C253: End of the Beginning Pt5
Alt title Teaser: Axel's Last Resort
Date published: 8/27/2025.
Important Authors note after word count at end of the chapter. Please read.
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The white of the hollow's eyes had been replaced with black but the Linou Stigmata still remains. Axel recognizes this as an ability that the main character of the show and a select few others had which allowed them to control their hollow side even though they were shinigami.
Hollowfication.
"AGH" The hollow didn't even need to take a single step before he appeared behind Axel. The scythe was raised and crashed down across his back. Strangely the black flame spikes sprouted before the actual attack was made which was why he couldn't dodge in time.
Axel unleashed a burst of energy but the new stigmata activated to drain the outburst, leaving only the spikes embedded in his guts to shatter while the Hollow himself was left untouched and with its reiatsu rising from the absorbed energy.
Axel lashes out by swinging his leg back with the proto-Rhongo dagger attached to his foot but the hollow simply moves a bit out of range, forcing Axel to dodge both the spikes and a followup swing.
Axel touches his back and heals himself but not without a groan escaping his lips. He is currently low on energy as he had unleashed a powerful blow earlier and used up another chunk to reinforce the barrier isolating them.
"What a wonderful ability to control space, yet so useless in your hands." the hollow comments as if their own brain finally understood the complexity of the spatial techniques Axel had demonstrated thus far.
Axel concentrates as he chooses to enact a small trick. As the hollow moves forward once more, standing before Axel with the scythe raised to strike down.
As the scythe comes down and the spikes sprout out, Axel switches with the hollow so that they both miss their strike but get impaled by their own spikes. One of the things Axel had noticed from his [Great Devourer] was that the energy signature changes slightly when the spikes come up, meaning that they can even harm their user unlike Axel's own spells.
One thing that does concern Axel was how much resistance he had faced when he tried to swap the hollow with himself, he understands that his enemy will progressively gain more resistances against his techniques as they fight.
He has to come up with more original techniques and when openings are provided, he has to unleash big attacks to rapidly overwhelm him as otherwise he will be completely suppressed.
The most obvious scenario of this would be now as the hollow too is affected by the bond burning of his own technique, the bond between it and the previous reaper self must be quite strong and thus impact him much harder than Axel would be since he has a stronger devouring to reduce it all and he does not share a soul bond with anyone.
At least, not anymore since he had healed his soul by returning all his broken fragments to their rightful place.
Regardless, he takes this chance by raising the two daggers and stabbing them into the Hollow's back. A burst of Soul Energy and even a newly formed piece of the reapers own bond flame energy. This enhances the already present effect while his soul is also much more gravely injured.
Yet the danger that Axel poses to him seems to momentarily snap him out of the pain inflicted by the bond flames as he sweeps his arm to smack Axel's chin and sends him flying, crashing against his own wall.
A tremor shakes the entire region of the isolated space as since the barrier holds firm, the very ground seems to explode from the sheer force of the shockwave.
Snap
Axel realigns his jaw back in place as the strike had hurt his soul and so he had to manually heal himself back to normal as otherwise he would be stuck this way, his slime body treating it like how it's supposed to be.
While the hollow is still snapping out of the illusions he was subjected to, Axel cancels his chaos spell, shutting down the pale blood moon. As the blood coloration fades and then further as the fake moon itself fades away, Axel finds that the hollows aura decreases by a third.
Afterall, the hollow is a beast, it is driven by the pale blood moon, becoming a higher grade being but with it's disappearance he now weakens.
Naturally, Axel also gets a bit weaker but he has other abilities to keep his power up. As Axel charges forth once more to strike at the still dazed hollow, said hollow stomps his foot and spikes sprout out all around him. This forces Axel to retreat as he plans how he would arrange his next move.
"I wondered why I was stronger than I estimated, I suppose I have to thank you for that as you have taught me a very special spell." The hollow states as it's right eye shines before beginning to bleed and fading into gray as the backlash of his current actions made him lose an eye, a red ball of energy forms in between his pale hands.
Axel himself pales as he can tell what that orb of energy is, he quickly rushes forward, a mix of speed force, light and physical enhancement, the current state of [Innate Speed] that Axel can muster, pushes Axel to his physical limit as he zooms around the hollow, swinging his pair of daggers multiple times creating hundreds of gashes across his body in a short time.
Then with another burst Axel seeks to sever the hollow's arms, yet he was one step too late. Even as the daggers stab into the arms, shredding them to bits and causing great pain to the hollow, other than a groan of pain he maintains a grin upon his face as the red orb is already self sustained and floating into the sky, becoming a new pale blood moon.
Blood. Kill. Maim, Tear apart. Feast upon the blood. Give In. Fear the asfjsdkfj.
"ARGH"
Axel's mind becomes a mess as he is now the one on the receiving end of the madness effect, one of the few chaos spells he had comprehended. He stumbles around as he feels dizzy from the overwhelming pressure upon his mind and soul which seeks to turn him into a mindless beast.
On the other hand, the hollow now receives the full boost, not only from the creator bonus but also the mad beast bonus as a hollow is nothing more than a beast. An intelligent one but a beast nonetheless.
It can't deny its most basic urge to consume souls and kill to get stronger.
The hollow grins as raises his scythe and calmly approaches Axel. Raising it up high, he swings down and cuts Axel in half, his head and part of his shoulder flying off as a blank expression lies upon his face.
Axel's split parts fall down upon the ground but it is then that the hollow grows angry as the two halves turn into smoke and disappear. He had been caught in an illusion but he felt the attack had connected.
The hollow can only assume it was some sort of illusion with physical mass as he turns around in circles to try finding Axel which should not be so hard in such a limited space but he can only become helpless.
Somehow Axel had expanded the entire space within the barrier, it had elongated the distance near infinitely which stops the blood moons light from reaching them but also creating endless pockets of space that Axel could be within.
It certainly doesnt help that the one remaining eye of the hollow is being overwhelmed with countless spatial spells of the same type but just minorly different to make them unique. The Hollows head hurts as he is overusing his self created eye.
It's not easy to analyze hundreds of spatial pockets that themselves hold hundreds if not thousands of smaller scales spells like fireballs, lightning bolts, ocean waves, ice storms and every other law and magical element is allowed to flow freely inside them.
This would have also been impossible if Axel had not isolated the entire area within a barrier. With an open space, it would have been easy for the Hollow to simply escape and not worry about it. Regardless, such a thing is only possible for someone like Axel who has access to so many laws but in doing so has momentarily lost the ability to use those laws until they are released and returned to him.
Squelch "AHHH"
Which is precisely what Axel does. The previous phantom which had been Axel soon reforms from the smoke as he holds his chest from the bloody cut that crosses from his left shoulder to his right waist. He cant afford to heal himself right now as he is fully concentrated on preserving the many spatial pockets. Yet what does, is reform the twin daggers into the original spear form, said spear stabs the hollow through his back as he is now the one in a dazed state.
With the tip of the spear sticking out of the hollows chest, Axel cancels all the pockets. This releases a tsunami of energy as the concentrated and lawless law based energies are released and naturally seek their home, Axel himself or his Rhongomyniad.
Though Axel's plan is not yet complete as he forms a new spatial barrier around himself, forcing all the law energy to flow through the hollows body, ravaging it before reaching the spear and then flowing back into Axel.
"AGHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH" The hollow screams as all the rampant energies collide against each other in an attempt to reach Axel first.
Burning, Electrocution, Drowning, Stoning, Melting, Shredding, blinded, pierced, bludgeoned, weakened, drained.
Hundreds of effects occur to the hollow as he momentarily becomes a vessel for numerous energies yet none recognize him as their owner or even any connection to him and thus they ravage him incessantly.
"Ha ha ha" Axel pants as he is well and truly out of energy, by momentarily releasing control of his laws, he had also made it so those sources could not give him energy anymore, this was also the case during the reintegration process. This means that he had no way to recover energy except with a few obscure laws related to art and technology staying with him since he had no current way to allow them to flow out and attack.
This energy loss combined with the fact he had to fuel the barrier further to ensure that it didn't fall when the random laws flowed around, lacking a medium to go to and thus lashed out into the surroundings.
The surrounding area had turned charred black, entire hills worth of ground missing and magically contaminated but if given enough time, Axel can restore it to it's original beauty.
Yet it is not yet time to relax and worry about the aftermath when the hollow has not disappeared yet even though he is just kneeling there.
"heh heh" the hollow chuckles a bit, which only makes Axel frown as he is confused as to why he isn't dead yet. He lost his heart, a giant hole in his chest with his entire body destroyed even worse than the surroundings.
"Whats so funny?" Axel questions him as he is slowly regaining his energy. His wound is gradually healing but it's slow and he is helpless to this injury.
"Unlike normal hollows, I was never complete. I had a full form from the very beginning, nobody had been able to gravely injure me like this. Beaten up sure, killed yeah, but never defeated like this.
His left hand moves to the empty space of his chest where his heart used to be. "I've always considered myself heartless for what I did to the other guy in response to his own sins against me. Yet you were different, you were essentially made by me, my creation, my son. Yet I do not have the heart to love you, to care for you, the heart to see you go further."
His right hand has never released his scythe but flicking his thumb along the length of the scythe. It begins to tremble until the top half of it that encompasses the blade just slides off. Revealing that the actual weapon of the hollow was what looks to be a vampire stake this entire time.
Granted it's a weird shape as it has a thick handle of the original scythe and previously spear but after a hilt section, it shrinks down rapidly to needle like precision and sharpness. He brings the stake like rapier before his chest as he mouths out the last word Axel wished to hear.
"Resurrecion"
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Word count: 2218
I might delay the next chapter release so that I could potentially finish up the battle in one go. Though there is also the fact my brother is getting married this weekend so i wouldnt be able to publish on this saturday anyways.
Drop a comment if you wanna judge my writing or the story. I'll try to respond, especially if you're confused or anything.