C146: The Shattering
Alt Title Teaser: Orario
Overall Word count = 2360 on 10/5/2024.
Was not able to finish the character sheet. Might release now too and then just regularly update it until it's finally ready and i'll just let yall know when that is.
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While the robots begin to follow new directives from Iz-Tulo: Paradiso. Axel finishes up gathering the rest of his loved ones with Kaoruko being last as he wanted to keep her separate from the rest for now as she is just barely regaining her own body from the hypnosis she was under.
The experience was heavily traumatic for her as she now worries what possible other methods there are that might make her slip back into the hypnotic state (sleeper agent style). Her fears are reasonable but not noteworthy as Circe is strictly a poison user and it was only through such poisons that she weakened Murasaki with. While Vitch might have created such a failsafe, it was still limited to magic that only she knew as she created it based on Circe's poison.
Of course there are other problems currently happening so Axel can not focus on her for the moment. Instead he has a mental clone of him appear before the rest of the group which has wisely chosen to sit down. Granted Axel was attacked by Raikou, Serenity, the 3 immortals of the Knight group, the 2 Onis' as well as Bell and the others since they didn't recognize him.
Axel sports a stoic expression as immovable barrier forms around him. Raikou and the other immortals shake off their seals to unleash their second strongest attacks only for it to do nothing as Axel's barrier as the attacks are simply teleported outside throughout the city to destroy the manic robots.
He soon moves his arms as he brings Sabrina to him. She had been sleeping in her room within the reality Marble when the attack happened. She begins to tear up as she also doesnt recognize Axel's touch and the overabundant energy she momentarily absorbed from him before he remembered to set up his [Psi barrier].
Axel rocks her as Syr and Freya begin to tell the others to stop attacking in case they somehow hurt the baby. They all soon do as they were not making any progress anyways. Morgan was the one who attacked the least as she has a theory on what this space was and who the person they were attacking was. She simply attacked for the hell of it.
"Give us back the child" Syr demands and Axel only looks at her with a raised eyebrow before looking back at the crying baby. He begins to hum to himself whilst whispering, "it's alright little one, daddys here. You were just startled. Ill take the energy back now, little glutton." he coaxes the child and activates his [Great Devourer], taking back the abundant magical energy of the mental body.
His words also had a placating effect on the others who were confused.
"Axel?" Raikou cant help but ask as her connection to him had been severed.
"It's me, love. Ill give a small run down of what happened." he states as the barrier dissipates and he hands over Sabrina to Syr and Freya.
"1. I reached level 10."
"2. My body broke apart and I only survived because of something else which I'll need a lot more time to explain."
"3. I killed Vitch and stole her body. But I have enough power to at least adjust it so I'm not as girly. Though im keeping the ass" At this mention, everybody can't help but give it a once over in intrigue, Though Bell and Welf at least have enough shame to look away as they are straight men.
"4. I brought you all here to keep you safe because the Tower of Babel fell so the dungeon is released" Axel finishes the checklist and Artoria can't help but state.
"We can handle a monster tide."
"I'm sure you can but this won't be a monster tide. The entire dungeon is a 'living' being. Orario is likely being torn to pieces as we speak from the earthquakes of it trying to 'rise' up. His words paint a dark picture for everyone but the entire group steps forward with a united statement.
"We can't leave everyone behind, we have to save them." The statement is most understandable from the Saints perspective as that is their entire shtick. But hearing Bell and the others proclaim this as well makes Axel feel quite proud of them and their growth.
Axel cancels his plans to simply keep everyone here. "Alright fine, but you're not going out without any sort of buffs. I can't make you all demi gods or gods yet like the dragon as I need more time to gather the energy. But I can still cast my own buffs."
He proceeds to cast reinforcement magic on everyone, the immortals and Axel's group. They are in awe of the raw power they now possess. For Axel's group is much more noticeable as they already had their rings to boost them before but now they are easily twice as strong as they were with the rings on.
As for the immortals, they have to recast their seals as they are still bound by the agreement. Another reason why Axel will kick Alaya's ass later. He has more important things to worry about.
Granted they still feel like they have reached their prime with Axel's buffs. This makes them quite confident in helping the citizens and adventurers evacuate. The only ones who would remain inside the reality marble would be Syr, Freya, Hestia, Sabrina and Takemikazuchi along with Miach who Bell had helped rescue along the way. The Far Eastern god originally wanted to help as well but seeing the buffs that his children received, he relented to their worries for him.
Naaza is there too but with her only having one arm, she feels quite useless to help out since they left their stock of potions behind. Axel directs Blythe, who has brought the still unconscious Circe to a prison inside the reality marble to heal the missing arm through it's healing divinity.
She begins to cry tears of joy as her now useless silver prosthesis lies beside her. Miach congratulates his child on her recovery. 'Mind' Axel soon disappears as they are all brought back out near the Eastern entrance of Orario.
"Bell, Ouka, Mikoto, Chigusa and Raikou, go help the Ganesha familia and try to enlist their help but only their upper echelon, the rest should evacuate and set up a safe zone a few miles away from Orario to not be affected by the earthquakes as much." Axel begins to give out commands. As they immediately head out.
"Welf, you and Daisy go find Hephaestus and evacuate your familia. Lily, you go assist the Loki familia, they need proper leadership until your brother and the rest escape the dungeon which should only take a few minutes but it will be close and they will need to evacuate too." He teleports the trio away, with Welf and Daisy moving more into the city so they only need a minute to get to "Valka's Crimson Chamber" (Hephaestus familia's home name).
Lily was teleported just outside the Loki familia home since Axel is more familiar with it. She immediately draws her spear and assists in fighting off the robots near there. Many of the Pallums which had previously helped the Loki familia grow excited at seeing their goddess in person and fighting alongside them. She quickly organizes them all into formations and warns them of the threat to come. Under her purview, the Loki Familia and Pallum begin to evacuate to the north of the city
"You 3 and Han, head to the Western side, Especially the Shopping district, there are a lot of people there that need help. Recruit the local pallum from the secret tavern if you can." Axel gives the command and sends the 3 immortals and Huwawas human form to the West while providing the location for the elusive bar to Morgan who smirks at his expert usage of mental magic. She was not aware that he had been training in it other than the basics.
It's only thanks to [Raphael] that his expertise in this type of magic could reach such a pinnacle as it took his mana threads, the very same basics and automatically used it as a platform for hundreds of other spells that would make Axel's head hurt if he had to recite.
"Serenity, you and the Oni head to the South and help there. If you finish early then you can help those 3 in the West" he waves his hand and teleports the three of them near Folkvangr, Freya's official familia. Granted it's mostly unused except by the last few vestiges of her familia who are unable to move forward and caught in the former glory of their familia.
"As for me. I'll go hold off the dungeon" he jumps and immediately appears where he had split apart into multiple copies. A few of his [Doppelgangers] move to the guild to help them evacuate but he encounters Illya who had set up a barrier to keep the robots out the whole time. Meanwhile a few others go to persuade the many non-combative immortals to leave the city too or cast off their seals to help others as well.
As he takes action, he finds a giant construct appearing from behind a mountain and approaching the city. He can clearly see that there are no physical weapons on it but the significance of runes is noteworthy. He spots a black haired immortal leading the floating castle and directly her servants to control floating magical disks to evacuate people
The castle is primarily made of stone in a slightly desert-like theme of white, black, pale peach and gold stone. There are a number of floating blue structures that orbit around the castle. Axel recognizes some magical runes that are related to flight and defense but his knowledge is still somewhat lacking so he can't understand all of them.
Semiramis and her Hanging Gardens of Babylon have arrived to help out once she got the feeling of doom passing through her body. One of his shade clones moves to communicate with her and inform her of the situation since very few should know.
BOOOM
An explosion rocks the city with many cries ringing out from the shock wave as Axel's main body heads into the dungeon, first through the hole that Vitch made with his body and then he punched out, making it much deeper, leading all the way to the 61st floor where he left off.
With his current agility stat, he zooms around through all the paths until he gets further down. He doesn't punch again as he doesn't want to cause the dungeon's main body to actively start moving, since the earthquakes are only passive movement so far.
He zooms past any low level monsters he encounters until he arrives at the 75th floor where he encounters a demi spirit. A flower type creature colored pink and purple with plenty of green for its body. In the center is a humanoid female body merged with the flower body. The human half ends around the lower waist where pink petals are spread out. The human body is mostly green and blue though there are a few peach colored sections around its face.
Strangely enough it appears as if the creature has unbloomed flower-like breasts as there are two heavy sacks just below the human half and top of the plant monster half. On its back are two green branches that fade out into pink petals, these sway as if arms enjoying the breeze inside the dungeon. Around the feet/root of the monster are extra tendrils that are quite bulbous and appear like hungry maws.
Of course it has to be mentioned that this creature is roughly 65 ft tall (20m)
Titan Alm observes Axel for a bit before attacking but when its plant-like tendrils attack him but when they are about to swallow him whole, he simply flexes his chest and the tendrils explode into fiber. Alm releases a resounding inhuman groan before Axel simply swipes his hand, "get in here already. Ill deal with you later" He stores the Corrupted Spirit into his territory, inside the monster exhibit he had prepared beforehand. The viola is still the only one inside there as it sways in the fake sun.
The sudden appearance of the spirit shocks it and it runs away to hide behind Alaba.Just the tip of it's tail is enough to hide the tamed flower monster. Titan Alm on the other hand is confused as the energy here is far stranger than what it has dealt with before. When suddenly chains appear and wrap around it. Axel would not leave it happily roam around since it is still a threat. So he chained it down, pinning the plant monster in place.
Axel continues on his way forward and finally arrives at the 79th floor. A giant black pit lies before him which seems to be the only way forward to the 80th floor. He jumps down, bouncing off the edges to speed up his descent before he arrives at a giant arena which he knows is the 80th and last floor of the first phase dungeon.
The impact of his landing sends out a shock wave in all directions that rend the root and grass covered floor. Honestly the arena looks like the inside of a tree, all bark and covered in now destroyed roots and grass.
"Now where was that entrance?" He muses to himself as he looks for the entrance to the True Dungeon's Body. He plans to harass it from the inside and buy time so that it wouldn't break out immediately.
Yet as he approaches the end of the arena and where the entrance is. The ground shakes with a resounding cracking tremor, to Axel's horror a part of the wall shifts to reveal a giant eye covered in bark but the shining green pupil attracts his attention. A horrifying deep voice with a hint of high pitched bit echoes out throughout the dungeon.
"YOOOOOUUUUUUU"
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Alt Title: Orario Falls, Loose Ends, True Body.