C97: Calamitous pillar of Fear
Overall Word count = 2141 on 6/12/2024. (good fights require a good word count)
(Music rec: The only thing I know for Real. Sam boss theme from Metal Gear Revengeance)
(fun fact. I never got a chance to properly enjoy any of the music for that game except the 'tutorial' boss music. Mostly because until the final boss fight, I didn't know how to change the angle of my blade. Skill issue)
With his breakfast finished, Axel follows the servant again to where he would take his third and final challenge. He is a bit curious what the king has in store for him as he has shown off tenacity through defending against the king's attacks while his will power was tested in the second trial.
When he arrives at the stadium, he finds that it has been redesigned. From the previous full circle stadium, the current shape is that of a crescent moon format. As such, there is no place for Axel to actually enter as the stadium is purely just seats for the guests.
He walks around the outer perimeter of the crescent arena to the main arena stage as there is an actual platform this time around. A round of applause is heard for his appearance. He guesses that he made quite the impression yesterday to the crowd by surviving so much in the span of an hour.
The same golden room is standing at the top of the crescent stadium where Gilgamesh waits for half an hour before Enkidu seems to tell him it's ready. He then gets up and floats over the stadium, so everyone can witness his 'glory'.
"The second day of this challenger's trial, he survived a powerful poison that has taken down various powerful monsters and people alike. He mustered the strength to resist the onslaught of this King's blades, narrowly keeping his life in both trials." The king gives a reminder of yesterdays and while it seems like he is hyping up the crowd and Axel, to him, it feels like the king is proclaiming that his survival was all dumb luck thus far.
Yet the crowds cheer dismiss his annoyance as he waves to them a bit, he is afterall, doing this for their entertainment. Though he has an odd feeling now that he is here. Not sick or anything but a sort of intuition that inspires fear in him. He has only felt such a sensation from the black phoenix from the dungeon. But that was a situation where he was outclassed and luckily survived because his previous recent abilities were the weakness of the bird.
Axel raises his hand to around his waist as he looks down at it with confusion over how his arm is shaking. Yet before he can ponder the situation of his body. A distant tremor is heard and felt as something from the sand rises. Gilgamesh continues his speech.
"Yet his third and final trial awaits him now. He must replicate a feat that me and Enkidu had accomplished in our youth. To defeat the remnant of the defeated gods arcanum. The proclaimed 'son' of the god Utu, born to unleash his wrath upon us humans because we mortals resisted his rule oh so long ago." he proclaims and Axel along with the entire audience bare witness to the giant golem before them. Its body is primarily humanoid, meaning that it has a central body with the top part being the face. 2 arms and two legs.t has a halo/circlet hovering around it that spins.
It's body composition is a mix of stone and metal where it's central body is metal with 3 house sized holes where it would be a 'face'. Meanwhile, the arms and leg stumps are made of a mix of stone and sand. The 'shoulders' and 'hips' are made of sand while the hands and rest of the legs (excluding the knee which is sand again) is made of stone.
Axel would have been confused on the way that the sand is somehow used as the joints instead of stone but it guesses it helps to prevent chafing between parts. Yet Axel has no time to ponder this as both he and the audience are filled with fear. It's as if everyone except the group of legends observing the situation are witnessing the wrath of nature itself.
"Yes, the challengers' role here today is to defeat the Divine Construct and guardian of the Ancient cedar forests of this land. A role it has long failed, Huwawa. It has long failed it's task as we are certainly surrounded by a desert and not a forest. As such, Madness has seeped into its mind with righteous vengeance against Humanity as a whole. Now the challenger shall stand as the newest human champion to stave off the creature's wrath." The kings every word of introduction only seems to amplify the audience's fear as they place their hopes on Axel to defeat it so that they aren't killed in its mad rage.
Axel himself takes a combat stance in preparation but he quickly notices that there are thin golden chains wrapped around the construct which prevent it from getting closer to the stadium.
"Well, go on. It's waiting for you." the king waves Axel away and he realizes that the king never planned to endanger the people…just him. Axel begins to analyze the beast and he can understand that just like himself, Huwawa is proud of it's strength and defense while its other aspects suffer a bit more.
Axel takes a deep breath as he summons both asura and mantra arms onto himself. He then proceeds to summon various soul weaponry that he can. The first set of arms carry a set of chain whips, the 2nd set is a sword and broken sword in each hand, the third set is the bow, Axels own hands carry a pair of cestus, the 4th pair of arms carry 2 fire attuned swords linked to a set of chains that wrap around it's forearms., the 5th set carry a singular frosty ax and the last set of arms carry a flexible long chain.
(hammer from phoenix fight was the representation of asura but since it's being used to carry and use the weapons, it can't be manifested)
The crowd regains some of their vigor upon seeing Axel buff up and carry a variety of weapons. Axel himself finally charges past the chain barrier and immediately is assaulted by a stone foot from the giant golem. Yet Axel meets the foot head-on as the cestus connects to the foot which causes tons of cracks to spread before the Leviathan Ax from the 5th set of arms that are stationed just around Axel's waist, swing upward into the cracked region and instantly freeze all the chunks there. The 4th set which held the flame blades then struck the frozen region. The chains emit a pulse of fire which detonates the frozen region apart.
The first encounter falls in Axel's favor as the bottom of the foot is destroyed then sand around them fills in the gaps before it somehow becomes solid stone again. Axel is surprised but not before Huwawa sweeps it's arm across the ground which sends Axel flying. He was able to reduce the overall impact with his cestus and then the chain whip along with the actual chain wrapping around said goldem's arm so he isn't blown miles away.
Grrreegh.
Axel grunts a bit from the strike but he remains sturdy as he uses a bit of mantra force from his foot to swing back in the direction of the golem. It tries slap Axel away with it's other arm but misses as Axel unravels the chain whip to slap it against the golems 'chest' so that he can pull himself out of the arms reach. Upon making contact with the chest, he begins running up it's body, unleashing hell from all his weapons before he climbs up along it's 'shoulder'.
The sand attempts to entrap him inside but Axel slams his two fiery blades into the upper forearm and 'neck', He then releases the same blades chains so that he can use them as a swing to encircle the sandy shoulder before landing on the other side of where he started his gymnastic swing. Heat is channeled through the blades which cause it release an eruption along the length of the blade but Axel also uses his own firestorm spell through his cestus. The gloves themselves already possess the gravity attribute from Radahn.
Due to all these factors combined, Huwawu's shoulder essentially breaks off in a mighty contained explosion. Gravity focused all the fire power deeper inside the sand even though the chains themselves were only on the outer layer of the sand.
The golem loses his whole arm due to a layer of glass between its central body and the actual sand that remains from the explosion. The glass acts as an intrusive barrier between body and arm. The colossus trembles, as if in pain before a monsoon like sound is released. A calamity of a thousand different voices yelling out resounds through the air.
WOOOOOORRRRRRRRR.
The sound shocks Axel who is closest to the noble giant. He is sent back to the edge of the stadium. Meanwhile the king and advisor steady themselves as to prevent themselves from trembling before a foe that they had already defeated.
Axel coughs a bit due to the knocked up sand that entered his mouth. He grabs a clump of sand and momentarily dispels the sword, broken sword and bow combo as he throws the sand clump. Axel vanishes from where he was to where he threw the sand clump. And that is right next to the Divine Golems' lost arm. He noticed that there is still energy flowing through it all which is maintaining it's current form and not outright becoming separated chunks of stone and sand. With his glove covered hands and the two upper sets of arms that are now free of weapons.
He grabs…
And he lifts…
The arm up above himself by the Humerus (upper arm part). Just like with his signature giant sword, he sends the arm back at the divine golem but it retaliates by grabbing the 'fist' of the arm. Now by this point, Axel had been channeling his gluttony at full power to weaken the arm he was holding to ensure that it couldn't just remerge with it. Instead he found that Huwawu's lost arm and left arm. A proper connection is established as it wishes to recover the energy within the lost arm. Yet in doing so, the rest of it's body is now coated in the full power gluttony. It can naturally feel itself being weakened by a strange black shadow covering its body.
(due to the long distance away from Axel, gluttony is visible)
The divine instrument ponders it's next course of action before it decides to do so. It's own seems to flee it's body as it is condensed in one spot. Axel notices that the golems body begins to break apart, but not because it's dead, but because it gave up on the outer shell.
The giant sand stone arm collapses apart, knocking up tons of smoke, dust and ash due to Axels fire usage. He waved his arms around to disperse the dust storm he caused.
The sight before him is shocking. A 6' tall, pale looking blue-green haired person stands around the rubble of Huwawa. Axel is confused but he doesnt relax as he can feel due to all the energy he absorbed that the person before him is still Huwawa but in human form.
Yet what is most shocking to Axel is that Huwawa looks like a variant version of Axel's previous appearance of his post growth spurt look after he gorged on food. The major difference is that Huwawa appears more lean, doesnt have a dick, and has the extra green hair aspect and the original white halo/circlet still rotating above it's head.
Up above, Enkidu frowns as he looks at one of his first friends' current appearance. He instead sees it as a variant of himself due to their shared childhood friendship. The arcanum golem did not use to be a weapon of destruction, that only happened after the god died and the forests it was assigned to were threatened.
Enkidu is aware that the golem taking on a human form means that it's intellect has taken on a more matured intellect after so many years.
Axel is confused if he should continue to fight it but he is offered no choice before the human shaped golem is now suddenly in front of Axel with it's fist emitting great might poised to strike Axel's face.