Danmachi: the Great Devourer

C193: Turning Point

Alt Title: Strongest or Most Powerful?

Date published: 2/26/2025.

i feel like i worked so long on this chapter because I was lazy in the first 2 days of my schedule. Enjoy the intense battle.

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

The water gradually flows away from the arena, returning the arena to a blank as Axel steps onto the raised platform, taking out a chair to wait for his opponent who doesnt take all that long to come out. 

Axel locks eyes with the tall latino built man of 8' 5" (2.5m) and he wears a thick set of bronze armor that consists of the chassis, a set of bangles around his upper arms, though he does have a fleece on his right shoulder. He wears inch thick vambraces that end in bare hands. His waist is covered in Onyx black greaves that leads to black leather wraps around his legs and open toe sandals. All of his armor consists of and are embolden by symbols of special runes or stories about him. In spots that don't contain armor are whole sleeves of tribal tattoos, a large majority of the symboles comes in the form of Taino symbols while the rest acts as an extension of the armors art.

Axel utilizes his magic senses to quickly scan through all the symbols and find correlation amongst them so he can understand who he is fighting. Amongst the first sets of symbols, around the heart area shows some sort of battle where the very same tall dark skin man, likely the armors owner, fought off two similarly fashioned people with depictions of darkness or shadows around them. The next scene shows him conquering them both as they are turned into basic hunting dogs for him.

Another set depicts someone who looks similar to the owner but female as they fall in love with a man who appears from a river. The scene depicts the man and daughter fall in love before the armors owner kills the man for an unknown reason and a grief stricken goddess emerges from the river to kill the daughter. That sets off a war between the two godly beings. The armor's owner is forced to flee before a third party intervenes and turns both gods into mountains. 

From all these clues and a few other stories, Axel realizes who he is fighting. The Andean God [1] of Volcanoes, dryness and agriculture (for some reason), Huallallo Carhuincho of the Wankan ➡️ Incan Pantheon. Axel ponders for a bit as the mountainous god makes his way onto the stage. Huallallo's tall height makes him naturally look down on Axel but from his vantage point while Axel learns something interesting.

As the Incan god steps onto the arena and puts on the dog styled helmet onto his head. The hype starts to grow, yet before it grows one amongst the split crowds notices something about Axel. His arm is atrophied, borderline skinless. This is different than the previous display of Migi's power, it more closely appears like someone had drained of water as his body rapidly dries up before becoming healthier again. This process repeats and Heimdall is slightly reluctant to start the match before the strangeness stops but Axel gets up first.

Snap, crack. The audience can hear how Axel's legs break apart before mending and becoming healthy again, he turns his head to the gods side of the audience until he stops upon one god.

(Piquerao POV)

When the mortal won against Poseidon he felt an indescribable fear as the G. o. G. had fallen, he could only hope that Huallallo could truly finish off Axel due to all his curses. 

Which is why he was especially confused by the seemingly healthy state of Axel when he walked into the arena. 'That bastard continues to sit down like usual, not caring about the appearances of us gods. No calm down, your curses worked, don't worry, he is just an aberration, he will eventually fall' he could only mentally curse as he doesnt have the space to unleash more of his power to curse Axel. 

His gaze soon turns excited as Huallallo enters the field, for two reasons. The first is that Huallallo is wearing all of the divine gear he could from their pantheon to ensure victory. The second is that he finally noticed that while Axel looks fine, his condition is far from it as he must have been using a lot of energy to maintain his looks.

"kekekeke" He cant help but chuckle to himself as he hears Axels legs break from just standing up, the humans cheering must have made it hard for him to hear it before when Axel entered the arena, not that it matters.

HUH?

'Is he looking at me? No, that cant be, how could he know that I have anything to do with him and the curses' he muses to himself as he begins to sweat but he tries to avoid eye contact with Axel. 

SWISH 

Huh?

'Where did he go? He was just on the stage, that's strange, why is it so dark around me' Piquerao can only muse to himself as Axel disappears from the stage, it's only when he finds the look of fear on his neighboring gods face that he finally looks up to find Axel hovering just over him

"AGHHH, Unhand me. I'm not a fighter."

"If you're not a fighter, then why interfere in the fights with your cheating ways? There is only one punishment for a coward like you to believes themselves above the rules of the Ragnarok" 

SPLAT

(Piquerao PoV eternally ends. Returns to Axel PoV)

[The god responsible for the curses has been identified, just look around and ill tell you who it is]

Hearing this from [Raphael] Axel gets an idea, he begins to manipulate his body to appear like he is barely holding off the curses power, by now there is 50 of them and while he could have just devoured them, he simply made a barrier around him to keep them out after getting annoyed last night by the sheer amount of them.

While his body 'breaks down' or weakens, Axel looks around in the stadium as Raphael slowly guides to the divine source of the curses. After that it's just a matter of sealing the curses. With a bit of physical force he appears next to the Incan god of Night and Evil. The god who is so weak physically that even after standing over him for a solid minute only noticed him after the other gods noticed him.

"Oh well" 

When the god finally notices Axel, the slime man just grabs the god by his face and pulls him up. They exchange some words but Axel has interest with the god as his curses could never truly affect him due to Tulips' power resting within him, he only played his part to kill another god but there are too many of them. That is most obvious from Shiva's domain as there are hundreds if not thousands of gods who share various authorities but only ever fight physically. 

SPLAT

Crushing the gods head like a watermelon he hears someone yell out in anguish, "BROTHERRRR" The god in the stands who appears to be a twin but exact opposite of the god he just killed rushes at him with some sun based heat around his fist but Axel just swipes his hand and the god collapses in the seats as lightning coils around him like a snare and Axel just returns to the arena. 

Huallallo glares at the bloodied Axel as he smears some of the blood on his face with a disinterested look.

"Well, now that the cheater is dead, we can start" Axel tells Heimdall but he is unsure of what to do and panicking as Piquerao's brother continues yelling and trying to enter the arena but is met by a barrier that prevents him from entering.

"Don't worry about the disturbance, if he wants to die then he can join the next match against me"

"Uhhhh, BEGIN" Heimdall says with some uncertainty and Huallallo immediately rushes towards Axel with his fist poised to strike. Axel is simply clenching and unclenching his fist as the fist comes down on him. 

BANG

A cloud of dust arises but quickly dissipates to reveal that Axel had met the incoming fist as it's equal. It's only at the very last that Axel activated his Nen to enhance his physique to meet the punch, he did not use any nen technique to fuel the punch as he has a long way to go. As the two fists retract, Huallallo's dog headed gaze sharpens as not even the ground had cracked under his fists power. Dissatisfied with the level of strength that Axel is showing he unleashes a quick set of heavy strikes that display the might of the mountains.

Huaytapallana's might [2]

With a set of fast heavy strikes that bear the weight of the mountain coming towards Axel, he uses his strength to cause Huallallo to step back with each strike yet that seems to follow his plans as with a spin of his hands, he continues unleashing a second set of strikes that carry the previous attacks momentum. 

Huallallo begins to push back Axel until he reaches the edge of the stage. Seeing the situation turning against him, he finally utilizes one of his abilities. Turning his fist into palm strikes, he channels his nen until it begins to spark like electricity. 

The blue sparks soon clash with Huallallo's fists. While each strike doesnt appear slow down but Ares and Hermes who sit in the main gods seating can notice that the electricity is affecting Huallallo's muscles and affecting his momentum bit by bit until Huallallo runs out of steam and Axel punches him in the gut to send him sliding back to the center of the arena. 

"Hmm, not bad but it won't be enough, no matter what tricks you use" Huallallo declares as he rushes at Axel again

Mountain Rush 

A simple charge where Huallallo covers himself in earthly essence along with the heat of fire to create a molten wave of muscle that rushes towards Axel. In response Axel manifests a simple wooden mask in his hands before putting it on. 

Then from everyones view, Axels body begins to grow a bit taller, his blue hair turning blonde and shorter but sleeked back. His simple clothes are replaced with a green shirt under a white hoodless jacket. His face becomes that of someone else who is perpetually scowling but seeing Huallallo rush at him causes an interested grin to spread on his face as he grabs his right shoulder. 

"Let's have some fun Brat" 

Rotating his arm around in a simple circle like he is working up his shoulder muscles the audience can feel his presence increase but can't explain why.

It is only Qin Huang Shi, who is standing in the audience hidden away from everyone's view who turns serious as he can see Axel's qi, or as he calls it Nen, gathers into his fist, gradually increasing with each rotation. Yet while the rotational technique is interesting, his focus is instead gathered onto Axels transformative technique as such a disguise technique that changes everything about a person, essentially becoming someone new is beyond anything he has ever developed.

[Ripper Cyclotron} 

With a total of ten rotations, Axel or Phinks Magcub punches out at the incoming Huallallo. The power of the Nen enhanced punch shatters the force of Huallallo's charge as the magma covering him is splashed away into the surroundings arena sand. Heimdall has to jump away to not get splashed but it's his own fault for not leaving the arena. 

As Huallallo is once again sent flying back, he suddenly looks down and notices a hairline crack spread across his bronze chestplate armor. His anger mounts as his skin seems to darker further until fire sprouts of his skin. He gathers the fire and shoots it out at Axel. 

Axel/Phinks taps his face and his body begins to morph, becoming a bit taller with man with pink hair, wearing a skin tight pink shirt and then a loose pale blue shirt over it with the symbols of a Club and Spade from cards. His face is pale white but sharp with a star under his right eye and a teardrop under his left. 

He puts his hands together then spreads them out vertically. As the fireballs come at Axel they pass between the two hands and seem to 'bounce'? They simply float in mid air between the two hands while the Jester, Hisoka Morow has a sly smile on his face as he explains.

"Did you know that Bungee Gum has the properties of both Rubber and Gum?" Each of the fireballs is surrounded in a bungee gum film and spun back towards Huallallo who destroys each fireball with the gauntlets he wears. 

Hisoka rushes towards Huallallo with 2 jester playing cards in hand. Huallallo tries to simply flatten him by slapping down at the arena with his height advantage.

BANG Swish swish

Hisoka simply dodges this and with a light spin he delivers 2 bleeding cuts, one to Huallallo's unprotected elbow where the fleece he wears ends and the other at the back of his right calf (lower right leg). 

Hisoka had actually been trying to directly cut off the mountain gods arm and leg but their sheer thickness had ensured that this was not possible but he if he focused on a single limb then he could have at least gotten halfway through, splitting the bone. In his rage, Huallallo swings the back of his hand to slap Axel away. Hisoka could easily dodge the strike but as if given a command he initiates a simple boxing block while touching his face.

Whom bang.

[Pain Packer]

Hisoka goes flying but he is not the one who takes the damage, instead it is a much shorter man with black hair and wearing a black cloak around his body that covers the lower part of his mouth. His squinted dead eyes glow in anger and not long after another change happens to him. His outfit soon begins to change as his whole body begins to be covered in a set of flat steel armor mixed into a dense leather robe completely hiding the owner's body except the strands of black hair. (pic here if I can, but ai sucks in it's prompts)

The short armor wearing person rushes at Huallallo with surprising agility in the heavy looking armor before 'Feitan' delivers a strong kick to Huallallo's knee and propels himself up to kick the dog headed god's head. The strike connects but Feitan is not an enhancer so even when coating his fists and legs in [En] does not give the impression of doing much.

Huallallo also considers this a joke as it appears to him like Axel has gotten even weaker as he exchanges punches with the short black haired man before him. Axel/Feitan is pushed back regularly but his agility ensures he is always strafing around if he gets close to the arenas edge.

Huaytapallana's might

Huallallo once again unleashes his mighty technique to reuse force, Axel meets each of these strikes, but as it continues Huallallo can feel that he is snapping bones and shattering ribs until he finally connects a strike to his face that sends him flying. 

Feitan crash lands at the edge of the stage, lying on his back, his Nen ever so condensed around him as he has reached his limits as well as those of the mask. He can not take another hit before the transformation is shattered. It is now that he jumps hops up from his lying position. 

Drops of blood fall down and pool around Feitan but he doesnt care as his anger fuels him to unleash 'it'. And with little other options, He jumps high into the air, a solid 2 feet above Huallallo who looks up at the midget before he bursts into an unrelenting ball of fire.

[Rising Sun]

The sun expands 3 times over and now covers half the arena, melting it into sludge as Huallallo attempts to gather his own volcanic might yet it is incomparable to the gigantic sun that soon crashes into him. Heimdall wisely leaps off the arena stage into his hover platform that he operates high up into the air but not too high that the increasing wind pressure from the heat can blow him away.

BOOOM

It takes a solid minute for the burst of ash and dust to dissipate, from that the audience can see that while Huallallo is alive, he is badly battered to the brink as a few pieces of his armor had melted into his body, searing him while his sandals have directly melted. No signs of his tattoos or original valor can be seen in his current crispy form.

As for Axel, the previous black cloaked armored form is replaced by an harmless looking old man with a shaggy beard. He is wearing a blue tank top and gray shorts. Most notably is his face which looks normal but they have odd blue cracks on it like he is at the end of his robe and about to shatter.

Yet even with all these strange details what is most conspicuous is the brown cloaked floating figure above the old man. Hands that appear to be shifting brown sand move forward and strings extend to the old mans limbs and he seems to come to life as he first talks

"Oh hohoho, it seems that kid gave you quite a beating. Ill be sure to grant you the ending you deserve. Let's give them a show Sand-man" The sandman controls the old man to put his hands together as his Nen is riled up. Then in the plain view of everyone a giant bodhisattva makes it's appearance. Now normally people cant see Nen abilities, even when heavily compressed but that is where Sandman comes in as he further enhances the already crazy power of it's target to mythical proportions but that comes with the minor downside of not being able to hide from non-Nen users.

[one hundred hand Guanyin] 

The old man, Netero begins to move his hands thanks to sandman and the 100 handed buddha statue unleashes a flurry of attacks that Huallallo strikes out against to maintain his position but he is gradually losing strength under the light speed assault of the golden buddha construct.

If this had been shown in the beginning, Huallallo is confident in breaking away from the buddha to land a few attacks on it's user, Axel. Yet he even then he was not fully confident in actually defetaing Axel if he did. 

Huallallo only realizes that he has been played with since the beginning and that demoralizes him greatly as he doesnt even have the option of escaping. 

[Zero hand] 

Huallallo stands still as the buddha construct stops it's assault to shift open it's statue like mouth and unleash a condensed beam of light that pierces right through the mountain gods chest. He coughs up blood as he gazes at the old man who finally shatters away. This reveals Axel who is completely unharmed as he dusts away the ash on him.

"Did I have a chance?" Huallallo cant help but ask remorsefully. The only response is a shake of Axel's head.

"I am bound by a self employed rule to only use of my powers in each battle, otherwise what do you think the combined power of it all that I have?" Axel explains a bit and Huallallo closes his eyes, accepting the truth of the situation but he opens them one last time as he gives his last wish.

"May i see your strongest move?" 

"Strongest or most powerful?" 

"Is there a difference?"

"Strongest talks of my physical strength while most powerful dictates all of my powers and knowledge" 

"Then just strongest. I wish to die to it"

"I respect your resolve to face death in the face. Here I come"

Axel lowers his stance as his right hand morphs into a draconic state whilst using [War Gods Might] and [Titan Strength], both boosting his aura beyond anything anyone here has ever seen. Every twitch in his body and wave of his clothing seems to elicit a shockwave from breaking the sound barrier. 

[World Break]

Then with [Innate Speed] he appears before Huallallo. "Goodbye" Huallallo focuses his gaze completely to take in the full glory that atomically shatters his body into dust and it continues for many miles into the sky. 

It would have killed every member of the audience if Axel didn't redirect the attack higher at Huallallo's head.

The transformation of Axel's arm is undone and he makes his way out of the arena. It takes Heimdall a few minutes to snap out of his revere before he announces Axel the winner and an outcry is heard from all people. Happy shock from the humans as Axel is their ally while Piquerao's twin brother continues to mourn his brother as any hope of avenging his dead brother is crushed in that last attack.

A break is announced to fix up the arena for the next fight so everyone has time to bask in the afterglow of that world shattering attack. 

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

Alt Title: The power of life itself, Acknowledge Your Spirit, World Break, 

Word count:3754

A/N: I've updated the status page to show the details of World break at the very bottom if anyone wants to read.

[1] Andean god refers to all gods of the Andes Mountains in South America. The god himself is referred to as Incan but was originally Wankan/Huancan before being assimilated into Incan.

[2] Huaytapallana is the name of Huallallo's daughter. It also became his name after a series of events where his daughter had fallen in love with the son of a river goddesses son (he was already married). The events turned when Huallallo killed the son while the river goddess killed Huallallo's daughter. The two waged an intense war before Huallallo lost. He spent years in exile where he gained the title of ManEater until the creation god, Huraicocho, turned them both into mountains but while the river goddess got to keep her name. Huallallo had to bear his dead daughter's name.

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