Soon enough, Asta watched as the hole in the Abomination close itself up.
It was indeed similar to a normal slimes he had killed hundreds of, during his missions.
"But its regenerating too fast! ." He says as that was only similarity he could use to his advantage.
Yet he unlike his past self, he didn't rush like a idiot since he now knew his limits more than ever as well as the needs to surpass them like he always does.
However, the Slime on the other hand wanted nothing more than to slaughter him on the spot, it's mana fluctuating and spreading to every corner of the ninth layer as Spell after Spell were thrown Asta's way.
Asta himself didn't bother dodging the attacks, only standing still as he parried those he couldn't observe due to mixed anti-magic in some of the spells.
And there he is stood waiting, observing the abomination from afar as he analysed everything he could from the way to moved to cast, to the places the spells were it casted and the noices it made.
"Heh. " Asta suddenly smirks and slams his feet on the ground, propelling himself forward with extreme momentum.
He charges straight into the monster, splitting horizontally into two while his own Anti-magic fought against it's regeneration, giving Asta a moment to split second to see through the entirety of its anatomy.
In the end, he came to a single conclusion– The monster had no intelligence of its own.
"The mouths and eyes haven't regenerated. So as long as I can cut every single one of them, I will win! "
So without any mercy, Asta stood his ground within the monster's belly. Every moment, his blade finding a new eye or mouth to cleave through.
His barrage of attacks were so fast that even the monster's upper part failed to fully reconnect with its lower body, becoming suspended mid-air before being launched away with a high kick.
The tentacles swipes and spells never reached Asta, each either being parried to the ground or dodged.
And with each mouth or Eye cut, Asta could sense the abomination's reaction and spell variety lowering into the abyss until it was just the last Mouth left.
But then-
[Watch out!]
A dark blur flashes towards Asta.
It didn't attack him, instead it came in the way of his attack, enduring and gripping onto the sword that slashed into its body, refusing to let go.
It was Lucifero's corpse, a empty shell with no soul just like the other highest ranking Devils far away in the dis—
SLAM!!
Another corpse shoulder bashed Asta before he could finish his thoughts, startling him but lacking the strength to even budge him out of his place.
He thought it was just another puppet and prepared to squash it with punch.
But the real shock came when he saw the face of the corpse– Liebe's.
At the same time, The core slithered away like a worm, holding onto the last pair of eyes and the single mouth left of its body while Asta stared dumbfoundly at Liebe's corpse.
"LIEBE!? BUT I JUST USED THE SCROLL O—"
[Ding! the core is controlling the corpse using the Devil heart it absorbed. Destroying the corpse will stop the resurrection process.]
Asta clicks his tongue, "Tch! Say that faster!" as he spins his punch towards the hilt of his sword And cuts through Lucifero while also single handedly smacking Liebe away with a back handed slap the next second.
He then dashed ahead at the fleeing Abomination, aiming his blade at its core which finally came into his vision.
Within it were two hearts, both trapped in chains with several tentacles pierced into them.
"One of them might be liebe's... But which one? " Asta ponders. Contemplating between possibilities.
And just as one would expect, he refused to risk Liebe's life on meaningless gamble.
"Forget it! I will deal with Lucifero myself if he survives! " He says and stabs the blade into the core, shattering it to bits and pieces.
The two hearts immediately jumped out the moment the core broke, each going towards their respective body through a sort of wierd link Asta couldn't sense or bring himself to care about.
He watched the abomination's body break down before his eyes, turning into a puddle of lifeless gooey slime. Simultaneously he heard the screams of Osersia coming from its remaining mouth allwhile its eyes slowly melted into a similar goo to itself.
It was only after all movement had stopped that Asta took a breath of relief.
But his mind was still in turmoil, "This thing... How did it know about me? " He wondered, thinking of countless reasons but failed to confirm any plausible ones.
"Meh. Whatever... I will just question Julius or Lemiel."
Asta casually threw his worries to back of him mind, shifting his focus to bigger problem of Liebe's resurrection and the possible threat of Lucifero's attack.
Ding!
However suddenly, The panel flashes in front of him, widening his eyes for a second as he quickly turned back towards the puddle of goo, only to find it gone.
"****! I was Careless!" Asta panicked, blaming himself for not confirming with the mission Success notification that he completely forgot about.
Nevertheless, The core was already broken, meaning the slime atmost had a few more moments to live( Self-assuring himself) .
...
Asta nervously looks ahead, "Right?"
And as if he had jinxed it, Asta noticed movement, not in a figure, not in his vision but beneath his feet as tiny vibrations began flowing up his Legs and the System panel pops up.
[Mission complete. Reward: Chain mission(?? /4) ]
[New mission: Escape. ]
[Reward: Survival]
[Description: Run for your Life!]
Slowly, the vibrations grew, turning from a small echo to earthquake like shaking with seconds as Asta was forced to take to the skies instead.
Then suddenly the world stopped moving, a deadly silence now looking over everything as a unprecedented sense of Danger and killing intent overloaded Asta's ki sense to brim.
And then Asta noticed the trunk of Tree of Qlipoth shake, almost twitching as if it was being dug away from the ground it was planted on.
At that moment, he finally realised what had happening and the only worry he had in his head was to protect liebe. His body instinctively changed his magic attribute Acceleration out of pure survival instincts and dashed towards Liebe's still recovering corpse, his eyes becoming stuck in full caution mode as his senses screamed at him to run.
If one had to compare the scene, it would be a hawk skydropping towards a corpse on the floor, grabbing in its talons and soaring back into skies within a second.
And just as Asta grabbed Liebe's body. the ground above– the Ceiling of the ninth Layer cracked like a glass dome, shattering into millions of boulder varying from house sized to almost mountain sized and begans falling towards him like meteors.
Almost immediately he dashed for the tree trunk, not even stopping to recover his three swords which nobody knows where Liebe Threw in his fight with Lucifero.
He flew through the failing boulders with his life on the line, charging and breaking through the small ones using his horns as battering rams.
Asta didn't had the privilege of thought at that moment, his brains completely losing all thinking power and turning fully into a auto reacting machine that carried him through the smallest of visible gaps his wings could carry him through.
And at last, by a hair's width, barged into the Qliphoth tree a second before the ceiling crashed and uprooted it away from the ninth later, leaving him stranded in a whirlpool of mana that was leaking into a broken void.
Even so, despite his body being overtaken by the it's survival instincts. Asta accidentally took a peek at formless void.
The mere sight of the void filled his head with a overwhelming amount of knowledge, ranging from memories of dead creatures whose mana had long being absorbed into it,
– to the observing gazes of conceptual beings who appeared as different things or people from his memories.
...
However a single pair of eyes was the one looking over him with the most intent, it's giant figure connected with Asta's own body through a string of light.
"Learn to control your curiosity kid... I won't always be there to save your skin... "
A massive hand appears as the figure spoke, " I gave you that power, so...use it more... And above all. " The figure smiles. Thwack!
With a flick of a finger, The anti-magic surrounding Asta was broken and he was sent flying straight towards the upper floors of the underworld.
"Don't bother taking shortcuts– *Voice cuts* "
The moment the speech ended, Asta 's vision was covered with darkness as he fainted on his flight out of underworld.
His unconscious body came out on the first layer of underworld. He was spit out from the tree trunk like a drop of sap as he and Liebe bounced several times before crashing somewhere among the Rocky terrain.
And a single figure was looking over them, a Devil with Ram like pair of horns who smiled contently over his new king who would become his ticket out of the lifeless Hell that would collapsing soon.
--
-an unknown amount of time later-
Asta slowly opens his eye, staring dumbfoundly at a wooden ceiling as he jolted himself up onto the bed with a confused expression and a lack of memories washing over him.
He looks around, a severe yet nostalgic headache filling his head as if unrequired memories have been shoved into his brain against his will.
"Where am I? " He asked himself, "this isn't the under world... Urgh!"
For some reason his right eye didn't open, a lack of control and a wave of weakness assaulting his body the moment he tried to force it open.
Yet nevertheless, it didn't stop him oberving his surroundings.
"A single room wooden house... Possibly a village one... But how did I get here?"
That's when Asta noticed a mirror in the corner of his eyes and began walking towards it. Simultaneously, a wierd sense of Nostalgia began bubbling in his chest, growing larger as he got close to it.
Then... He took a peek at himself, his jaw dropping the lowest it could while his right eye opened up mysteriously at the same time.
His shock quickly doubled, his vision now split into two entire different places at the same time as he became confused and disoriented altogether.
He glanced into the mirror, Screaming Internally at himself "THE HELL IS THIS!!! "
However all he could see through his left eye was a teenage blue haired boy that looked nothing like himself. While his right eye was showed him the Familiar ceiling on his room back at Brimstone bastion.
Ding!
The System panel pops up in both in front of both his eyes, with a different colour each.
[Trait activated: Hivemind]