Danmachi: the Great Devourer

C180: Disappearance

Alt Title Teaser: Shared Divinity

Date published: 1/25/2025.

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Lucy spends a few minutes exploring the forest and experiencing so many first sensations such as pure unpolluted air, real trees or even grass as well as clean healthy water. Though her most cherished moment was when Axel presented her with the farms just outside his 'village', amongst the many natural crops there, she got to taste a few fresh strawberries which Axel had to pull her away from before she started solely gorging on them and getting sick from it as her body is not used to so much natural food and it would have overloaded her senses.

While he pulled her away, Axel learned that Lucy has a minor space affinity which allows her to jump small distances across space but the more impressive function is that she learned Enchantment magic by herself; it doesnt follow the standard mana circuit pattern as it's more mundane by simply gathering larger chunks of her energy into a body part and then that ballooned body part hits harder or helps her run longer, further and far above human limits.

The most interesting fact about all this to Axel is that she is able to extend the mana even to her robotic parts. It seems the intense hacking she had gone through in her stealth training had given her a bit of technopathy. Now she is able to hack without her cyberdeck now but it's just easier and better for her to just enhance her cyberdeck with the technopathy so it reaches a higher gen of tech level. The principle is similar to Axel's methods but his hacks mostly focus through a mix of psionics and technopathy, extending his will through the robotics and mechanical constructs, be it people or cameras. 

After pulling Lucy away from the strawberry patch so she can see the other parts of the farm, a giant dust cloud sprouts in the distance as a voice is heard as an echo, "AAAAAAXXXXXXEELLLLLLLLLLLL" Raikou runs relatively quickly but definitely not her max speed as she is acting dramatic whilst sprinting towards him.

She soon collides with him as he hugs her and spins a few hundred times to release the extra momentum of her speed but when they finally stops, he reprimands her for using so much force, "Be careful, you don't want to hurt the little one," he says as he rubs her belly which is slightly prominent but not so much that people can tell she is pregnant as her current style of clothing is thick wooly sweaters that are still slightly form fitting, extentuating her breasts more than her belly. Though the jeans covering her ass are easily able to turn any normal man ravenous in desire. 

"Yes sweetie, ill be careful, and what are you doing out here all alone? I thought I sensed someone here but that disappeared as i got closer "

"Alright dear, suppress your aura, we have a guest here. Don't let her see your sword if you don't want her to have a panic attack." Axel chuckles as he looks behind him to find that Lucy has outright disappeared. He realizes that she has acquired the magic related to arcane stealth, merging with the air around her to appear inconspicuous.

Axel has a few options to find Lucy such as his domain's divine eye which functions like a top down sight to oversee his territory but he settles for his own [Eyes of Law] which allows him to view various Rule based powers in action wherever he looks.

Through that he quickly finds that Lucy is hiding between 2 lines of hung up tomatoes. She is vibrating or shaking as she grips her own throat while making her way away, bit by bit but the speed is such that even an old tortoise could outspeed her but Axel can understand Lucy's dilemma as she has suffered intense trauma from Raikou's digital clone.

(Lucy POV)

She was having the time of her life, while her original mood made it hard for her to trust Axel again but seeing him show her so much and she got to taste so much that she could get addicted to this land. It's a dream come true until they get to the tomato patch. Everything was going along like normal and she almost got to try a tomato when she heard someone calling Axel's name. She saw a giant dust cloud which prevented her from seeing what caused it. 

Yet as she focused her magic on her eyes, she saw the exact figure of who caused the giant cloud of dust, and to say that she sweated is an understatement. Shivers run down her spine as she activates her powers at full blast as she ducks into the nearest set of plants but not to crush it as that would just reveal where she is. 

Her self styled sneak skills kicking into gear. The sensation she is getting from Raikou is much more intense than the realistic training she underwent in the program. Due to that she decided to move slowly so as not to be detected. She gained some confidence after hearing the target of her fear say that she cant sense her but hearing Axel walk right up behind her and tell her to get up.

Her fear of Raikou is much more overwhelming than the reassurance that Axel gives her. It has to be noted that her first encounter with Raikou was in Supernatural training 1, Raikou came in teen form and acted as the final rotating guard for that first training. Yet the thing is that unlike the other random women who act as guards and just kick her out of the trial upon being noticed. Raikou would scan her as if analyzing and then just unsheathing the sword which would immediately kill her AND THEN kick her out. 

The gradual increase in sensitivity the further she went through the tests meant that she felt every. Single. Decapitation. 43 times in the first trial, 237 times in the second supernatural training when Raikou appears as an early adult state. And then over 433 times in the God mode trial. Granted Raikou was not the only one who killed her in the God mode trial so her overall number of deaths is increased from the overall 713 deaths caused by Raikou and then the 200 some from Aisha and then the dual oni. 

To stop her own misery she had to awaken her powers, there was no other choice, her mind could not handle her own death anymore. It might seem like she had completed this pretty quickly but with the slowed down time of the program Axel did, her month and a half of training was dragged out into 6 months of regular time training.

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(Back to Axel's POV)

After a few minutes, Axel was able to help Lucy feel better after stuffing her mouth with a few fresh tomatoes. He invited her to his home in the town. He has the twin children of Freya named Leera and Ignant sitting on his lap. They were born just a bit before he arrived in Night City and began his little legend. 

Leera takes after her mother and older sister Serena with charm magic while Ignant seems to have some abilities related to Axel, specifically his soul powers and the god of war rage power. Yet Ignants soul powers are based on the original worlds logic but with Axel's own uniqueness where he can turn himself into a weapon, specifically a tank. 

Axel is not sure how that happened but the child identifies as a tank Soul Weapon. He is unsure if his child is meant to be 'operated' by multiple meisters like Soul Eater Not but for now he is capable of 'operating' himself through his rage ability. Though Axel is also not so sure that is a good thing either. Activating that second power creates spectral soldiers similar to the gow 3 army of Sparta, originally spartan soldiers defending Kratos with spears thrusted out but Ignants version of it works a bit similar to Axel's shades from LOTR SOM. The ghostly spirits operate Ignants own tank body. 

The twins are currently bouncing around on Axel's lap before hopping off and running around the entire room, it creates a spark of normalcy for Lucy as she sits on the couch, at least as far from Raikou as she can. Raikou herself is sitting in a sofa chair that was made to perfectly fit her and only her. Every one of his lovers has their own special chair that he switches out wherever they are. Most of the time it's in their own personal homes as they handle their own children with the exception of Ibaraki and Shuten Douji who have converted their home into a brewery. They are also the most active in the farms as they freely pursue their own desires and create their drinks and sweets. 

As the two oni have decided to settle down their antics, Axel decided to have them share the title of goddess of drunks. Granted, Shuten holds the majority of that power which grants her the prerequisite knowledge to develop better alcohol or her own version of Ambrosia. Ibaraki instead developed down the culinary path. 

To develop their divine power as the goddess of Drunks, he had to merge a few human laws related to alcohol and food which effectively made them gods of parties/celebrations. 

The reason Axel is thinking about all this is due to having to manually develop a few divine roles to suit Rebecca and even more so stuff for Lucy as he learns about her powers since they are such a unique bunch. 

Axel who was casually learning about Lucy's power suddenly turned his head sideways and visibly spoke but nobody in the room heard it before he snapped his fingers and Sasha appeared in the room. "Sasha!!" Lucy calls out happily as the two hug and then spend some time reminiscing. 

During this time Lucy learns that Sasha had immediately gone to the address Axel had given her instead of simply running from Night City. Following his instructions she had arrived in his inner world just like she just did. From there the other ladies loyal to Axel had helped Sasha get her sister into the inner world too and they settled down. During this time Axel had explained the options to Sasha. She could become Axel's goddess of Technology. 

Sasha has not yet made her decision but as Lucy and Sasha discuss their situations and Sasha had previously learned about her own fate as well as that of the Maine Crew, it was the primary reason that she chose to accept the position offered to her in exchange for her safety and that of her little sister. 

"Now Lucy, with you completing the hardest difficulty against all odds, I grant you the same privilege that I gave Sasha. Yet due to your unexpected awakening, you have more choices than her. The first is that you can take on a minor deity state of Sasha's god of technology route, remaining as her assistant or you can take on the role of 'Goddess of Unseen', a role that would help your own abilities grow much stronger as you become the embodiment of stealth, at least with me being the exception." Axel lays out the cards for her to choose from. 

Lucy is curious about two features and how they would manifest but Axel offers no information other than what she has already been told about the two titles. 

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Alt Title: Nightmare Raikou, Repeated Deaths, The Choice

Word count: 1983

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