Danmachi: the Great Devourer

C160: Saints Might

Alt Title Teaser: Soul?

Overall Word count = 1499 on 11/16/2024. 

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Moments earlier inside the Village of Origin 

The vast collective of heroes watches in anticipation as the fight between Axel and Alaya had progressed but then their worries intensified with the prime target of this anxiety being Artoria herself who can't leave to placate the sacred spear in any way. For some reason, the group hears the voice of Raphael inside the territory and understands Axel's course of action. 

Witnessing his steadfast attempt to commit to absorbing the vibrant energies, they understand his sacrifice and so the very moment that the fire breath appeared, they shouted their desires to help out with Raikou being the most vocal. 

Yet due to the circumstances, Axel would need time to send them out just far enough to not be affected by the laws and hurt from it. The current situation is quite fatal for them since he has no clue whether the saints have attempted to actively hunt OEBD before or not but from the memories he had gotten before, all heroes who came after it had died or been devoured into nothingness. 

With a plan of action, Axel had first sent out his [Doppelgangers] to buy time for him as well as defend him from the oncoming attack. With the clones final explosion, Axel finally sent out the first group which was Astolfo, Chiron and Achilles. Raikou makes her complaint known but Axel can only grunt as he is now getting shocked by the dark and light lightning laws.

The duo of Achilles and Chiron had both technically been prisoners of Alaya within Orario, their spirits long broken over the countless years the city stood. They have remained passive for so long that they could only be considered shadows of their heroic selves yet Axel's selfless actions rile them back up and they had both decided that a proper legend creating event is what suits them best to get back into gear. 

(V3) LA BLACK LUNA (V2) Troias Tragōidia!! (V1)Antares Snipe!

The first attack to hit was Astolfo's black magical horn, unleashing a tempest of various animals roars and calls as the OED is squished into the ground like a pancake, interesting enough, small bits of it's body even peel off under its dismantling nature (it atomizes you if you are weak enough. I did not know this during the initial antares fight but it would have only lost a few legs that it would have regenerated anyways).

After the horn had sounded, the second to strike was the falling star of the goat saint, Chiron [1] who was the one to unleash the arrow that burned like a bright sun in the afternoon sky before coming down like a meteor upon the humanoid lizard. Axel has no clue why the technique is named after the scorpion he helped kill unless Chiron had been there to actually help the original spirits of Artemis to seal it away. 

With another crater created by the arrow, the third move which took longer to activate as he has to summon his horses and then chariot to unleash a wave of green flames that covers the dragon man. OED is sent tumbling about from being slammed into by the chariot but it at least can retaliate this time around by destroying the phantom of one of the horses. It had somehow grabbed onto a handful of strange energy from the horse and then devoured it. 

Achilles throws up blood as a result, he knows instinctively that he had actually lost the very soul of one of his mounts. "XANTHOS, NOOOO" he cries out as the green flame is rapidly weakened and the dragon escapes the range of the chariot with a grin on it's face. It briefly glimpses at Axel as if confirming something before it's grin turns even wider before it rushes at Achilles

(Astolfo) "Leave it to me, Great Beast of the sky, run rampant"

"Hippogriff"

A spiritual hippogriff is summoned which Astolfo rides as she exchanges her sword for a spear to charge at OED. With Astolfo more actively striking at the dragon man as the hippogriff slams right into it, then there is a lesser chance for a counterattack and the summon dying like there was with Achilles horse.

SWOOSH

The dragon man suddenly disappears with a gust of wind and they spot him some distance away from the trio as dense white markings spread across its body, these markings seem more akin to a white paste covering it's scales, making it look far more ferocious as it opens its mouth and gathers a vibrant but noxious green energy there forms into a small dense circle with a similarly colored energy field around it, an overspilling of energy that is dragged back to create an orb around the compressed energy. 

"Achilles to me!!!" Astolfo yells out and while the hero is still grieving, his instincts still tell him to be careful of this strange attack, he rushes over to the pink haired hero who brings out a circular shield. 

"Glorious ruins, My home, That Remains Standing, Ever present Mountain that denies all attackers. Shield me in my time of need."

During the early days of Orario and Achilles having only just been captured, he chose to self-reflect upon himself and during this time, he had a substantial breakthrough. He had realized his own reality marble, but he was not content with it as it did not synergize with his feelings at the time. So he had brought it over to the goddess Hephaestus who, with Ouranos Permission, had taken this reality marble and reforged it into a mighty shield that was,

"Akhilleus KOSMOS" The three heroes, with Charon joining in to help channel his energy alongside them, flow through the shield that glows. Creating a large sphere around them that gradually expands into a vibrant but empty city, as if it was an early model for Orario itself, a Coliseum stands proud with the trio in the center and numerous buildings along with the city walls standing tall and proud just in front of the dragon man that is OED. 

The noxious green of the energy deepens into a darker shade as it is condensed further. A voice can be heard by Axel and the trio. A call of death within their very souls.

"CERO" BOOOOOOM

The condensed ball disappears before the dragon man opens his mouth to release a powerful beam and upon contact with the very walls in front of the dragon man, a shield sprouts out as the beam detonates into a massive explosion like that of a nuke. The barrier stands strong but just for a moment before it shatters and the city walls with it. 

The trail of destruction spreads out through the illusionary city. Ravaging 3/4th of it before finally shattering the walls of the coliseum that was on the opposite side of the city. It nearly reaches the trio when the explosion finally stops, at most the trio are hit by a shockwave that sends them tumbling backwards. The city disappears, returning to its original grasslands, though the near distant ruins of Orario were also further damaged by the attack. The now reformed shield has a small crack in it which makes the trio cough up some blood but not for long before a newly formed clone of Axel arrives at their side and begins healing the trio and then disappearing as a result. 

The trio are quite exhausted at this point as even just using their noble phantasms once is enough to drain them, but they had to reinforce the barrier so much so that the energy blast could not reach them. They only now retain their physical strength now but their hope is not diminished as a new development occurs. 

(V1 New)"The evil dragon shall fall,"

(V2 New) "Spear of Gold, Spear of Blood"

(V3 New) Viy, behold it all.

(V1 New) "And the world will reach its sunset."

(V2 New) "Rend all illusions," 

(V3 New)Pierce through everything.

(V1 New) "I will bring you down--"

(V2 New) "And spill all blood" 

(V3 New)Lay your incredible power as an offering at my grave.

(V1 New) "Balmung!"

(V2 New) "Gae Dearg/Gae Buidhe"

(V3 New) "Viy, Viy, Viy!"

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Alt Title: Saints Defend, Noble Phantasms Unleashed, Soul Attack?

Drop a comment if you wanna judge my writing or the story. Ill try to respond, especially if you're confused or anything. 

[1] There are tons of races in danmachi, Haruhime being the fox race called renard, sheep people, werewolves like Bete. So goat people are not weird either, Though i could not go all the way through with centaur folk because that is a lot less human than danmachi allows before you're just a xeno's race. The literal closest would either be Boaz like Ottar or Bulls/Cow people which only show up in danmachi Rhapsodia