Danmachi- Hell’s Forge

Arrows, spells, stones and even people all rushed from the fort in a mad attempt to stop me but Bell and Lili quickly moved to intercept these things as the dark sun got smaller and smaller. Bell had managed to somehow time the creation of the air platforms under his boots with the flying attacks to cause them to stop prematurely while Lili turned into a dark metal and simply tanked whatever he missed. By the time the first adventurers from the Apollo familia got close it was too late as I had finished my preparations.-

The dark sun was now no more than an abyssal dark orb the size of an orange at the front of the staff. I pointed it at the gate of the fort.

"Eclipse!" I spoke and unleashed my attack.

The world vanished. I couldn't see, smell or hear anything once the attack was released or to be more specific I was being overwhelmed with sensory information. Just as fast as it came however it ended and I could witness the aftermath. A molten trench nearly thirty yards across and over a mile long extended from in front of the staff I was holding out. The middle of the fort was entirely gone alongside everyone and everything that had been there.-

"CRACK!"

In the silence after the attack the first sound to appear was the sound of the staff spiderwebbing along its entire length before the wind blew and it turned to dust that went with the breeze. I had expected this however as I knew that I was not at the point in my crafting were I could create something like this and expect it to last beyond a single use. That staff was created with one ability and ONLY one, the ability to enhance and contain my hell fire.-

This level of power was far beyond me by myself so I created an amplifier for my flames with a massive amount of restrictions and one single use, just for this moment. I staggered on my feet however as the backlash from killing so many "innocent" souls hit me. My eyes watered and my hands shook as I was assailed with a massive amount of guilt and weakness as I FELT my strength, my stats, leave me. Despite this show of weakness no one dared to try and capitalize on it , fear prevented it.-

That fear was a very logical thing as this sort of destruction was the sort of thing you'd expect from a level four or five mage , not a level two who was not a mage. None of them came to this place expecting to deal with that sort of thing. In fact most of these adventurers probably thought that this was going to be an easy win for them. I stabilized from my penalty after about a minute and squeezing my fist I estimated that I might have dropped an entire rank in each of my stats for that good thirty to forty souls i had killed.-

While Apollo was a pretty shitty god his familia members still had mostly innocent souls so the penalty I paid to kill so many of them was very steep. While my body had stabilized however my cursed energy had definitely not. In fact it was practically rioting at the moment and the only reason I wasn't suffering from that was that my energy reserve was a smidge off from me hitting mind zero. As a lovely little side effect my head was pounding like someone had decided to use my brain as a tennis ball.-

I wasn't going to chug a mana potion though as I wanted my cursed energy to chill the fuck out first. I took a step towards the forts now wide open front and none of the Apollo familia were brave enough to get in my way, at least not at first. It was only after their brains rebooted and they remembered that if they didn't stop me they'd need to find a new familia. It wasn't loyalty exactly that got them to try and stop me so much as personal benefit.-

I was sluggish and a smidge slow to act as I got swarmed with all sorts of weapons from all directions as I set foot in the fort. Bell and Lili had me covered though as they followed close by my side as we fended off the assault. It was rough at first but as time progressed my mind and body sharpened up and adapted to my new state and that was pretty much all it took to seal the fate of the Apollo familia. Even after the stat drop I was still in the power range of a level three and besides the captain of their familia they only had level twos and ones.-

Dodge, block, swing, grab, dodge, this was the set of actions that I went through over and over again in a different order to dispatch more and more of the familia, knock out not kill mind you. Once about twenty were left the captain of the familia decided that he needed to step in as it was clear that if he didn't it would be him versus both Bell and I as Lili had gotten taken down after her transformation ended.-

It was a discus of flame launched at myself when I wasn't paying attention.

"FWOOSH!"

It exploded on contact with my back and I staggered from the impact with a hiss of pain. My shirt and back had been burnt up and my skin bubbled and blacked from the heat. That was all though as thanks to my cursed techniques influence on my body I was quite flame resistant. Under the shocked gaze of mortals and gods I flexed my back and activated my cursed technique wordlessly to fix the damage the magic had done. This put my reserves back to almost empty but my back was now unblemished as I turned to stare down the caster.

"Wait your fucking turn, I'll deal with you in a minute." I said firmly and the dude legitimately backed away with a horrified look on his face.

"Monster!" he shouted at me but I merely laughed before turning my attention back to the stragglers.

Soon enough all that was left was a black haired girl with a traumatized look on her face protecting the unconscious form of a red haired girl in a corner. The awake girl was holding a staff but was clearly too terrified to use it as I approached.-

"You should join our familia after this is over, you seem like a good fit protecting your friend like this." I said with a smile not that she could see it.

Both of their souls were clean and clear of sin and I was especially interested in the strange features of this girls soul that I had not ever seen before in another soul. It was as though she had a sort of fog covering a part of it that seemed to try and incite disbelief about something but I had no idea what exactly.