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They're weak by design, and part of their whole reason for existence is to also showcase that yes, Vin has seen improvement. It may not seem that way because of the sheer power level of his other opponents, but he's pretty much strong enough to beat a full-grown man easily. Combine that with his Sacred Gear, and even without Xenovia's interference, Vin could've likely beaten the entire group on his own. It would have just taken much longer, and maybe the security guard wouldn't have made it out alive.
When up against untrained human opponents like these guys, Vin definitely has the upper hand. If the bottom of the barrel is an unarmed teenager, then the goons would go above them, and just above the goons would be Vin. So… yeah, there's a little power scaling for you guys.
[The Introduction of Durandal]
Alright, here's the big event of this chapter, the introduction of Xenovia's trademark weapon, Durandal. It's described in DxD canon as being super fickle with it's wielders, and that even Xenovia has a hard time controlling it, hence it's pocket dimension. Still, despite that throwaway line in the original series, we don't really see Xenovia truly struggle with the influence Durandal gives off.
In this fanfiction, that's going to be explored more. As Xenovia puts it in this chapter, even after training for years to use Durandal, the best she can really do right now is roughly direct its destruction. Simply put, she's not necessarily wielding Durandal right now, Durnadal is wielding her; so one of the main focuses of this arc in terms of Xenovia's character progression is going to be her struggling with learning to wield Durandal with a greater amount of finesse. Here, we simply see what happens when she directs that burst of power towards her enemies, she goes berserk, barely in control, so much so that she needs to get Vin to evacuate the security guard, because she doesn't know if she could accidentally kill him. It's brutal and a little scary to think about, but still cool nonetheless.
Alrighty, that concludes the chapter's notes and details, so it's time to move onto the Review Roundup! Little bit of a smaller pool of comments today, but that's okay, let's check 'em out!
REVIEW ROUNDUP!
soSentinel says:
"Hey man love the story so far and I'm looking forward to what you end up doing with vin sacred gear cause there are some really cool things you could do with the balance breaker especially because it's a creation-type one. P.S. love the way you've done Xenovia cause tbh she's one of my favourite characters in dxd. Btw what your upload schedule gonna be like cause I want more."
I'm super glad you're enjoying the story so far! I've been putting a lot of effort into it, and I would be lying if it wasn't a bit of an emotional outlet for myself too.
Vin's Sacred Gear is super fun to write, and I think you're going to enjoy the ways it evolves and develops over the next while. It's still stuck in its most basic form, similar to Issei at the very beginning of DxD, but rest assured, it will get stronger, and change form. The choice to make it a creation type was something I wanted since I found a lot of the DxD fandom's fan-made Sacred Gears ended up being mostly being State-Change Gears, Attribute/Element Gears, or some bizarre, impossible amalgamation of several different types. Making it Creation type, I understand that some parallels are going to inevitably be made to Sword Birth and Blade Blacksmith, but I want to promote a slightly different style of battle with Midas' Rings. Instead of attacking with the items created by the gear, like how Kiba will wield swords he creates, Vin instead fights using creation of his crystals, by attacking from a variety of ranges with spires and clusters of sharp crystals. There will be some new things that Vin can do with the crystals later, but for now, I still think it's a bit more of an interesting style of battle, considering that Vin's fighting style promotes a style of fighting that hasn't been explored too much in DxD, and that's keeping and maintaining distance and range. It's a slightly more conscious approach to combat that still doesn't lose out on the simple catharsis of seeing someone beat the shit out of the bad guy.
Moving on, I hold a special place in my heart for Xenovia. Best girl by far, mainly because there's a lot of nuance that can be explored in her that leaves her as a compelling character to adapt and expand on. I also like tomboys, so that too. I hope that this interpretation of Xenovia continues to please you and everyone else reading this story!
Finally, in terms of upload schedule, I don't particularly have one. I find those kind of stifle creativity, even though sometimes a deadline is a necessary evil for writing. Right now, I won't properly commit to a schedule, but I generally like to make a new chapter every few days. That said, I am becoming more and more swamped with schoolwork, so writing and updates may slow down. If I had to give you anything, I'd say try checking in every few days, by following and/or favoriting, you can get updates whenever this story gets a new chapter, so that would probably help. Hope that helped, I'm sorry for my generally sporadic update schedule, but it's just what works best for me, both as a writer, and as another human being who does have a life outside of simply writing this story.
Regardless, thanks so much for taking the time to review! I hope that you enjoy this chapter, and I hope that you're having a great day whenever you're reading this!
Crestowl Returns! What will he say?
"New chapter, although it is a bit short! I don't comment on one chapter, turn around, and another one's already there! Some nice character introductions and other tedious plot points, but overall, I'm looking forward to the next few chapters! I hope you have a more natural power progression for Vin compared to other DXD fanfics, but considering the author's self-awareness so far, I don't think that's gonna be a problem."
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want to read ahead or want to support you can join my patr-eon and u will be able to read ahead by 15 chapters
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