Awakening of the Weakest Slayer

Vesta's question hung in the stagnant air, heavy as a guillotine's blade. Shiki, a mere vessel for his possessor's will, knelt in broken submission, his hollow eyes fixed on Vesta.

"Are you human?" Sezel asked, curious. "Or beast?"

Shiki's gaze fell to the fractured stone, as if searching for the answer in the floor. A silent moment stretched, before his voice emerged. "I...Don't know. After so long, i can't tell."

He tuned out the rest of Shiki's words, recognizing them for what they were in reality, a smokescreen, a desperate ploy for time.

A cornered animal would use any tool at its disposal to survive, and this creature was no different. Sezel was certain.

Then, a scent slithered into his senses, he sniffed and looked around but couldn't find the source. But it was getting stronger, and it was close to him, he was sure.

"Stop. Don't speak," he yelled, his voice a, commanding bark that cut through Shiki's desperate, rambling monologue.

Vesta turned to him, her brow furrowed in confusion. "What happened?"

He looked down at the body on the makeshift ventilator. It seemed normal, just a corpse.

He lifted his hand to his face and sniffed at it. His hand had the lingering, cloying sweet scent.

His eyes widened as realization hit, the body was secreting the sweet scent. He clenched his jaw, and looked at Shiki with furious, murderous eyes. "What is this?" he asked, his voice a menacing growl.

"It's nothing concerning," he said. "It's just a usual process that—"

"Usual process, my foot," Sezel hissed, his gaze flickering back to the body on the ventilator. "I will tell you what," he said. "You are really stupid."

The smile on Shiki's face vanished, replaced by a mask of shock. "You… don't you want to ask questions?" he stammered, his voice a pathetic plea.

"Your life is just like the flickering flame of a candle," Sezel said, raising his hand, his fingers a tense, claw-like grip. "And I am the wind." With that, Sezel's hand descended, a swift and ultimately merciful end to the creature's desperate gambit.

"No… no, stop—" Before he could complete his final statement, Shiki's body fell to the ground, unconscious once again.

Vesta's eyes squinted in a mixture of shock and a strange, almost reverent awe.

Sezel's hand was piercing right through the middle of the chest of the body on the ventilator. He felt a little pain as his hand broke through the fragile rib cage and went deeper, his fingers searching for the source of the creature's life.

He had expected red, human blood. But what greeted him was a thick, viscous, black ichor. 'What the hell, its a beast for sure.'

Slowly, his hands reached the heart. It was beating, slowly, very slowly. Sezel closed his eyes, and with a swift, brutal clutch, he destroyed it.

The body twitched, a final, spastic struggle, and then it went limp. Slowly, the skin began to turn white as the bones, and soon, it became a transparent sheet, through which the black, viscous blood inside the body could be seen.

Sezel pulled his hand out, his arm covered in the greasy, black, viscous liquid.

[Congratulations, you have slain a human.]

His features became taut. 'Even Spirit Energy is announcing it as a human.'

"Why…" Vesta started, her voice a hesitant, confused whisper. "Why did you kill it? We could have asked him more."

"We couldn't have," Sezel replied. "We don't have much time. We need to run away from here."

"Is it because of this sweet smell?" Vesta asked, and then, after a pause, she added, "How do you know?"

"I remember this smell from back when we were in the mall," he explained. "How do you think there were so many beasts here?"

Vesta stayed silent. She didn't have an answer to the question. It was strange, impossibly strange, that there were so many beasts in one place, and all of them controlled by a single entity.

Sezel's voice snapped the silence. "From what I have concluded, he used this sweet smell to lure them here."

"Lure them? How?" Vesta was shocked. "Were we lured by it?"

"I think so," Sezel replied, unsure. "The scent… it's another type of hypnosis that somehow convinces your brain to come inside the walls." His expression turned dark. "He didn't use it since we got here because he thought he had finally gotten what he wanted."

Vesta heard him and simply nodded, her own mind struggling to process the sheer audacity of the creature's plan. What Sezel had just explained was logical, chillingly logical.

'And why did he even want my powers, was he able to see other's fables?' these questions blazed in Sezel's mind as well.

"We don't know how far this scent goes," Vesta summarized, her voice a low, grim murmur. "So that means there would be more Slayers, or beasts, coming here soon. We need to get out of here before that."

Sezel nodded. 'She is indeed very intelligent.'

He gave the body a last, final, and ultimately dismissive look, and then they both left the stage at once. Sezel called back his puppet and ordered it to investigate a few things around.

'What were these machines creating? An indestructible body my ass, that was clearly a lie.'

Sezel searched around, but he found nothing except the machines that were now silent, their function was a secret that would now forever remain unknown. Back at the rubble, some of the machines were broken and buried, but he did observe that there was no vent, no outlet, for the products.

'So, they feed them Spirit Essence and then where does the product go?' he pondered about it for a long time, but it remained a mystery still, an unanswered question in a sea of confusion and disbelief.

-

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The night ended soon, and the morning sun perched the unmoving, desolate land beyond the walls. Everything was still silent. No beast, nor human, had yet stumbled inside the walls.

It was still early. Everyone was asleep after the tired, bloody, and ultimately triumphant night.

But Sezel stood out in the vast, empty plane, surrounded by the large, dried wilderness. He had dug the grave they had made last night for the body of the being he had killed.

'He is a beast as the Spirit Energy itself announced. And an Elite beast at that.' he shrugged looking at the body, 'No way i am leaving this opportunity. Who knows when i will get such an easy kill, big reward moment.'

He slowly bent down and placed his hand over the chest of the body. The ethereal, golden light flickered, and then, with a sudden, jarring halt, it stopped.

Suddenly, a golden window appeared in front of him out of nowhere.