C13: Soul Shock and Dungeon Guardian

Happy new year everyone

Word count = 2015 on 12/31/2023

With the consecutive explosion from the two strange objects, Axel is slammed into the ground as the shockwave from the bomb behind him knocks him down while the group themselves suffer due to the explosion and part of the dungeon collapses behind Alex as well as in between the group. So the dwarf with the spiked hammer and 2 swordsmen next to the leader were also knocked out from the shock as the hammer dwarf man flew headfirst into another wall and got quite the concussion while the other two who were simply affected by the explosion radius and are covered in burns. While Axel and the others are unconscious, many more explosions ring out as it seems the shockwave from the first two bombs activated the others in the bag, scattering them around into the surroundings and then exploding.

Axel slowly shakes his drowsiness and gets up slowly as his body aches right now so he just sits on his ass, rubbing his head which hurts due to the shockwave from the bombs.

"What the hell were those orbs? Is it some sort of black market object to help in dungeoneering? Is that why that group felt super weird and disorganized? All three swordsmen attacked from one angle instead of three, Lazy archers and a random mage who couldn't do anything because of how incompetent his team was." Axel murmurs to himself as the pain and ringing in his ears finally stops.

He finds that the part of the tunnel he was in has collapsed in 3 places. The first two is where the bombs went off and trapped him in the tunnel with the dwarf and swordsmen. While the third place is currently opening up as a war shadow is born, this creates a weak point that Axel quickly gets up and strikes out at before quickly dealing with the war shadow. Though his body is exhausted as a result of the quick strain.

Aaaand, he doesnt have his potions as he already drank one and the other shattered from the explosion, the rest are in his backpack that he already left behind. He still has the sack of monster cores on his waist so he doesn't lose much but it will take him longer to recover now. He can only try to rest while he can before trying to dig into the wall with the dwarfs hammer.

But before that, he must take what he is owed. He rechants his skill incantation and begins to absorb the unconscious dwarfs power before moving on to the two burnt swordsmen and he can feel the raw energy is more plentiful and easier to absorb as compared to when he casually did it against the other students of his goddess. Perhaps being unconscious destroys any resistance to his skill. But after a few minutes, he is feeling much better except for the bruises he has, yet strangely, he experiences a pulse coming from the last adventurer before his absorbing speed increases before a strange feeling seeps into his head.

For some reason, he gets this strange feeling that makes his body start to heat up as it is being burned but he finds no fire source nearby. He falls back onto his back as he essentially undergoes a seizure due to his soul reaching sublimation. This allows a new soul fragment to make itself known. Axel has a vision of an alien worm that sought to find a host but it failed to enter 'his' brain and thus got stuck as that person's right arm. Taking on a very appropriate name, the duo sought to survive in the world which has grown much crueler as various humans and other creatures have been possessed by these aliens as well but they were less fortunate than the duo as the original humans died and were taken over by these 'parasites'. Months of fighting occurred with the duo against the other aliens before human technology allowed them to find the possessed people. This caused all out war between the two sides to occur and the duo were caught up in the middle. [1]

The story which took on the viewpoint of the alien ended as its human host sought to save a girl he liked after she was pushed off of a building by a human criminal.

Axel wakes up shaking as he properly comprehends the memories he just inherited. He strangely calls out, "Mura" and he feels his 'mind' energy flowing through his arm as it partially becomes atrophied but not really as the muscles were just tightened according to Axel's desires. His fingers turn claw like as if his bones have been sharpened. He releases his control and the arm goes back to normal. He tries it again and punches the mostly healed wall, his fist doing quite a bit of damage to the wall and a few more hits like this should allow him to break-through and get out. Maybe he will be able to retrieve his backpack if those remaining bandits didn't take it.

But first he experiments what he can do with his new ability. He first changes his arms and counts how fast the transformation is and if he can do multiple parts at once. He can but if he even tries to walk after changing both his arms and legs then he would struggle to maintain it and it automatically reverts back to normal. He quickly realizes that it's based on his imagination and concentration while the short incantation is just to activate it.

After resting up a bit more and killing another 2 frog shooters that came out of the walls. He absorbed them as he can tell that he hasn't achieved level 2 just yet but the sublimation feeling he felt before is a good indicator of him reaching close to the limit of his level. According to his own calculations, with all the fighting and absorption, he should very well be at or around one thousand in all stats as he was in the mid 900s before he started today. The three unconscious bandits have grown quite atrophied and on the verge of death but Axel doesnt care about them as he still needs to escape from his little predicament.

He activates his new skill again on his arms and is about to punch the wall again to break it but quickly hears a faint tremor from the dungeon and some distant growl that seems to never end but as it transitions from a deep growl to a high pitched screech as though a cacophony of horses squealing in fear though it sounds distant and close. With the sound that never ends playing in the background,

Axel begins to use the dwarf's spiked hammer to break down the wall until a small hole is finally made. He stops and looks through the hole, maybe seeing someone but what quickly meets his case is a red eye with a horizontal pupil. Axel gets a shiver down his whole body before he changes his legs so he could backflip out of the way of foot long claws that dig through the wall as if it was cheese. Axel lands on the rubble behind him as the wall he was hitting is opened up, revealing a monster with a deer-like skull, the aforementioned red eyes and the rest of its body is roughly 4-5ft long but only 2 feet tall..

A quadrupedal black skeleton-like figure with elongated spine spikes that seem flat instead of being sharp or anything. He had been told nightmare-like stories of such a monstrous appearance by Illya, his guild handler. The juggernaut. [2] (go to the 2 to get more info about this and how it could possibly be beat. Don't go hating just yet)

Axel squats down before using his enhanced legs to hop over the juggernaut and launch himself off the remains of the wall he was punching as only enough space to let the juggernaut in was cut and not the entire tunnel wall. So using one side, he jumps back into the opening where he fought the bandits and finds a gruesome mess as their bodies have been split apart into chunks, some even eaten. The area has been expanded during the conflict as rock chunks are scattered everywhere.

The juggernaut calmly follows Axel back into the opening. It seems to almost give a sort of grin that he didn't run away. It suddenly accelerates and Axel barely survives his chest getting cut by him having augmented his chest, so it was dense bone versus bone claws and he just barely survived that encounter. He undoes the transformation, only to modify his skin to close the bleeding wounds as it was not actually his rib bones that were cut as otherwise he would already be crippled. It was his skin which had taken on a bony structure that was injured. As such, he now just overlaps a bit more skin to stop any blood from flowing out. It's a minimalist care that he can afford to do as he wants his full concentration for the future fight. The juggernaut whips its tail at Axel who leans backwards into a flip and when he lands, he finds the juggernaut right behind and it swipes at him but he quickly squats down flat and is just barely dodging its monstrous claws.

But with his current low position, he shoots up with a twist at the juggernaut's head which just makes it move up; it had partially dodged to reduce the force of his normal punch since he couldn't activate the skill with enough concentration. He has to focus more but luckily the fight has restarted his adrenaline, so he can focus better now.

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[1] For anyone who doesnt know, the anime is called Parasyte the Maxim. One season but 20+ episodes. It's pretty good if you're not scared of gore.

Psst Ronin46, this is why I was against Sukuna or whatever wolverine or other video game idea you had because Sukuna is worthy enough to be a whole personal template if someone wanted to do this type of story. But mc is only getting ONE ability from the various video games and stories. Sukuna is a whole package, even wolverine has claws & healing factor. Just the healing factor alone would make the story boring as nothing could realistically kill him if they used physical force which is pretty much most if not all monsters.

[2]: the juggernaut, a creature [that frankly is just a super powered wendigo] made by the dungeon when too much destruction is done to it's structure, such as via bombs or overpowered magic/skills. The juggernaut has exceptional strength through its claws and tail which can cut through strong armor and even weapons. As well as a magic coat for some strong magic resistance which isn't really magic resistance but literally mirror coat from pokemon. It's a giant spiky Wobbuffet cross bred with a dragon skeleton. . Its greatest weakness is its physical defense. The juggernaut's strength scales with the floor of the dungeon. Now if yall are spatially aware, you would know that they are just on the 5th floor which is still mid level 1 territory. Unlike the juggernaut that Bell and Ryuu fought in Season 4 which could be level 5 or 6, possibly level 7 but that's the limit for that one. It is meant to disappear on its own after a period of time but they don't stop until everyone on that floor is dead.

On the other hand with the juggernaut, it's actually not well known as a few readers proclaim. This bitch has only appeared twice in danmachi history and according to the time of the story right now, this would be the second time it has EVER appeared. This detail is revealed by Ouranos himself in either the 9th or 10th episode of part 1 season 4 where they reveal what the juggernaut is and kicks bells ass.

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