Elysium's Multiverse

Chapter 140

Chapter 140

Chapter 140

Athela chugged a beer in one quick go, gasping for breath and wiping her mouth with a wide smile and a loud belch. “Why so grumpy my guy!? We’re having fun! Be happy!”

“It won’t allow me to upload footage of the senator’s death to prove myself innocent.” Riven stated grimly, popping another bottle of wine to feed to the vertical maw across his chest. “It’s beyond irritating that I was framed for this.”

Athela shrugged, kicked out her long slender legs, and popped another beer can with a fizzling sound. “You should be thinking of the cortex as more of a propaganda machine than anything else. The forums are controlled by those who control the given area, with contested territories requiring a large fee to upload footage - or it may even completely deny it outright. If you want to upload footage, it usually can’t be antagonistic to the dominant party in a sector. That’s how it’s always been.”

Further out to sea, the shimmering lights of the starry sky above reflected in shimmering patterns - setting a calm before the storm that was no doubt to come. Fay flew far overhead and further to the south, her figure only barely visible from here even with Riven’s keen dark-sight.

“Are you and Fay alright?” Riven eventually asked, laying back to stare up at the cloudless heavens and crossing his legs. “I haven’t ever seen you two go at it like that before.”

There was a pause, and Riven’s gaze shifted over to where Athela had stopped halfway from bringing a beer can to her lips.

She met his gaze, frowned, and let out a sigh. “Yeah. It’s fine.”

Athela’s right hand extended above her, and her flesh began to shift. Slowly but surely, the tiara Riven had given her not long ago started to come out of her hand like she was giving birth to it.

[Tiara of Silent Killing (Blood / Shadow Trinket): After successfully killing a target without being noticed by anyone else, gain a charge of critical strike. Your next unseen attack has a 100% chance to be a 2x - 8x critical hit, with multiplied damage coming in the form of kinetic burst energy from the strike site. Requires a 26% or higher Blood or Shadow Pillar Affinity to wield, and the wearer must be female.]

“That’s a neat trick.” Riven mused, watching Athela put the black tiara with inlaid rubies on her head, a bright smile adorning her features. “Is that a new ability?”

“No!” Athela replied softly, tapping the tip of her tiara with her fingers daintily. “I’m just progressing my shapeshifting abilities and found out I can store small items like this. Not like a dimensional storage like that bag you have, but rather I can physically keep it on my body if it’s small enough.”

“Gotchya. I’ve seen Fay wear her feathered boots and Azmoth keeps that large maul on him all the time, but I rarely see you wear the tiara. I’d thought you just didn’t like it.”

Athela gave him a surprised look, then let out a laugh. “Riven! I love it... I keep it hidden away because I don’t want to accidentally lose or damage it.”

“But isn’t it supposed to be used?” Riven frowned in confusion. “It has great stats.”

Athela pondered this, then nodded. “Yes... but I’d rather not wear it during fights in case it falls off when I’m hit hard or something causes it to fall off! Just let me do my thing, ok!?”

“Doesn’t that defeat the purpose of having it though?”

Athela smiled, then took the tiara off again and softly patted it. “No. It’s a keepsake. It’s the first gift you’ve ever given me, and I want to keep it safe.”Ne/w novel chapters are published at novelhall.com

A warm feeling started growing in Riven’s gut, and speechless - he merely stared back and didn’t reply. There was nothing that needed to be said, and the three figures on the rooftop continued to drink until morning before Fay returned from her scouting trip.

But despite the feel-good energy Riven was experiencing now, this was merely the calm before the storm. And a very big storm it would be.

***

He gripped the camouflage membrane, tearing at it, letting gallons of fluid to spill out and wash over the stone floor. With the fluid came the body of a deathly white woman who was only barely alive. She hit the floor hard and motionlessly remained there, somehow still breathing despite the strange fluid leaking out of her mouth. She had bloodshot eyes that stared ahead without registering his presence, was completely naked, and had swollen green egg sacks growing out along her body - each ranging inbetween the size of a quarter and the size of a bowling ball.

There were dozens of them, and inside the larger eggs Bradley could see the insectoid embryos of these armored, mantis-like creatures that he’d been fighting through the tunnels. Then, looking around, he realized that there were dozens upon dozens of these camoflogued sacks lining the wall. “Holy shit...”

One of the men who’d been closer to the scene pulled off his mask and vomited, while another shied away - not wanting to look upon the grotesque figure in front of them that’d once been a woman who’d no doubt been pretty in days past.

A clicking sound echoed off the stone walls, and shadows in Bradley’s periphery moved in a blur. He whirled around, not finding the culprit of the motion - but then heard the sound of guns and bodies hitting the floor behind him.

“Level 39. An S-Rank classer... A cyborg. How cute.”

Bradley turned around, eyes narrowed, as the light of the flashlights on the ground illuminated the decapitated bodies of his entire squad. Blood was oozing from their wounds, and a sensation of cold dread overcame him when he stared back into the peripheral shadows where four eyes were gleaming a sickly yellow in the dark.

A huge frame, larger than a truck, stepped forward with large, sharp, chitinous legs - snapping spines and crunching stone in stark contrast to the silence the creature had moved with only moments before during the assassination of his people. Rows of sharp teeth smiled devilishly back at him, and Bradley’s skin started to sweat when he took a step back.

“You have entered my home uninvited, I do not know how you found my lair, but I thoroughly welcome this.” The figure in the dark snickered, and from all along the ceiling and walls - dozens, then hundreds of gray, armored, insectoid bodies with yellow eyes starting peeling off the stone to glare at Bradley. “Without aerial support, and trapped deep underground, you will be far easier to pin down - Lieutenant Cliff. Hero of Chicago’s sheep. I had been planning various ways of luring you into an enclosed space so that I may more easily kill you before ransacking the city. Being a ranged artillery specialist with your primary weapon being an energy cannon, it surprises me that you'd so obviously walk into a battlefield that suits you so poorly. Even despite the rumored traits you have that amplify your defensive capabilities. But I digress... you've made my job all that much easier by waltzing down here of your own accord.”

More and more of the creatures began to move, encircling Bradley’s position with blades flashing. Things Bradley had thought to be boulders of stone were actually in fact creatures, far larger and many sporting abnormal evolutions beyond what he’d witnessed in the weaker of their brethren up until now. His eyes were wide, his heart beat furiously, and the energy cannon on his arm that’d brought him victory through so many battles up until now suddenly seemed very inadequate.

There were too many.

How had he not picked up on these creatures before?

Static reached Bradley’s ears. “Lieutenant, we’ve just lost contact with five of the seven other strike teams. They are unresponsive, and... Hold. It was just reported that one of the other strike teams encountered an ambush and are in full retreat. Give us a status report, are you able to pull back and assist? We have reinforcements gearing up to head in, and we’d like you to rendezvous with Captain Marshal at the nest entrance.”

The cavern shook, when the largest of the creatures who'd been talking to him flashed forward and slammed into Bradley’s side, shattering the plasma shield and sending the usually sturdy cyborg crashing into the stone wall with a sonic boom. Bradley’s cannon discharged with everything he had in an orange beam of plasma, ripping through dozens of enemies simultaneously as a swarm of hungry predators tore from all sides - plunging him into darkness. Ripping, tearing sounds could be heard amidst muffled screams as pieces of flesh and metal flew through the air.

An electrical discharge began to spark beneath the piling bodies. It surged, writhed, and built over long seconds of agonizing torture, where the man struggled with desperate swings to try and kill as many of the enemy as he could - but they kept on coming.

Until he let it loose.

Power erupted in a storm of lightning around Bradley, frying dozens and then hundreds of the large scythe-bearing creatures in a torrent of energy that left the cyborg gasping for breath. His hands shook, his mana levels were at rock bottom, and desperation was beginning to etch itself into his subconsciousness. "I need to get out of here!"

"Lieutenant!" The coms unit in his ear rang again, this time much more urgent from one of the communication officers back at base. "Command is under attack! I repeat, command is under attack! We have thousands of incoming hostiles, we are in need of your assistance!"

He pushed off corpse after corpse with rasping breaths, digging himself out of a mountain of fried bodies. He only hoped he'd killed all of them after expending all of his resources to deal with the ambush, and ignored the further desperate requests for help over the coms until he found himself staring face to face with four gleaming yellow eyes while still half-buried in an army of enemies.

His face paled, and rows of gleaming teeth smiled back with sinister intent.

Then the sinister, deep voice echoed through the cave one more time. “Overconfidence is a flimsy shield, Lieutenant Cliff. A very flimsy shield indeed.”