C256: Finale Pt3
Alt title (it's back):"What is Divinity?"
Date published: 9/16/2025.
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"Forgive me, but to properly save you this time around, I must make you suffer some more. I hope you don't hold it against me" The cloaked man requests forgiveness but doesnt relent as he grabs his trident with his other hand and thrusts upward with his voice turning guttural.
"NIHIL"
A bloody mist bubble envelops the duo as with the thrust upwards, the hollows body seems to explode in visceral bloody patterns. Eyes burst with blood, organs get crushed and along with muscles, they bleed out through all available pores. Any tatters of clothing are now just rags of blood.
It certainly didn't help that the mysterious blood user who stabbed the hollow too is enveloped in his blood from the gut wounds he created, the three punctures acted like serves for a deluge of blood to pour down upon him. Yet he remains unperturbed and a few even notice how the blood just seems to disappear as it lands on him too long. His robes seemingly trembling from the contact with blood but nothing more happens.
As silence envelops the space, only one individual seems to still be acting normal or perhaps too normal as Rebecca reverts to her old ways, "WOAH, that was preem choom, how about you teach me that grandpa. Making stuff explode is my speciality but you did this without any boom. You should make it even bigger next around"
"That's great grandpa to you child. But not now, i must extract the hollow first. I make blood explode, not gunpowder" The man doesnt seem to take offense to her brashness and even patiently explains a few small details and Rebecca even rubs her hands together in finding out how to make blood explode, maybe she can make some bigger booms in the future through some of these techniques and her divinity.
'Im gonna need to make a second nuclear testing sight, arent I?' Axel thinks to himself as he steps forward to close the distance with the man who he feels a strange resonance with.
As he does, Axel witnesses the robed man lift his right hand with flickers of black flame that make Axel pause as he can feel a grave threat should those flames touch him at all, much less anyone else here.
Axel soon has to make a new barrier to protect the robed man as the hogyoku vibrates and soon enough the horns on the hollows head begin to glow before a concentrated orb of energy appears between them. The trident rips out of the hollows body as Axel's barrier isolates the hollow within his own Cero explosion.
"Appreciate it" the robed man nods in approval as he returns his attention to the barrier that shortly dissipates, allowing the Axel to blow some wind to shake the dust cloud away.
The most obvious change to the hollow is that he is no longer covered in his own blood. The second change is that the hole in his chest where the hogyoku was is once again sealed. The third being that his demeanor and style is less akin to a rabbit with spikey bits, and more like a demon now, complete with a black skull-like mask covering his face. Said mask forehead possesses a red teardrop in the center of a pentagram, a symbol similar to the hollows eyes which have his special eyes.
The hollow touches his chest where the hogyoku has taken a similarly black shade, who knows what he is thinking about as he simply stands there but everyone here isn't about to simply let him be.
Axel rushes forward first but he is the second to arrive as a black wave from the robed man was fired off first with a swipe of his hands.
One of the hollow's horn seems to shift on it's own as it conjures a Cero to nullify the wave attack while the other shoots a second at Axel who had rushed through the smoke cloud.
Axel swipes his hand at the incoming beam, creating a spatial tunnel to redirect the attack away, specifically out through his world and into empty space. Though Axel does sweat drop a bit as he could feel how the spatial tunnel was being ripped apart just from the pressure of the beam. He had to actively repair it to actually pull it off.
This split focus provided the hollow the necessary pause to finally finish its thoughts as he looked to Axel before swiping his hand out, the previous gloves have now properly integrated into the hands themselves and created extendable claws. Axel is nearly helpless as the claws come in contact with his face, sending him flying whilst also serrating his face in 3 places.
The first being across his forehead, the second across his cheeks and nose and the third across his jaw and lips. Axel was able to reduce the damage so his head itself was not smacked off but whatever change the hollow just underwent, there is lingering energy that erodes his soul which makes completely healing it much harder and more painful than the previous blood red flames of his own.
Strangely enough, even though both the robed man and the hollow utilize blood red flames, their ideology in its usage couldn't be more different. The hollows are focused upon bonds and burning them to inflict suffering while the other's is tainted in blood and death.
CLANG CLANG
Axel looks up to find that the robed man is fighting in close combat with the hollow. Somehow his heavy thick trident is meeting every blow of the hollows' quick claws. With some quick splashes of liquid fire and bloodflame explosions, he is able to keep pace, unlike Axel who somehow lags behind.
While Axel extends his senses to figure out what makes this unknown man so special the others keep fighting.
Rebecca takes up a strategic position before taking out a box of weapon, Stacking tons of c6 charges and hanging them over to passionlips who uses her light divinity to send them out like frisbee so that Rebecca can remotely detonate them behind the hollow. Of course Rebecca doesnt do this alone, alternating between her twin smgs, shotgun and her divinity cannon (a rocket launcher), she sends tons of projectiles and explosions at the hollow without disrupting the pace of the robed man.
Gorgon acts in the support role as she obstructs the hollow's movement but as the great breaks apart from rebecca's actions, her own become more limited without injuring the robed man, as such she resorted to her mana threads of old to tug at the hollow's body to annoy him.
Raikou and the others instead take a close distance approach, the lightning goddess takes to hit and runs to not disrupt anyone else but her exchanges likely end up with her accumulating injuries as her physical strength is vastly underwhelming compared to the hollows own. It's to a point where any form of skill she can use with her katana is overwhelmed by said strength.
The most crazy seems to be Serena as she had entered her own peak state, the sage of six paths form as a white cloak made of energy forms around her, the iconic blue hair turning half white and half black as his 6 orbs float behind her. A staff made of the same material as the orbs as she begins walking forward into the fray.
Utilizing her own devouring, she mixes it with a Jutsu that causes a mist to spread from her body, it sticks to her and doesnt spread out too far yet that is enough as she jumps into close combat with the hollow alongside the robed man.
With the various explosions, shockwaves and so many divinities passing through the area around the hollow, all of it is being absorbed by Serena whose half human body begins to grow stronger and stronger.
This provides a small revelation to her own father as he seems to notice a pattern between her, himself and the robed man.
Divinity.
And not just any form of divinity but true divinity. Due to the accumulated law energies, Axel had fallen into a trap, one of his own design.
From the very beginning since he first used the asura ritual to become a demi god, he had been exposed to law energy or rather what Axel considered divine energy. It had allowed him to triumph over hundreds of monsters and otherworldly gods.
Yet it is now that he realizes he never truly specialized in using this energy, he had firstly chalked it up that because he had so many, he couldn't specialize, at most gift specialization to others, but that was not the case, or rather a variation of that.
He had stifled his own growth by having so much and hadnt even bothered to organize any of it. Too many contrasting elements gave rise to chaos, and it is this chaos that allowed the later learned chaos magic to even be learned or studied.
It was not at all based on his own intellect or understanding of chaos but his body's own mismash of powers. This all has certainly helped him put all his powers into perspective, now he can work to fix it.
The first thing he does is lock his body. This so-called lock is just to keep his body from gaining any new energy as he begins to gather and expel hundreds of unnecessary and conflicting laws.
With a similar prerequisite to Blythe and Rapheal's clone body, Axel makes a new proper clone that would hold a seed of these powers, mostly those non combat focused or just esoteric concepts like family. This shift does mean that a few of his lovers like Syr do feel themselves grow a bit weaker but not disappear as Axel at most has a mental connection to this new body to retain control.
It certainly helps that they weren't in the fight anyways so it did not change much here.
From there, he sends the body back to his world as he takes control of the still expelled energy orb.
"Serena, catch" Axel shouts as he throws the ball forward into the battlefield. The prodigal daughter spots the orb and grins at the gift as she separates from the battlefield, Meredith momentarily taking over to stall the hollow so that he couldn't lay claim to it himself.
Seeing that he couldn't claim it, Evil Xavier attempts to destroy them by releasing a Cero at the law orb but Serena notices this and creates a barrier using her truth seeking orbs. This combined with her limbo clone, she is able to claim the orb, setting down to mediate with it as he devouring is put into overdrive and claiming the energies as her own.
That is the principle difference between her devouring and Axel's own is that she takes in energy to make her own while Axel takes in to convert into his own. A minor detail but it means that Serena dominates energy and transforms it into her own usable energy while Axel stores it, keeping its original nature.
This is why when Serena takes in the energy of this orb, her own body and energy begins to rise dramatically as this is a planet's worth of mixed up law energy that was given to her.
Through her own adventures in the naruto world, she laid claim to the title of goddess of ninjas but it was only that, a title, she had been far from reaching proper divinity even with taking in the yin and yang energy of the sage of six paths and ten tails. Her present state was that of an ascended human and she had created an opening in the recent fight to become a quasi demi god through absorbing so many different divine energies and soul energy too. It was only a matter of accumulation before she created her own path forward.
Axel has plenty to catch up on as he has to focus on what he wants to become, what type of god he could be, what path he will take in life. Truthfully, the answer is self explanatory based on his history.
From his first day in Orario, to his first day into the dungeon, to the first interdimensional world travel and even now. One thing had been constant, he had followed a path that was seemingly laid out for him. Be it by his powers, his potential, his soul or some unknown outside element caused by the hollows action.
It is time Axel laid claim to himself, to a 'one' instead of many like he had done up until now. In this world where legends give rise to heroes, it shall now give birth to a new god, one who has forged his own path.
BANG
The hollow slams his claws into the robed man's trident as they are finally separated, he also knocks away the amazoness with a simple swipe of his leg. If she was not regularly healed by the medic that shares the same face as his target, he would already killed the vast majority of the women here.
The hollow looks to Serena and Axel with both of their energies rising in unison born of mutual understanding. This state that they both pursue is one that reminds him of the bastardly individual before him now, the so-called god that had created him and ruined the original humans both he and Xavier were.
He would not allow these two to reach the same state as him when he himself has failed thus far due to the incomplete hogyoku he has. With claws extended, he makes his way to the closest one he could get to which was the girl.
"Not so fast, I told you that I would be the one to save you. So let it happen" HWOOM. In the hollows pursuit to take both of Axel and Serena down, he had neglected the true power of the enemy before him. A black flame rolls up around the god's body as it soon bursts out of him, conjured into floating orbs that track the hollow.
He is able to block most of these orbs of death but misses one that phases through his right arm before dissipating.
"KAGHH" the hollow growls with a cough as he loses all feeling in his right arm up to his elbow, said arm still thankfully exists since he has merged his spiritual and mortal body. Much better compared to his experiences with this god.
Thankfully his hogyoku has already learned it's lesson from last time around as it now creates a flowing ribbon from his back that wraps around his bad arm, allowing him to mentally manipulate it like a puppets arm. From the ribbon, the hollow can feel that his connection to his arm is being gradually restored which means his arm can be healed this time around.
Rage cakes the hollows face but his own final goal takes priority as he charges at Serena, horns sprout from his body under the hogyoku's partial evolution as he unleashes a multitude of beams at all his attackers.
BOOM
A massive explosion envelops the sealed space as all the goddesses protect themselves but the main force is the combination of the returned Alaba alongside Gorgon.
With Alaba's divinity and her magical experiences, the two create a versatile flowing barrier that tanks all the ceros but this prevents them all from seeing the situation. Only the god has an understanding of what is about to happen.
As the hollow Xavier is about to cut down Serena in the prime of her life, a pillar of energy bursts out from her as her hands are clasped together where the law energy orb used to be. No outwardly difference can be properly spotted in Serena but her demeanor undergoes a chance, giving off the impression of being a warm and welcoming goddess as wings made of energy form behind her.
Throughout her entire life, Serena has known one thing, and that is a type of hunger, or rather an ability that could eternally satisfy her. It granted her a happy family thanks to her father, amazing siblings and then she was allowed to venture out to make her own story and what a story it is.
Eventually she was able to start her own family and even have children. None of this would have been possible for her if she did not have this one specific ability. Any one single detail would have changed and it would not have ended so perfectly for her.
She is grateful for her father for giving her this, she would repay this for as long as she has to until her debt settled and her heart content.
As her body begins to float back down, the barrier dissipates, allowing Serena to open her eyes, her appearance replicates that of a fairy as she slowly lifts her hand, palm forward.
"I am the eternal hunger, the endless void and you are just food"
[Goddess of the Abyss]
Like a chant, from her hand, an endless black hole forms in her hand while energy of a similar nature clouds her figure making her akin to a demoness from the abyss. From her hand, the black hole begins to siphon all energy around her. The vast majority of which comes from the hollow as he has to retreat lest he lose all his power. Thankfully he already had a preliminary resistance to the devouring ability and even faced some unique forms from Axel. otherwise he would have directly died right there.
Unsatisfied with this result, Serena gives chase to the hollow but with her newfound strength, she overshoots and snaps through the barrier hiding them all. The passive devouring energy coating her was enhanced so much that she immediately broke through the super barrier supported by her mother and 'aunties'.
She soon makes her way inside but this already grants the hollow a chance to change his target back to Axel. He still has not reached the necessary energy level as Serena.
"NO" The blood god pursuits the hollow but was one step too late thinking that Serena would have handled the situation. He had overestimated the situation and now they must all pay the price.
SPLURT The single clawed hand soon stabs into Axel's chest, his meditative state interrupted as immense pain is inflicted upon him. His eyes jump open as he looks into the hollows' own sigil-like eyes. Blood flowing from one to the other as the hollows strength begins to replenish and rise further than he has ever had before.
At least until the hollows eyes turn to shock.
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Final Word count: 3176
Drop a comment if you wanna judge my writing or the story. I'll try to respond, especially if you're confused or anything.