God of Hell - Chapter 52 - Blood And Fire (Patreon)

Death was coming for the Demon Lady. And Nero was its herald. 

He led the charge, slicing through men, women, and any other creature that dared to get in his way. Behind him was the full force of the United Front, all screaming for blood and staining their blades red with it.

The fighting force had been assembled mere hours after the Prophet’s betrayal. It had not been difficult; even her closest confidants denied having any ties to her scheme. If they were lying, they certainly weren’t going to resist siding with the Light Breather—not now that their only other alternative had been cut into several pieces.

So he killed, and they killed for him—an unstoppable mass of force, filled with righteous fury, carving their way towards the Demon’s manor and leaving corpses in their wake.

There was a version of him that might have been made sick by all the killing: a version whose nose might have wrinkled as he cut open a man’s belly and watched his guts spill out like the contents of a ruined wineskin, and breathed the smell of piss and shit and iron in the air.

That man was dead—dead and better for it.

He had to kill, not because he enjoyed it, not because it was some form of justice or retribution, but simply because some people just needed to fucking die.

Nero caved a man’s head in with the flat edge of his blade, felt his brain matter spray onto his face, and kicked the corpse into its ally’s path.

The guards were retreating now, and Nero didn’t chase them down: they weren’t his targets, and in their fleeing, they had cleared his way towards the true object of his desire.

Defrid’s manor stood powerfully before him—a symbol of her status, her influence, and her superiority. It made the Prophet’s seem like a shack by comparison. That was just how great she was in her own eyes. And maybe in her people’s as well.

No more. 

Reason was what separated people frmo animals. People who couldn’t be reasoned with were no different than animals— Nero was dealing with animals and he would slaughter them like animals. They brought down the doors and entered into a hail of fire: arrows, spears, and magic whizzed into Nero’s army. The defenders threw everything they had at them. It was never going to be enough.

Something green congealed in a Caster’s hand, and a kinetic blast of Nero’s Light turned half his face into pulverised meat, bone, and thinking organ before he could even find out what it was.

An arrow tip caught him in the side—shallow. He glared up at the row of archers by the stairs and saw a third of them flee for their lives at that alone. The rest didn’t—they would pay for their mistake.

A ball of golden light struck one first; Selvas’ arrow lodged itself in the neck of another. Nero was dashing for them the next moment—their sights converged on him. He coated his palms with light, stretched them out, closed his eyes, and let them explode into a blinding flash.

When he opened his eyes, the archers were desperately rubbing theirs.

To call what happened next a fight would be a gross misrepresentation of events. Nero found still targets and carved his blade through their forms. Cutting, cutting, cutting, cutting—he waited for his arms to grow tired but they didn’t, waited for the bloodshed to sicken him, but it didn’t. It didn’t please him either. That, he supposed, he and his opponents had in common.

Erik barrelled into a man and broke the enemy’s back against a doorframe- Nero had killed two men before he’d finished that one action. 

A stream of fire burned the row of archers to the left of him—not Nero’s, not Erlo’s either. Dario’s red flames ate into the screaming men with a whooshing viciousness; hate, malice, and more congealed into a blistering inferno. His Imp stood on his shoulder, face neutral: like a general observing a battlefield.

More guards lined the hallway: Crimons, Grays, and everything in between. They were protecting something—someone. A futile effort—one that would be their last.

Jion’s spear burst through the air, tore through the men and shattered their formation. Erlo’s potion followed—thrown with fury, and not glee; the man had lost a friend, and Nero knew the Caster wanted blood just as much as he did.

Nero was moving before he could think to do anything else—closing the gap between him and the reeling guards, first to metres, then inches, and then he was upon them.

His blade was already soaked in blood, his hands already slick with red—he bathed them further. Snarling, roaring, and hissing as the battle continued, more men died to his quickly-dulling metal: after all, no steel could endure the tests he had put it through and retain an edge. It was still the best the people of Dolore had to offer—so with it, he killed. For them, for Alisan, Boris, Jeto, Tommy, for dozens, scores, hundreds, but not for himself—never for himself.

He hadn’t earned that right.

He would never earn that right.

Though he felt like it, he was not invincible—so sharp edges opened skin, and deep blows made his stomach churn—and yet he fought, because there was little else to do but the fighting. And the fighting wasn’t done with Nero yet.

He killed a man, and didn’t remember his face. Stab, hack, slash—murder, murder, murder—he called on his magic, and it reacted to him in ways it never had before—in ways he’d always wanted it to. Like an extension of himself, his golden fury chased his enemies with an electric zeal, each bolt striking true, each flash searing into an attacker. Bruising, crippling, rending, melting, burning.

What was this buzz thrumming through him? Was he high on his magic? No, his magic was high on him—drinking from his hate, his anguish, his spite, and his bitter malice. Like a parasite. Well, it would gorge itself without even emptying a fraction of Nero’s tank.

He charged forwards, leaving his allies behind, and chasing a mental image of Defrid down the hallway with the greatest concentration of guards.

Ember followed, clad in golden armor, burning bright as if to rival the sun—wordlessly proclaiming ‘here is my Light Breather, stand in his path if you dare.’ Very few did, and fewer still were standing for long.

A door stood before him, he shot it with a roar of golden light and it did so no more. A cloud of wood, splinters, and dust barred his way, and obstructed his view.

He emerged into a room, opulent in design, wasteful in reality—a bedroom, Defrid’s bedroom. No Defrid.

Something leapt out of the shadows, Nero rolled from its path, saw it crash into the far wall, and was up on his own feet a moment later.

The creature circled him, a hound, the height of a small man, and the width of a doorframe. Its eyes were empty oranges—it’s maw dripping with floor-melting saliva.

Nero didn’t wait for the feeling of fear.

He knew it would not come.

It roared fire—a stream like a geyser, torching the room, expanding the air, and singeing Nero’s hair as he dashed towards it, and ducked out of its path on sliding knees.

The room was on fire, flames eating at ceilings, walls, chandeliers, and the very oxygen that kept them fighting.

He stretched out a hand and shunted a bolt of light at the monster’s face. It struck truly, but not before the beast could leap out of the way—earning a minor burn to its torso when the beast could have erupted into a blaze of hungry golden flames instead.

The hound rounded on him, so Nero rounded on it back. It leapt; he kicked. He struck first. His foot cracked against its skull and sent the hound sliding across repulsively expensive marble.

The monster was up within moments, but moments were all Nero needed to ensure its demise; Nero’s light slammed into its face as a ball of fire, engulfing it in flames and leaving the creature to wail in agony as the blaze consumed it.

It dashed around the room madly, frantically darting in zigzag patterns as it searched fruitlessly for an escape from its torment.

Nero caught it with a bolt of hard light to the face. This one didn’t burn; instead it singed and broke, crushing into skull and knocking bloody teeth out onto the floor.

A whimper left the dying animal. Nero shot it again. No sound escaped the corpse this time.

Two figures emerged from the door, and Nero barely resisted the impulses that screamed at him to swing at Selvas’s neck. 

“Defrid?” She asked, either not recognising the effects of adrenaline on Nero, or not caring—likely the latter. 

“We haven’t seen her,” Ember told Selvas.

Dario was behind Selvas, and he was frantically searching for the Demon. He opened doors, wardrobes, flipped beds, and tore down curtains. Still, no Defrid.

“Shit,” Nero hissed, then put his mind to work.

“Where could she be?” Dario asked, eyes burning aimlessly.

“Somewhere else in the Manor,” Selvas said, instantly turning for the door. She already had her back to Nero, gait taking her out of the room, when he called for her attention.

“No,” he said, pacing. “That’s what she wants—she wanted us fighting hordes of men to get here, she wanted me battling a hound when I finally carved through them all, she wants us searching room after room, after room—because, because, because…” Nero snapped his fingers, felt the burning venom of being tricked, and moved to fix his mistake. “Fuck! She’s heading for the Hell Gate!”

None questioned him, that was how obvious it was, that was how much of a fool he’d been to miss it in the first place.

He turned towards the balcony, dashed towards it, leapt off, fell. The air screamed in his ears as gravity dragged him down dozens of feet, trying its best to break him on the hard ground. And Nero rolled harmlessly onto his feet without even a sting of pain. He was sprinting the next moment, a quick glance behind told him Selvas and Dario were giving chase.

Those two were, perhaps, the fastest in the city; neither could keep up with him.

His legs whipped him through the streets of Dolore, pounding against the roads, questing his way towards Defrid. He knew where the Hell Gate was—he knew where everything was—all he had to do was reach for it in his mind and it’d be there.

And yet, he’d overlooked this, overlooked such an obvious play. It was the rage—clouding his judgement, barrelling him towards the first thing that looked like an enemy, and blinding his eyes to every other candidate.

Could he forgive himself if Defrid escaped? No. He couldn’t live with the thought of a Demon, lurking in the shadows with a personal grudge against him, scheming and plotting his demise. He was done with that—and he was never going back. She had to die.

He saw the Hell Gate building right when he estimated he would. Saw the corpses next. Hundreds of men—the reserve forces of the United Front—dead and dying, torn apart by something vicious and wrong.

She was here.

She was here.

From the looks of it, they hadn’t stood a chance. However Mighty Defrid was, she certainly wasn’t so far below Mercury that Nero wouldn’t have to be weary of her. Something burned in his heart—again, not fear: caution. 

Nero heeded it.

He sprinted past the corpses, down the stairs, and felt his magic coil in anticipation. It thrashed against the wall of his mind like a caged animal, wanting nothing more than to rampage into the night. It was a pressure in his skull—rising, rising, rising—like waves underneath the celestial pull of the moon. However, it was not the satellite, but his burning hatred and malice that his Magic was crescendoing in response to.

Six more steps of spiralling stairs separated him from the Hell Gate: five, four—he leapt—one. He emerged.

His eyes caught Defrid, one hand on a Hollow’s heart, the other on the lever—she’d turned the Hell Gate on.

Nero didn’t think, he attacked. 

Light raced from his palm toward the woman. It was a testament to the Demon’s swiftness how well she dodged, a testament to his Light’s speed that it still hit. It caught her hand, searing into the limb with a hissing glee as the creature screeched in agony, scrambling back and away from Nero and his anathema’s magic.

The runes in the walls were glowing with a heartbeat’s rhythm; the room hummed and thrummed like it was in the earliest stages of an earthquake, and the circle that centered the room burned brightest, bleeding smokey red along its thick circumference.

The Hell Gate was open. The path to Luxuria awaited Defrid.

He didn’t know exactly what would happen if she stepped in, but he reckoned it would be nothing too good.

Nero eyed it; Defrid eyed it. She wanted to step in, knew he wouldn’t let her. That was not what stopped her however, it was the appearance of Selvas and Dario behind him.

She clutched at her burnt hand by the wrist—the burning light had died now—it was melted, ruined, and had probably been burned too terribly for her to feel sensations from it.

She was still a Demon however—and a City Lord at that. Even with the progress he’d made, Nero didn’t know he could take her alone.

Luckily, he didn’t need to.

Her eyes flicked to Dario, the melted skin around his wrist, the symbol of his newly gained freedom, the absence of the items that prevented him from seeking retribution. But they didn’t linger.

Why? He wondered, but Defrid was speaking before he could let his mind properly ponder. 

“So. You have me now?” she said, face a perfect mask of calm and ice. Too perfect.

“Take a step towards the circle and you’re dead thing,” Nero told her.

“I—”

Nero dashed towards her like a train—not because she’d taken a step towards the circle, not because she’d made any blatant moves at all. He did so because he could tell she had a card hidden up her sleeve, and he would sooner burn the limb it clothed than see it drawn.

Defrid hadn’t been expecting that—the shock etched into her face told him as much, even as Nero’s burning fist chased her form. 

 However, it would never connect,.

Something struck Nero in the head—hard and hot. His momentum died, his world spun, and when he whipped around to catch the attacker with his Magic, he saw Dario slip underneath his golden jet of Light, and strike Nero between the ribs with a flaming hand of his own.

The breath left his lungs, his legs turned to jelly, knees met ground, and he retched out the contents of his stomach onto the floor with an acidic taste on his tongue.

A betrayal—by Dario. The once-thrall swung another fist at Nero’s face, this one well-telegraphed—this one easy to dodge. Yet, Nero’s legs didn’t listen to his will, and it struck anyway. The world was white with agony, and when it faded slightly, it revealed a sight worse than anything Nero could have imagined.

Selvas and Defrid locked in a struggle—the Demon overpowering her easily. Nero tried to leap into the fight, but his body wouldn’t let him; the world was still spinning and turning, and so much was happening too quickly. Selvas swung her blade. Defrid caught her wrist—Nero’s heart dropped. The Demon swiped at her throat. The battle was over in an instant. Sharp nails ripped through too-weak flesh like a razor through paper; at first, Nero thought he’d imagined the blow—no blood had come after all, and Selvas was still on her feet—but rivers of red began pouring, cascading down the woman’s neck as she clutched desperately at it. Her wide eyes filled with purple terror.

That was more than enough to kill his illusions.

“No!” He roared, his legs sprung into action, carried him to his feet, and he was sprinting towards Selvas with haste. Nothing else mattered—not him, not the pain, not the fumes he could feel himself running on. Perhaps that was why he didn’t see Dario’s stab coming. He was barely a step towards Selvas when the Fire Breather drove a sword through Nero’s guts and out the back.

It was Nero’s sword, he realised dully, he must have dropped it during the struggle.

The shock seized his nerves, turned his legs to jelly, left them collapsing underneath him, and reduced his breaths to wheezes. Nero focused, however, on Selvas. How could he not? Nothing else mattered. He had to save her. He willed his body to move; it didn't listen; he screamed, yelled, snarled, and begged—begged for it to lunge—begged for it to defy all that was matter, biology, and reality, and send him barrelling towards Selvas’ side. It didn’t listen.

So, Nero could only watch, watch as Selvas fell to her knees, watched as she clutched futily at serrated flesh, and watched as her end neared and he could do nothing to stop it.

Defrid wiped Selvas’ lifeblood away on her dress. She strode to the center of the circle—hollow heart in hand—and met Nero’s eyes with a grin. A grin like a woman who hadn’t just had her city taken, a grin like a Demon who hadn’t just been driven from their home, like a creature who’d tasted nothing but costless victory and ideal outcomes. “I win, Light Breather,” she snarled.

There was a flash of light, and then the creature was gone.

Out of reach.