C78. Question. Changes in Devouring

C78. Question.Changes in Devouring

Overall Word count = 1490 on 5/7/2024.

"Um. Excuse me. I was wondering if I could ask you a question?"

Axel turns around as he can tell the soft but pleasant voice was directed at him. He looks at the nearly 6 ft tall woman with deep purple hair. She has a pink ribbon adorned on the left side with her hush cut styled hair almost covering her deep pink/purple eyes and pink lipstick covered lips. She wears a pure white shirt that reveals succulent sideboob, connected to a thick leash like choker with a pink skirt that only covers her thighs and then white ankle covers on both legs with white shoes where the heel is pink.

Her hands are bandaged up completely, though Axel can see some sort of Haze around her arms that is a sign that Axel recognizes to be a sort of illusion but not a harmful one. A sign that something is being hidden. What he does find a bit strange is that this lady seems to be elevated a bit, akin to sitting on air. (pic here)

"Yea. I got time. What is your question?" He responds after giving her a proper once over.

She seems to blush at his inquisitive gaze, which is strange because all his own clothes are thoroughly tattered and bloodied but she seems to pay that no mind like all the other immortals here.

"Well. um. You see. Just as I was walking home. I passed by someone leaving the red light district. They called out to me and said 'Shake your money makers'. So I waved my hands at him and he ran away screaming. Why?" She tells a bit of a story into her question and Axel almost chokes on his saliva from the situation. (A digital cookie for anyone who knows what that line is a reference to)

"I see" he states with his hand covering his mouth to appear mysterious. Axel can tell the girl seems to be a bit innocent so he chooses his words correctly.

"I believe he might have been drunk as he tried to cat-call you."

"What's cat-calling? It's sounds nice to play with kitties"

"Cough, ahem. It's a unique form of flirting. You are well within your rights to ignore such people as sometimes it can be pompous unless someone you like does it to you"

"Ah, ah. Ah. flirting!!?" She seems to squirm in place which sends her 'bounty' swaying side to side. Likely a sight that that person wished to see before being frightened away.

"If I may ask. Why did the person run away? What did he see that caused this? You say you waved your arms…but which ones" Axel does a bit of questioning of his own.

As if to answer his question, the haze around her arms disappears to reveal a pair of giant golden gauntlets which she had been partially sitting upon as the reason for her light float. The gauntlets end with the 'fingertips' being sharp jagged points. It's appearance is as if a heavy set of armor was morphed into a pair of arms. They also release a potent burst of magical energy though it is toned down by the girl's control.

"These are my money makers which is why I shaked them. I thought that is what he wanted to see" She states with such an obvious tone that I 'couldn't' be anything else.

As if a switch had been flicked, Axel slams one hand into the palm of the other as he realizes who one of Gorgons roommates and a specific machinery modified child, "You must be Passionlips"

She seems to have her own realization as she states, "you must be Gorgi's new magic student too?"

"What gave it away? But yes I had come to formally introduce myself to Lady Gorgon." Axel asks as he made no such reveal until now.

"Only she clearly calls me Passionlips but i'm fine with just Tulips for my name"

"Ah I see. My mistake." Axel responds but Passionlips shakes her head, "it's fine. Im don't dislike the name, it's just that it's a bit of a mouthful but anything else would be a weird name no matter how you look at it. Which is why I settled for Tulips"

"Thank you for your understanding and if we have no further questions then I believe we should both head home. I will see you later when I come by for magic lessons." Axel says as he excuses himself as there has been something on his mind ever since he fought the two sisters. Passionlips waves him off as she also continues home. She hums home as she finds herself in a good mood after not being able to scare Axel with her 'hands'.

She enters her home only for her mouth to go wide open from the slaughterhouse she had walked into. Walls are painted with blood and bits of organs and the residue of the shockwave from the battle. Passionlips spots Gorgon in the corner, cleaning the ceiling of blood splatter.

"Gorgi !!! What happened here" she asks as Gorgon has to roll her eyes as she explains. After a bit Passion also begins to help clean up the floor and walls after having her hands covered into tons of rags.

"So you're saying…."

"Yes, he is likely to survive you hugging him, hitting him, just don't try to crush him. I can only tell that his physical strength is high enough to combat against powerful magic directly but who knows if he can resist being turned into paste if you get over ambitious" Gorgon states as if already knows the exact words to say. A situation they have found common over the years as they have experimented with different people to see who Passionlips can safely interact with. (coughs in A+ str that evolved skill Monstrous strength into Trash and Crush)[1]

Axel himself soon enough arrives at his home and goes into his private room as he is focused on something that he sensed something strange going on with one of his abilities when he tried to defend himself against Euryale's attack. If there was no problem then he likely would have come out unharmed except for a small cut that his heart was originally at.

As he sits in meditation, he finds that there is a constant layer of gluttony on him. It doesnt do much against anything that isn't harmful. So he can still clearly hug, breath, fuck, and it won't activate but it's possible that once he enters the dungeon or anywhere else that there might be danger. It would 'activate' and begin gathering energy to ensure he stays topped off. Of course his own usage enhances each layer of it until he reaches the lower limit or the upper limit. The range on his gluttony has been redefined again as it's once again limited to his body but this includes armor and weapons of course.

"Susanoo" Axel hears a whisper from within himself. When he goes to take a look, he finds that Migi is for once bouncing left and right as it mumbles some sort of theme song. Axel looks within Migi's memories and soon re-learns about the strange ninja show and how a specific set of characters possessed a 'false' divine body that starts as a energy based ribcage and then developed into giant humanoid titans. Somehow the eyes of those characters would translate into unique abilities of the 'susanoo'.

"Migi" the parasyte looks over with a blank expression, as if the music had stopped for it.

"Keep doing you buddy, that is a great source of inspiration. " Migi returns to bopping out as Axel exits the mind space to begin testing out various forms and shapes that his gluttony can now take.[2]

He creates swords, axes, drills, extra layers of armor without increasing his own layer count. Now that he is more aware of this, it's much easier to control. And likely since it's due to his new development skill. His gluttony would get better and stronger from that now as well.

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[1] To save everyone some time. Monstrous Strength is a servant Personal skill that increases the ranking of their strength. Passionlips parameters show her strength is A+. a clearly high grade. Monstrous strength makes that higher, likely EX grade. Trash and Crush itself is an EX ranked skill that allows Passion to utterly crush anything she can physically get her hands around/on. The crushed item loses 90% of its body weight and is compressed into a 5x5x5 cube.

[2] A while ago I saw a comment from a person early in the story about using the gluttony as a susanoo but that was a time in the story that it couldn't actually be emitted further than Axel's bare body. So I figured for all the visual learners. They can use that as a reference.