Chapter 378: Humanity’s Darkest Desires Given Form, Born From Her Shadow Cast Upon The Blue Star

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Riven was greeted by the tallest of the five, whom he assumed to be their leader.

"Oh, we welcome you, great Adversary... bearer of the Empress’s light and the crowns of the Three Kings... You have wandered into our garden of thoughts without much consideration, haven’t you? You seem confused, perhaps even elated to see us. And I would not blame you for that. Few are ever allowed to witness our true forms, and fewer still remain themselves afterward."

The five figures surrounded Riven, their combined presence crushing the conceptual space around him. Every movement they made distorted the Noosphere, causing memories and fragments of thought to break apart around their bodies.

The white sword in Riven’s hand flickered as its light dimmed beneath so much concentrated human malice, given form, given power, and given life. He tightened his grip, but even his fingers were beginning to fade.

Outside the Noosphere, within the collapsing Macabre Forest Dungeon, Daniela, Label, and Vladimir continued struggling against the endless tide of nightmare constructs. Wooden claws ripped through the ground, flaming pumpkins crashed around them, and shrieking puppets poured from every direction.

"Damn it Riven! Wake up already you fucking bastard!" Vladimir roared while clawing his way through monsters and nightmares alike, barely keeping up with the incessant, constant swarm of thoughts given form and materialized into the material world.

Vladimir kept trying to reach Riven’s motionless body, but every path closed before him as the forest changed shape. Daniela and Label fought beside him, destroying anything that came close, yet the creatures returned faster than they could kill them. Above them, the black cloud continued to expand, its crimson eyes locked onto the place where Riven’s consciousness had been dragged.

"Riven! Snap out of it!" Daniela screamed as she spun through the air, carving a path through the attacking creatures with her weapons. Explosions of colorful confetti and light burst across the chaotic, ever-shifting battlefield, where the ground tilted without warning and every direction changed from one heartbeat to the next. She twisted before a jagged pillar could crush her, kicked off its surface, and launched herself toward Riven again. "Can you hear me?!"

Label’s hair lashed out like living whips, catching falling debris before it struck the others and hurling alchemical bombs into the advancing horde. Each bomb erupted with a different reaction, scattering flames, shards of ice, and violent arcs of thunder. Even with all her limbs occupied, she kept glancing toward Riven, searching his face for any sign that he was still aware of them.

Chemy, still in its massive form, roared and bit down on a wooden titan. Its jaws tore through layers of enchanted bark as it synthesized the creature’s essence, converting it into a barrage of soul-burning projectiles. The glowing shots pierced several nearby monsters, but more shapes crawled from the fractured landscape to replace them.

Vladimir’s dragon wings beat furiously as black-red flames erupted from his claws, forcing back a swarm of twisted creatures. He looked toward Riven, whose body remained trapped at the center of the battlefield, barely reacting to the destruction around him. "Whatever that thing is, it’s not just a dungeon core! Riven’s mind is being eaten alive! What the hell do we even do, Ignias?!"

"I’ll go help him! You stay here!" Ignias shouted. Before Vladimir could object, she surged out of him as a streak of blazing energy and plunged into Riven. Her presence passed through flesh and bone, following the connection that had seized Riven’s mind and soul, until the battlefield vanished around her and his consciousness was dragged into the same unknown place.

Back within the Noosphere, Riven forced himself to stand. Blood, or whatever passed for blood in this place of pure thought, trickled from the corners of his mouth. His limbs trembled beneath him, and every attempt to focus caused another stab of pain to tear through his skull like agonizing migraines.

His nine brains worked in frantic unison, analyzing, calculating, and searching for any weakness. Above all, however, the same question kept repeating inside his head. What were these beings, and why did they feel so horribly familiar?

The seductive figure from the index finger drifted closer. Her tentacled hair reached towards him like curious serpents, curling around his arms and brushing against his face without quite touching him. She floated as she chuckled mischievously, studying his panic as if it were nothing more than an amusing performance to delight her in his suffering.

"Fufufu, look at him. He’s sooooo confused about who we are!" she chuckled. The other figures watched from the enormous fingers surrounding him, their expressions shifting between amusement and hunger. "Do you really not know who we are? After everything you’ve done, after everything you’ve taken into yourself?" Her smile widened. "We are the same...!"

"W-What...?!" Riven recoiled, but the hands around him tightened before he could escape. His thoughts scattered as unfamiliar memories flashed behind his eyes, too fast and distorted for him to understand just what was going on anymore. "No...! G-Get out of my head! WHO ARE YOU?! LET ME GO!!!"

Riven roared and snapped at the giant hands clutching him, tearing into them with his teeth. The flesh split apart, yet no blood came from the wounds. Instead, pale strands crawled across the damage and began knitting it closed.

Before he could bite again, one hand dug its fingers into his skull. Pressure crushed one of his eyes, sending a violent burst of pain through every corner of his mind and wrenching a broken groan from his throat.

The tallest figure looked at Riven in silence and finally answered.

"We are emotions, we are dreams, we are nightmares, we are humanity, and we are Her shadows cast upon the Blue Star. We are the inevitable end of all life, and we also are the apostles of the outer reaches of experience..."

His eyes opened for a moment, revealing deep black emptiness in them.

"To some, we are angels, to others, demons."

The only female among them smiled at Riven, chuckling.

"We are Architects of Madness...

We are the Hand of Inevitability."

"?!"

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