Danmachi: the Great Devourer

C194: Almost Even Again

Alt Title: Who Will Fight? Who can Fight?

Date published: 3/2/2025.

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After Axel leaves a short break is taken where the Arena is reshaped into a Victorian style era city, From the human side, one of the most infamous killers of human history. The son of a nobleman and a prostitute who developed the perverse ideology to kill prostitutes after his own mother nearly succeeded in killing him because his mother believed he was the source of all her misfortune after being rejected by the nobleman. 

Jack the Ripper.

"London Bridge is falling down, falling down, London Bridge is falling down, my fair ladyyy" The man hums to himself as he takes the stage. He then continues onto the other verses of the song while his demigod opponent takes the stage. Not too tall or too short, he has made his renown known everywhere by completing his divine tasks and ascending to godhood. With a Lions skin wrapped around his waist with a lion stylized belt. A blank black pauldron over his right shoulder and a gold bangle over his left upper biceps. 

Wielding a crude but effective lion effaced stone club, his wild demeanor brings about awe from the humans as they don't really want to support a known killer like Jack the Ripper. Afterall, this man is Heracles, the half born champion of the gods for this fight.

As the fight starts, Jack the Ripper uses his spare bag to throw a variety of knives at Heracles but after watching so many of Axel's matches, he did not fall for any of the human killer's antics, directly smashing all the knives and suffering few initial wounds. Heracles can be considered one of the smartest 'gods' of this world as he quickly figured out that Jack's gloves were the Volundr.

A game of chase began between the two but still actually using his brain (surely a task that is comparable to his 12 challenges[1]), he chooses to smash apart his environment ahead of time and use it as projectiles of his own. He eventually gets a lucky shot whilst suffering a few injuries himself but Jack the Killer is brought low before Heracles has to even equip his Cerberus armor. Jack lies broken and bloodied, his heterochromia in full view. He was about to sing his usual song when he has a moment of clarity when he spots Axel and his star like visage

(as if a continuation of where he said the first two lines upon seeing Axel for the first time)" Up above the world so high, like a diamond in the sky."

"When the blazing sun is gone, when he nothing shines upon, then you show your little light, twinkle, twinkle, all the night"

Cough cough "'Tis your bright and tiny spark. Lights the trav'ller in the dark: Tho' I know not what you are, Twinkle twinkle little star." With the weakest of voices, he trembles to voice out last line as his eyes close forevermore. HIs gloves shatters like glass, a reflection of Jack's broken body. Goll begins to cry, mourning the loss of her second sister to the Ragnarok.

Jack's official death brought the score back up for the gods as it's now 2-3. If they get one more than they can even the score and claim the Ragnarok for themselves. Heracles victory sparks joy in the gods as they continue to vent their rage that has built up from Axel's atrocities. 

Speaking of Axel, he has not gone down yet, instead he looks at the stoic looking Valkyrie Brunhilde and the child like crying Goll as she mourns her sisters death. Believing the eldest to not care, she storms off and Brunhilde is about to move to her room when Axel speaks up.

"Do you want her back? Returned from the cold embrace of death?"

The eldest Valkyrie pauses in her steps as she has an angry look on her face but her words are a contrast to that, "What is your price?"

"No price for you. I'm doing it because I found out I could. It's only that there are later requirements for the valkyrie herself. She would be forced to either stay by my side or live in my world. She would not be able to leave as it's energy and thus me, would sustain her existence to ensure her soul doesnt shatter again."

"You would seek to enslave my sister?!" She draws her sword but doesnt attack yet as Axel shakes his head.

"I'm working too hard for that. At most she would act like a police chief or captain of the guards for my world when I finally allow all the connected worlds to step into there. You can visit whenever you want. If she works hard, she could apply for permanent residence there for you and Goll." He explains in detail and Brunhilde hates that she is even hesitating at resurrecting her sister.

"But the Volundr" 

"Yea yea, I didn't know how that worked at first but after the first match i figure it out but it was too late for them and I wasnt sure I wanted to do this but this Valkyrie deserves better so im choosing to do this. You have less than a minute to decide before it's out of my control anymore."

The knowledge of the time limit and her own guilting conscience forces her to act in hopes of redeeming herself, falling to her knees with a distraught expression, she whispers out her plea. "Please, save my sister. Not for me, but for Goll. I will face my own punishment in due time"

Like the wind, it's like Axel was never there as he appears next to Jack's corpse and the panting form of Heracles. The demigod is wary of Axel but does not point his weapon at the unknown entity that could have nearly shattered the world with his previous display of power. His justice also ensures that he, Heracles would have sided with Axel against Piquerao for his crime of tampering with the sacred laws of the Ragnarok.

"Don't mind me, just need to do a little something but here, take this." Axel tosses a green orb to Heracles. When he catches it, the orb phases into his hand and spreads a green glow around his body as the tattoos covering his body gradually retract until it's only the basic lion shaped tattoo on his palm. The original state of his power as if he had never used it over the many years of servitude.

"I, thank" 

"Now get out of here, you're interrupting my work" Axel interrupts the demigod as he is teleported to his original waiting room. Axel then releases the orb of spatial energy he had gathered in his other hands.The orb expands to cover the whole arena but before he doesnt anything with it, he teleports Heimdall out since he is also a nuisance.

With all people handled, he merges his [Spirit Energy] into the spatial orb that he is inside of. This energy will contain the shattered soul of the 11th Valkyrie, Hiökk, from flowing out further away. He then channels his time powers to undo the shattering and bring back Jack the Ripper to life. Though he remains in suspended animation due to the time flow continuing to reverse. The city based arena is gradually repaired from all the damages done to it. Axel then compresses the space-time orb to around the 5 ft surrounding Jack himself. He walks backwards and talks in place until the Volundr is undone and all see how Jack was choking the Valkyrie to death if she would not undergo the Volundr.

"I…I, this?" the Valkyrie speaks as Axel stops the time, awakening the Valkyrie from her stupor as her original timelines memories join with her. She processes her own death from Jack's failure to defeat Heracles.

"Hello, I have temporarily revived you but I am unable to go further without any sort of time based backlash on you. As such, you are still stuck in the short process of undergoing the Volundr, but your merge target should not be set yet right?" Axel explains as he studies the appearance of the Valkyrie.

"You want me to make you the Volundr's target." To which, Axel shakes his head.

"More preferable for you to become a protector or maid for my wives or for my children but I figured out a third alternative"

He waves his hand and a human body that looks like an exact copy of Hiökk with her eyes closed. 

"The valkyrie power of the Volundr merges the soul of the valkyrie with a chosen human, bonding you two together but the properties should change if your target has no soul. You might become something like a ghost haunting an item or enhancing the item. Yet in the case of this soulless golem I just made, based on you. You should be able to directly possess it with only a few limitations." He clearly explains the Volundr process and then how it might affect different items and things.

"Take your pick. My family, or a new body" Hiökk's mouth opens and closes as if the choice given to her couldn't make her any happier. She hopes to repay this favor any way she can as she points to the golem body. Axel deactivates the stasis and her body turn soul bond flies into the golem's head. A new tattoo of a flower with a set of steel wings marks her forehead as her eyes open.

She slowly raises her hands as she can clearly sense her direct connection to Axel and his world. This connection acts as her energy source for the golem body. With the body not actually made out of real materials but pure energy. Understanding that there was a cost for her resurrection, she expresses her thanks and is about to make a request when Axel hands her an orb.

"This will sustain you for a few days, make due of your time in this world, go reassure Goll and the rest of your living sisters." Axel reassures the resurrected Valkyrie as she takes the orb and with a word of thanks, heads over to Brunhilde who hugs her and then the two begin to leave. Brunhilde gives a nod of thanks of her own.

Now it's just Axel and the time frozen Jack the Ripper. Axel snaps his fingers and it takes him a moment to move as he experiences all his memories, including his death. 

"Ah hahaha, I give my thanks for bringing me back to life, oh little star" Jack gives his respects with a proper bow but Axel offers a short response

"I didn't though."

"Huh?"

SQUElCH. 

"GAAHHH" Axels hands immediately pierces through the prostitute hunter's chest, destroying his lungs and then grasping his heart.

"You were just a byproduct. Even if you did win this match, no one would have loved you" He offers the truth of the situation and then rips his heart out, literally. The shock of the situation made Jack cough up blood and then he plops over dead. Then the time bubble collapses and the buildings collapse again like they originally did. Axel's hand shakes due to the backlash of his intervention in saving Hiökk but he waves it off and heads to his side of the arena.

A small round of applause is heard from both the human and gods side as they can understand the motive behind his actions. The gods mock Brunhilde for going so far for a pathetic human while the humans offer their prayers to Hiökk so that she may live a nice and peaceful life. 

"Now, who will fight me?" Axel raises his voice and all the gods fall silent and they realize that their side has to actually send out fighters against Axel again. They stall and holler as most are too afraid to fight Axel. Only a few amongst them, like Piquerao's brother, want to fight against Axel to avenge their family. Yet they are soon given a new option. 

"This is taking too long and I have places to be other than this world. We can skip the next 2 of my fights in exchange for making 3 of them fight against little ol me. But I will use two different powers in response. Ill stick to the old rule that any power I have used in my fights can't be reused. " Axel offers a new set of rules to the gods' side and it is Ares and Hermes who have to come to a decision.

The gods take a break and begin to discuss if this should come to pass. Giving Axel a free pass in exchange for fighting 3 gods at once. There are some amongst them that still believe that even one god could push Axel so far but the other side who is afraid of his previous big move against Huallallo. 

They fall under the impression that even if 3 gods fight against him, they would be powerless to kill him and that they should just nominate Axel as the winner and leave his world alone. 

Many are against this proposal as it would completely undermine their authority over earth. Especially since Axel has already made minor mentions of linking his world to their 'version' of Earth. It was thus put to a vote with only a slightly higher vote for continuing the fights but then a second vote was put up and it was almost unanimously agreed to have the 3 v 1 fight. 

It would still be the same amount of gods fighting against Axel but a higher chance of victory. Afterall, Axel has promised that he would still not use the previously showcased powers and should very likely include the technique he used against Huallalo. 

It would appear that Axel's appearance has caused a revolution in the anime world of Ragnarok as all the gods have grown a second brain cell that is not solely dedicated to muscles or punching something.

The next set of conversations were about who would be the next set of 3 gods to go against Axel. the best circumstance would be that their strengths all compliment each other for the best effect. This is especially true as they would not know what unknown abilities Axel might show off this time around. In the end, it's actually 2 abilities against 3 gods. The advantage should remain in their hands yet the gods recognize that Axel himself is stronger than any one god.

In the end, the next candidates were chosen as the previous bickering crowd had become even more unified under Axel's oppressive power. The total time for the meeting had been three hours which means that if Axel's next match proceeds quickly then they can fit in at least two more of the humans fights for the day.

During this three hour break, the city was modified as a new central stage was built in the center like before but the fighters are not limited to the stage itself as the whole city is still free to be used as the battlegrounds.

"We have returned from a break to fix up the arena and prepare for what the best of the new world has to offer. With no need for further introductions, we present the challenger: Axeeeellll GRAMMMMMMMM." Heimdall does a satisfactory job of announcing Axel's appearance for once as the slime man has always simply appeared in the arena before. Constantly undermining the announcers job had made him hold a grudge of his own but with this moment he finally got his moment.

Axel steps into the city and begins to make his way to the arena as Heimdall continues his duty by announcing the competition. 

"And from the gods side, due to the newfound offer, we have not one but three gods and no less are they all from different pantheons, meeting together due to their like-mindedness. They are the first who stepped forward to challenge the off-worlder. Representing the truth of Balance and Chaos."

"They are !!!!!"

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Alt Title: Rule Change, Group Battle, New Canon.

Word count: 2765

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