Chapter 25: Sleeping Giant


    Something moved like a bull through the streets of Stradale.


    When Nero saw it, he could hardly believe his eyes, it wasn’t until the Executioner crashed into the Chieftain that he came to fully appreciate what his sights had come upon.


    The unstoppable force met an immovable object. One of them had to give, and it was not Selvas’ father.


    The Demon went stumbling backwards. His one eye widened in shock, narrowed in confusion then grimaced in recognition.


    At the sight of his scarred unshackled wrist, Nero understood all those emotions at once.


    Selvas’s father stared at the crimson creature with a hatred so thick he thought he could see it in congealing in the air. He was almost vibrating in his rage, fingers animated as if in the starting stages of a mad frenzy.


    Nero thought he hated this being.


    Perhaps he didn’t even know where hate began.


    “You have been freed.” The monster said as if hoping there was a chance that merely mentioning the fact would cause it to change.


    The Executioner answered with violence. He came at him with his ferocious axe and swung it for the Demon’s neck.


    A miss, but that wasn’t nearly enough to discourage him.


    He swung again, while the Chieftain was still in the process of stepping back from his last attack. This time the enemy blocked, catching the man’s arm with his and slamming his own head into his enemy’s like a bowling ball.


    The Executioner stepped back, dazed and the Demon chose that moment to crash his fist into the man’s face.


    Nero could not have survived a direct hit to the head from that creature.


    Selvas’ father could.


    The blow sounded like thunder, The former thrall fell to his knees as a gash from his head spurted blood. The man propped himself up only by an arm. He was down, but still in this fight.


    Nero just had to keep it that way.


    He called for his Light and found it a weak and distant thing.


    Guess I’ll just have to do this the old fashioned way then. He sighed.


    It was a feat to crawl to his feet, his legs ached, his head screamed and his knuckles felt like they’d been bruised down to the bone.


    He could still stand however.


    And that was bad news for the enemy.


    To his left was a downed guard, by his hip was a sword the man hadn''t even gotten to draw before his last breath.


    Nero relieved him of it and dashed at the Demon.


    The Chieftain turned his eye on him.


    Nero was slow, slower than he’d ever been. Several days on the run mixed with a couple of ruined ribs could do that to a man.


    But so was his opponent. Several punches to the face from the Light Breather would do that to a Demon.


    It swung its big meaty arms and Nero let Cain’s training take control of his body.


    He slipped past the attack and brought his blade down on the length of his arm like a batter striking a baseball.


    The blade bit through skin and into the meat, but stopped midway into his flesh.


    ‘Shit, he’s too Tough!’


    The Demon growled and brought his free arm down at Nero.


    He dragged the blade out of his limb as he ducked, dodged, then slipped on something wet.


    ‘Shit!’


    He fell on his knees.


    His enemy’s foot was racing towards him again when the Executioner saved him once more.


    This time with an axe to the monster’s torso.


    The sharper weapon sank deeper than Nero’s blade, but the steel didn’t reach deep enough to damage his insides. An axe embedded in the side was still, however, an axe in the fucking side.


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    He dragged it free of the monster’s ribs and left a spray of black in its wake.


    It was then that Nero saw something in his enemy’s face that up until now he hadn’t even been able to imagine Demons as capable of. Fear.


    “Stop, stop now, stop this very instant!” It ordered.


    But Nero had no intentions of listening.


    He came at the creature again, sword chasing flesh.


    The Executioner followed suit, his vengeful axe never lagging far behind Nero’s own blade.


    Together they assailed the bastard, putting him farther on the defensive with every new attack and never giving him a chance to breathe.


    Nero stuck to his blindside and for that got more than a few cuts off of him. The Executioner scored less, but hit here and there as well. Together, they were cutting the big bad monster down, piece by piece.


    It’s not enough.


    Nero’s lungs were burning, his arms were weak and each swing made his sword feel heavier than the last. He was getting slower, tired. And it wouldn’t be long till his opponent used that against him.


    For now he could still duck under wild swings before they struck him, but how long would that last?


    His ally wasn’t faring much better. He was less fatigued, but his head was clearly rung by the strike he’d taken, blood still gushed out of that wound in his head and his legs seemed to grow ever shakier from the knees down underneath .


    Wordlessly, the both of them stopped their attacking and stood at either side of their opponent, brandishing their weapons at him in trembling hands.


    The enemy heaved and huffed as well. Inky rivers ran down his muscled arms, though far less than Nero would have preferred for just how many times they had struck him.


    The bastard’s skin was tough.


    He was hunched over slightly, as if the weight of his upper body had increased ten times over.


    He was tired too, pushed to his limit just as they had been. But still the question of who would come out on top still hung in the air.


    ‘You just need to get through this.’ Nero told himself. ‘Just get through this and it’ll all be over, no more lying to Selvas, no more secrets, no more everything.’


    “I’m almost there.” Nero told himself and tightened his grip around his sword. A strike to somewhere vital, his enemy’s neck or his heart. That could end this all.


    Nero dashed at the monster a moment after his ally did. Together they moved like scissor blades, swooping down from either side to put the beast down.


    The axe came down like a guillotine’s edge.


    And founds its mark.


    Glinting runed steel buried itself deep into the Demon’s left shoulder blade and spilled rivers of tar coloured blood in its wake. It was the deepest blow they’d managed to land on the monster and it carried all the man’s weight behind it.


    It made sense then that it was a trap.


    Nero didn’t see the Demon raise its one good arm, he just saw it smash into the man’s face like a train.


    He staggered, like a man who was no match for his whiskey. And dropped to the ground like a sack.


    There, Nero’s ally lay motionless.


    It was as good a plan as the Demon could hope for while on the backfoot of this affair. Sacrifice a limb to down an entire opponent.


    Nero’s blade raced for his neck, but he’d already raised his good arm to block his hopes. It slashed into it, cutting, but not deep enough.


    He didn’t even let the frustration register before he was striking again, this time a stab aimed for the bastard’s gut, angled upwards to get his heart at the last moment.


    It connected with all his weight behind it, but to his ribs not his gut. The bastard had twisted to the side just before impact.


    Nero was dragging his sword back for another attack when something terrible came down on his shoulder. He screamed at the pain, dropped his blade and only then did he see the Demon pull his arm back from Nero’s ruined shoulder.


    Nero’s legs gave out, he was on his knees.


    Ember screamed so loud he thought her voice might break.


    Nero grabbed his sword with his left hand.


    His worse hand by far.


    He had little chance of winning a prolonged clash with only one arm, none with only his left.


    He had to strike now and deep down he knew this attack would be his last, for better or for worse.


    Nero batted the pain away with the remaining fragments of his will and sprung to his feet.


    Neck or heart.


    An attack to either was one his enemy would see coming.


    Yet he had to hit somewhere decisive.


    Nero swung with all he had left in him.


    The blade soared through the air and connected with the Demon’s one good eye. It cut deep, ruining the organ and birthing a spray of blood in its wake.


    The Demon shrieked, like some animal-thing with little wit and less mastery. It swung wildly, hoping to catch Nero with a blow but only meeting the air.


    Fear of the dark.


    He supposed that was not exclusive to humanity.


    It tripped over something and fell onto its back.


    While it was scrambling to get back onto its feet, Nero moved.


    He limped more than walked towards the creature, each motion sending spasms of agony through his shoulder and birthing new ideas of how to bring an end to the creature.


    “Please… please spare me, I, I can help you, they’ll come for you for this, but I can help you, tell them it was all a big misunderstanding my boy!” The creature cried out pathetically. It was whimpering, like a little boy scared to death of his father’s belt. When no answer came, his voice turned edged with malice, trembling with a pathetic attempt at intimidation. “ You think you can get away with overturning the natural order boy?! Rex Infernus, The Three Faced Monarch, he will come for you, he will have your head!”


    It almost seemed human, almost.


    “Nero-” Ember began.


    “He has to die.” He hissed. He’d done far too much for Nero to forgive, he wanted this, he needed this.


    He wasn’t expecting what Ember said next to get to him, but it did. “Make him suffer.” She ordered it more than requested, like a commander to a soldier. Her words seemed far too controlled, eyes far too vast, as if he was speaking to something ancient and long since forgotten.


    It disconcerted him, but she had not given an order that he had any intentions of disobeying.


    Nero’s answer came quickly, he waited until the Demon was up to its knees before swinging his blade across the thing’s throat and leaving a gash in its wake.


    Drowning on your own blood. Not the most creative of ways to kill someone you loathe, but horrifying enough and Nero’s body was already moments from ignoring his inputs and crashing into the dirt.


    He couldn’t risk the chance that he’d get away.


    And now, as it clutched its throat dearly and blood spilled between fingers, it was clear this was its end.


    Still, Nero stood and watched, like a sentry to a station.


    His head pounded, body screamed and knees burned, but he didn’t move, not until the Demon’s gurgling stopped, his breathing ceased and its body lay still as a pile of rocks.


    Only then did Nero stumbled backwards against a wall, slide onto the ground and shut his eyes.


    With his body covered in dirt, bruised, battered and shoulder ruined, it was the most peaceful sleep Nero had since coming to Hell.