All the arms seized up, hands clenching into fists. All the mouths opened wider, and from them came a sound.

A damning sound.

The sound pressed against Nero's eardrums, making his nose bleed.

He yanked Gungnir free and staggered back, his Ein Sof reserves plummeting as Brybernos had eaten through them. His vision swam, exhaustion pulling at him, but he couldn't stop now.

The monster was already collapsing. But even as it fell, its arms found Nero, dragging him to the and attempting to smother him to death.

A struggle ensued.

It was not a glorious battle, neither was it pretty.

It was a desperate dance of death.

Both monsters clawed at one another. They bit. They hacked.

Until the growing pool of blood had covered the ground.

One of the black-blood bodies latched onto Nero's feet and bit off a toe, cleanly severing it away.

Nero brought his foot down on its head, crushing its skull.

Then he turned his attention back to the monster.

He was the one on top now.

A twisted expression marred his monstrous face as he drove the spear over and over into the monster's face.

Until...

The mound of flesh lay scattered across the chamber, now motionless, the black fluid spreading out from it. The crawling things dissolved back into liquid, becoming just puddles of darkness.

Silence returned.

Nero stood there, gasping, his entire body shaking from exhaustion and blood loss.

He healing effects of Vineheart seemed to have been nullified by the being's terrible blood.

Blood dripped from his nose and ears. His clothes were shredded, soaked in black fluid and his own blood.

Nero collapsed onto the blood soaked floor with a heavy sigh.

He glanced down at his blood hands.

They were unfamiliar.

Alien.

***

{Rejoice, Heretic. You have slain a Piece of Corrupted Flesh}.

***

Hearing the Oracle's congratulations, Nero couldn't help but huff.

'I did it.'

Suddenly, hjs eyes caught a glow of something in the darkness.

In the center of the chamber, where the spiral of runes converged, there was something, floating above the river of black blood.

It was a strange rune, hovering at chest height, made from light that was pale and cold, reminded Nero of a single snowflake.

He stumbled toward it and reached out with a trembling hand.

The moment Nero's fingers touched the key, reality fractured.

It fractured, like ice forming patterns across glass, spiderwebbing outward, spreading through reality itself.

The bell tower ceased to exist.

Nero fell through the cracks between moments, tumbling through a space that was neither void nor substance but the thin live separating the two.

A line as thin as a fickle lover, and as endless as an abyss.

He could see through it in both directions.

An endless, evermoving, evershifting world.

For a moment, within this shifting space, he caught a glimpse of something.

However, his mind immediately erased it from his memory...

The rine in his hand burned with a terrible chill, seared into his flesh, carving itself into his palm to create a symbol.

Fragments of moments that had happened or would happen or were happening simultaneously in realities adjacent to his own. Each fragment lasted less than a heartbeat, flickering past too quickly to fully comprehend but leaving impressions burned into his mind.

A burning city.

A land filled with enormous towering monsters. With archaic shadows and darkness that existed since the beginning of all beginnings.

A veiled woman on an inverted cross, the wind lifting her white shawl until it turned into the endless sky.

A nightmare being devouring the land.

An enormous serpent devouring the seas and spewing forth poison into the earth.

Chaos.

Death.

Nero watched it all.

As a complicit observer.

Ears of blood streaked down his eyes.

Was this what it meant to be an observer?

Indifferent to the flow of time, cursed to be helpless as the world crumbled to dust and evil devoured everything?

That was a terrible fate. And it was his.

All of a sudden...

Everything collapsed.

The spaces between crushed down to nothing, reality reasserting itself violently.

He hit solid ground hard enough to drive the air from his lungs.

Rain fell on his face.

Nero lay there motionlessly for some time.

"It's cold."

Slowly, he sat up.

Or at least, he tried to.

With a cry of pain, he dropped back down to the ground, his tears washed away by the soft rain.

His body was in too bad of a shape to even move.

He let out a sigh and slowly opened his eyes.

The sky was dark.

A fain rumble of thunder cut through the world.

The scent of the rain brought Nero a calm unlike any other. The alley where he had first chased the pale man remained unchanged, as though nothing had happened.

He tried to sit up again, but his body refused. His Ein Sof reserves were completely empty. His ribs were all broken completely. His sides were completely torn open and were still leaking blood, even though Vineheart had begun to work once again. His body was covered in terrible black burns caused by the blood of the thing he had fought.

Suddenly, footsteps splashed through puddles, running toward him.

Master Theo's face appeared above him, pale and frightened.

"Nero! Gods, what happened to you?!"

Nero tried to answer but couldn't find words. His mouth opened and closed but nothing came out except a rasping wheeze.

More footsteps. Lyon appeared, looking completely normal, his dark eyes scanning Nero's injuries.

"He's in a very bad spot." Lyon's voice was calm as he spoke. "Theo, help me get him up. We need to move him before he goes into shock."

"What could have possibly happened? Thieves?" Theo asked, his voice shaking.

"I don't know," Lyon replied. "But I guess we will just have to wait to find out. The boy will live."

Hands gripped Nero's arms, lifting him. Pain lanced through his ribs and he gasped, his vision going white at the edges.

"How long?" he managed to croak out. "How long was I gone?"

Lyon and Theo exchanged glances.

"Gone?" Theo said. "Boy, you ran into this alley maybe twenty minutes ago. I've been searching for you since."

Twenty minutes.

Nero had experienced lifetimes in twenty minutes.

He tried to speak again, but exhaustion crashed over him like a wave and pulled him down into darkness.

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