*WHOOSH*
Riven’s feet were swept out from underneath him as the floor abruptly lit up with green runes and gave way, a hole forming directly underneath where he stood. His eyes went wide, and he had re monts before his body reacted to gravity’s pull, which sucked him downward into darkness.
*SPLASH*
Gasping and coming up for air, Riven found himself enveloped in a large pool of blood similar to the river he’d seen outside. Only this one was stagnant and placed in the middle of an enclosed, squarish room with pillars and passageways leading out along the walls. The ceiling overhead was surprisingly well lit with yellow crystals, showing that even the passageways leaving the room ended in dead ends and rubble. Overhead was the hole he’d fallen through many dozens of yards up, but nothing else of note was around him. He frowned at his misfortune, obviously having fallen into a trap set down by the dungeon. He should have expected such things, but this was really the first ti he’d encountered anything like it. Considering what options he had and treading the red liquid, he began to think of a way back up.
That’s when he felt sothing large and slippery glide across his leg, easily brushing him away and causing ripples in the otherwise still pool of blood he floated in.
“What the fuck?!”
His heart sped up. He couldn’t see beneath the surface, but sothing was definitely there, and this ti it slamd into him—sending him spinning through the pool into a nearby wall with a hard thud.
He gasped, his backpack rattled as the vase inside nearly cracked, but he was more worried about staying afloat with an injured left arm than he was about his belongings. He whirled while treading blood in the pool, summoning spinning crimson blades and firing them at random into the depths to scare off whatever had attacked him.
Sin: Gluttony will begin forming in your soul now. Estimated incubation ti for core completion: unknown. You have lost your racial bloodline’s unique additional aspect, Breath of Malignancy, and may no longer bond with any other Shards of Original Sin. Other aspects of your racial bloodline are still partially locked.]
The essence of the maw let out a demonic scream, far louder, longer, and with a presence far greater than the monster had exuded many tis over. The very air around him quaked with raw power, and his soul scread back. Red light erupted from his chest and ripped through the visage, drawing the Shard of Original Sin into his body with a flash of power that both stung and enthralled him down to his soul core. Heaven and hell, hope and despair, pleasure and pain—he experienced all these things in that one instant.
He shuddered, clutching his head as these emotions drove themselves into his psyche with an ever-gnawing hunger. His body fluctuated, muscles bulged and shifted, bones cracked and snapped, only to return to their normal form monts later. This repeated over and over again, and it was during one of these shifts that he felt his neck snap for the briefest mont, causing his head to slam involuntarily into the nearby wall—which ended up knocking him out cold.
Standing there, invisible to Riven’s eyes just a few feet away, another man with similarly crimson eyes glared down at him. Hooded and cloaked, he dispelled the invisibility and snorted with displeasure. “I’d hoped the monster would kill him so that I could take the piece of sin for myself… How unfortunate.”
The man glanced up to the sky and sighed, internally fuming at how close he’d co to acquiring Gluttony for himself. But he knew he could not act, not directly, not when the system itself would slam down the might of ten thousand suns and burn his soul from the inside out if he intentionally intervened in a system tutorial without permission. Integrated populations were protected for certain amounts of ti dependent on situation, and Riven here was no different.
Growling and grumbling to himself, he turned around and headed out the door. Perhaps one of the other denizens of this hellscape would finish the boy off for him. Then, and only then, via death not brought about by his own hands, would he be able to strip Gluttony off Riven’s soul to take for his own. Not only that, but the one who sent him would also be furious if he were to strike Riven down now, even if he could get away with it by the system bylaws. Which he couldn’t.
“Poor luck and misfortunate follow you, youngling.” The man glared back over his shoulder from under the hood of his cloak, eyes blazing with bright crimson light. “May you die a quick death.”
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