The heavy black cleavers reached the peak of their arcs, the dark steel catching the sickly violet light of the Blood Moon as the executioners tensed their shoulders for the downward stroke.
Before the first blade could descend an inch, the granite beneath the central terrace groaned with a sound like a splitting mountain.
CRACK!
A hundred yard fault line ripped straight through the white marble floor, tearing across the drainage gutters, splitting the ancestral pavers in two, and racing directly toward the high ceremonial dais.
The executioners lost their footing as the stone buckled upward, their heavy cleavers clattering against the rock while the kneeling captives rolled away from the widening fissure.
BOOM!
An earth splitting explosion of shattering granite detonated directly be
