46 C46: Amphisbaena, Requirements Met. Disappearance

C46: Amphisbaena, Requirements Met. Disappearance

Word count = 1697 on 3/4/2024

(unfortunately no music recommendations this time around. I am powered by drowsiness to type these out which is why quality may have been a bit lower recently)

Amphisbaena sees Axel standing casually as his multi-armed form starts to get ready for a fight. It roars at him and Axel offers his own retort.

"Alright, Come at me. I can't swim yet so you will have to get closer to me so i can beat you up" Axel says nonchalantly to the monstrous rex before him.

Amphisbaena is a two headed dragon snake with one head having blue fish fin and crystals jutting out, and blue eyes while the other possessing reddish crystal-like structures on the back of it's head. It's said the crystal red head has a breath attack that nullifies or weakens magic. Axel is curious how that would work against him. On the other hand, the blue one has a powerful fire breath attack that is a blacksmith's wet dream for more powerful metals. Axel does actually wonder how that fire breath would work against the goliath sword that is hanging around in Rivira.

ROOOOOAAAAARRRR. Axel's thoughts are once again broken as Amphisbaena charges up the blue breath attack at him and he has to dash to the side. Seeing that the monstrous rex has a big range difference to it as compared to Axel. He can only take the ballsy maneuver and jump to the nearby wall to run on its surface before jumping towards the two headed snake.

He just barely lands on it's back when the red head begins to spew its red cloud at him. He doesnt immediately feel any different and his extra arms remain the same.but he channels his gluttony and shade skills at the same time. "I am the Endless, Possessor of all. Shade that I am". Luckily even though he is inside the cloud of red anti magic smoke, his skills don't seem to be weakened by it. At most he feels the range connection to his shades weaken but it's a minor difference. As such, he himself charges up the blue head, beginning to pummel it while the gluttony and elf shades are stacked on the asuran shade to distract the red head. Axel lands plenty of good strikes before a random appendage which could very likely be a tail, smacks him away back to shore.

This causes his shades to return to him. He overlaps the shades onto himself as he finds the blue flame breath coming into his direction. With all his shades overlapping his body. He strengthens his body further through magic and pairing that with his new gluttony techniques. He punches out with a vortex to combat the breath attack.

"HHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA" He roars out in frustration as his negativity gradually rises from all that has happened recently. His failure in weakening further or defeating Antares. The threat to his daily life as Antares plans to come to his home to destroy it in hopes of killing the goddess Artemis. The very annoying threat of monster hordes showing up to block his path of power and the lack of growth he actually feels from hitting the monster rex under both his gluttony skill and siphoning shockwaves.

His mounting rage causes red cracks to appear on his body, his skin turning a darker shade akin to burnt clay as his body experiences a slightly rapid growth, rising to 10ft tall, his muscles bulking up.

CRACK, SKEWU, BOOOOM.

The floor under Axel's feet cracks as he charges at Amphisbaena. His speed partially affecting the sound barrier before a powerful fist collides with the Beast. The red head that was struck is sent flying back with crystal shards flying everywhere. The blue head roars out but is made mute by a strike to it's jaw that closes it's mouth. The red-head returns, swinging it's neck at Axel, sending him flying off into the distant wall. The two heads send out their breath attacks at once

"KIHOU" A voice calls out as a wall of ice appears in the path of the two breathes. Axel struggles to turn his head to see that his group has arrived to support him in battle. His anger dissipates a bit but then the ice wall shatters and he has to punch out a vortex regardless to nullify the rest of the breath attack.

Daisy, Lily and Chigusa take up positions on the far side to rain down arrows every once in a while as Mikoto, Welf and Ouka charge forward. Welf uses his ice magic sword to create platforms for them to walk on and they begin to rain down attacks on the twin headed snake's body but their strength is still negligible and they have to rely on Axel to charge forth and literally yank the giant snake out of the water. This invalidates it's water advantage as the Asuran Shade manifests it's full power, growing up to 20ft tall and raining down punches upon the Rex until it finally releases a dual powered breathe that weakens the shade enough to dissipate.

Axel for the first time experiences backlash from his shades being destroyed. He falls over with pain wrecking his whole body. He coughs up blood as well due to the magic backlash part. He is in such a state that his body shrinks back down and even his extra arms dissipate.

"Axel!!!" Welf cries out but Bell is the first to reach him. He slings Axel's arm over his own shoulder and begins to drag him away. Ouka and Mikoto buy time for them. Mikoto has whipped out her gravity spell as added insurance.

They get him back to where the rangers are but are confused as Axel remains motionless but they can tell he is still alive.

Axel himself is not actually experiencing the pain right now. His soul has been shuttled into a dark scene. It's strangely familiar, a strange place with a glowing seed in the center. He remembers this seed, it had revealed itself back when he first began his magic studies. It had caused him to supposedly teleport before but he didn't control it then nor still understands how it works but unlike last time. The seed is glowing, something that was not the case before.

Axel enters a strange contemplative state as he stares at the seed. Magic theories that he had been taught cycle through his head. His body also rapidly equalized the new heavy chunks of stats he had just absorbed through the asuran avatar before it was broken.

His soul shifting about, re-settling into place as due to the various origins of all the soul fragments, even a god in charge of reincarnation was not able to arrange the souls in place. Granted her worries were about preserving all the souls. The mixture of a few non-human fragments certainly made her job hard.

With gluttony that had already been made a central piece to balance all things getting a boost from antares, and the biggest troublemaker, a gods soul fragment getting properly dislodged before it could be fixed into proper place through a more natural state. A sense of equilibrium falls upon Axel.

Welf is kneeling next to Axel, splashing potions onto where he was just hit by Amphisbaena which is pretty much everywhere when Axel suddenly disappears. Welf is in shock as his friend just vanished before his very eyes. He didn't even blink at all and Axel is just gone.

"Axel….AXEL…WHERE DID YOU GO?!!!" his own state is confused which leads to him panicking and yelling out. Daisy is forced to stop her crossbowing and notices that Axel has also disappeared, she initially thinks he had simply rushed back into battle once he was healed but after looking around, she finds an entire lack of her friend. She holds herself steady as she is slightly more knowledgeable about Axel than Welf, even if minisculely. She grabs Welfs hands and asks him to calm down.

"You know how Axel is. He gets injured and then comes back with some super move that takes out rexes in one move. This will be no different. Don't worry about him. He will be back." She reassures him even though she herself is worried as well since this is definitely new.

SWISH. BOOOM

A moment later an explosion is heard and everyone can see a giant sword piercing through Amphisbaena's body like a hot knife through butter. The sword itself is coated in a black aura that is visible to everyone here. Hanging off the hilt of the blade is Axel with a grin on his face. Though he does have some pretty bad bruises on his body. Specifically one on his cheek. Amphisbaena soon dies and explodes into a giant dust explosion that makes Axel fall as the blade he is hanging onto clutters down.

It takes a moment for the cloud to dissipate but when it does, Lily goes to collect the items and core while the others rush to Axel and get an understanding of what happened.

"Um. so i think I may have had a breakthrough in my magic. I learned how to teleport." he says matter of fact as there is another small crashing sound as the giant sword falls over onto its side. A part of the floor dug up as it had partially sliced into the ground.

************************************

Next chapter will be a partial flashback to what happened when Axel disappeared before we continue.

Honestly, Amphisbaena is a boring Monster Rex. It only has breath attacks and really no other limbs, even me mentioning a tail was just a spur of the moment thing and it might not even have that. Its biggest gimmick is the anti magic breath as well as the water zone preventing any melee from getting close. The goliath is more interesting in my opinion. Amphisbaena is just a spellcaster monster but it has low int so it only has slots enough for 2 spells. Anything else is just thrashing around like a snake or running underwater.