Awakening of the Weakest Slayer

Everyone stopped, their movements frozen, their breaths held, as a spider web of cracks started littering across the ground they were standing on.

Sezel was smiling, a strange grin on his face, as if he had known this was coming. Vesta's stance shattered, her sword's descent stopping mid-way, her face a mask of shock.

Shiki tried to jump back, his predatory instincts screaming at him to retreat, but the earth had already given up.

The ground beneath their feet shuddered, and then, with a final groan, it slowly descended, shattering into a thousand pieces of rock and earth.

It was Sezel's puppet. It had been targeting the ground from the very start, its every attack a calculated strike against the hollow earth. It was bound to break at some point.

Sezel's smile vanished as fast as it had come. This was no matter of laughter. They would all fall down into the underground Sanctuary now, along with a mountain of rock and debris. He had to find his way out of the impact zone, to escape the deadly, chaotic avalanche he himself had created.

Another thing that bothered him was Mari's safety. He was at a considerable distance from the metallic tower, and Mari was on the other side of the underground Sanctuary.

She should be safe, unless the fracture in the ground became too big, too catastrophic, and enveloped the whole place. That was less likely to happen, but the chance was always there. But for now, the collapse was contained under the factory.

Gradually, the earth gave up completely, and they were plunged down into the darkness. Every single one of them fell. The beasts, driven by a primal, instinctual fear, tried to turn and run, but it was too late. The factory started to collapse as the fracture reached under its walls.

The walls fell along with the ground beneath them, a chaotic, terrifying cascade of rock and steel and dust.

Sezel deliberately tried to keep his footing intact, to use the falling debris as a stepping stone to safety. But it was impossible.

They all fell down, with the debris, the broken rocks that had formed the ground they stood on, and the remnants of the factory, the shed and its walls, everything falling into a large, gaping pit.

Sezel, his mind a whirlwind of calculation, tried to get out from the area of impact by jumping off the multiple broken rocks that were falling down with him. They were already below the normal ground level, and he could see the whole breadth of the thick, solid earth they had been standing on just moments before. If he could somehow jump, somehow get a hold of it…

Sezel pressed his legs on a large piece of rock and pushed his body towards the still-intact earth, his muscles straining. But he didn't reach it. He was a little too short to get a hold of the edge.

For a second, his body stopped, suspended in mid-air, and then it tilted downwards, gravity pulling him down towards the hard, unforgiving ground below. Shit, no, no, his mind went blank for a second as he saw his face going down towards the earth, the ground rushing up to meet him.

Suddenly, just as he was about to crash, something gripped tightly around his waist that pulled him out from the impact zone.

A large dust cloud erupted in the air, the impact of the falling debris ringing out like a blast in the far-stretched, empty land. And the next moment, everything went silent, except for the soft, gentle noise of small pieces of debris falling in the rubble.

As the dust cloud settled, the devastation became clear. The place where a large, ancient factory had once stood now had a gaping hole in the earth itself, the wilderness and all, destroyed within a certain diameter. Luckily, the fracture didn't reach much farther.

As the confusion and chaos settled down, Sezel slowly stood up, and it took him a moment to take everything in, his mind struggling to process the sheer devastation he had unleashed.

A heap of rubble was standing before him, consisting of the ground, the wilderness and the ruins of the factory which were turned to literal ruins now. Sezel's heartbeat increased as he looked at the devastation. It had exceeded his expectations.

'Are Vesta and Shiki alright?' His first thought, strangely, was about them. He was sure that the beasts wouldn't die from something like this, their chitinous bodies would be able to withstand the impact. But humans… humans could.

He had been saved by his puppet. But they had had nothing to save them. Sezel had thought that it would only be a little part of the factory that would collapse, just enough to create a distraction. The whole factory breaking apart, the scale of the collapse, was not in his consideration.

The pain in his head gradually came back. The voice was again speaking in the corners of his mind. He didn't have much time before the insidious control would lock him in eventually. Because the pain in his body, the pain that had been his key to sanity, was gone.

Sezel started his march towards the curtained stage, his puppet following behind him. But first, he searched the debris, his hands tearing at the rocks, his mind a whirlwind of fear and concern for Vesta and Shiki.

He ordered his puppet to do the same, its powerful, scythed arms a far more effective tool than his own bare hands.

On the other end of the rubble heap, the debris were already moving on its own, the beasts beneath it, their monstrous forms uninjured, already starting to stir.

After removing some of the rocks, he saw something trying to push away the rocks, a small, desperate movement in the otherwise still, silent rubble. Sezel rushed there and helped remove the rock, his hands bleeding.

It was Vesta. She was breathing heavily, her face pale and drawn, but by far safe. There was a stream of blood coming down her forehead, a dark, viscous river that stained her pale skin. "Are you okay?" he asked.

Vesta simply nodded as she pushed herself upright. Apart from some minor bruises, she was not injured much.

This was the second thing Sezel had been trying to achieve by his reckless, suicidal plan: to give Vesta and Shiki some injuries, some pain, so that they would come out of the hypnosis.

Soon, he found Shiki, too. But he was unconscious, and even more gravely injured than Vesta was. There was a lot of blood flowing from the side of his abdomen, one of the sharp, jagged edges of a Spirit Essence crystal having injured him in the fall.

Sezel, with the help of his puppet, pulled Shiki's body out from under the rubble and took it to the side. Vesta was very angry and worried about him.

But Sezel didn't even speak a word. He just took Shiki's sword and turned towards the stage, which was now protected by the beasts who had stood up after the great collapse.

Sezel exhaled slowly, and then rushed between them, his puppet, a blur of purple and black energy, right behind him.