Elysium's Multiverse

Chapter 301

Chapter 301

The continent of Umbra was conquered under the banner of the Thane Necropolis, but at a cost with the disappearance of Chancelor Mara Tovane; who’d been heading the kingdom in the temporary absence of Allie and Riven. With her now gone alongside the vampiric leadership of The Blood Moon Requiem - their whereabouts unknown to the public - it was now Gurth’Rok the orc chieftain and Dr. Brass that led the country; while taking counsel from Gaia, General Bruner of Chicago, and various members of the banished. Unrest was prevalent in the recently taken territories in the north of the continent, as well as the elvish kingdom of Tereen which was being held as a vassal state; and new wars continued to rage on the other side of the world as nearby factions took note of how aggressive the undead kingdom was becoming when claiming land. Whether or not the land grabs were intentional or simply reciprocation were up for widespread debate, with many conspiracy theories running rampant. Pre-emptive strikes had been launched against Chicago and the cities in what was previously known as the Romanov Empire; which were now all under necropolis control after the head family had been wiped clean. There were plenty of neutral factions after seeing that humans of Chicago were still left intact and weren’t forced to convert, but true allies were hard to come by as there was a very real and palpable fear of what the Thane Necropolis represented. For the citizens of Chicago, they’d been saved by Riven’s actions when the Azag Hive Cluster had nearly used their population as fertilizer for breeding eggs. But not so for the rest of humanity outside of the death-attuned continent.

Thankfully though most of the population on Umbra itself was rather fond of their new existence. The Golden Bull sect, the second largest faction on Umbra, had willingly given themselves up to necropolis rule without a hiccup - adding numerous cities and towns to the banner that benefited from trade and military bolstering. The dwarves of the underdark surprisingly enough had adapted very well to necropolis control too; primarily blaming their previous king for putting them in poor conditions to begin with - and the undead patrols that now marched through their lands and caverns did a good job protecting them from the ratkin raids that came and went from time to time. The blighted ratkin themselves had either scurried away into the far deeper regions of the underdark well out of the way and into unknown regions, or had become something like plague-spreading pirates after they’d tried to betray Riven given what Allie’s ascension had done to them. Despite efforts to re-establish negotiations with the ratkin warbands, little had been done in the way of success.

The humans of Dawn had mostly become a variation of undead called ‘Deathtouched Enlightened’, which actually encompassed the majority of what the enlightened races had chosen to be upon The Scythe’s blessing with Allie’s original ascension. Variations of white, black, teal, and silver hair had been commonplace - with gray or pale skin and neon teal eyes. Funnily enough though, there was now a very sharp uptake in a popular potion going around that’d been invented by an alchemist in the multi-layered city of Dawn’s capital: Mandon. It was so popular in fact, that it’d become a household item across the entire kingdom - with the primary purpose of using it being that it reverted your looks to what you’d been like prior to becoming undead. Herbalists had also been extremely profitable with selective breeding to create plants that were death-attuned to survive in these environments on Umbra, but made sure these plants also bore color; leading to large patches of the cities within the Necropolis having gardens that sported various greenery. That was a stark contrast to the usual coloration of death-attuned plant life most often found in the haunted forests now commonplace on Umbra, which was usually a mixture of gray, black, silver, teal, and occasionally red.

With these changes came a wave of what could only be described as relief as a semblance of normalcy was brought back to the otherwise drastically changing lives of the civilian populations, or at least that was the case for most.

Because now, as was being broadcasted daily on the Panu live stream feeds, there was an absolute plethora of migrants stemming from three different places.

First and foremost were the undead of Retesh’s homeland in the far north, where they were exiting by the millions to flee towards Umbra as Judith Marcina hunted them down to the last child. She had changed her tune about the Thane Necropolis entirely, calling them a bane to the natural order and had employed dozens of mercenary armies from off world at a discount cost through Elysium’s tipping of the scales to make the conflict on more even footing. A few strongholds still remained, but with Retesh temporarily gone in pursuit of greater power and Judith’s followers becoming rather fanatical in their genocidal efforts - even going as far as to call this the next great holy crusade with commonplace references or comparisons to Jerusalem by scholars - it was a good guess that soon Judith would make the official call to actually attack Umbra itself. Only fear of the Thane siblings with unknown whereabouts had kept her hand stayed so far, but her power was growing - as were her forces. An understanding with many the naga and mer-people had also been reached concerning the migrating undead, and although there was a lot of mistrust between them and the new-age crusaders given that nobody really knew what the sea-dwellers were up to concerning their ‘World Quest 6, Drums in the Deep’. Regardless the sea-peoples had taken a quick liking to sinking migratory fleets and attacking the undead as they fled for their lives towards Panu’s greatest undead kingdom on the continent of Umbra, where if the sea-peoples or crusaders went too far - legions of the Thane banner easily stomped out any pursuing forces that trailed their new would-be citizens. War hadn’t been officially declared by either side yet, but dozens of small-scale battles had already happened near Umbra’s coastline as tensions rose.

The second source of incoming migrants was from Hell itself. Negrada specifically had opened up its borders to allow its citizens access to Panu to get them out of the way of the wars being waged against enemy dungeons, with hundreds of thousands of demons spilling into their borders to make new homes for themselves. Elysium did not allow anything outside of F-grade demons to come into the integrating planet, but Negrada was a rather weak hellscape dungeon anyways and only had at best some E-grades in its upper echelon of minions and citizens. Dozens of different demonic species could be found on Brightsville’s streets, with even more spilling in when news of Riven’s ascension into Gluttony’s Reincarnation caused many of them to go into a religious fervor. They incorporated rather easily into necropolis society, being incredibly respectful of the laws and even setting up a very large Church of Gluttony in downtown Brightsville where most of the demons had settled in. They brought with them knowledge of various crafts and enchantments that enhanced Brightsville’s economy tenfold, and increased their value and reputation with the original citizens by a lot as the capital city rapidly grew.

The third source of migrants stemmed from the rest of the planet as they fled persecution. With a very large divide forming between the living and the undead on Panu cortex forums, racism and acts of violence had surged with videos being plastered on the cortex daily. Practicing the arts of the Unholy Foundational Pillar had even been outlawed in many countries, and public executions or lynchings had been in the upswing; should you be found out to be a necromancer or demonic summoner of any kind. Many undead were killed on sight regardless of sentience or not, which in turn had caused an uproar with many of the Thane Necropolis - resulting in retaliatory assassinations, arson, and acts of subterfuge at areas the different adventuring guilds of the Thane Necropolis could manage to reach. Not all areas were accessible, but a lot of the most vulgar acts posted to the forums were from countries bordering Chicago’s borders where fear was most prevalent - meaning that monster hunting and mercenary guilds from the heartlands of Umbra were opting to go hunt down religious fanatics and violent racists like it was their day job. This further increased tensions between the necropolis and their neighbors, but General Bruner failed to do anything about it as he’d publicly stated during diplomatic meetings that these instances were the acts of individuals and not the state. Funnily enough, he didn’t bother investigating these acts of retribution either - and kept unusually silent and smug whenever accusations were brought up about brutally murdered individuals in neighboring territories who’d taken up Judith’s ideals.

Overall though, life had calmed down around Brightsville and the central regions of Umbra; and the area was relatively safe as long as you stayed near the cities and towns. Various dungeons found in their lands were marked and regularly cleared to make sure monster swarms didn’t get out of control, and any nesting feral undead that became too much of a problem were put down by the military or the guilds they regularly sent out contracts to. Rebuilding from the initial onset of the integration was in a dramatic upswing, the Rippenvire invaders who’d originally launched attacks on different parts of Umbra had completely left the planet in utter defeat with all other invading factions having avoided the continent entirely for now in favor of easier targets, and regular military patrols of native-born and Blood Moon Requiem battalions kept the population pretty safe. Industry was booming, research into different types of magical and technological advancements were in high swing, and many people were creating new companies and trading organizations to help spread goods across the continent - increasing their quality of life. With only the impending war against Judith’s allied forces and the World Quests as true threats in the near future, optimism was starting to build.

Thankfully, most people didn’t know where the Thane siblings had gone. Many thought them to be in secluded isolation to try and ascend into E-grade, or perhaps they’d gone to explore the underdark - but it was all guesswork and conjecture for the civilian side of things. Regardless, their king and queen were still at the very top of the rankings board. They weren’t dead, and that alone was enough for most of the necropolis to not question it any further.

***

Janice was 24 years old, having just graduated from college before Earth had gone to shit and magic had become real. She was the first of her very redneck family to ever go get an advanced education, but in the end - she’d been glad that she came from a gun-toting, cowboy boot-wearing family of hardened men and women.

Because her entire family, including her immediately extended family, had survived through the integration through the sheer volume of shotgun shells at their disposal. And after the Riven’s Eye Wormhole had opened, she’d actually gone through to apply for a job at one of the news agencies in Chicago - for which she’d successfully gotten the position and had come back not long after.

Her eyes still showed a brilliant neon teal color. Very pretty in her opinion, and they were her favorite aspect of the change into being an undead; but with the potions from Dawn she’d been able to revert her gray skin and white hair to her previous brown and more healthy tanned complexion. She’d always liked her dark brown hair color and would have paid whatever it took to get it back from the ghostly white, even if her friends had taken a keen interest in their own changes and hadn’t reverted their looks back like she had.

You might be reading a pirated copy. Look for the official release to support the author.

And right now, she was filming a nature documentary with some scientists who’d hired her news crew to go along with them; alongside a couple of hired flesh golem and undead orc guards from one of the guilds. It was very relaxed, in an area only a couple miles south of Brightsville beyond the Elysium Altar that they could still easily see from their current position; and better yet - the show had been a massive success. Her face was plastered on TV screens across the kingdom now, much to her parent’s amusement, and she always got comments about being a celebrity whenever she went home to eat some of her mother’s famous apple pie.

Though those apples certainly tasted a bit different from when the fruits had been life-attuned. Now, they carried a bit of an unusually sweet aftertaste to them - which wasn’t necessarily bad, but a noticeable change. She wondered if normal humans would feel the same way, or whether or not they’d find the pies disgusting? Did her change into a deathtouched cause her tastebuds to change too?

Probably.

But she hadn’t really tried to figure it out yet, because simply she didn’t care. She had other things to worry about, like getting a good shot of the undead ‘fleshweave wolves’ per system naming shenanigans that now roamed these woods to document their behaviors. They were a rather odd species of undead and unlike many of the normal ghoul wolf variations out there, because they had unusually long tails made of strands of muscular flesh instead of fur; and were far smaller than their other canine counterparts.

“There!” Janice said to the camera guy and scientist next to her on their stomachs - pointing over the hill to where a few of the majestic looking, relatively tiny wolves were playing with their young amidst a large swath of silver berry bushes. “You better get that shot, Ted! Or I’ll wring your little neck! And damn it they’re cute!”Nôv(el)B\\jnn

Ted, the cameraman, rolled his eyes but continued filming - with the scientist rapidly documenting notes.

“How did I get stuck filming dogs when my friends all get to go film the wars near Chicago?” Ted grumbled under his breath keeping the large camera steady on the hill’s edge. “Now that we’re undead, they don’t even get scared about being shot or stabbed! Not unless it’s to the head, or a bomb goes off that tears their body apart. We’re almost invincible now!”

“Quiet! You’ll scare them off with your ugly man voice!” Janice said, snapping her pen against the back of his head with gusto. “And you know that’s not true. Our people die all the time over there, you should be thankful you’re not in any real danger here.”

“Yeah but most of those that die are from the Chicago side of the kingdom.”

“That’s not true! And I said quiet!” She smacked him hard with her pen again, getting an approving nod from the scientist as the scholar continued scribbling down notes.

Funny, that they still needed to use cameras like this. With various events, Elysium would do the streaming through your own vision - but it wasn’t as clear cut or stable as a camera could be and so most news stations continued to use the old Earth technology even to this day. Not just in the Thane Necropolis either, but it was the same with numerous other Earth-based factions across Panu.

A sharp gasp came from her right, and Janice peered over her shoulder to where one of her news-crew was sitting on a small boulder under the shade of a teal-leaf oak. The girl, who was barely 18 years old with short-cropped shorts and a pixie cut, had just taken up her first class as a ‘Truthseeker’ - and she was usually very quiet. But right now her eyes were wide in shock, and she scrambled over the boulder to where Janice was now laying down - much to the irritation of the scientist.

“You need to see this! It literally just happened!” Ashley, the younger woman frantically whispered while jabbing a finger at one of her hologram system screens. “Super important! Take a look, fast! If we report on this now, we could-”

“You’re going to scare off the wolves, you idiot!” The scientist explained, adjusting his glasses and glaring at the younger deathtouched with a scowl. “This had better be worth it!”

True to the man’s words, Ashley’s exclamation had certainly startled the small pack - and their ears had all perked up. The undead animals all quickly scampered away after that, rushing into the dark underbrush without another word after the older ones had picked up their youngest by the scruffs of their necks.

“Gah!” The scientist yelled, throwing his pen and clipboard down onto the hillside. Getting up, he cursed loudly numerous times and began marching away to cool off.

But despite Janice’s cold glare, Ashley was still frantically pointing at the hologram screen.

“You need to report on this NOW! It happened only SECONDS ago!” Ashley exclaimed, raising her voice now that the jig was up anyways - and she snapped out a pointer finger in Ted’s direction. “Get set up for an interview, fast! We need to make this quick to be the first!”

Janice raised an eyebrow, and brushed a hand through her brunette hair with a groan. Adjusting her short-sleeved vest, she got to her knees and then stood up while brushing off the dirt. “This had better be good, Ashley. Those wolves were hard to track down, and the guildies over there charge by the daily attempt.”

“IT IS IMPORTANT!” Ashley screamed. “LOOK! JUST LOOK!”

This time, Janice obliged. Coming around and staring at the hologram information, her eyes narrowed - and then went wide when she saw what Ashley was pointing at.

[With the coming update in following months: Rankings will soon be RE-ORGANIZED to include both external offworld threats present on Panu, as well as new arrivals that are not only natives, in order to better represent the power dynamics on Panu. 25 billion current participants have been analyzed. The ranking categories are as follows: Apex Rank (Top 10), Paragon Rank (Top 1000), S Rank (Top 0.0001%), A Rank (Top 1%), B Rank (Top 15%), C Rank (Top 30%), D Rank (Top 50%), E Rank (Bottom 50%)]

[Current Top 10 Native Participants:

• 1- Allie Thane, Level 201 Angel of Wrath - Ultimate Undead / Bastion of Death, Apex Rank, Hero of Death, Reincarnation of Wrath

• 2- Riven Thane, Level 200 Pureblooded Vampire, Apex Rank, Warlock Devastator, Reincarnation of Gluttony

• 3- Judith Marcina, Level 212 Divine Human, Apex Rank, Angelic Fallcaller, Light’s Beacon

• 4- Aren Hrall, Level 207 Snow Giant, Apex Rank, Frostmange Berserker

• 5- Retesh Vorath, Level 200 Corpse Lord, Apex Rank, Elder Lich

• 6- Nora Lang, Level 200 Cursed Human of the Insanity Lineage, Apex Rank, Asylum Legion Keeper

• 7- Netithi Bluskish, Level 200 Naga, Apex Rank, Champion of the Kraken, Apostle of Greed

• 8- Chitter Teh-Sneaker, Level 200 Ratman, Apex Rank, Dark-Blade Assassin, Poison Master, Sneaky Sneak Sneaker

• 9- Nithkik Brutishvase, Level 199 Dark Elf, Apex Rank, Depthdweller

• 10- Thorman Bame, Level 196 Human, Apex Rank, Hammer of the Mountain]

Allie had taken the top spot. But not only that, she’d made level 201 - meaning she’d made it into the E-grade. And her titles… Were those what Janice thought they were?

Then, two more notifications appeared. This time they weren’t from Ashley’s doing, but rather they were from the system itself. And the results were both shocking, and very similar to what had happened when their king had first transcended into Gluttony’s Reincarnation.

[Multiversal System Notice: To all creatures across Elysium, let it be known that the return of the Sins and Commandments is at hand. The next Original Sin, Wrath, has been unleashed from its prison. Other sins and commandments will be released from the abyss over the course of the next ten years. Let the Eternal War between the hells and heavens begin again, as the origins of angels and demons clash in the cosmos - unshackled, and unrestrained, seeking to return to the power they once had.]

[Planet-Wide System Notice: Allie Thane has returned to Panu, and with her come the banished demons of the eternal war that were most loyal to Wrath in eons past. As the primary target of World Quest 7: Eradicate the Angel of Death, Allie Thane - the prize for killing her has increased dramatically. The quest name has also been changed to World Quest 7: Eradicate the Angel of Wrath, Allie Thane.

If she is killed before the 5 year integration time limit is up, the killer will inherit her fledgling divinity in the form of the killer’s choosing, allowing ascension and the start of a path into future godhood. But not only this, you will also be given an additional 100 combat levels immediately upon killing her, an immediate escape to a safe location of your choosing, and 1 Billion Elysium Coins.

Killing Allie Thane within the time limit will also remove The Scythe’s blessing on Umbra and return the land to a more natural state.

Guild mercenary options will reflect an even lower cost to acquire off-world holy warriors in pursuit of this crusade, as long as the guild owner is not undead, and the intended target is perceived to truly be Allie Thane or the Thane Necropolis by Elysium’s Administrator. Guild mercenaries are now able to be hired at a 80% reduced rate from their asking price, with Elysium covering the remaining amount, and there is no longer any distance fee when hiring off-worlders.]

When had their queen even left Panu?

She’d been gone?

How’d she left the planet, and how had she come back!?

“Oh shit! OH SHIT! TED! GET THAT CAMERA UP HERE!” Janice quickly adjusted her hair, tidied her suit jacket, and frantically nodded to the camera guy. “Are we ready!? Are we ready!?”

BOOM

The sky immediately overhead thundered with a massive explosion of energy that swept across the landscape like an aura of hate and dread. The shockwave sent tree branches snapping and made Jannice stagger to her knees with a gasp. Clouds and mist were swept away, revealing a large shimmering portal in the sky where a four-winged six-armed undead woman of unnatural, ghostly beauty stepped out to hover far above.

Dozens, and then hundreds of smaller portals began to appear around her - transforming the daytime sky into a black-speckled tapestry of unholy power that continued to build as demons of all shapes and sizes started crawling out of the abyss and into their world.

Janice’s heart nearly stopped as she took in the awe-inspiring collection of building figures, before slowly getting back to her feet with mouth ajar. “Ted? Are you filming this?”

“Get up Ted, you incompetent buffoon!” Ashley kicked the man into action, and he scrambled to get an angle beneath Janice that also captured the oncoming wave of new arrivals to their planet.

Janice took in a deep breath and fetched the microphone from Ashley while steeling herself and trying not to tremble underneath the waves of power that washed over her and the others.

The news crew gave her a silent signal, though another thunderclap and residual purple-tinted illumination of the deadlands surrounding Brightsville made them almost forget to start rolling.

“IN FIVE!” Ted, her camera man yelled over the building storm of darkness ripping the sky above. He held up his fingers, then began to count down as Janice prepared herself with the microphone - sealing her surprise and grimace at the whipping winds that rattled the trees around them.

Four fingers.

Then three.

Two.

One.

Streaming.

“Hello once again to the Thane Necropolis, and to all others currently watching this live stream here on Panu. My name is Janice Gildy, a reporter with the Chicago Scriptmakers, and what you are now watching is very likely the return of our queen. When she’d left and where she’d gone are both questions that many of you likely have just like I do, but it appears that just as the system notification has informed us all across the planet - she has not come back alone. It also appears that she has reclaimed the number 1 spot on Panu’s leaderboard from her brother. A truly momentous occasion indeed. All hail Queen Allie Thane of the Thane Necropolis, all hail the newly crowned Reincarnation of Wrath.”