Chapter 7: - Bigger Fish.

Nero woke up to find that the horrible dream he’d had about being trapped in Hell and hunted by Demons was, in fact, very much real. That set the tone for the rest of his day and it was not exactly one of glee.

“Finally, you’re awake!” Ember beamed.

He rubbed his head, it still throbbed in agony, much like the rest of his body. “Good morning Ember.” He groaned.

“I have no idea why you humans sleep, you know, it’s really tedious to have you suddenly unconscious for hours at a time.” She continued, floating up to a branch and sitting on it.

“Good morning to you too Nero. How’re you feeling? Thank god you didn’t freeze to death last night.”

Ember rolled her eyes. “Ugh, stop being so dramatic.”

Nero sighed. His fire was out now, which was good, because the mornings were more than hot enough.

He climbed up to his feet and felt all the angles of his body convulse with pain. Nero groaned and forced himself to stretch “Alright then, time to start my day.”

Priority number one was his new magical powers. He needed to figure out more about them while he wasn’t actively in the heat of battle. Had he known what he did now a day early-

No, he’d not be thinking about that.

“So, how hard can I hit?” He stepped up to a tree, rolled his wrist and flexed his fingers. “For control, I’m going to throw a punch without drawing in any magic, then I’m going to throw one after drawing in magic and finally I’ll throw one with the light coating my hand.”

Ember looked down at him. “That all sounds rather boring.”

“It’s called the scientific process; coined, designed and refined by a bunch of old dead racists. Of course it’s boring. But it’s effective.” He sighed.

He pulled his arm back and slammed a fist into the tree.

His knuckles dug into the bark, a stab of pain answering them. But his fist still dented the damned thing, leaving an imprint at least an inch or two deep and about as wide across as his hand. He could even make out where individual knuckles had dug in.

He blinked. “Huh.”

“Nero!” Ember growled. “If you could already punch that hard on your own, why didn’t you do that before?!”

“Because I couldn’t do that before you oik.” He shot back. Nero pulled his fist back and stared at his knuckles. He flexed them, expecting a twinge of pain, but there was nothing. It was like he’d hit a pillow. “So I guess this is just my strength now?”

Unless I can actually hit harder still just by channelling that light.

Nero let his mind slip back to that place of instinct and survival. The adrenal rush filled him once more, but this time he was expecting it. After a few seconds his hand was soon alight with the bright golden hue.

He stepped up to another tree and hit it with his not-glowing hand. The results were the same as before. He swallowed the disappointment, he quite liked the idea of being even stronger.

So, whatever happened yesterday’s given me a permanent increase to my strength. Probably speed too and hopefully reaction time. I will have to test those out later.

Nero walked over to a third tree. Now for the moment of truth. He pulled his glowing hand back and slammed his fist into the hard bark. It hit with a furious force, smashing a short gouge out right across its width and sending a spray of wood spitting outwards as his fist punched through it.

“Holy shit.” The tree shook slightly, he thought, and dark shapes emerged from its leaves to take off into the sky. That got Nero thinking. The destroyed section wasn’t that big, really, but…

He punched again, and again. Ten times, twenty. Each impact sent another fistful of bark and plant tissue spraying away, and before long he’d almost bisected the trunk. It groaned, shivered, then fell with a crunch.

He stepped up to the fallen tree and examined the ruined part of it. He could see the golden energy of his fist continue to eat away at the bark, like acid clinging to the tissue.

“So, much harder with this thing then.” He muttered, looking at his glowing hand.

Finally he walked up to a boulder to the side of the tree. Nero hit it, and in a shocking turn of events found that his hand hurt after punching a surface of solid stone. It hurt a lot in fact. Bits of the rock came away, tiny chips, but the pain really was something and he stumbled back yelping. Not invincible then, just…less vincible. Well he knew that already. What about with his Light Breathing?

The second blow, this time wreathed in golden light, did more to the rock, but not by a lot. A crack spread along its surface spanning maybe a few inches, and more flakes of stone broke away. And his hand hurt. Less than before, but still it hurt.

Seems my Light is still effective against non-demonic matter, however less so.

“I wonder what’ll happen if I punch myself in the face with it.”

“Please don’t accidentally kill yourself Nero.” Ember said as if she were talking to a toddler.

“If you insist,” He replied, disappointed. He snuffed the light out with a thought and felt his stomach grumble. With a grimace, Nero clenched his jaw. “I’ve got other things to worry about anyway. Like the fact that I’m hungry.”

“Oh, well there’s the Sin Spinners!” She suggested eagerly.

“Can’t, they're venomous.” Nero sighed.

“Ah, yeah, uhm, don’t eat poison.” She nodded.

Nero shook his head. “Venomous, not poisonous, normally it should be safe for ingesting just not injecting. I’m not a biologist but last I checked it had something to do with the size of molecules relative to the cells,” he explained.

“Ah, well I followed about half of that.” Ember shrugged. “But now I’m confused as to why you can’t eat it,”

“Well, a certain red armoured bastard smacked me around enough that I probably have a gash in my mouth now.” He nearly hissed and found a hint of satisfaction in knowing that Atix had relieved the bastard of his head. “Not to mention that I was coughing up blood yesterday, and my guts still feel like that tree looks. Can’t risk the venom getting into my bloodstream that way, the effects would be no different than if I was actually bit.”

“Oh,” Ember nodded. “There must be something we can do.”

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

Nero picked up a sturdy looking stick and snapped it off at the tip so it had a sharp edge. “I could try and eat the parts where the venom isn’t, but I don’t know all that much about spider biology or if this thing's biology is similar to any spider back on earth. I think I read somewhere that snakes secrete their venom from a gland in their mouth, but again, not sure and those are earth snakes not Hell spiders. I’d rather not take the chance if I don’t have to.”

“You could try fruits?” Ember suggested.

Nero tested the weight of the stick in his hand. “We’re in a forest, not a farm. I could be wrong, again this is Hell, not earth but my guess is most of the fruits here haven’t been selectively pressured for human consumption.”

“What does that mean?” Ember asked, frowning in thought.

That gave Nero pause. “Uh, hard to explain, just know that practically all edible fruits are man made and back on earth it’s gotten so bad that you can own a seed type that other people aren’t allowed to use.”

“That sounds horrible.” Ember blinked.

Nero shrugged. “Point is the fruits here are either extremely lacking in nutrition at best or poisonous at worst.”

“So, what can we do?”

“Well, you seem to know the animals here well enough.” Nero grinned. “I say we go hunting.”

Ember, it seemed, did know animals. After a few hours of familiarising himself with common wildlife, they’d decided that their best option was a Crimson Centipede. Nero didn’t like the sound of that at all, having never been a fan of eating bugs, but the other options were animals called things like soul splitter and mind cutter.

Well, those names were non-starters, so bug-hunting it was. That didn’t actually prepare him for when he actually found one,

They were twice the length of a man, and about the width of his stomach.

Nero came at it with his fist, and the whole gory affair was over soon enough.

Thick with the taste of sulphur, the centipede made faeces taste like gourmet food, but it didn’t make him sick or kill him so for the next few days that was what he ate.

The trek was not uneventful, in fact it was overflowing with events. If the word ‘event’ meant creatures born from satan's arsehole trying to murder him.

There was a lot of running, a lot of hiding, and Nero was half-certain he had actually wet himself on the fifth day, when he came across a Face Eater. It was a creature shaped like a bat, but twice his size and with blood red eyes.

It had loomed over him, like a tower of shadows. In its maw, was the terrified face of the last person it had eaten. Their final desperate expression immortalised in the mouth of the creature who killed them.

That one, Nero had only managed to get away from by holing up into a small cave and punching its face as hard as he could manage when it tried to squeeze through. To his terror the thing took his natural like a brick wall would have taken his old ones, but to his relief a golden one was at least hard enough to encourage it to leave him alone.

From then on, Nero couldn’t shake the feeling that he was being followed by the thing. It had reminded him that this place was still phenomenally dangerous and despite his newfound power, there was very little he could do if lady luck decided it was time to run into a monster he simply couldn’t take or run away from.

There were several nights when Ember would wake him up because she saw something moving in the shadows, and only half of those times was she wrong. He reckoned he wouldn’t have survived for long without her.

On the dawn of the seventh day, things were soon looking up for him.

“That’s it then?” Ember asked, smiling brightly.

“Stradale, yes.” The town sat in the distance, perhaps a few hours away now. It was a mostly wooden settlement, roughly mediaeval like he had guessed and he could see smoke leaking out the top of certain buildings. Chimneys.

Something rustled in the trees behind him, snatching Nero out of his relief and slamming him straight into a moment of alertness. It was a headspace he was quickly getting used to being in.

A Sin Spinner emerged from the bushes, clawed tips allowing it to move so seamlessly that the monster almost seemed to glide across the earth.

He was shaking.

He had faced Sin Spinners before, multiple times in fact, but there was one thing about this one that set it apart from the others.

“I didn’t know they could grow that big.” He swallowed

A Sin Spinner as large as he was, and with a fury in its eyes that seemed to betray an almost human intellect. It snarled, a sound that Nero recognised instantly, not from the smaller ones he took but from the shadows that seemed to follow him for the past few days.

“You’ve been tracking me, waiting for the perfect time to strike, but Ember’s been there to warn me every time before you got too close.” He realised. Those little bastards I killed were your children and now you’re here for payback.

Clearly not in the mood of conversation, the creature came for him with blinding speed. Nero only just managed to dodge with a leap. To his horror he realised the creature was almost as fast as he was. And with twice my number of limbs.

“Can we run?” Ember asked.

“Doubt it.” He grimaced. It came again and he bathed his hand in golding light. Nero swung but it dodged, immediately weary of it. Far too weary of it. You’ve been watching me, learning my moves.

He would have been impressed were his life not in danger,

A blade-sharp leg caught him in the stomach, sending Nero flying and smacking into the side of a tree. He hadn't even hit the ground when he saw the beast coming for him again. It’d be on him before he did so.

Nero slammed his foot into the bark and launched himself above the creature. He landed behind it in a chaotic roll and haphazardly got to his feet.

His belly burned, he’d been cut there and cut bad, but his enemy had no plans to let him assess the damage. It was coming again, and Nero still didn’t have a game plan.

He ran.

It wasn’t a good run, already limping and now clutching on a bleeding stomach, he’d be hunted down and killed in seconds.

Unless he thought of something quick.

When that something came, however, he didn’t like it one bit.

He could hear the Spider racing behind, it was almost on him, almost.

Nero suddenly stopped, let its blade come at him and raised his golden hand to block. It bit into his palm and came out the other side but it was the Spider that snarled in pain.

Apparently, covering his hand in light didn’t make it that much more durable. But he hadn’t been counting on it to. The spider was stunned as the energy burned it, and Nero used that second to attack.

With his good hand he grabbed the limb just above its joint, pulled his injured hand out from around the blade and brought it down hard on its leg.

The creature screamed just like Nero would expect any to at having their limb snapped off. It stumbled backwards on its remaining legs, green blood gushing out of the wound.

It was his turn to hunt now.

Nero grabbed the severed limb by the joint and wielded it like a makeshift dagger. He dashed up to the creature, swung his bright fist at its face and revelled in the satisfying crunch that followed the motion.

It went tumbling and Nero chased after it, but it was soon on its feet before he had gotten to the thing. It swung wildly with its long legs and he was forced to jump back for fear of being opened up. Well, opened up further.

Another swing came, this one less wild, more calculated, the bastard was on the offensive again and he hadn’t even noticed when it happened.

Nero caught it with his new dagger; its former leg. The force sent him stumbling regardless and the beast kept on coming.

One of its fangs hung loosely to the side, dripping with that characteristic green pigment. His punch had broken it, and that gave him some satisfaction.

The joy was quickly fading however, as the limbs kept on coming, and Nero kept on just barely managing to fend them off, taking nicks, slices as an omen of the death dealing blow that was to come. He was a swordsman facing seven others at once, sooner or later, his luck would run out.

The only option that remained was to quit sword fighting.

Another swing came, this time it sent Nero off his feet and rolling on the ground. The Spider sprinted to finish the job. Nero didn’t move, he let it get closer, closer and only when it raised its limbs to skewer him did his plan spring into action.

With his golden hand, Nero threw his dagger as hard as he could at the creature’s face. It reacted quickly, tilting its head to the side so he missed.

The blade tore into the spot where its head met its body instead. The Spider stumbled back, confused and dazed as a fountain of green sprayed into the air from the gash.

It paused, glared at Nero as if vowing to keep on going until its body gave out, and then finally lurching sideways as its legs collapsed underneath it and slamming into the ground.

Nero crawled to his feet soon after. The world was a blur, his legs felt weak underneath him.

“Nero, you’re bleeding.” Ember warned, her voice sounding like it was coming through water.

He looked down to see his shirt dripping red. He was losing blood and losing blood quickly. “Yeah.” He gasped. “Just need to get to the town....” He whispered.

He just needed to get there, there’d be a doctor or something that should be able to stem the bleeding. That was all he had to do. Just get to the town, get to the town, get to the town.

Nero had barely taken three steps towards it before he collapsed on the ground and his world fell into darkness.