush the spider—but missed each time and roared when another Blood Lance pierced its chest in a blur of red magic.

Riven downed another vial of Sinner’s Blood to speed up the healing process of his body. His previously shattered leg was still killing him due to the purple miasma digging into his injury, and it was hard to move despite Crimson Ice supporting his body. Red lightning still coursed over his body, and his breath was creating bloody vapor clouds as he panted, his cloak whirling around him in the winds of the aftershock, and he snarled at his enemy before casting the vial aside with a clattering sound.

Riven began channeling another Blood Lance into his arm and rushed backward over the ice to put distance between them when the satyr’s strike blurred downward during its attempts to find Athela. Riven’s eyes went wide in shock as he heard the screech of pain end abruptly, and Athela’s body was crushed against the ground in a spray of green ichor.

Azmoth was not in a much better situation. Though alive, the demon was struggling to get back up as he dripped blood and his flames died away into nothing. Apparently even Hell’s Armor had its limits, despite it being an intrinsic property of the demon.

Having realized it’d killed one of its opponents, the satyr stood up to its full height, put its mouth to the ceiling where the glowing crimson pentagram remained, and roared with a hungering delight. Numerous injuries, patches of necrosis, protruding shards of solidified webbing, open wounds, and burned streaks from where the Wretched Snares had riddled the creature’s body were obvious. It was missing both of its eyes and one of its arms, but it was still standing.

It was now winning.

Riven silently cursed and launched his Blood Lance at the creature’s head, hitting it full-on along the jaw and causing it to stumble back as sharp teeth shattered. It bellowed and fell on the ice Riven had summoned while smacking its face into the ground, and Riven immediately capitalized on that bought time with another flurry of razor discs that crashed into the monster’s body. Despite this, the beast picked itself up after receiving the barrage like an unkillable behemoth and snarled his way. Turning to the general direction it’d been hit from, the creature lifted up a foot yet again to slam it down into the ground.

The resultant shock wave tore through the ice covering the floor once more as a nearly perfect counter to Riven’s new spell—simultaneously sending Riven head over heels and causing him to drop his staff when his head hit the ground. He blinked rapidly, trying to get ahold of his surroundings after he’d nearly been knocked unconscious. Dropping his weapon was also a serious loss in the moment, because that staff had been the source of increased mana regeneration for him through this fight.

He groaned, his vision blurry and his head aching like crazy, and his groan turned to a scream when the satyr’s spiked club came down on the location it thought him to be in. It hadn’t outright killed him because the aim was off, but the bones in his arm shattered in an instant.

Pain radiated up his useless, mangled limb as he screamed profanities, only to be silenced by another backward swipe from the spiked club. He felt a rusty metal spike pierce his lung before the wood of the club’s bulk made contact, flinging him against the stone altar with a crunch and thud.

Riven’s head pounded, and he could vaguely hear Ben screaming at him to get up—but his body was hardly moving. It was too damaged, too broken to respond to his commands. His ribs were broken. His arms were both useless—his right was bent backward at an awkward angle. He had a punctured lung, purple miasma was still spreading across his injuries to inhibit his healing, and he’d had back-to-back concussions.

In the haze that’d become his vision over the past ten seconds, he saw Azmoth, who was also severely injured, take two clawed hands and tear into the back of the satyr’s spine. He roared, arms flaming again and straining with all his might as he tried to rip and tear at the exposed bone along the satyr’s midsection.

The two titans violently clashed again, both on death’s doorstep and struggling to overpower one another with biting, clawing, and the swinging of their limbs.

Riven was fading in and out of consciousness, losing blood rapidly and feeling his body going cold. But anger and a refusal to quit throbbed inside his chest, and he managed to stand shakily despite his broken body. The shouts and sounds of combat grew dimmer as he stumbled and leaned against the nearby wall, shaking his head to clear his vision.

His hand quivered as he forced the broken bones and torn muscles to move forward, reaching back into the bag where he still had four remaining vials of Sinner’s Blood left. Like an uncoordinated toddler using unfamiliar fingers, he limply selected two vials.

He coughed and spat blood, then glared up at the monster across the room. “Fuck this goat.”

His shaking fingers lost their grip, dropping both vials next to him to clatter along the ground. He felt drunk.

“Shit.”

Riven grimaced in pain and bent over to pick the vial up while Azmoth held the monster off. He tried to pull off the cork of the closest bottle, doing so by touch just as much as by sight at this point due to his vision coming in and out.

With a massive surge of willpower, Riven popped the cork and brought one vial of Sinner’s Blood to his lips. Simultaneously he flipped the gigantic satyr off when it sniffed and turned his way—despite knowing the gesture was lost on the blinded demon.

The tainted red liquid trickled down his throat, and within seconds he felt himself begin to heal. Frankly, he should be dead by any normal human standards after his lungs had been gouged, though he still managed to hold on while his Blood subpillar radiated upon the warm touch of Sinner’s Blood. His primary pillar seemed to pulse, generously feeding off the cursed liquid and causing him to feel whole again—despite the ominous message the system gave off concerning regularly using the river’s liquid.

But even though it was taking effect, the miasma was spreading, and the potion was still far too slow for the battle at hand. His eyesight began to stabilize again, as did his other senses, and he got a better look at what’d just happened to his second contracted demon.

Azmoth was on the ground, broken and still. The familiar’s natural plate armor had been crushed and a leg had been torn off, and his long, bony teeth were broken off on the left side of his face where the jaw was unhinged and torn at a gruesome angle. Ben was sprinting across the room while holding an obviously broken hand where the bones had been crushed; his dagger was embedded in the satyr’s right flank, and he was in a state of absolute panic. Then there was Athela, who remained as a splattering of green and white ichor with various spider body parts along the stone floor—intermixing with the corpses of the other, smaller satyrs.

The blinded, one-armed satyr was lumbering forward in a slow chase to catch Ben; ravaged by deep claw marks and other wounds, patches of necrotic flesh were falling off in chunks and burned fur was scattered across its body, with numerous needlelike shards of modified webbing lodged in its chest and back. The monster was an absolute mess, missing one eye completely from when Athela had ripped it open, while the other eye was deflated from where Riven’s dagger had punctured it—but the bloodlust was evident in the creature’s slow, ominous walk toward Ben’s screams.

“Riven! Riven, help me!”

Riven, help me? Seriously, man? Did it look like Riven could help yet?! What a fucking idiot—did this guy not realize he was drawing the demon his way? Toward both of them?

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