C142: Reflection in the Abyss P2.

Overall Word count = 1788 on 9/10/2024. (Happy bd to me)

Alt Title teaser: Surrounded

"We have to leave the dungeon" Axel announces and brings everyone to his inner world so he can teleport back to the city. He did this to cut costs on his teleportation ability as it still greatly drains him if he brings a full set of people with him. For whatever reason, anyone placed into his noble phantasm does not count for the body count of his teleportation.

When he is back in the city, he quickly notices the extensive fog floating around him. His magic senses are warning him about how the fog is artificial and contains a bit of sleeping magic which can only affect level 1 or lower individuals. Though Axel can tell that the only reason it's this weak is because it must be spread out in a large range and not just around Axel.

Axel releases his group and quickly warns them, "Careful, the fog is magical in nature and contains a sleeping spell imbued into it, it shouldn't affect any of us but still be on guard."

"What is going on in the city?" Welf can't help but ask. Everyone begins to look around before they notice multiple shadows off in the distance. After a moment, everybody can hear a female voice calling out for help. Ouka is one of the first to charge forward while Chigusa aims with her bow.

As their gazes pierce through the fog, they find some sort of bipedal metallic beast is chasing a citizen of Orario. The creature is primarily humanoid in shape but with much longer limbs for its arms. Its head is a solid gear in the center surrounded by 2 face plates that contain beady red eyes.

The chest contains a small blue orb with its own metal plating around it so an outsider can only view the central dot of it only. The aforementioned arms slink down to around it's knees and end in 4 needle-like pointed claws. The left arm is slightly more bulky with extra plating like a shoulder guard that extends to the whole arm while the right arm is more dexterous and most notably has a long blade along the elongated arm. (pic for inspiration, couldn't find exactly what i wanted so i had to make due)

Ouka quickly moves to clash with the creature as his heavy ax moves down after an overhead slash. The creature seems to be alert as its left hand moves forward towards the Great Ax.

The plating around the wrist of the bulky arm itself quickly shifts into the form of a buckler at the end of the hand that it then uses to parry the ax. Ouka is knocked off balance as the clockwork creature moves around him to attack with its left hand that, with a clink, unsheathes a sword from within its own arm.

The blade is incoming at ouka's side when an arrow from Chigusa disrupts its action to dodge the arrow. Yet the way it almost instantly shifted away revealed to Axel that what it did was a simplified form of mana burst.

The red glow of its eyes seems to scan through the fog but the light field seems to pause upon scanning Axel, the creature stops its scan. A rod extends from it's back that doesnt really seem to do anything until a moment later when an ear piercing screech is heard from it. Axel is one of the only ones not affected because out of habit, he keeps his gluttony wrapped around his body which absorbs the harmful effects of the sound wave and he only heard a filtered version.

Yet seeing everyone else grabbing their ears in pain, Axel summons his Leviathan Axe and throws it at the robot, it is immediately covered in frost which stops the sound before Axel then wields his twin chain blades to stab into the robot and immolate it in flames. The combination of fire and ice makes the metal brittle beyond saving, not to mention the overwhelming power of the flame explosion or just the overall power of the attacks shatters the robot into chunks.

Once out of their rut, Cassandra casts her healing magic upon the group and the citizen.

Welf is the first to ask the lady, "What is happening in the city? We just got out of the dungeon."

"Oh it's terrible, here I was making dinner for my family when a strange fog covered the city, my family suddenly fell asleep. I too was sleepy but I resisted thanks to me reaching level 2 a week ago with my magic stat. My family had to spend quite a bit to get a monster from the surface all the way here for me to kill and that was enough for me to"

"The city miss" Bell can't help but interrupt as he is quite worried about his goddess.

"Oooh right, well after the fog came in and everyone fell asleep, I made sure they weren't hurt and then looked outside after the city got strangely dark. Looking through the window, I saw a giant shadow covering the city. I don't know what it was before it suddenly disappeared but then these creatures started swarming the city" She points to the destroyed robot.

"It looked like they were searching for anyone not asleep as I saw them kill my neighbor, a nice little Pallum. One then started chasing me after looking through the window. I led it away from my family and that is when I met you all. We should move before more arrive" she finally finishes her story,

"Too late" Axel comments on the last part of her words as he had already spotted plenty of robots coming in from all directions since the first robot had released that very annoying sound.

A variety of robots begin to approach the group from all directions. Robots with hunched backs and more animalistic appearances show up from the West. The face gear on their faces is more serrated and their faceplates more sleek and slim as if depicting a wolf's head.

Axel sees that as they get closer, the serrated gear spins like it's being revved up as it actually releases wolf-like howls (imagine a robotic werewolf, more normal arms compared to the first robot).

To the South, Tower like robots with minimal legs and even stubby arms seem to hover their way over. Their heads are inseparable from their chest as they look like a metallic drawer, all flat with the exception of a nose for some reason. (minecraft villager bod)

From the east is the least amount of robots as most of them already are partially damaged from all sorts of attacks or spells as that is the immortal region of Orario. If Axel was to take a walk there then he would likely find the mountain pile of a few hundred-sum robot corpses.

These robots are the same model as the first one with long arms, the left one bulky and the right one skinny with a blade.

The last group which is coming up from the North where Axel and co are coming from, where the tower of Babel is, an assortment of robots with various claw like arms are climbing on the tower, they are all predominantly skinny with more wire like appendages from their back though some of them do have cables wrapped inside and around their arms. They look like they function as muscles with how flexible they are.

Overall, Axel's group takes a circle position with Haruhime, Cassandra and the civilian in the center. Though the civilian seems to stay close to Axel as she peeks out at the robots, fear is evident on her face.

Axel himself faces the group to the south which is the monolith robots while the group is split into 3 sections. Lily, and Daphne take up the east side that is most damaged. Lily still bears her Fianna armor and spear. Their group occasionally gets help from Chigusa who is part of the west team that is fighting the beast-like robots.

Bell and Welf alone deal with the rogue robots to the North.

The 3 groups of robots proceed to rush at Axel's group while the fourth group which Axel faces simply sets down their positions as their legs lock into the ground while they point their tube arms at him. Energy gathers within the tubes before multiple continuous beams fire at Axel alone yet Axel simply smirks.

He extends his arm forward and flicks his wrist, upon doing so, the laser beams that came in contact with him, got redirected in an arc before flowing back towards the towering robots.

Fortunately for them, a second set of robots, hidden behind the buildings, provides counter fire against the redirected beams which cancels them out. Yet now Axel is stuck as the robots don't stop shooting, so he has to keep returning it. He tries to change the angles a few times but the support robots keep blocking his rebound shots and they don't shoot at him at all.

As the various lasers are swaying around or being canceled, the civilian looks like she has stars in her eyes as she seems to cheer Axel on, "get them, no, almost got them."

Though this continues for a bit and the other groups are gradually decimating the robots, especially Bell and Welf who are a pro team that cover each other's weaknesses and Bell is more dexterous than these nimble robots. Cutting off the back tendrils before cutting off the arms and then finishing them off.

The civilian behind Axel seems to become more frantic in her cheering as she slurs her words, "get 'him', get him, get him, get him." She soon seems to reach her own mental breaking point as

A SQUISH sound is heard.

When the group takes a look, they are shocked to find that the civilian woman has stabbed Axel with a needle in his back. But it is even more insane that her face is melting off. Only to reveal another face underneath it. She grits her teeth as she proclaims, "Fine ill do it myself. Useless golems."

Axel flexes his muscles and the needle is knocked out of his body but it's contents have already been deposited inside him. "Why" Axel can't help but ask as he has clearly never met this person before.

The woman waves her hand and an assortment of daggers and needles can be seen, The woman proclaims this with an obsessed look on her face "MURASAKI-SAMA IS MINE"

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Alt Title: Surrounded, Liar, The True Enemy