Elysium's Multiverse
Chapter 332

Chapter 332

Chapter 332

Riven’s eyes narrowed and began to burn a bright crimson as the air shimmered around him with red snowflakes slowly accumulating. The entire massive, unnatural stairway they stood on shuddered as he flexed his aura, void sky around them thundered with crackling dark lightning.

“The fuck did that bitch just say to me?” Riven asked aloud, not taking his eyes off the naked guy who’d threatened to eat him only a second ago. “Did I just hear that motherfucker right? Or am I going crazy here?”

The naked man had talked about how Hatchmire had tried to kill him, but he’d managed to escape. That alone meant this individual was rather powerful, but not being as powerful as Hatchmire also meant that he wasn’t overwhelmingly more powerful than Riven was either. It also matched Athela’s read on the guy’s general power level.

Athela was the one to speak next over the thundering storm accumulating around them to circle like a violent, shuddering vortex. Her voice was flat and cold. “Do you think it wise to insult a reincarnation like that? Especially when you desire help?”

A long black tongue slithered out of her mouth, licking her lips with a flash of red katanas and six arachnid blades sprouting from her back.

Fay took to the air in preparation for a fight with a flash of neon blue lights budding from her tail, Retesh took a backline with dozens of spectral undead gathering around him as his own power flared - and Azmoth’s enormous frame spread its flaming wings with the warhammer drawn wide.

The naked man giggled through his split three-way jaw, and the pulsing green veins along his pale, blood-covered body began to vibrate. Black eyes blinking rapidly for a moment, he held up a finger and cleared his throat while stepping around the pile of corpses and beyond one of the crucified victims that surrounded the pentagram. “No need to be offended, dear reincarnation! If you just do as I say, then there will be no problems! I merely wish to…”

***

Bardog paced back and forth with his large hands clasped behind his back amidst a black landscape of strange flora; underneath a pale white sun in an otherwise dark sky. The barbarian man’s horned helmet was slick with blood even moreso than his chest, arms, and two-handed battle axe embedded in one of the team mates that naked bastard had tagged along with.

Once again, he glared out at the portal leading up to the previous floor. He couldn’t go back up a floor without using a space-breaking ritual, and so he was stuck there thinking about his friends dying without him there to help. Bardog’s empire had tasked him with making sure the five teams of delvers into the Abyssal Descent made it out intact, and Bardog had utterly failed after their most recent encounter. Arrogance had gotten the better of both him and his men. He was certainly strong, perhaps in the 1st percentile even here, but the true cultivation monsters of the multiverse that made it as far as he had… Many of them were impossibly strong for an F-grade.

The strange three-armed masked man radiating sin, the twin princes of Vilheld, Charmar of Tactulis, Hatchmire of the First Draconic fist, the lady formed from harvested souls, and to his despair - the naked man with black eyes and the split mouth; who’d called himself Caker. Just Caker. They were all titans amongst their same-tier peers, army killers and pillars of the Unholy path should they reach the higher realms of ascension. Those were just the ones he’d encountered too, and it made him wonder just how many of these monsters existed here in the deep parts of the multiverse.

“How long until the ritual is complete?” Bardog barked at two of his team mates - the mages he’d brought along for his personal squad.

The mages held up a hand signaling three or four minutes.

That was three or four minutes too long.

Everyone else was tending to their wounds amongst the strange gardens of black plants and prepping to go back up after the way was opened - if it was even possible. The naked man Caker hadn’t followed his team through the portal, likely knowing that the numbers game would leave him vulnerable. Despite that ugly bastard Caker being an elite amongst elites, even he would have a problem against the full might of all five of Bardog’s teams put together.

Or what remained of them.

So Caker had very likely stayed behind to try and wait for another delving party to come on by in order to ask for help, or the sick fucker was performing some of those disgusting rituals on Bardog’s friends even as he stood there thinking about it. Bardog needed to get back up as soon as possible, and he was literally starting to itch with worry about the fates of his charges as he helplessly stood by and watched the flickering sphere where the staircase between floors 44 and 45 had dropped them off.

Suddenly, one of the mages shot to his feet and screamed out: “EVERYONE GET BACK!”

Bardog had absolute faith in the ritualist and immediately sprinted for cover without second guessing the choice. The same could be said for all the other bloodied members of their expedition, and that fact saved many of their lives.

The portal pulsed, and with a flare of crimson energy a figure cannonballed through the portal from the other side. Caker, the naked madman, broke the sound barrier and emitted a shockwave as his mangled body ripped through the landscape in a spray of debris.

Bardog’s eyes widened in shock, and he was about to call for an attack when another hooded figure blurred out of the portal in the next second with black lightning and rivers of blood roaring around his body like a cyclone.

Immediately the newcomer, a vampire with brilliant crimson eyes, launched an enormous bolt of black lightning out of his skull-topped staff that ripped the ground apart in a direct line for two miles out.

Bardog had to cover his ears due to the destructive noise, and felt frost accumulating on his body as the man’s oppressive aura clamped down on the surroundings like a vice grip.

Caker, however, wasn’t out of the fight. He took the destructive bolt of dark lightning with an outstretched hand in the crater his body had created, and screamed with a mixture of pain and crazed glee as the flesh was ripped off his arm down to the bone.

But the flesh reknit itself quickly to form a fleshy spear off the mutilated arm, and the naked madman took a step forward as space itself warped. Caker lunged and thrust ahead, extending the point of his arm-spear a mile’s length within the course of a second only for a flash-freeze effect to radiate off the vampire in a half-sphere going forward.

The sphere made contact with the arm’s extension, and Caker’s arm shattered entirely with the madman recoiling back.

“YOU BASTARD! THAT WAS-”

Caker was interrupted by a trio of solid red lances wrapped in sin and shadow that left crackling tears in space like trailing ribbons. The three projectiles crashed into his chest, abdomen, and lower jaw - tearing out swaths of bone and flesh and sending him deeper into the crater he’d created with another cloud of stony debris being tossed into the air. The last strike nearly decapitated the madman, but not entirely.

Caker retaliated with an earth-shattering roar as his body ruptured on its own, sending streams of green and burgundy vines from tears in his flesh that roiled outwards towards the enemy mage. Tiny jaws by the dozens and then hundreds opened up at the ends of those vines, and whipped around like seeker-missiles as they closed in on the flying caster in the sky.

The vampire flicked his wrist, and four totems were summoned along with a thunderclap of power that produced thousands of spinning blades that screamed towards the vines like a hornet swarm.

Caker’s attack barely managed to penetrate the oncoming cloud before being utterly shredded, and smashed into a solid barrier of crimson ice that flashed into existence with the totems piling layers behind it as the maws began digging through.

Caker gagged, and then lurched forward as if to vomit - only to spew out a stream of acid that spread out and destroyed most of the oncoming blades as the ground between them shattered and melted in hundreds of explosions.

That was when Bardog noticed a large shadow covering the sun, only for a burst of propelling flame to erupt overhead and a huge figure’s descent to follow.

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CRACK

A building-sized flaming demon blurred from the heavens like an asteroid to shatter the realm below, with an enormous stone maul simmering with magma leading the landing. The attack caused fissures to tear open in the landscape for miles, smashing Caker’s body flat like a pancake into the dirt. Caker tried to escape and clawed his way out from underneath the enormous maul while burning alive and screaming curses, only for a dome of fire to encompass the huge archdemon as the burning titan of metal and flesh let out an evil cackle.

The dome of fire stopped Caker from getting out and turned the earth beneath them into a bubbling pit of magma, and one of four clawed hands crashed down onto Caker’s squirming body - dunking it back into the magma and squeezing the life out of the man.

Caker’s gurgling cries escalated for an unusually high-pitched scream before a shockwave of Unholy energy pulsed out in a pillar of green light - eradicating the giant’s clawed hand as the flaming monster’s eel-like maws reeled around from his back to breath fire onto the madman.

But Caker’s spell had torn a hole, through the top of the dome, and the bastard launched himself through the top - only to be sniped with another one of those incredibly fast crimson lances wreathed in black.

The attack tore off one of Caker’s arms only for it to regrow even faster than his previous wounds had done so before - but he was sent spiraling into the ground yet again where he hit some kind of invisible runic trap. The green sigil, previously hidden until the man collided with it, flashed green and then set off a chain reaction of other previously hidden traps that all simultaneously exploded around him - ripping him apart over and over again as the offensive magic tried to annihilate him while his insane regeneration stopped it from happening.

After a solid 10 seconds of explosions, a dull quiet settled over the battlefield as Bardog gawked at the exchange. Because there, standing in the rubble, was Caker - showing off his nude body where the last remnants of his wounds were rapidly sealing shut again. How was that even possible? The amount of times Bardog had seen the man’s intestines torn out, limbs ripped off, brain splattered, and bones shattered had been many dozens to count in that last exchange.

And just who were these people fighting Caker anyways? Should Bardog help them?

Caker’s laughter echoed across the stunned silence and through the airborne dust and debris. He pointed up at the vampire and called out. “This would have been a lot easier if you’d just talked to me instead of taking my threat as an insult! I was being honest, you don’t have to die! I’ll even forgive this little transgression of yours and not eat you if you just help me with my sou lattice concept! What say you, Gluttony? Surely you don’t want to lose the host you only just recently found, right? I’ve heard compatible hosts for the Original Sins are quite hard to find, especially good ones. So don’t make me kill the one you’re in now.”

Bardog’s eyes widened in shock, and he did another take of the man hovering hundreds of yards off the ground with a swirling storm of black and red around him.

The vampire laughed, loudly, and it wasn't a fake one either. It was a genuinely amused chuckle that turned into full blown laughter as he doubled over in the sky, clutching at his gut. “You crazy bastards are always the most fun to fight!”

“You cannot win this!” Caker said during their pause, cracking his neck and grinning back at the laughing caster above him. He held up his hands to either side to show off his body. “As you can see, I am completely unharmed. It would be good of you to just accept my demand and help, would it not? There is no need for violence!”

“The fuck are you talking about, asshole?! You’re the one who said you’d eat me first!”

“I only said I’d do that if you didn’t help! You can’t kill me, so do as I ask before I get serious!”

The vampire’s laughter faded, and he audibly scoffed. “Well you certainly need to work on your people skills! And threatening those more powerful than you probably isn’t a good idea! It’s blatantly obvious by watching you regenerate that you’re drawing on the body parts of people you’ve eaten to replenish your damaged body - yes?”

Caker’s smile became crooked.

The vampire’s eyes flared with delight. “As I thought. It is just as you said! I too am of a Gluttonous concept, it’s not hard to figure out! I wonder just how many bodies you’ve stuffed into that little intrinsic concept core of yours anyways!”

The two remained silent after that for a time, until Caker’s expression was replaced with a sneer. “Enough bodies to last me years of continuous battle, reincarnation. I have killed and consumed an entire world to get to where I am now, to ensure my continued growth. But the time for talk is over. I will kill you, and eat your corpse - and in the process will discover what makes Gluttony click. PREPARE TO MEET THE GRAVE!”

Both of his arms became rigid burgundy blades of flesh that pulsed with scattered unholy lights. “You will regret not having taken my offer when I feast upon your corpse!”

Suddenly Caker wasn’t there anymore, and instantaneously he’d appeared behind the flying vampire while bringing both fleshy blades down on the caster’s back.

A stream of flesh unwrapped itself off the vampire’s body to take the form of an arshakai demon. She withdrew her twin katanas in milliseconds to block both of Caker’s blades, while six sharpened arachnid limbs whipped forward to impale and then truly decapitate the madman.

Caker’s body reattached itself in the next second only to be met with a cursed fireball the size of a horse. He teleported again, only to appear within another invisible landmine that ripped open his spine before yet another bolt of green fire launched from the outstretched wand of a flying succubus burned away his recently regrown left leg. Then another cursed flame smashed into him, and then another - and another.

Caker created a wall of bones to defend against a rain of cursed energies only for it to be smashed aside when the titanic flaming demon used a propulsion ability to literally barrel through the defensive spell. The maul’s swing missed its mark only barely when Caker teleported again, but he was struck from the sky with another black arc of lightning. He then received a brutal spinning kick from the arshekai rogue that torpedoed him back into the ground, where the flaming giant trapped him yet again with another dome of flame and tried to drown him in the lava.

All the while, the vampire overhead was simply laughing.

***

Bardog’s men on the other side had been butchered for the most part, but they did manage to retrieve five of the survivors that Caker had put up to crucify for a ritual that hadn’t been finished. Half of those that’d followed him into the Abyssal Descent were dead, but at least he’d saved some of them.

Or rather, the vampire warlock and his minions still beating the ever living shit out of Caker had saved Bardog’s men. Even if unwittingly.

He’d taken up a position on one of the hills to watch the fireworks play out, and the battle had been going on for literally hours now. It was like watching an unstoppable force meet an immovable object, where overwhelming power met overwhelming resilience. Caker managed to strike back at the vampire numerous times throughout the fight, and did some rather serious damage to the large tanking flame demon over the course of the battle. At least, Bardog though it’d been serious damage - but the brutalisk wasn’t showing any signs of slowing down or being in any pain despite the numerous scars of sin energy and deep trench wounds along its body. If anything, the brutalisk had become invigorated with the fight - being able to smash and tear Caker apart bit by bit on repeat.

But aside from a few glancing blows against the flying warlock and the majority of the damage done to the frontline tank, Caker had been unable to land a single strike against the arshakai rogue or the support succubus higher up. Whenever he did manage to get free of the brutalisk’s grasp - Caker was quickly redirected by illusions into optimal positions by the succubus before being snared and repeatedly stabbed or decapitated by the rogue. If he managed to break through the domes of flame the brutalisk produced, past the rogue, and force his way through the illusions by flexing his sin aura - the warlock himself would smack Caker right back down into another crater for his minions to pile on.

It was truly a sight for sore eyes. Bardog wished he could participate in this brutal display of violence, but the more he watched - the more he realized that both sides of this fight were miles beyond his own abilities. If he’d gone up against the vampire warlock, he’d simply be annihilated. And where he’d previously thought himself a possible match for Caker - Bardog now realized he’d been wrong. The madman simply regenerated anything and everything done to him, and Bradog was thankful that Caker hadn’t pursued him into Floor 45 after the initial fight. It hadn’t been cowardice on Caker’s part, it’d simply been that Caker didn’t find Bradog interesting or worthy enough to pursue.

The truth stung a bit, but Bradog had to face facts when watching millions of units worth of energy being poured into abilities by the vampire to subdue the madman - only for Caker to somehow still remain alive. He was like an ugly, vicious cockroach - and many of Bradog’s men were taking bets on who would win out in this battle of attrition. Would it be the vampire and his immense mana pool that ran out first? Or would it be the seemingly endless source of regeneration, and if Caker had been honest - the seemingly endless source of bodies that he’d harvested and eaten in the past for regeneration purposes.

Bardog still wasn’t entirely bought on the idea that the warlock above them was actually a reincarnation of Gluttony given Caker’s little speech - the naked man was truly crazy after all; but then again it wouldn’t surprise Bardog all that much after watching the display of true might whenever the warlock raised his staff to attack. The landscape, once a pristine, clean swath of valleys and hills full of flowering abyssal plants, was now a smoldering ruin - completely glassed in certain areas - for dozens of miles around them.

Hours turned into days, and days turned into an entire two full weeks before Caker started attempting to run.

When running didn’t work, he turned absolutely feral and began cursing the team keeping him pinned here. Bardog couldn’t help but let on a self-satisfied and shit-eating grin as he noticed the regeneration starting to slow, and as the desperate struggles of Caker grew more heated - Bardog finally witnessed the last showdown.

An absolute barrage of blood, shadow, and sin tore Caker’s body apart rapidly over a steady stream of mana that lasted for nearly five minutes straight. And when it was apparent that Caker didn’t have much more to give - the vampire descended, and began to eat the man alive as Caker’s body still struggled to regenerate the scattered pieces of flesh that had been torn off his skeleton.

The crazed man’s screams of anguish as he was eaten were all that Bardog had wanted to hear and more. It was priceless. With that, Bardog could leave with a clear conscience after knowing that the man who’d murdered to eat so many of his friends was meeting a similar fate. But perhaps… Perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to stick around.

He didn’t know how the abnormally strong vampire or his ridiculous minions would react to his own party, and it didn’t take long for the remnants of the five groups to come to a unanimous agreement that they would be leaving the Abyssal Descent entirely when they reached the end of this floor. Within minutes they were headed off to where they suspected the end of Floor 45 was located, and within only mere hours - they had left the darkness of the abyss entirely.

From another hilltop far away, Retesh the lich continued to meditate in a lotus position to the sound of prolonged violence.