C155: Wrath
Alt Title Teaser: Anger Issues
Overall Word count = 1812 on 11/1/2024.
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And what those within the reality marble see is the beginning of an ass whoopin'.
"Will you be fighting me? It seems Raikou did not raise you as right as she should" Alaya questions and muses to herself, her original panic dwindling as she realizes that a proper fight is about to unfold between them.
Raikou within Axel's space scrunches up her face upon hearing herself being offended, she calls out, "Boo, break her stupid hag face Axel. Posh know-it-all." She slings out a few more insults for the sake of insulting, even if she cant hear, she can at least vent a bit of her irritation at the ghost of humanity.
Axel's lip twitches as he hears insult after insult coming from Raikou. His hostility noticeably decreases, Alaya takes note of this and taunts him for an unknown reason.
"Giving up already? I didn't take you for a coward."
"Nah, im not backing out, I just realized that all this gloom and doom hostility is not my way of fighting, I don't need to intimidate you, I just need to beat you the fuck up" He swipes his hand and they both teleport out of the camp and near where the ruins of Orario are.
Alaya who was surprised by the teleportation as there is no immortal who can do it, at most they have high speed movement. By the time Axel started learning his mana burst and spatial abilities, his inhuman nature was already taking over his human side. So at most she is aware of his stats and abilities up till level 8 but when his falna started to burn him, she lost access to his mind and knowledge.
BAM
A fist strikes against Alaya while she was surprised, yet oddly enough, unlike last 2 times, his fist passes through her body with ease and the force was sent tumbling down to the ruined ground around them.
Axel was reasonably shocked at this development since he slapped the cloaked 'woman' before, yet in hindsight, he should have realized that Alaya allowed this to happen in the hopes that any grudges between them would dissipate. Yet due to her own ignorance. She also didn't realize one tiny little detail about Axel from all his fighting.
He kinda has anger issues.
That is why he still does not pursue the path of the sword since he just likes punching people in the face, it helps him vent.
Of course he will gladly take up the sword at the nearest convenience if it helps him bridge the gap between himself and those stronger than him. Yet he has an entire lack of knowledge regarding how Alaya fights or could fight. As such, he considers himself much stronger than her.
Alaya quickly brings her hand down on him with a stab of her flat palm, He tilts his head back and arches his back enough that the hand simply passes over where he stood just now. He counters by backflipping with his whip-like foot snapping towards her extended hand. Something that would cripple her hand if it were not for her ethereal nature that allowed the strike to wiff right through her extended arm.
Nevertheless, the strike blasted away the nearby clouds, providing a nice clear view of the sun. Finding that his physical attacks are not doing much, he takes on the magical approach.
From Axel's body, a large rock begins to take shape in the form of a circle. This large rock rises up into the sky, creating a giant shadow upon them both as the giant rock begins to absorb the sunlight upon it and convert it into shadow essence that coats Axel's body whilst also weakening Alaya with it's darkness via restraints or erosion of energy.
This is a relatively new spell that Axel had learned some time before his final dungeon expedition, [Lunar Moon]. It's originally a much smaller magically created rock that copies the aspect of the moon but with Axels current magic power, this is capable of turning into a proper pseudo moon and thus it's absorption speed is much faster which in turns provides the boost and weakness much faster as well.
As more and more darkness covers Axel, he finds that Alaya is still standing where she was with not a hint of panic. Yet he finds that from her previously extended hand that she partially retracted, she has summoned something, it looks like a pendant in the shape of a cross made of black metal.
Axel continues building up his power by even coating himself in [Spirit Energy] and even [War Gods Strike] along with the passive boost of [Titans Strength]. Dense Earthly energy flows through Axel, enhancing his already robust power as he [mana bursts] forward.
Far away, in one of the remote tents sit two people who have been chatting and overall keeping a positive mood, or at least one of them is trying to keep the other positive. The moody one is Adelaide who is downtrodden over her store supposedly demolished when Gaia broke out, and it's Mash who has been the supportive friend is attempting to keep her spirits up.
"Hey hey, you know you can finally install that bookshelf you had always wanted to, and with the dungeon gone, we can finally get a basement with those special vents you wanted to install as a secondary forge. We also shouldn't be paying as much taxes as before since we do have to rebuild the city by our own hand this time around." Mash brings up one topic to the next as if her life depended on it.
"Thank you master, I feel better now" Adelaide responds to Mash but the purple haired girl shakes her head, "Don't call me master, I haven't done anything worthy of being called your master, you got this far through your own efforts. Witnessing your growth from a little girl to the beautiful young lady you are now, creating your own store. It's fine if you don't want to be a hero, I didn't have as much of a choice. Besides just call me Mash"
"Thank you anyways, I would have likely been crushed in rubble when the city started rising if you didn't notice everything beforehand and started evacuating. You were also the one who helped me create my first forge" Now it's her turn to reassure her adoptive parent.
Mash turns to the shield beside her, she rubs it affectionately as she ponders, 'Master Galahad[1], what can I even do to help here? I'm not as strong as you were"
"ARGH" As she retracts her hand, the shield glows and then that glow spreads to mash herself as she doubles over in pain.
"MASH, are you okay?" Adelaide can't help but question as she kneels besides her parental figure and tries to help her back up on her seat.
"my…my ..my mana is being drained." Mash stutters as she doesnt understand how this is happening.
Back at Axel, as he moves forward to utterly demolish Alaya, the cloaked woman raises her hand above her head as the pendant in hand rapidly grows, shining a similar color until it takes the size and shape of a certain black shield. Alaya then whispers,
"Alma Galahad, Populum Tuum protege" (Loving Galahad, Protect Thy People, Variant incantation of "Lord Chaldeas: Foundation of Human order)
Cross-like symbols appeared within square shaped magic 'circles' that expanded until it created a wide ranging but focused barrier that caused a massive shockwave in the area. The shield remains sturdy as it is powered by both Mash's stolen magic power but also the spirit of humanity's own vast will power, empowering the shield.
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Alt Title: Full Force Anger Issues, Mash, All-Knowing Ghost of Humanity
[1] So early on when I introduced Mash and Adelaide I had created Mash's background. I had planned to tell you all about this long ago but this story did kinda suck before chapter 70-80 (my opinion), regardless, enjoy
Originally she was an orphan whose village was demolished by a monster horde, just as she was about to be killed herself, Galahad had arrived and saved her. With nowhere to go, the saint shielder had taken it upon himself to adopt the young girl who clung to him heavily.
They traveled for years until Mash got to her mid teens and Galahad was finally struck down by a pre-3 great quests Abdull (a lich type monster, name taken from H.P. Lovecraft. Character who uses necronomicon). He was struck with a fatal poison and mash took it upon herself to continue his legacy by wearing his armor and using his shield.
The funny thing about this is that Galahad himself was not immortal, his armor and shield was (Think of Akame ga kill-Incursio armor). He had chosen to never expose his name and thus all the faith of the people he saved and the later divine energy from when the gods descended, was all gathered upon his armor and shield.
Throughout the years, Mash learned that whilst wearing the armor, her body was far stronger and technically immortal. She had originally vowed to never take off her own helmet like her teacher but during the final battle where she finally slayed the ever lithe lich, her helmet was broken and thus her face exposed to the public that she saved from becoming undead. As such, all the divine energy was transferred from the shield and armor to mash herself, though the armor and shield retained a portion of it.
To honor her teacher but also as penance, she delivered the armor back to his grave while she kept the heavy black shield with her as her eternal burden.
Many years later before mash arrived in Orario, mash had helped a small village being targeted by some surface monsters when she found that one of the monsters was typed up upside down by a rope as it just growled and waved around. Mash found a rambunctious young girl in the trees who was laughing her butt off on how she caught a monster and would get "super duper ultra mega rich"
Mash got to know the then similarly orphaned girl known as Adelaide, and remembering Galahad's lessons, she took it upon herself to adopt the energetic girl. Adelaide mellowed out over the years as she properly learned the value of things and decided to open her own store but didn't have any ideas until she saw the stained glass murals of a distant church. It caught her attention and she decided to make similar works of art and Mash helped her along her path but once they got to Orario, Mash could only ever serve as an assistant to her adopted daughter.