With a dagger in one hand, and a card in another, Nero sprang forth without a single shred of fear, ready to reap the dark berserkers. He had already gained a minor boost to all his physical capabilities recently, and the additional augmentation to his speed and strength made him all the more deadly.
More important than all of that, however, was that the greatest obstacle Nero faced, which was the handicap the fog created, disappeared for him. The drain that the Fair Weather card exerted was not excessive either, which not only meant that he could continue it for a long time, he could even control the size of the area that remained fog free!
For a split second all the fog in the room was pushed out, and Nero caught sight of everything that was happening. Maximilian, bleeding and wounded, had summoned a shield made out of white cloth around himself. It did not look strong, but who knew what effects it had.
Arter, too, was wounded, A dark berserker had struck him, its claws cutting through his body. But before it could do much harm, it was paralysed by the electricity circling his whole body, and cut to pieces from his sword. In fact, more than one dark berserker lay chopped up beside him.
In the relatively small room there were two more dark berserkers and one berserker near the door.
That was all the time he needed. The fog came rolling back in as he reduced the output of Fair Weather, and Nero flew forward like a cannonball. The berserker in his path did not bother to defend, and tried to attack him, which is why it was completely unprepared for how easily Nero decapitated it using his dagger alone.
Its body fell forward even as its head rolled away, but Nero had already moved on by then. The dark berserkers were a lot more agile and less willing to sustain injuries, but it was no longer so easy for them to avoid Nero.
He cut through the bone armour around their chest with ease, dismantling it one cut at a time, leaving their upper body exposed. Without the weight of the bone keeping them down, the dark berserkers were slightly faster, but it was not enough.
They had come rushing like predators who had stalked their prey, only to be cut down. The fight did not last long, for Gabriel had been right. These weapons were phenomenally sharp! What was once nearly impossible to cut not became like warm butter. This had to be an additional feature of these weapons besides just their augmentation!
Nero waited by the door to see if anymore berserkers came in, but it seemed like they had gained a reprieve.
"Why'd the lights suddenly go out?" Maximilian asked after coming out from behind his cloth shield. "Do you think it might have been Jessie?"
"It's not just the lights - the whole facility lost power," Nero said. "Otherwise the fog wouldn't have broken through the defence of the Vault. Whatever happened, I don't think any one of us could have been responsible for it. But there's no time to dwell on that now. We need to get out of here."
While he spoke, Nero began replacing his cards. He replaced Flare, Aether pulse, and Double Skin with Fair Weather, Ful Hele and Ful Defend respectively, but then paused. Initially, when he placed all the six cards, or in his case seven cards, inside his armour he had not taken the warnings too seriously.
One of the reasons why everyone was limited to six cards only was because it was easy to confuse which card was where. In the heat of battle it would be less than ideal if he used a first aid card when he meant to use an offensive one. For such things, he needed to have his card configuration memorised by heart and through instincts.
For Nero this was not a problem, as he constantly practised memorising things to keep his mind sharp. But it was only now that he was replacing Double Skin that he realised he hadn't used it nearly as much as he should have.
There was also a very brief moment in which he forgot which of his cards he had placed where. It was not easy to memorise 7 cards and associate each body part with one card, especially since he kept changing cards. While initially he had been fine, changing them mid-operation gave him a mild pause.
This was something he needed to pay attention to. He could not afford to mess up which card he used when.
But the moment passed. His memory was as excellent as ever, so it would not be an issue for now.
"Do you have more of the cards you're using to keep the fog at bay," Maximilian said, looking at both Nero and Gabriel, near whom the fog would not come.
Nero gave him a grin, and answered in the same remorseful tone Arter had used with them.
"Unfortunately, you have nothing you can trade with, and we don't have enough spare that we can afford to weaken ourselves by giving them away."
There was a moment of tension between them. Arter's body still had electric arcs circling around it, and Maximilians hair was still slightly glowing. Yet they were not the only ones who had grown stronger. Both of them had caught glimpses of the ease with which Nero and Gabriel had taken out the berserkers.
Unfortunately for them, while both their abilities had increased in strength, that did not allow them to cut through their enemies so easily. Even though Arter could still charge his attacks to cut through berserkers, that part of his ability had not become stronger, so in that sense he was still the same.
But then the moment passed.
"Even if we had a way to get you to upgrade your ability, we don't have the time," Maximilian said. "It takes around thirty minutes for one person to go through the procedure, and another short period to get used to the change. It's not something we have time for right now."
"How convenient, then, that you don't have a way to help us," Nero said with a shrug. "We don't even need to waste time considering the option. Now let's go. We have no idea what the situation is like, and there's a solid chance that the tentacle monster also snuck through. We'll just have to risk going through the same way we came in."
Gabriel nodded very seriously, as if he was glad that they didn't have anything to bargain with.
Without giving them a chance to really argue back, the two of them walked out, even reducing the range of the fog they pushed away, forcing Arter and Maximilian to follow. If they got lost in the fog, the chances of finding each other was incredibly slim, so they had no choice but to follow.
They both looked grim, but did not say much. Arter especially, who had to carry two of the black boxes which filled his hands, was not pleased with the situation. If they had to fight, which they likely would, his hands would be tied up.
The thing that was irritating him the most… was that Nero literally warned him about this. But Gabriel was also right. He was used to winning, not losing, so having to cooperate with the person who made him lose not once, but twice was grating for him. He was in a struggle between logic and his ego.
Unfortunately for him, Nero had not been paying attention to him from the get go. Maximilian had nothing against either of them, so as long as he agreed to cooperate, Nero would get his way. More importantly, now that they had confirmed that the fog could be pushed back by Fair Weather, many of his plans changed.
Not only did this reveal that the fog was an artificial atmospheric phenomenon, which was a massive discovery for all countries, but the deadline that was placed on him to return quickly was no longer in effect.
They could literally take their time and explore this Vault in full! That was a risk, a huge risk, but it was also a once in a lifetime opportunity.
Nero was considering how exactly he would push Maximilian just enough to get him to agree to the trade when he suddenly stopped walking. The range of the fog clearing he had created was 2 metres (6.5 feet), for maintaining any more than that would cause a huge drain on his aether.
That range was also just enough for him to react to a sudden dark berserker attack. Yet from within the fog, it was not a dark berserker that stepped out, but another, even more harrowing monstrosity.
From what was left of the face, Nero could tell that the body standing in front of him had once been Jack. Yet now it was a grotesque abomination, with tentacles of all thicknesses and sizes, coming out from his entire, now shrivelled, body.
It was as if the tentacles had fed on the mass within him to grow, and were now controlling a husk in search of their next target.