277 First fight II
Noman and the others frowned. They had already admitted that Nero was not being arrogant when he proclaimed his own skill, but to head to battle without them was as if he was indirectly accusing them of having lacking combat skills. Born in a nation of warriors, selected as the best of their generation, not a single one of them had a weak heart or disposition. How could they tolerate such insult?
That is why, after a slight pause after introducing his plan, Nero continued. Even if he was feeling restless after watching the others fight, he would not do something as foolish as insult his new teammates.
"The reason I am suggesting I go alone is not because the others can't fight. Far from it. In fact, according to my speculation Gideon would be especially effective against an entire hive. The problem is that faced with hundreds of small hornets, killing them effectively might be tough, but defending from all sides would be even tougher. Compared to me, all of you will have to expend a lot more effort in fighting against them."
Everyone felt a little better upon hearing that Nero wasn't looking down on them, and had to admit that protecting themselves from small hornets attacking from all sides would be tough and aether intensive. It wasn't as if it was impossible. It would just require them to use various cards, and end up draining their aether a lot.
Ultimately, the hornets could not be underestimated. If they were easy to kill, the Arcansists would not have left them be.
"Are you confident in taking the hornets by yourself?" Noman asked, once.
"It won't be a problem. Besides, like I said, you guys can support me from a distance. If you really want to help, then you can throw a few fireballs my way. The more heat you provide, the stronger I'll be."
Noman nodded and turned towards one of the others.
"Mel, give Nero one of your Recovery tokens. Everyone else, get in the long-range formation with Clarissa in the lead."
Mel, the girl with light green hair, generated a token and handed it to Nero, who promptly ate it. Mel's tokens could passively restore aether in the user's body, which was especially useful for someone like Nero whose abilities were aether intensive. Taking a token like this would allow him to fight longer and recover from combat quicker.
Seeing how none of the others resisted his proposal, he glanced over to the researchers who only looked at him like he was a mad man. With no objections to bar his path, Nero turned towards the hive and began steadily walking towards it, countless thoughts in his mind.
He swept the area with his various senses, utilising Keen insight to its utmost, checking for any other living creatures nearby, but there were no animals or insects near the hornets hive. He checked to see if there were any other hives in the area, and how far the hornets had spread out.
His pace never increased, but every step he took closer to the hive, Nero seemed to be gaining an invisible momentum. He made plans in his mind about how to face this new obstacle, but honestly, he had no idea how fighting hundreds of flying cursed, evil insects was going to go. It was a little exciting.
A blue flame flickered on the ground where he stepped, and his entire team noticed it. They were finally going to see his innate ability, as well as see Nero in proper action. It was time to judge if he was all he made himself out to be.
Nero did not immediately encompass his whole body in flames. No, the blue flames started out at his feet and slowly made their way up their body, slowly surrounding him.
The temperature around him began to drop rapidly as he grew the flame, and its colour began to deepen. After his previous upgrade to his ability, his flames no longer grew larger or spread as they absorbed more heat, they just became more potent. As such, creating flames large enough to surround his body ate up quite a bit of aether, but it was definitely worth it.
When Nero came within 100 metres of the hive, he began picking up speed, his grip on his spear tightening.
The hive itself was quite large, covering the entire length of the branch it was hanging from. Each hornet was about the size of Nero's middle finger, which was quite small for a target but quite big for a cursed insect that filled an entire hive. Fighting them with a spear would be impractical, and yet his spear was completely covered in flames as well.
By the time he was 50 metres from the hive, the hornets seemed to have taken notice of him, and the entire hive itself began to buzz with activity as more and more hornets crawled out and began flapping their wings as giving a warning to the incoming predator.
Nero smiled. It was so interesting, this was the first time he had seen a collective of curses behave with any kind of intellect. It was probably because the true level of these hornets was well above the Mystic level. Now, however, they were restricted to the Neophyte realm.
Nero could not help but wonder - would these hornets be any more helpful when he used Radix Augmentation on them.
Two massive balls of orange flames shot past Nero from behind him, attempting to strike the hive. The hornets, determining the confrontation was inevitable, all took flight and joined their bodies together forming a solid wall in front of the hive, blocking the fireballs.
The momentum of the fireballs alone killed many hornets, and the heat of the flames seared their formerly indestructible bodies as well. But the fireballs had only been the opening gambit.
Nero summoned two Snowflakes and coated them in the deep blue flames that covered his body, and launched them at the hornets. The razor sharp snowflakes cut through the flames first, with the blue flames absorbing the orange ones, becoming only stronger, before they met the hornet wall.
Perhaps if the snowflakes had some kind of explosion ability they would have been more deadly. As it was, the snowflakes cut right through the hornets with ease, and dug into the hive behind them.
The deep blue flames began to flicker and sizzle as they fought off the cursed energy of the hive, but they did not extinguish.
The attack did, however, enrage the hornets even further. Like a dark cloud they gathered overhead, the buzzing of their wings causing those who heard it to feel lightheaded. Yet that was just a passive effect of their gathering might.
Once the hornets had gathered by at least over a couple thousand, they descended like a cursed judgement.
Everyone watching from afar suddenly felt immensely grateful that they had listened to Nero and not forward, while at the same time they felt fear grip their hearts as they saw the darkness fall onto Nero. It was almost as if they were watching his death.
Nero, and perhaps Vanessa, were the only ones who were not actually alarmed. Vanessa, because she knew Nero well enough to know he would not do something he wasn't sure of.
Indeed, Nero did not just sit around and wait for death. Even if many hornets would die from the flames around his body, just the sheer weight of the countless cursed bugs would be enough to crush him.
Just as the hornets were about to land onto him, Nero's speed picked up and he dashed forward, reaching the hive and escaping the reach of the other bugs.
His flaming spear cut through the entire hive, cutting a massive hole in it covered in flickering blue flames. Yet instead of continuing his attack, he dashed forward once more, using the trunk of the tree to block the line of sight between himself and the others, and quickly transferred the flames on his body onto the tree itself.
Hundreds of cursed hornets chased after him, while the solid block formed of over a thousand hornets smashed down towards him once more like a hammer made of pure evil.
But instead of feeling afraid, Nero looked forward to it as he quickly swapped out Cryoflame for Virtuous Moonlight, and summoned a thin layer of silver light all around his body.
Even if the ability of the light was seen now, Nero was not afraid. He could explain it by saying he was using a secret card passed down to him by his family. No one would imagine he had a second innate ability, and even if they did they would not have a way of checking.
In fact, the only reason he even hid behind the tree to begin with was because he didn't want anyone to notice that he couldn't control the flames and the light at the same time.
If anyone else saw the silver light surrounding him and questioned why he hid it, the answer was simple, and frankly a truthful one. He did not want to reveal all his cards in front of everyone.
The tide of hornets finally reached him, much to their regret.
December release schedule