C39: Antares and Soul Shock. Unparalleled Rage
Word count = 2076 on 2/18/2024
Since we are here now. Let's jam. Music recommendations are any of 3: "Riot" by Hollywood undead, "Monsters" by All TIme Low or "In My Head" by Mike Shinoda. These songs provided inspiration for this chapter though it was a different opponent and felt much more epic than this. On the crisp of being legendary but this works too.
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Just a bit ways off, from much higher up, a Giant Rex sized beast of a scorpion descends. There is a single central eye on its head. It has 6 tendrils sticking out of its back along with 2 giant pincers bigger than Axel's entire body.
Axel takes off his backpack and tosses it through the hole as well, landing on the huntress. "Ugh"
"Pretty cute, You must be Antares" Axel sarcastically says.
RHOOOOOM The Giant black scorpion with red lines criss-crossing its body releases a deep roar as if it was just taunted. It quickly jumps down to the valley where Axel is. A beam of Energy charging up in front of its mouth before being released into Axel. The beam strikes where he was but when the dust settles, Antares finds the human adventurer climbing up it's pincer arm. "Shade that I Am" Axel barely activates his Shade skill to counterattack the 3 tendrils on it's right side to get Axel off.
Axel regrets using gluttony to knock the tendrils away as his body undergoes a completely new reaction as his gluttony is thrown into overdrive due to it being strengthened after hitting Antares' tendrils. He quickly can tell that his gluttony absorbed part of the absorption or gluttony styled ability that Antares has. This is serving as fuel to enhance his skill and soul.
Yet the negative comes in the form of soul instability as Gluttony has to take in only the exact essence of the skill while distributing the rest to the other soul fragments or unawakened ones. Regardless of the situation, the result is that Axel is smacked away as he could not absorb the entire attacking force from 3 tendrils. When he lands, he wipes away a bit of blood that was on his lips.
RAAAOOOOOR. Antares let's out a strange roar as if it just realized that someone of it's was missing. Axel gets a spine tingle as he realizes a threat to his life and promptly jumps away from the spot he was, A good thing as he found that the left side tendrils had burrowed underground at some point during their small scuffle.They attempt to grab him but he just beats them away with a regular shockwave.
"Flame Bolt" he calls out his spell to summon a flaming lance to see how well his magic works against the enemy but when it lands on the tendril, it just explodes with no other damage done. Axel shakes his head as he finds the tendril is primarily unharmed if at most knocked back a foot. He has to elevate his long distance spells to the next tier before it could be useful on such powerful monsters. At most his reinforcement magic could work here but that is just overlaying on top of his exceptional strength.
Axel takes to doing hit and run maneuvers while slightly weakening the giant beast. During this time, Kyrene has bandaged up Artemis and given her some food and water enough for her to at least stand.
"Lady Artemis, we must get out of here" Kyrene pleads her goddess but she shakes her head.
"We will just be surrounded by the other monsters and die a needless death. At least here we are safe until we can gather more strength." Artemis gives a logical but semi hopeless explanation.
"But, but Axel can get us out of here." Kyrene tries once more.
"What can one person do? If he is the one who is fighting Antares then his death is guaranteed, it's just a matter of how long he survives." Artemis seems to be mentally distraught as the crushing reality of all but one familia member dying and herself being on the brink of death.
Kyrene, annoyed at her goddesses attitude, heads over to the crack and yells out.
"Titan, are you able to keep us safe until we leave the ruins?"
At the same time the question is asked, Axel himself is sent flying as he had to dodge another underground surprise as well as the pincer smacking him out of the air..
Cough "Yea, with ease. Just keep close so I can block all the monsters in the way. Get the whistle from my bag. We have a horse waiting for us" He answers with a smile on his face as he is having fun from the proper challenge.
Kyrene grabs Axel's bags and soon enough finds the whistle in one of the side compartments. She puts it in her pockets and tosses both their bags just outside the crack. She goes over to her goddess and puts the divine's arm over her mortal shoulder. Artemis is shaking her head in the blind faith before the situation at hand. Once they are both out, Antares let's out a gluttonous roar as it finds it's prize has finally left its hidey-hole.
It tries to go after them, ignoring Axels feeble attempts but he gets a lucky strike on one of the beasts legs and breaks it clean off which makes it stumble a bit. Kyrene and Artemis begin to shuffle out of the cave.
ROOOOOAAAAOOOORRR. A familiar roar is heard from antares and scorpions shuffling into the ruins is seen and heard. As they try to approach the huntress duo, blue, peach and black shades that confront the lesser rexs'. The blue and black shades use their shockwaves to either kill or drain the beasts while the peach parasyte one wraps it's tendril arms around a scorpion before using it as a mace against others of it's kind. This helps stave off the threat. But with the range limit, Axel has to keep backpedaling to keep pace with the group and protect them.
Antares, seeing that they are successfully escaping, charges up a beam. "Oh no you don't". The shades release powerful unified attacks at once to create a clear zone without monsters by the huntresses while Axel himself throws a rock at Antares' head.
Using the rock, he teleports over and overlays the shades on himself to strike the Giant scorpion's head which makes the energy beam strike the roof and side walls.The rocks from the roof begin to fall on the escaping duo. Combined with the threat of monsters. Axel panics for the first time.
"Noooooooo" His cry of panic showcases red markings similar to Antares' own to light up but different as heat is being emitted from these marks. His lapse in judgment allows him to get hit and he is slammed down just in front of the observing duo.
There is silence as Kyrene panics from their defender being defeated as there is a complete lack of movement in the small pit where Axel landed. Artemis has a look of resolution as she hopes to sacrifice herself to at least allow Kyrene to escape. She begins to use her arcanum one last time when cracking is heard.
The cracking seems to originate from the pit as the dust begins to settle slowly but a humanoid outline is seen. The cracking continues as 4 squelching noises are heard and 4 'tendrils' shoot out from the figure's body. The tendrils form into a set of 2 arms not including the original set of arms that the figure had. One set is just behind the original, as if a continuation of the shoulders with the 2nd set being closer to the ribs yet still merging into the first set and original. It creates a symmetrical but also slightly cluttered image of arms.
(A/N: essentially the first new will be referred to as upper arms, the original is middle arms while the 2nd set is lower arms)
Both huntresses witness glowing lines form on the figure, a crisp outline against the dust. When the lines, which began from the feet to the head, reach the eyes, they open. Glowing red. Full of Wrath. The figure begins to tremble as the 6 arms clench their fists
"RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" DRURURURURUR BOOM. the dust around the figure is blown out as a red aura surrounds the now revealed, 6 armed Axel. The aura gets off Axel to reveal a 6 armed shade that begins to grow inside as the other shades enter it's body as well. It is only then that the shade punches out behind the figure which scatters ALL the scorpions before it merges back into Axel who is still yelling out. Only when it merges that he stops yelling.
A quake is suddenly heard as the area where Axel just was splits apart from his leap. The duo take this hint to begin moving again but not before taking a look to find that Antares head was almost torn off from the punch. About halfway but it rapidly regenerates just as it's previously torn leg did. Axel continues to wail upon the beast but blood keeps flowing out of his mouth as his soul is still undergoing shock. This time it's not just one fragment but two. Granted the 2nd is a minor soul but there is something the two have in common. Rage.
The major soul which is responsible for the 6 arms was a former god who was betrayed by his comrades. They had killed his wife and captured his daughter to concentrate faith or mantra towards themselves. They had been using his daughter as a conduit for this energy but when he finally was unsealed he began to procedurally strike down his betrayers one by one until he finally rescued his daughter and slayed the true leader behind all this, Chakravartin but not without losing all his power and life in the process as this being was behind mantra itself.
The second but slightly lesser fragment was a human who was raised as a warrior, a life of suffering before him until he was accepted into a loving group that changed his perspective. Unfortunately to reach his goals, he had to leave the group and become better yet the end result was a demonic slaughter created by the very leader of the group he so loved. This betrayal threw him into a perpetual sense of rage that was only muddled after countless battles and the hope that his now disabled lover would live in peace. A giant blade given to him by a lonely blacksmith being his only companion for months if not years before he must rekindle his own hope of peace and a chance at slaying the reborn demon that was his leader. His rage served as fuel for every battle he was ever a part of as the demonic taint stuck to him like musk.
Both these embodiments of rage are raging inside Axel right now and Antares is serving as a worthy punching bag for Axel's new found and original fists. Antares is getting regularly staggered by the strikes but nothing is truly leaving a proper lasting mark.
Axel is finally slapped away by a tendril after he had just ripped out 3 of them with his 3 pairs of arms. Axels eyes stop glowing as his body is struggling to even move as the rage is burning away at his resolve and body. He vomits out one last bucket of blood before reaching into his pants pockets which luckily were not burned or ripped to shreds. He sticks a healing talisman from Illyasviel onto his body and he begins to heal. Though it's not immediate, not slow but it could be faster. But he is healed just enough to be able to move again, Antares is in the middle of regenerating its limbs and thus immobile. Axel takes this chance to escape after the huntress duo.
Speaking of, when the duo arrive outside the ruins, they find a slaughter of organs and monster parts. A pink haired knight swiping their blade of blood. The duo find that there isn't a drop on the knight. The knight soon turns around and with a grin and waves to them, the knight cutely say "Yahoo"