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"Old man?" Ignias didn’t understand who Riven was even referring to, but she nodded regardless, as someone who was very loyal to him after he helped her revive and everything, she moved without hesitation. "Fine! Let’s fight then!" She moved forward without waiting for more details and already prepared her next attack.
Noir and Shiro flanked the beasts while Riven’s Spiritual Clones served as distractions, now with more spirit energy, they served as good kamikaze soldiers, exploding once they touched a foe and dealing devastating damage.
The clones rushed the larger beasts into groups of three or four and detonated the moment they made contact.
As this happened, Noir unleashed beams of black shadow energy while Shiro unleashed gleaming beams of sunlight, bombarding the monsters with many explosions.
BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM! BOOOM!
The combined beams and clone explosions forced the remaining spectral beasts to scatter across the grassland.
At the same time, Ignias roared mightily and descended against them from afar, fusing with her Spiritual Avatar as her true self descended, tearing through the monsters, who, as they exploded, turned into hundreds of smaller ones rushing to annoy Riven.
The fusion finished in a single motion and left her full size form standing over the nearest group of specters.
"Tsk, we need more reinforcements!"
As she called, several giant silhouettes surged from the forest, massive axes cleaving apart the specters, resembling demons and chimeric monstrosities.
The ground shook under their steps and forced the smaller beasts to scatter in every direction.
"We’ve felt the disturbance coming from the Divine God and have come to help!"
"We’ve brought a great deal of allies!"
Ragnar and Frigga, the two leaders of the High Giant Tribe arrived, and not alone. With them came several Undead Giants.
Both leaders moved to the front of the group and kept their weapons ready while the rest of the force filled in behind them.
Formerly just monsters, these Undead have been tamed by the High Giants through Druidic Magic and special Contracts with their ghostly souls.
The contracts held them in place and directed every attack toward the spectral beasts instead of the living members of the tribe.
The army of giants charged, from Headless Knights to Ghosts and even their Giant Skeleton Soldier variants, all fighting for Riven’s sake.
They spread out across the open grassland and cut down the nearest clusters of smaller monsters without slowing.
Ignias smiled, roaring and opening a burning portal where Kobolds stepped out, a new Kobold King had been born already, stepping forward while carrying a pair of burning axes.
The portal stayed open long enough for the full group to exit before it closed again behind the last of them.
"Master Ignias! What’s the matter?" the Kobold King asked.
"Defeat the monsters, protect your Divine Lord!" she ordered.
The Kobold looked at Riven and his massive divine and spiritual power surging everywhere, nodding.
He took one more look at the swamp and the remaining spectral beasts before he raised both axes.
"Understood! CHARGE!!!"
The Kobolds roared together and charged, fighting against the monstrosities with all their might.
Their lines mixed with the giants and added another layer of pressure against the beasts that still refused to fall.
But that wasn’t all.
RUMBLE!
And beyond that, another group of believers appeared, perhaps the most unlikely of them all, digging out from the underground and coming on giant tanks that were half mutant flesh and half machinery, riding these giant monsters and charging straight through the spectral beasts.
The tanks broke the surface in several places at once and rolled forward without any pause once they reached open ground.
Behind them was a massive Mad Locomotive, led by two mutants who laughed crazily, destroying everything and causing great chaos, the monstrous living machine rolled forward without any pattern and crushed every spectral beast that stayed in its path.
Riven was shaken, even the Mutant Race had arrived to help?
He had never spoken with them directly, yet they still joined the fight as if the call had reached them the same way it reached the others.
"Huhuh, you’ve made quite a decent little world here," A voice echoed amidst the pain and darkness engulfing him, the Ten Thousand Poison Master appearing by his side as a ghostly silhouette made of poisonous smoke. "Not bad! Not bad at all! They’re helping their Divine Lord, haha!"
The silhouette stayed just far enough to the side that it did not interfere with the process still running through Riven’s body.
"..."
Riven looked at everyone fighting to protect him, even those races he’d never interacted with before at all and this made him smile lightly for a moment, before concentrating on what he was doing here.
He closed his eyes again and pushed the remaining focus back into the five hundred poisons still shifting inside him.
Slowly, the poisons started to overwrite and purify most of his body.
His muscles were remade, bones were repaired and renewed with life, and all the dark, murky corruption he’d accumulated was released, which turned into those monsters.
Each wave of purification pushed another batch of the corruption outward and fed the swamp that still spread across the grassland, making the battle happening behind him even more chaotic.
When Riven finally regained his composure and the powers settled within him, his Ten Thousand Poison Sutra had finally reached the next stage of growth.
The pain dropped away in stages until only a dull ache remained in his joints.
Ding!
[Congratulations, the Cultivation Method: [Ten Thousand Poison Heart Sutra – Poison Accumulation Phase: Stage 2] has Ranked Up to Poison Accumulation Phase: Stage 3: Heavenly Poison Body!]
[Your Titan Mana Heart is responding to this new power, growing strong along with its evolution, but not enough to raise to the next rank yet. However, it is now very close.]
[Vitality, Strength, Endurance, Agility +3,000,000!]
The numbers updated one after another while the last of the black fog around him faded. He opened his eyes fully and checked the status once more to confirm the Stage 3 change had taken hold before he tried to stand.
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