God of Hell - Chapter 37 - Evil Incarnate (Patreon)

“Wait, so you’re the Light Breather?” 

“Focus!” Nero snapped.

Klaus didn't listen. “I thought you were a fable.”

“He’s actually very much real, sometimes I wish he wasn’t, but oh well.” Ember added.

The three of them were in Klaus’ cell now, a putrid, cramped hole in the wall, but at the very least somewhere they could get a bit of privacy in even if just outside was a ruckus of noise from chattering inmates.

It had taken up until night for Nero to be processed into the seal, which meant that even if they left now they’d still be reaching Stradale after the attacking force did. To say that his nerves were fraying would be an incredible understatement.

“I’m going to repeat myself one last time-” Nero began.

“I got it, I got it.” Klaus said. “No need to drill me again, I’ll have you know I’ve been doing this outlaw thing much, much longer than you have, little mister Light Breather.”

Nero scoffed. “Well if you were any good at it, you wouldn’t be here now would you?”

“Low blow, but I’ll allow it.” Klaus shrugged.

Nero reached into his pocket and pulled out a small cylindrical vial. The liquid within bubbled black and green, feeling incredibly cold to the touch. Unnaturally cold.

Erlo had given it to him, and it would either make or break their escape. “You would not believe where he made me put this-”

“Up your ass?” Klaus guessed.

“Up my ass.” Nero confirmed and the man gave him a knowing nod.

Like Jion, his colleague, Klaus had bright red hair and green eyes. He considered the possibility of them being related and then dismissed it. Her features were more angular and Klaus’ more rigid, also, her hair was a fiery red while his was the colour of roses.

“I-”

“Shhh.” Klaus placed a finger to his lips and glared at Nero. 

That was enough to keep him from talking and with concern he frowned at Klaus.

Something was wrong, something was very wrong. Everywhere was silent, not a word, not a whisper, not a single sound. None save from that of foot steps against ground, calm, controlled, collected footsteps approaching their room.

Familiar footsteps.

“Hide!” Klaus hissed but Nero was already moving before he got the words out.

He grabbed the vial, dropped to the floor and rolled underneath the man’s bed, pulling knees up to his chest to make himself smaller there.

Ember zipped behind him, keeping herself obscured further in.

Under the bed was home to bugs that looked like things born from nightmares, crawling along him, some finding their way underneath his trousers, along his neck and so on, but Nero didn’t even humor the idea of rolling out.

Someone entered the cell and Nero could only see them by their shoes and the blue scales that dotted their ankles. 

“Hello there.” They greeted, voice striking memories he’d long since wished he could forget, and desperately loathed the day he’d be forced to confront them.

Mercury, it’s Mercury…

Images of dying men flashed before his eyes, Alisan’s scream was etched into his head, her cry, her desperation, the sound of his footsteps as he desperately ran away.

Like a coward.

He couldn’t breathe.

Dead men, dying men, all around him, Inquisitors throwing their Might and Magic at the monster only to find it all wanting, to find that it led to nothing.

Atix dead, body looted, bones broken, twisted, corpse discarded.

He wanted to go home, he wanted this all to be a nightmare, he was so, so scared.

But Nero couldn’t wake up, and the horror continued.

“Good day Lord.”  Klaus said. “I don’t believe we’ve met.”

“No, we have not, but we might have a friend in common.” Mercury the monster said, voice dripping with coalesced evil. “The Light Breather, have you met him?”

Klaus scoffed. “What?”

There was a sound like a cracking whip, Klaus’ cry tore through the air and then Nero saw his feet lift off the floor, tip of his shoes just a hair off the ground. Tight choking noises spilled out of Klaus as his legs spasmed in the air.

Nero dared to peak and glimpsed a sight of horror. A tentacle, blue and wicked extended from Mercury’s back to wrap around Klaus’ neck.

Mercury kept at it, filling the room with the man’s desperate sounds of struggle. 

Nero was stronger now than when he first met Mercury. He had tapped into his Might, honed it even, he had Magic now, Magic that was especially potent against Demons.

He could fight, he could save Klaus.

But he didn’t, instead he just cowered ever deeper underneath the bed.

“That is what I call a wrong answer.” Mercury said. “Here’s another question, where is the Light Breather?”

Klaus gasped, drawing in air with ragged breaths.

“You have four seconds of air to tell me what I want to hear.” Mercury informed him.

“I don’t know what you’re talking ab-” Klaus tried to tell him, but was already being choked once more.

“Let's try something different.” Mercury said as the man gargled and wheezed in his grasp. “You will spend the rest of your life here if you don’t tell me where the Light Breather is, I, however, can free you, I am a Warden, the voice of the Circle, the manifestation of Rex Infernus’ will, I can open doors you would have never dreamed possible.”

Klaus’ gasp told Nero Mercury had given him the chance to speak once more and Nero wasn’t pleased at that. As things stood, Nero’s allegiance to Klaus was quite shaky and their plan to escape was not exactly without its flaws.

If the Demon could guarantee he’d get out of this place while only needing to sell out one stranger, regardless of who that stranger was Nero doubted he had much of a reason to protect him.

He waited, tense as a spring to hear what Klaus said next.

“F-fine.” He coughed. “Fine, you win.” From the way he fell Mercury must have let go of him. Klaus collapsed into a sitting position.

From this angle he could see the man’s green eyes on him. They were apologetic, conflicted, but at the end of the day absolutely resolute. 

Nero knew then that Klaus had decided to sell him out. 

“Good.” Mercury chimed. “Now we’re getting somewhere.”

“He’s.” Klaus began, finger raised in the beginning of a pointing motion.

A sound like dynamite filled the air and the building trembled under its wrath. It had come from the opposite side of the building and Nero saw Mercury turn to face the direction it came from. “What the fuck was that?” He hissed.

He was out of the room the next moment, off to investigate.

Nero waited a moment before rolling out from underneath the bed.

Klaus was on the floor, back against the wall, red hair plastered against his sweat coated face. A red line marked his neck where Mercury must have choked him. He looked at Nero with tired eyes, but focused. Focused enough to continue with the plan.

“You were going to sell me out.” Nero told him.

“I was.” Klaus said, coughing, not a hint of regret in his eyes. “Do you have a problem with that?”

Nero shook his head. “Not a single one.” He held the vial tight. “Now to do our part.”

Selvas was hunched in a bush with a weird old man.

She could think of a million better ways to spend her days, but it seemed this was the one Nero had chosen for her. She would punish him for that when the time came.

Today however, she had to save him from being locked up in a prison for the rest of his life.

In front of her was said prison, well not exactly. It was actually incredibly far away, but it was within sight enough of Selvas to do what needed to be done.

“Are you done?” Selvas asked Erlo, feeling her patience thin with each moment the man wasted.

He held out a vial of curious looking liquid and lightly swiveled it from side to side while glaring at the thing with  keen eyes. “The art of a Caster such as myself is not to be hurried young flesh, it requires a certain poise, elegance and finesse.”

Selvas inhaled. 

“Hmmm.” Erlo frowned at the liquid.

“What?” She frowned back.

“Needs more piss.” He said, then handed the glass to her. “Mind helping.”

Of course. Erlo The Piss Wizard had, apparently, not gotten his name for nothing. 

“You piss in it yourself.” She hissed.

He shook his head as if faced with some moral indignity. “Your generation just don’t respect your elders like we used to.”

He shuffled off deeper into another bush and came out a moment later.

“You’re lucky I wasn’t working on an empty tank there.” He huffed and tossed the vial at her.

Selvas caught it with a rag, wiped it down clinically and then tied it to her arrow by a length of rope. 

She got to her feet, knocked her arrow to her bow string, pulled it back to the sound of whirring gears and tensing springs and let go.

The arrow tore through the air, slammed into the side of the Seal and exploded in a fury of fiery blue and black smoke. Even from her distance, where a normal person could only make out a few details of the structure, they could still hear the explosion reverberate through the city.

Perhaps there were a few uses to having an Explosion Caster on your side, Piss Wizard or not.

“That should do it.” Selvas said. “Let’s catch up with the others.” Even now debris was raining down, some pieces crossing the hundreds of yards to land beside them.

If that kind of blast didn’t draw the attention of every single Gray and Crimson in the Seal, and then some, then Selvas didn’t know what would.

It was up to Nero to do his own part now, and she could only hope he didn’t encounter any hitches in the process.

After the biggest hitch in any plan of Nero’s life walked out of the cell, he placed the vial down against the floor  and thought back to what Erlo’s directions were. ‘Expose it to air with the opening facing the wall then you have thirty seconds to run as far away as you can before it goes off.’

He drew in a breath, twisted the cap open then turned for the door as fast as his legs could take him.

He was barely out of the room before a blast took Nero off of his feet and turned up into down, then sideways, then, somehow, inwards.

He struck the  wall like a thrown baseball and was left wheezing on the floor for what felt like several agonizing hours.

Klaus was stood next to him, unhurt from the state of him and the stupid grin along his lips. The bastard hadn’t even been in the room when Nero pulled the cap.

Thirty seconds my ass!

“Would you look at that, you still have all your fingers.” Klaus chimed. “No broken bones either, tough bastard aren’t you?”

Nero crawled onto his feet, glaring. “Can’t guarantee the same about you if you keep on talking.”

Ember, on the other hand, was practically belly laughing.

Thick smoke spilled out of Klaus’ cell, obscuring its interior and leaving him unsure if their plan had worked.

Nero stepped back into the room and immediately found himself coughing and doing everything in his power not to hurl his food onto the floor. “Why the fuck does it smell like piss?” He barked.

“Ah, that’s an Erlo special.” Klaus laughed through what sounded like a pinched nose.

The smoke cleared to reveal a massive hole where the wall used to be. Beneath them was the city of Dolore, bustling and burning with life. More or less everything within line of sight had been shredded by debris- varying from dust to small boulders- cast outwards by the explosion, bringing down walls in several other, less sturdy buildings far from the opening. Another stab of guilt was added to Nero’s collection. 

He ignored it, because beyond was Stradale, Nero couldn’t see it from here, but he could imagine it in his mind’s eye, out there, waiting for him, waiting for their Light Breather as they prepared to hold back the enemy force.

“Oi, are you two just going to stand there?!” Someone yelled and Nero looked down to see Jion, Jeto and Erik waiting, each atop a fresteed and with two unmounted ones held by their reins. Everyone in the street seemed to be giving them as wide a berth as was possible. Smart.

Klaus leapt down first and Nero followed. 

He landed with a roll and barely felt the impact of a fall that would have killed him were he back on earth.

“Don’t get captured again, moron.” Jion sighed, arms wrapped around Klaus in a tight hug.

“I was just so sick of you lot, had to get away.”  Klaus grinned and climbed atop his steed.

Jion tossed a pair of objects at Klaus and he caught them both in his hands. It took Nero a moment to recognise what he was staring at.

Flintlock pistols, two of them, both etched with curious runes onto the surface. 

“You have guns?!” Nero said as he climbed atop his fresteed.

“My Great Grandfather.” Klaus grinned. “Never doubt the ingenuity of a Damned Runesmith.”

Wow. That gave Nero interesting ideas involving springs and banana mags, but nothing he had time for just now.

The group were moving a moment later, steeds pushed as fast as they could manage as they raced away from the tower. They didn’t know how long the explosion would distract the guards and had no intentions of finding out. Still, it would have been unwise to try and sprint the whole way on foot as they’d gas out before they were back in the city proper.

Nero nudged his mount closer to Jeto. “Thanks for coming. I didn’t actually think you would.”

The blonde man grinned and handed Nero his blade. “And miss an opportunity to make the God of Hell indebted to me? I would never give that up.”

Nero raised an eyebrow. “How did you know I was the Light Breather?”

Jeto laughed. “Your Explosion Caster wouldn’t stop going on about it.”

Fucking Erlo.

Jeto’s eyes narrowed with a seriousness that Nero had long thought was far out of the range of the man. “Stradale first, Dolore next okay?”

Nero didn’t know what to say to that, he was barely even sure they could save Stradale as was, taking over a city would be a completely different ball game.

“I.. I don’t know Jeto, I’m sorry.” Nero managed.

The man’s eyes dropped, he opened his mouth to speak but nothing came out, only gurgled sounds and then he was hacking blood.

Eyes wide, filled with panic and despair, Jeto slipped off his fresteed and landed in the dirt.

“Jeto!” Nero screamed and heard another alongside his. It was Erik’s.

A sword was lodged into his back, thin and long, like a needle.

Behind him, evil approached, Mercury on his feet, blood red pupil-slits burned into Nero. He leaned down and grabbed his thrown blade from Jeto’s corpse.

“Light Breather!” The monster yelled. “I will have your head!”