Return of the Fallen Volume 11 Chapter 38
Leaving Marty inside of the S.T.I.R. room, Kazuki felt this was the safest place for her. The room had one path that led upward. In order to get into this room, one either needed to come through the natural path. In which case they would have to deal with all of the various traps and so on. The only other way to enter this room would be to break through the solid walls. Regular-sized sandworms could not pull this off as the walls were too tough but the giant sandworms could with no problem.
Thankfully Marty was automatically circulating her ki, forming a barrier around herself. In this way, no worms would be able to detect her in the first place and so she was relatively safe by herself.
Kazuki used his new tools to bust a hole through the wall and followed the same stairway down to the large junk room a few miles down. The path was messed up from all the water damage along with the giant sandworms crushing their way through. The path though was still intact enough for Kazuki to make his way down with not too much difficulty.
Once inside the large junk room, Kazuki kept a barrier of ki up so as to avoid soul detection. If it was just him, it would take a while to find the sandworms in this large place. There were several holes in the walls indicating paths the worms had left behind. Following these could be a hassle and act like mazes riddled all around here and there. Kazuki could start making a shit ton of noise to attract sandworms to his location but in doing so he could accidentally attract far more than he could handle.
(Arc, which path has the least amount of sandworms.)
Arc sensed the many paths ahead.
(There are 83 different paths leading in and out of this trash den. The 32nd path leads 9,375 feet deep and within there are three sandworms. Two of the Giant class and one normal-sized sandworm. This path has the least amount of sandworms. So what now?)
This was the path Kazuki chose.
(I’ll lead them out and get them to chase me all the way back to the A.I. room where they’ll lose consciousness. After that it’s easy.)
Kazuki went toward the path and found a large opening in the side of the wall 50 feet up. Just in case he didn’t use his aura to lift himself up to this height. At the same time, it would be difficult jumping this height using just his muscles. With ki flowing through his limbs he took a mighty leap and nearly made it 50 feet. Grabbing the wall he climbed the rest of the way and made it into the path.
Just as he was about to run ahead to meet the worms, Arc stopped him.
(Wait a moment Kazuki. I’d like to try something.)
(You have an idea?)
(Yes. Something just occurred to me and I wondered if the reason those frenzies suddenly took place were my fault.)
(Your fault. Why would the worms going crazy be related to you?)
(Just wait for a moment and we shall see.)
Arc released a small string of power and shot it down the other end of the path. Half a second later there was a response and the ground began to tremble.
(So I was right. Kazuki, be on guard, here they come.)
(Wait what happened, what did you just do?)
Arc didn’t answer as the trembling ground became ever clearer. Kazuki was annoyed but knew now was not the time for questions. It did not take long before Kazuki saw three worms heading in his direction. Without hesitation, Kazuki jumped out of the path and took off running. He needed not bait them using his soul as they were relying on the sound he made. He at first wondered how they could tell the difference between the sound he made and the sound other worms made and eventually chalked it up to his size.
Due to him being much much smaller, it only made sense that they could tell him and themselves apart. Out of the path and onto the ruined stairs, these worms once again were unnaturally fast in these tunnels. This time though Kazuki was much faster. Since he didn’t need to pretend in front of Marty, Kazuki unleashed his aura strengthening. Coupled with his ki flowing through him, his speed increased several times over.
(Now it’s not me who’s being chased but instead, it’s me who’s leading them.)
Arc took this in before laughing inwardly.
(Hehe, what a thing to say. In the end, you are still being chased are you not?)
Kazuki rolled his eyes.
(Damn, can’t I have anything? Just shut up and let me do my thing.)
Arc said nothing but it was obvious it felt Kazuki was being stupid.
Kazuki didn’t care. He was tired and over these worm bastards the day he got here. Now he finally had some sort of advantage he could sue and he would smirk the entire way as he led the worms to their own slaughter.
This is exactly what he did. After leading them all the way to the A.I. Room, he pulled the same thing as before. As they opened their mouths to attack him, he leaped into a random mouth and let them crash through the wall.
The black diamond A.I. Promptly put them all to sleep. Half a second later, Kazuki exited the simulation before getting to work. A dagger in his hand, he stabbed it deeply into a worm’s head before using the hammer to pound the blade deeper and deeper until death took over. Using his ki, he led the divine power into Marty while his soul reading ability took the soul of the beasts. His soul recovered slightly. Repeating this process another two times. Kazuki then extracted more mucus and more dissolving liquid from them and with Arc’s help it was stored away in Kazuki’s storage ring. Finally, Kazuki devoured the bodies and his strength and toughness improved slightly.
“Now that that is done, you mind telling me what you meant earlier? What did you do and why do you think it’s your fault the beasts went frenzy mode?”
(After you told me about the frenzy and how they follow a set pattern, I thought about what disruption, what new variable has come into play recently and that’s obviously you…As well as me. While I was out, I tried to gather my scattered mind at a certain point. When I did this, my power leaked out. My power was low but a tiny bit of Origin power did seep out. Going with the time you mentioned, It coincided with my release of power. To a being that feasts upon souls, what power is even juicier than a regular soul…Origin power? The king of souls, the most delectable in the eyes of these worms. To check if my guess was right, I released an even smaller amount, about 1/1000th of what I accidentally let out when I was out of it. The results speak for themselves do they not?)
Kazuki wasn’t too shocked and it even made sense.
“No wonder why Mack and the others thought I was the cause. Damn.”
Kazuki still felt anger and resentment toward Mack and the others that so easily left him to die down here but at the same time, he understood where they were coming from. This though did not change his mind about wanting to kill them and if he had the chance, he would gladly take the opportunity.
(Kazuki, are you pissed?)
Kazuki shook his head.
“At you, no. What you did, you did on accident. You and I are tied together in some ways. We are in this together. The others though. They tried to kill me. Sure their guess was basically right thinking I was the cause but they did not know that for sure before they tossed me out of their tower. At the same time, I am slightly annoyed. It was your false assumption in the first place that led us here. This assumption that your missing piece was here was a bad guess and was caused most likely by your greed or rather an impatience. Had you sent us to some place normal first, we would not be in this fucked up situation? So for that, I do blame you.”
(Funny…You blame me for the situation and say we are in this together but then when I make a valid statement and offer solutions to get us a speedy exit from this place you veto it all for a stranger. Maybe I did this because I knew you would not listen to my suggestion and instead would ignore it for your own selfish reasons. We both, are screw-ups in this regard.)
…
The two went silent for a moment before Kazuki nodded.
“You’re not wrong. We are both selfish in our own ways. Right, from now on, we should both take the other’s opinion more into consideration and we should look at the pros ad cons before coming to a decision together. How does that sound?”
(Sounds like a fantasy but fine, I’ll play along. it’s better than the alternative. Us coming to resent one another and then purposefully going against each other out of spite.)
Kazuki and Arc came to an agreement before once more heading down the path for more worms.
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