Chapter 377: The Adversary Finally Meets His Destined Foes

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From the depths of the endless black cloud, from somewhere far below the conceptual plane known as the "Noosphere" itself...

A voice echoed from the deepest abyss. It did not sound loud, yet it reached every corner of the dimension and silenced the laughter at once. The black hands stopped moving, and even the monstrous faces turned toward the darkness below.

"I have finally found you."

"!!!"

The voice seemed to corrode Riven’s very sense of self. His thoughts became distant, his voice disappeared, and his entire being began to fade. His appearance grew paler with every passing second as pieces of him broke apart like ash and vanished into the Noosphere.

Before such a voice... he could do nothing. He could not raise his sword, move his hands, or even remember how to scream.

The black cloud spread in every direction, swallowing what little remained of the dimension. Several figures began to flow out from within it as blood and flesh gathered together, giving form to beings that should never have existed.

They were born from blood and flesh, but also from thoughts and emotions. Fear, lust, happiness, horror, and malice twisted together inside them. These figures were shadows given bodies, representations of the darkest impulses humanity had carried throughout its history.

Riven saw countless memories, countless emotions, and countless images pouring through every forming body. Some belonged to ordinary people, while others came from minds so distorted that he could barely understand what he was seeing.

Love, hatred, lust, wrath, envy, jealousy, narcissism, greed, and countless other emotions condensed into liquid blood. The blood gathered into moving shapes, hardened into bone, and covered itself in flesh as the figures opened their eyes.

From the bone and flesh rose a massive hand with five fingers, each one longer than a tower. It stretched into the skies beyond the red, purple, and pink clouds of the Conceptual Plane. Blood flowed between its joints as the hand slowly opened, revealing countless eyes across its palm.

From the Conceptual Plane, five existences began to emerge. They gazed upon The Adversary, the one who carried within him the Power of the Empress and the Three Kings. Their attention focused entirely on Riven, as if they had been searching for him for a very long time.

For a faint moment, Riven was reminded of Zephyrus. The sensation was similar enough to make his soul tremble, but he quickly realized this was something else. This presence did not belong to a single being. It felt divided, yet all five parts came from the same darkness.

He was witnessing them as their existences continued to become more real. They forced their way into his thoughts and made him see every part of their creation, refusing to let him turn away.

To experience them.

Because that is what they were, at their core.

Living experiences, they cannot exist without being experienced, witnessed, and felt.

Five figures began to rise, each one emerging from a different finger. They represented the cloud of darkness and everything wrong with humanity, given names, voices, and bodies. As they formed, Riven understood that they were not simple monsters. They were conceptual beings in their highest form, ideas that had learned how to live and gained their own consciousness and sense of self.

From the index finger, a figure resembling a beautiful and seductive woman manifested. She had pale skin, long pink hair formed from living tentacles, and bright blue eyes that followed Riven’s every movement. Long black wings spread from her back, while her bare body remained exposed without the slightest shame. A pleased smile appeared on her face as she leaned closer to him.

"Oh, my dear~ We have finally found you! I am so delighted to see you. You’re so beautiful, so handsome. I could stare at you forever."

From the middle finger rose a very short man with tiny arms and no visible legs. He wore small black glasses and carried a sickening smile across his face. His hands rubbed against each other without pause as he chuckled, and his bald head shone beneath the strange light of the Conceptual Plane. His eyes remained hidden behind the glasses, but Riven could feel his greedy stare.

"Huhuhuh! Huhuhuhu! At last... at last! The boy is here! The Adversary!"

From the ring finger emerged a large mass of flesh and meat covered in endlessly flowing grease. Black leather wrapped tightly around its body, sinking into the folds as it struggled to contain its size. Its head looked as though it were constantly melting, while its long tongue hung from its mouth in hunger. Saliva poured down its chest as it stared at Riven like a meal placed before it.

"The Adversary... such... a delightful sight... Ahhh... I must taste him... I... have to!"

From the little finger crawled the most human-like figure of them all. He wore black latex over his entire body and a helmet shaped like the head of a crow. Beneath its curved beak, a pair of glistening blue-green eyes watched Riven without blinking. Silvery-white hair flowed from beneath the helmet and fell across a long black cape. In one hand, he held the sheath of an incredibly long sword, keeping its blade hidden.

"..."

Finally, the tallest and most imposing figure emerged from the thumb. His face was horribly disfigured. His eyes had been sewn shut, while black chains wrapped around his head and pulled tightly against his lips. The top of his skull was open, revealing a large brain that pulsed aberrantly. His white teeth remained visible through his damaged mouth, and not a single piece of skin covered his body. A long black cloak made from hardened latex concealed most of his enormous form. Sharp spikes surrounded his neck, while countless needles pierced the exposed parts of his shoulders and throat.

He looked to be the strongest, exuding the greatest and highest amount of psionic energy and dark emotions than anybody else there, his towering figure, intimidating appearance, and loud, powerful voice also carried the aura of an unmovable leader.

He was, without a doubt, the one leading the other four.

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