Chapter 49

Riven’s heart sank when he realized he’d been just barely too late to save the woman or the man out front, but there was still one person they could save.

His muscles flexed, his body stiffened, and he turned to Athela with a determined upward gesture of his hand. “Go.”

She understood and immediately slunk into the room to start crawling up the wall while the satyrs were distracted. Riven took in a deep breath and exhaled; his warm breath blew out as a cloud of red mist from his mask. With a nod he activated the Blessing of the Crow, feeling his once-daily and hour-long speed boost activate. His heart raced, his muscles flexed, and electricity sparked across his body. He felt his stamina climb rapidly; it was as if he’d just simultaneously taken numerous energy drinks and snorted cocaine.

Now it was time to kill these sons of bitches, but his projectiles other than Blood Lance were too short in range to cast from here in such a large room. He could let off two of his Blood Lances first, but immediately after that he needed to get closer.

Wisps of blood energy radiated across either arm, and with curling motions to summon the magic, he felt his Blood subpillar radiate. He flexed his muscles again, shifted his weight, and launched both Blood Lances right before he lunged forward into the large room.

*CRACK*

*ZIP*

The Blood Lances blurred forward ahead of him and ripped through the skull of one and the leg of another before the satyrs even knew what’d happened. Numerous shards of spinning, razor-sharp blood projectiles followed him in and launched forward when he was close enough, tearing into his enemies in an arsenal of pain and surprised screeches. He saw a dismembered hand fly into the air and extended his staff forward to cast another volley—condensed blood accumulating around the weapon and then shooting forward to impale three of them for a second round. They exploded a second later, ripping the bodies apart even more with minor blasts of magical shrapnel after he infused more mana into the projectiles. Unfortunately two of the discs shattered against the bloodied stone altar, but the majority of his strikes rang true.

The yellow eyes of the hooded satyr went wide, and it animatedly flung its bloody dagger in a spinning arc at Riven’s neck with a shriek, but he dodged left at high speed with his empowered agility and cackled when one of its comrades was yanked up toward the ceiling screaming as Athela’s webbing bound it.

“Bitch!” Riven’s hand produced two large snares on either side of him that expanded and shot forward to meet the charge of the three incoming cronies. Each of the satyrs made enraged bleating sounds as they waved their bloody daggers in the air and raced toward him, bloodlust in their eyes.

One of them managed to duck low and avoid the snares while the other two were caught in the one on Riven’s right and tripped to the floor—screaming as needles along the black netting impaled them and began to sear away their flesh.

Green light erupted from the altar where the hooded figure was chanting, and a moment later an orb of sickly green power blasted forward toward Riven’s position when the nearest of the satyrs—dagger in hand—also lunged for him.

But even as Athela leaped from above to try and take the hit herself, a portal of flame erupted in front of her, and Azmoth took the attack head-on in a rush.

The green magic impacted against the huge four-armed demon as Azmoth roared, pulsed with fire, and charged, shrugging off the magical blast like it was nothing and causing the satyr caster to start bleating with terrified wails. The last thing that small satyr ever saw was a rushing bulldozer of death in the form of a flaming clawed hand.

The next moment, the spell caster—along with the majority of the stone altar—exploded into a spray of body parts, flame, and stone. Azmoth’s attack was utterly devastating given the brutalisk’s impressive strength, and there was little left of the smaller demon after that.

Meanwhile, Riven had erupted into an inferno himself when he activated Hell’s Armor and took the attack of the dagger-wielding satyr head-on—grunting as the demon slashed at him, but only taking minimal damage and countering with a flaming staff to the demon’s face.

The demon screeched and fell back as one of its teeth was sent flying, only to be met with shards of red webbing that erupted from Athela’s thorax—piercing it over numerous spots across its body and neck from where she was perched above.

The arachnid lunged ahead with Riven hot on her heels, the two of them beating and tearing at the downed, wailing demon together as Riven deactivated Hell’s Armor to save mana before whirling around and firing another large disc of razor-sharp blood a few feet in width spinning ahead in an arc to catch one of the satyrs that’d escaped his bindings.

The demon was split in two, the blood magic exploding in a shower of shrapnel against the far wall after slicing through his target while Azmoth roared and smashed down on the last of them—tearing its head off and snapping down his jaws onto the skull of the decapitated creature to repeatedly crunch and swallow.

“Yes! That’s what I’m fuckin’ talking about!” Riven screamed as he whooped and high-fived Athela—then gave Azmoth a thumbs-up. “Good shit!”

*WHAM*

Riven was sent reeling onto his back as pain shot along his staff-bearing arm. He felt teeth and claws digging through his sleeve into his skin, the sensation lighting up his nerves like they’d been hit by lightning.

Despite the immense pain, Riven’s abrupt fall was due to surprise rather than damage. There were more of them? He hadn’t even seen the little goat bastard come for him, but it must have come through the entrance they’d taken.

Gritting his teeth and making eye contact with the crazed, bloodthirsty, bulging eyeball of the creature that was trying to tear away his left bicep, Riven pulled his head back and slammed it into the demon’s face.

His skull rattled and he immediately got woozy, but the effect was shared by the satyr. The small demon released its grip and rolled off him just in time to be met with a heavy, clawed hand.

Azmoth’s flames burned into the creature while it squealed and writhed. The brutalisk’s deep hiss was one of animosity and amusement, and with one hand, it kept the satyr midair and began to squeeze the creature’s neck. “Tee hee hee.”

The bleating, kicking, and struggling became fierce as the satyr’s last attempts to escape were met with a deep chuckle, then the sound of a spine snapping met their ears and the quickly charring goat man went limp in Azmoth’s grip.

“Puny satyr.” Azmoth chuckled once more and irreverently tossed the smoldering, broken body over his shoulder and onto the corpse of a caster near the broken stone altar nearby. “Like taking baby.”

Riven’s grunt of pain was quickly cut off with a raised eyebrow of confusion as Azmoth stopped producing flames from his body and lent a hand to pull Riven up, but Athela just began to laugh.

“It’s ‘like taking candy from a baby.’ Or ‘I’m gonna stomp that baby,’ Not ‘taking baby.’ Big difference.” Athela patted Azmoth on the back when his flames died away, then gave Riven a sideways glance. “I think Azmoth is trying to learn a couple of my catchphrases from your world.”

Azmoth nodded, his knives of wicked black teeth growing into a grin of his own.

Oh, God. Athela’s bad habits were rubbing off on Azmoth.

Riven grimaced and began tending to his injured arm. The teeth had gone deep, letting blood flow freely out of his body, and he let out a groan of satisfaction when his body began its abnormal regeneration to seal the wounds. To restore his mana, he also took a vial of Sinner’s Blood, downing it while simultaneously feeling his soul’s Blood subpillar quiver ravenously at the taste. He felt invigorated, alive, and, standing up straighter, he flexed his arm again to inspect it and made sure nothing was still injured.n/o/vel/b//in dot c//om

“Health and mana are back up, good as new.” Riven gave Athela a fist bump. Then he did the same to Azmoth. “Good shit on that attack where you crushed the altar. You really put that caster into an early grave.”

“Tee hee hee.”

He rubbed his temple with his fingers and did a once-over around the room, glazing over the rows of monsters that were causing a rather loud ruckus just as they’d been doing so when he’d first entered. With a menacing glare of distaste, Riven reached over to his staff and got to his feet. “Let’s get started, then, shall we?”

Ten minutes later, all the caged monsters were dead with shards and discs of crimson embedded in their corpses.

[You have gained one level. Congratulations!]

Nice.

After finishing off the last of the ghouls within the cells with another Bloody Razor, Riven stepped over the mangled corpse of a nearby satyr and grabbed the gleaming set of ringed keys from the creature’s robes.

He shook his head and kept going. His attention was quickly turned over to the guy with the mohawk, who was sitting in his cell silently watching them with folded arms over his knees and his back to the wall.

Riven held up a finger and cleared his throat to get the man’s attention. “You’re from Earth, right? Hold on just a moment, I need to assign my stat points just in case something comes up.”

The man gave him a bewildered and simultaneously confused look, and Riven’s snort came out as another cloud of red mist while he got to work. When he put his points back into his usuals, his status page was coming along nicely. He’d really come a long way.

[Riven Thane’s Status Page:

• Level 16

• Pillar Orientations: Unholy Foundation, Blood, Infernal

• Core of Original Sin—Gluttony: (Under Construction) (???)

• Traits: Race: Human, Class: Novice Warlock, Adrenaline Junkie (Blood) (+15% to Agility)

• Abilities: Blessing of the Crow (Unholy), Wretched Snare (Unholy), Bloody Razors (Blood), Blood Lance (Blood) (Tier 2), Hell’s Armor (Infernal)

• Stats: 8 Strength, 24 Sturdiness, 112 Intelligence, 10 Agility, 1 Luck, -4 Charisma, 3 Perception, 57 Willpower, 9 Faith

• Free Stat Points: 0

• Minions: Athela, Level 13 Blood Weaver [14 Willpower Requirement]. Azmoth, Level 9 Hellscape Brutalisk [20 Willpower Requirement].

• Equipped Items: Basic Casting Staff (4 dmg, 12% mana regen, +3 magic dmg), Chalgathi Cultist Amulet (???), Leather Boots (1 def), Backpack of Supplies, Witch’s Ring of Grand Casting (+26 Intelligence), Cloak of the Tundra (22 def, +56 bonus def vs. frost), Breath of Valgeshia (48 def, +13 dmg & +9% mana output dmg for blood dmg, 6% mana regen)]

He nodded in affirmation of his stats and closed the window. He’d been pushing most of his points into Intelligence and Willpower, and he’d also sunk a few into Sturdiness to keep himself alive. The result was that he could tell a very stark difference in the power of his magical casting when compared to the spells he’d started with in the beginning, back in Chalgathi’s trials. The snares and razors were the same type of spells, but now they had a hell of a punch and could manifest bigger and better for less mana.