Volume 1 Chapter 6 Side Story: The hunt for Nero Augustus

Nero was never about carefully planned double murder disguised as a suicide gone wrong it; was way too long to set up for him. Really an old man like him preferred a trusty slaughter.

And he was not the only one thinking that, for example he just did one with two good old pals. They were quirky but they were fun to play with.

The young man close to him wasn’t even wearing a shirt; Nero never really knew why his friend wouldn’t want to wear a cool white suit like him. Same went with his other chum; Alice wore a black suit, Nero did not think it fit her, but it was still better than another someone who simply wasn’t wearing a suit.

Origin had told them to wipe out a certain city of the Silver Ridge Dynasty. And as they did the Dynasty’s elite troops were coming to try to capture them.

Both Alice Plane Oliron and the shirtless man left once they had finished their task, but Nero had no task to do after this one, so he decided to play a little bit the Dynasty soldiers.

Vernilon and her men penetrated the remains of the burning city, and the first thing they saw was the scorched body of the former residents.

Vernilon cursed, they were once again a step too late. She ordered her subordinates to proceed with caution, the last time they had a similar case they were ambushed by an unknown creature that killed five of her men before fleeing.

The Dynasty’s warriors walked down the main alley. The smoke was making it more difficult to breathe and the fire was blinding them. They soon encountered things that weren’t human, things that were once human but not anymore.

The monsters were human-like, they had much more limbs, mouths where there should not have been. From twenty to thirty eyes each. Some were nothing but masses of flesh.

The Legend-level commander had seen a lot of things in her long life but this was still too much.

The creatures were not hostile; all they did was to plead for someone to help them, to put an end to their suffering.

Vernilon ordered to end the life of the errors of nature; it was the best she could offer the Dynasty citizens that were asking for help.

They passed another section of the city, where the only people they could see were simply dead, and their souls had left their body the moment they were attacked by the ones Vernilon group was trying to stop.

Finally they saw him, the one responsible for the death of so many innocent; Nero Michael Augustus.

He was looking at them from a throne of fire on the top of a tower; two of his fingers were pressed against his right temple. He had a grin that reflected his knowledge of the gravity of his crimes. Nero was looking down on them literally and metaphorically.

He started speaking: “If it’s not the great commander Vernilon.”

Vernilon retorted: “Bastard, come down, fight me one on one!”

The man said: “You think I’m a fool, you think I don’t know that fighting a Strength Path enemy at the Legend-level using Fire Path would be suicide?”

Nero had already set up his domain, so he could directly use a Legend-level attack.

-Nero Original: Primordial Fire, Fire Path

A titanic fire appeared in the sky and fell on the Dynasty’s troops.

It took the soldiers by surprise, half of them were reduced into ashes in a matter of seconds*1. The one who survived were Vernilon who was able to use a defensive spell before being hit and the soldiers that were in the back.

Vernilon used her Chus to enhance her legs’ muscles; she jumped towards Nero’s position, but before she was able to reach him the gigantic fire moved in front of her, forcing her to change the course of her actions.

The woman redirected herself to fall in front of the tower; she threw her spear at Nero’s previous position. Her spear was made of an elder dragon bone, it was fine to put it in Nero’s fire for a short amount of time. But when the fire dissipated, her spear had not hit her target.

Nero had since moved behind the remaining soldiers. The moment he had put his fire in front of his throne was the moment he relocated himself.

Nero understanding of fire was that of rage, of bestial-like behaviour and that of destruction. He only ever created one spell and it was flexible enough to adapt to pretty much every situation.

-Nero Original: Primordial Fire, Fire Path

Once again the mass of fire was summoned close to him, but this time Vernilon had time to prepare a defensive spell for her subordinates.

Jessica Vernilon Creation: Enhance Resistance Large-Scale Transmission.

The fire separated itself into smaller sized burning masses and flew towards a soldier each. But with Vernilon's protective spell on them, most of the soldiers were able to survive.

To reach Nero, Vernilon was running on top of this street’s building as fast as she could, jumping from construction to construction, she reached her soldiers and put herself between Nero and her underlings.

Nero was about to send another attack, but a gloomy figure manifested in his sight.

The shadow said: “Enough, I need you somewhere else urgently. Stellar will bring you there.”

Nero nodded

With that a Navy blue portal opened up in front of Nero, the blue haired boy said to Nero where they were going before re-passing through the rift.

Jessica shouted: “Killing my men wasn’t enough, now you flee before we can even fight Nero?!”

Nero replied: “I’m sorry miss, but I have more important business to attend to, you know how it is, my superior would be mad at me if I didn’t do my task correctly. And if you have forgotten what it feels like, I believe you’ll be able to experience it when you get back to where you come from.”

With that sentence Nero had left.

Author’s notes:

*1 In the Emiprusixen World, Ashes refer to someone who doesn’t have magical powers. It’s a word play as them being dead made them unable to use magic.