C36: Anti-Rakia, and Heading Out to the huntress
Word count = 2121 on 2/12/2024
Brief authors note about the previous chapter.
Some people are worried that the quality of the story might go 'bad' due to the unknown figures' intervention. But my response to that is that you are reading this very message and so you haven't been disappointed with my story yet. So stay tuned, we are getting crazier now.
On the other hand, some of yall know what to expect at Elsos Ruins and to that, I leave a message at the end of the chapter that you all get to enjoy.
We are currently at 9 power stones when I publish this so if we reach 64 stones before next chapter then ill post a small spoiler chapter which I will later delete. My silent homeys in discord get the message without having to read the spoiler chapter tomorrow. Note that I will delete it later when I publish the regular chappy and the spoiler will not interfere with the publishing schedule.
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Axel packed up on his armor after Senji had kindly made a new set for a price as the previous set was lovingly melted into his flesh before being ripped out in his comatose state by Dian Cecht. Axel had to dust off his old backpack and stuff it full of food and drink as well as powerful potions as he doesnt really need much else and wants to avoid cooking unless he can get his hands on a normal animal to gut for meat for a nice little cookout.
He knows that he will be away from Orario for a while and truly, he is a bit excited to actually see the outside world as he knows very little about the surrounding area except the castle he is returning to so he can clear it out.
Raikou walks him to the gates of Orario where Daisy, Welf, Illyasviel (his guild handler), Adelaide and Mash as well as a few others who are seeing him off.
Daisy and Welf say their goodbyes. Welf even gives him a magic sword for him to use in emergencies. Daisy gave him some handmade rice balls which he added to his food supplies.
What surprises Axel is that the healer from Apollo is here. After the war, she was essentially kidnapped by Daisy to become her sister in the Shuten familia. As such, Axel got to know her a bit better. Her friend was brought into Shutens Doujis sister familia. Though with them sharing the name and even being secondary immortals for the other children. They are practically one bigger Douji Familia.
"Cassandra, why are you here?" Axel asks.
"I've had another dream and I felt it was related to you" she responds shyly as she fully expects him to not believe her like everyone else.
"Oh, sure. What's the dream about" Axel asks and Cassandra lets out an 'eep' as she didn't expect his reaction. She suddenly blushes, and Raikou takes note of her reaction. She ponders if she would be a good surrogate mother like Syr.
She had recently been informed by Syr that she was well and truly pregnant about 2-3 weeks now. She hasn't told Axel yet as she wanted to save it as celebratory news for after he comes back. As Raikou is lost in thought, she doesnt hear the prophecy.
*The Revenant Night Clears The Sky.
The Chaos Consumer Breaks His Chains.
The Lone Hunter Prays For Her Survival against the children of the night..
The Great Devourer Confronts his Rage.
A Manifestation of Might Made Witness
The 6 Armed Menace and the Beast of Black and Red.
Effeminate Sword and Monstrous Howls.
An Immortal Seal Delivering the Countdown to Doomsday*
Cassandra ends the prophecy and she looks visibly distraught by her own words as she has a flashback of the dream she saw. Daisy helps her sit down for a bit while Axel memorizes the lines and the new layer of curse that is trying to affect him again gets devoured.
Axel then meets with the last person here, Illyasviel, his lovely handler who hands over a fist sized orb and explains that it is the long range communication artifact. Short range ones are smaller but the ruins are quite a distance away. She also hands over a stack of drawn papers. She introduces them as healing talismans that can heal intermediate grade injuries like broken bones but if they are shattered then it can't.
"I had originally planned to give you these once you had reported that you were close to the deep floors but I might as well give them to you now." she states and Axel pockets them. She then goes on to explain that a series of temporary stations had been set up to speed up your travels. She tells him where the first station that he can visit after clearing out the castle ruins.
He gives one last round of hugs before finally leaving. He first rushes off to the castle to do some reconnaissance. Upon arriving, he huddles into some bushes. He then observes his surroundings. He finds that soldiers, both armored and unarmored are constructing defensive spikes, Repairing the wall that the temp family had broken during the war.
He spends the first half hour just scouting out the location to get knowledge of some placements. He then repeats what he did with the war and throws a rock on top of the wall and teleports over and quickly knocks out the guards. Luckily Winter is starting to get close and thus the days are getting shorter. It's just an hour or two past noon and already looks like it's dusk. So visibility is being stretched thin slowly. As such, he moves rapidly with occasional blinks (teleports) to close the distance and take out more groups. He isn't afraid of using his gluttony powers here so none get a word out as a single punch drains them of everything. One person who didn't have a falna outright turned to dust after getting hit by Axel. Granted it was a fully unrestrained blow to see what he could really do and he was not disappointed.
With pretty much the entire group of Raikian soldiers taken care of. He destroys part of the supplies while wrapping up the rest so he can bring it away with him. It took a while for him to actually tie the giant bundle of resources up and then out of the castle since it didn't fit through the gate. So he had to drag it up to the walls and then lower it down with rope. He had tied up multiple ropes so it didn't snap.
With his first mission done, he begins to travel to the supposed checkpoint where he finds a group of Ganesha people on standby. A group of people standing around one normal hut and a second slightly larger one that looks like a shed. They quickly get up and are armed when they see a dark figure approaching them. They sheathe their weapons upon seeing Axel with a ton of supplies being supported over his head.
He sets the supplies down and says, "Courtesy of Rakia. Now where am I going next?"
"You're already done with the castle?" One asks with shock in his voice. Axel just nods.
A moment of Silence ensues before the door to the small hut setup here is thrust opened.
An executive of the Ganesha familia comes out and sees both Axel and the supplies.
"Come in kid, rest a bit. You have a long journey ahead. The rest of you idiots get to sorting the loot or you get overtime with no pay." Like disciplined soldiers, they get to work while Axel is bemused as he enters the hut.
"Have a seat. Drink a bit." The executive says as he crashes into his own chair.
"I'm quite fine. I didn't break that much of a sweat against them. They didn't even know I was there until too late." Axel politely declines sitting down as he wants to finish the mission quickly.
"Heh, I like your style, kid. You'll go far but I need to tell you some details that the guild didn't share. " At this Axel finally sits down.
"Hmm." He nods his head. "The first thing you should know is that it was a member of the Ganesha familia that had disappeared on this mission beforehand. He was just level one but he was talented. Close to level 2. Naturally your far stronger but the very fact that no message was sent back is worrying enough as something level 2 or higher had killed him."
Axel's face gains a grim expression as he recognizes that the prophecy might hold harsher details than he knew. He just nods and the man continues.
"Second is that as you get closer to the location, the more the local monsters and another unknown type of scorpion monsters are riled up. We have even begun getting news of the monsters around here even being affected. Let's just hope the dungeon remains the same." He sets forth the second piece of bad news to Axel.
"The third is that the only artemis familia member we found alive is named Kyrene as was a secondary executive of the group, she was level 2 but from the few tidbits we learned. The Artemis Familia had a level 3 as their captain, so don't take any risks." He warns Axel once last time and tells him that Kyrene was being moved slowly to Orario to let her recover and hopefully she could impart more insights. She would be found at the third of four checkpoints in his journey.
Axel then receives a map of where the next checkpoints are as well as the general location of his destination. The hectic monster groups make it impossible to narrow down the location.
Axel accepts to rest for an hour more before being introduced to the mighty steed personally raised by Ganesh himself and chosen to be Axel's travel companion to the Elsos Ruins.
"Treat the horse with care. It's quite smart and is heavily pampered by our god. If anything happens to it then expect a war game challenge from us."
"Isn't that a bit overzealous?" Axel asks, confused but he only gets a head shake in response.
"If you saw how our god was acting after hearing that his precious horse was being ridden by another then you would understand. "I am Ganesha, I AM Ganesha, i am ganesha. Ganesha" The executive gives a small showing of his portrayal of his god.
Axel almost has the urge to laugh but doesnt as he can tell that this is a serious situation. He agrees to treat the horse with care before he gets on the saddle and the horse rushes off into the distance.
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As promised, we get to have a talk about the Elsos Ruins. For those in the know or have watched the danmachi movie: Arrow of Orion. Then the great tragedy that awaits us at Elsos is Antares. A giant ancient scorpion monster that reveals that monsters which kill or eat gods or spirits have a chance to access their powers.
So the good boy Antares eats the Goddess Artemis and gains access to the Goddess' Arcanum. This idea is theoretically linked to OEBD (one eye black dragon) and how it got so strong was because it ate Ais' mom, Aria, the spirit of Wind and thus OEBD gained wind powers in addition to its already supernatural strength.
But back to the movie, it supposedly takes place between the first and second season and naturally, Bell is just a recent level 2 at this point. Maybe having fought the black goliath already but still level 2. And he won against Antares. Though im sure there was alot of plot armor since everyone and critics agree that the movie is full of plot holes but whatever.
An interesting tidbit instead is that there seems to have been some sort of Danmachi x Seven Deadly sins crossover. The SDS has a version of Bell called Darius who is demonfolk and close to Meliodas and his brothers. But even then, Bell/Darius had fought Antares after the goddess Artemis passed on the arrow of Orion until it reached Darius. This is useful information b/c Antares does not have it's own wiki page in danmachi so im using a few details from that. Yall welcome to look it up to look forward to the shit show ahead. I will be watching the danmachi movie for more accuracy and canon events.
Gnight.