DANMACHI: The Silence's Heir (OC x Freya)

Chapter 32

INUMAKI HERAKLES

Fighting the red-haired tamer, Revis was not as easy as he had expected, and as he jumped back and avoided another one of her attacks he could feel himself getting tired.

They had been dungeon diving for days, and Inumaki and Ais had been leading the charge, from the front during the later half of the campaign. And while being High-level adventurers, their endurance was much vast, it was not infinite.

BOOM!

The ground cracked underneath his, as he jumped back once more, growing more and more cautious with every passing second as the red-haired semi-spirit reaked havoc, causing massive destruction to the dungeon.

"Why don't you use that power of hers?" she taunted him, as she slashed through the cloud of smoke.

"The Power of your mother, Alfia," she called out, and her features were nearly monster like, but she had the mind of a human. And it made her all the more dangerous.

"Because I wished to ask you a question?" he taunted, even though the real reason was that he did not wish to use it just now because, he did not know the situation down below and in what state the rest of his companions were.

"Is that so?" Revis asked with surprise.

"I know who your master is. I know of his plans and have revealed his indentity to the people of the city already. Enyo, or I should say, Dinoysus will never succeed," he repeated as he looked her in the eye.

"You think I follow that cretin Dinoysus," she answered with a chuckle, as her face contorted as her voice shifted, gaining a faint deeper base.

"Do not insult me!" she raged, and he saw her eyes glow.

"That man was but a pawn to us. A useful tool for us to exploit to achieve our purpose," she smirked as Inumaki smirked.

"Us?" he asked, as fear gripped his heart. If Revis was not following Dinoysus's orders, then who was this second party he had missed—one that seemed to be pulling her strings?

"Yes, us," she answered and he saw the magical stone in her chest glow, as magic from the dungeon seemed to flow into her, as he felt her powers grow further.

"The true rulers of this world. The one's forgotten and forsaken by the humans, for those deceitful gods," she raged as her eyes gleamed, as Inumaki tried to make sense of her words.

And suddenly, it all clicked.

"Spirits?" he gasped out as she realized just why he had found her power to be so similar. Because it was much like Ais's magic.

This was not the regular human magic, or like his own magic tinged with Arcanum.

No, this was spiritual magic.

"Yes," the red-haired tamer answered, as her monster-esque features grew further, transforming her even more, as her eyes shifted once more turning full yellow, while a horn grew out from her forehead.

"It was we who helped humanity face monsters, we who blessed you puny humans in the face of extinction and yet you forgot us, pushed us aside for those deceitful GODS!" Revis raged as she vanished and appeared behind him, as Inumaki's eyes widened as he barely managed to avoid the strike as he jumped back.

Yet the red haired woman chased after him, forcing him to defend and the power behind each of her swings was near equal to that of Ottar himself, as Inumaki held barely held his ground.

BOOOM!

"You forgot about us! Pushed us to ruin!" she screamed, as the ground under their feet cracked from the power of their clashes.

BOOOM!

BOOOM!

"But NO MORE! OUR TIME HAS COME AGAIN! AND SOON ENOUGH, WE SHALL DESTROY THIS DUNGEON AND RULE OVER THE WORLD AS WE ONCE DID!"

BOOOOOM!

CRACK!

And his feet were pushed into the ground as he defended against that massive strike, as he looked straight into those eyes and realized that if he were to have a chance of defeating her, then he would need to use that.

He would need to push past his limitations once more.

"I see now," he said, closing his eyes. He took a deep breath, and he saw the monster-spirt-human hybrid stiffen as well. He reached deep into his magic for that spark that had always been there.

"O Mother!" he began as a greyish hue spread all over his body. The exhaustion vanished as magic roared through his vessels, his muscles, and his entire being.

And not just any magic. Magical prowess of the most purest kind, in many ways similar to the powers of Arcanum itself.

"....Give me Strength!" he finished the short chant, his mind made as he opened his eyes once more and could see the red-haired girl's hesitation, even though she was surprised by his powers.

"LIMIT BREAK!" and with that, he swung his spear and, for the first time, pushed her back, as her body was sent flying back through the air.

BOOOM!

And it hit the dungeon wall, leaving behind a crater as he appeared infront of her in the blink of an eye, spear pulled back as he tried to skewer her face.

"CLANK!

She barely managed to bring up her sword, pushing his spear to the side, as it barely managed to cut the skin on her face, yet he was not done as he opened his mouth once again, fully aware that he did not have much time.

That he had to take care of this quickly.

"Gospel!" he whispered as a powerful magical blast erupted from his mouth and hit her at point blank as he jumped back.

"Aerial!" and it was only because of his enhanced senses and powers that he managed to step back as the red-haired girl's sword tore through the ground from right infront of him, as she used Ais's special spirit magic.

"Tempes..!" but unfortunately for her, he had grown up facing that power and was able to react faster than she could as she swung her blade towards him.

"Astaraxis!" he whispered as she swung her sword at him, as Inumaki pushed all his magic into his defenses, and that blade hit her on the armor.

THUNK! BOOOM!

And the force of it was massive, perhaps on par or even greater than Ais's own attack, and yet his defenses held strong as he reached for her arm and gripped it with all his might as he stepped forward and pushed his spear into both of her arms, skewering them before he grabbed her by the shoulders, as a crack formed on his shining armor, yet it did not matter for the battle was won as he began his final chant.

"Blessing of the root of evil, curse of birth. My original sin that devoured half of my body. Not hard. There is no purification..."

And she tried to struggle out of his grip, kicking at him, causing him much pain, yet he held strong as he continued chanting his mother's strongest magic. Her signature move.

"There is no salvation. The resonance of this heavenly sound is my sin. The trumpet of gods, the lyre of spirits. Melody of light, the seal of the sin...." and as his magic roared at his command, it gathered on the top of his head as an ominous grey ball.

"Loved by the miniature garden, my destiny is shattered. I hate you. The compensation is here. Destroy everything with a proof of my sin. Cry, holy bell tower..." and to this day, he had used it only once for the sheer toll it took on him.

But he had to end this fight, and even as his whole body seared from pain and the whole dungeon shook from the magical prowess of this singular attack, Inumaki screamed the spell key!

"..GENOS ANGELUS!"

Then, the whole dungeon floor was basked in a grey light, as if it were sunrise. There was no explosion. No massive blast or anything of the sort, as light blinded and covered everything.

And when it vanished, he stood there, holding onto the crumbling form of the red-haired spirit-human-monster hybrid girl, as the magical stone in her chest dell down and cracked as her body became lifeless.

"Impossible," he heard her gasp weakly as Inumaki looked into her eyes.

"Tell me about Nidhogg," he asked and felt as if those eyes teared up.

"Nidhogg! Yes, even that..." and her voice became weaker and weaker as red scarlet blood spilled out of her mouth.

"We even saved you from that! From that calamity..." it continued, making dread fill his heart.

"Sealing it at the cost of our lives! Yet you humans betrayed us! You all betrayed..." and before she could say anything else, her body crumbled in his arms, leaving him behind with but an ominous warning and a realization that Nidhogg was perhaps even worse than what he had feared.

But he had no time to dwell on it anymore. Already, he could feel his body growing weaker. His mother's ultimate magic was something beyond any magic available to humans.

It touched the realm of Godly powers, and was so powerful that even she rarely used it, and even then as a last resort.

He pulled out his spear from the ground once more as he turned around and saw that the hole the red-haired girl had made to trap the rest of the campaign members had long closed, and reopening it all the way would not be easy even for him.

And so, the only way left for him to reach the rest of the campaign was to descend to the lower levels all by himself, a herculean task even for him.

Yet there was no other way.

They had all fallen into a trap, and while he did not doubt their capabilities, their enemy was not human. No, it was something far more ancient than even the Gods themselves. Their enemy was the Spirits.

Ancient, powerful beings that had once ruled over Earth but now wished to exact revenge and retribution on the humans for forsaking them in favor of the Gods of Tenkai.

He broke into a stride as he blitzed through the floor, as a hoard of stone golems appeared in his way, and yet rather than slowing down, Inumaki pushed himself to move faster as he tapped into his mother's powers, strengthening them as he opened his mouth and screamed.

"GOSPEL!"

And the spell tore through the sturdy golems, cutting for him a path, which he zoomed through, avoiding the whole battle as he covered a whole floor. For while moving as a party had its advantages, it had one major disadvantage as well.

That it forced them to fight each and every monster in their way, while if he were to move by himself as he was right now, he did not need to defeat the monsters.

All he needed to do was to get past them.

"Just keep it together Ais..." he whispered, as he blurred through floor after floor as the greyish shimmer surrounding his body dwindled, as if a dying flame as the Loki familia, with the rest of the campaign members, held on for dear life.

0000

Back up on the surface, the city of Orario was quiet. Its streets empty like never before, the gates of the city closed, and it was as if the whole city was abandoned.

And yet it was not. It was just under the control of a singular Goddess, whose charm had made all the people, including the Gods, in the city nothing more than lifeless, emotionless pawns—well, not all of them.

While the Goddess of Beauty's charm worked on all, it did not affect the virgin Goddess of the Heareth, who sat chained up at the top floor of the Tower of Babel, as Freya overlooked the dead, lifeless city with pained eyes. There was another person immune to her charms, a young white-haired little rabbit boy, yet there was little that the boy could do all by himself in the face of Freya Familia, and he was much like his own Goddess locked up as well.

"This is not the way, Freya," Hestia begged her, feeling both rage and pity for the woman standing infront of her as she lay there, praying deeply for the return of Inumaki-kun.

"Inumaki-kun does care for you, but this—all this—would only push him away," she tried to make her see sense, see the fault in her plans. And yet Freya seemed unmoved by her pleas.

"I am tired of waiting," Freya answered in a whisper as she glanced back at her with a turn of her head.

"By this time next week, either I shall have the world in my hands," she answered with some elation before she turned away from her once more and finished her sentence in an ominous whisper.

"...Or I would have torn it all to the ground!"

0000

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