Nero did not hesitate at all, throwing flaming Snowflakes at the flying carrion without holding back. Ordinarily, he would have refrained from using flaming Snowflakes so liberally, preferring instead to cut them down with his weapon, but no more.
He would much rather take some time and recover his aether after the fight then hold back. This was perhaps not the best strategy for all places, but in Perilith he did not intend to take the slightest risk anymore.
His decision proved apt, for the flock of birds proved themselves formidable. Save one of the birds, who was stabbed directly in the skull by the Snowflake and fell to the ground, the others were merely wounded. The sharp Snowflakes could only barely stab into their flesh, unable to pierce through as they usually did.
But more than from the injury of being stabbed, the birds seemed enraged by the ferocious devouring force of the flames, eating up all the heat within their bodies.
But there was no time to observe for longer, for the birds descended on them. Each bird, a little over a metre long, was deadly fast and proved to be hard targets. Were it not for all of the team using various protective cards, they would have been overwhelmed from the very first moment on contact!
Instead of rushing forward, as he usually did, Nero retreated once contact was made. He did not forget that his task was not to fight, but to protect Vanessa, and now Noman as well for the 13 year old might not survive such an intense fight.
Since the birds reacted so strongly to the flames, Nero created a ring of fire around the two of them, which was another massive drain on his aether, but it was necessary.
Closer up, Nero could see that it wasn’t that these strange birds had decaying bodies, but that they covered their body in the remains of their prey, perhaps as a badge of honour, or for some other reasons.
Regardless, what remained true was that they were ferocious and manic, attacking without concern for life or limb. Fortunately, that also made them great to hunt, since he didn’t need to go chase them!
Within the range of his glaive, Nero was confident of hunting even these tough foes down!
He channeled his aether into the glaive and attacked, first aiming to reduce the pressure on Dave and Ursula, who did not seem like the best of fighters, before earnestly beginning to attack.
Strengthened by aether, the blade of his glaive glowed, Yet just as the armourer promised, the aether of the bird strongly resisted the aether of his blade, dulling the attack. Instead of slicing through its neck, he could only slap it.
Nero immediately changed his tactic, switching from aether to Cryoflame flowing through his glaive, coating the blade in flames. Although the blade still could not cut through their bodies, the flames seemed to do the most harm!
"They’re afraid of the cold!" Nero yelled, alerting the others, before unleashing hell. With both his hands holding the glaive he could not throw Snowflakes, but many of the birds already had Snowflakes embedded within them, the flames slowly devouring their energy and covering their body in frost.
Nero targeted those birds first, skillfully using the glaive to keep the birds away from himself, before striking decisively. The first few hits, despite Nero’s enhanced strength, merely wounded them.
But at last, one of the birds died, and its body promptly turned to ash. Nero had naturally used Radix Augmentation, strengthening himself as quickly as he could.
As soon as the first bird fell, the tempo of the battle seemed to change. All the birds diverted their focus towards Nero, identifying him as the gravest threat. Yet that only gave others breathing room to retaliate faster and more effectively.
Though the pressure on Nero increased tremendously, he managed to keep himself safe and even killed a few more birds, devouring their vitality and helping him increase his card absorption percentage!
From start to finish the entire fight took only a few minutes, but everyone was panting heavily when it ended, and even Nero felt a hint of fatigue. The drawback of a smaller team was almost immediately evident, but there was nothing they could do about it.
"Dave, how come you didn’t sense the birds?" Nero asked, his tone casual instead of interrogative.
"By the time my Danger sense kicked in, Ursula had already warned us," Dave said, his gaze fixed on the corpses on the ground.
"Why did the birds you killed turn to ash? Why is your glaive so strange, glowing sometimes and burning others?" Dave asked in return, looking towards Nero. His eyes had turned red and there was a certain edge to his voice.
"This is a new experimental weapon, I’m trying it out for Fordham base," Nero told. Revealing this to his own team did not count as a breach of confidentiality, as for security purposes they needed to know in case the weapon suddenly failed. "It’s heavy and aether intensive to use, but it is powerful."
So far, his tone had been congenial, but as he continued to speak, his tone became stern.
"As for the ash, I neither know nor does it seem relevant. Instead of focusing on these things, why don’t you focus more on your Danger Sense to give us a proper warning next time."
Dave grit his teeth and clenched his fists, but looked away from Nero, no longer maintaining eye contact. Nero looked around at the group, and upon confirming that none of them were injured gravely, nodded.
"The noise might attract attention. Let’s move on up a bit, and recover our aether before moving on."
No one voiced any opinions, for they all wanted to break. Although this had not been anywhere near one of the most intense fights Nero had, he’d used up nearly one fifth of his aether during it just because of how long he had to keep fighting the birds.
The drawbacks of being a Neophyte were beginning to wear him out, and he was entirely ready to become an Initiate soon. But that was a matter that could wait.
The group carefully moved forward, scouting out a relatively hidden area between a few large rocks, and sat down, beginning to recover their aether. Of course, not all of them started recovering at the same time, with at least one person standing guard at all times.
To no surprise of anyone, they were attacked by a curse, but it was an easily manageable situation that Nero took care of.
Over the next few hours the group moved carefully along the scouted path, until they eventually reached a field of sugarcane, rising dozens of metres into the air.
The Arcanist teams had not ventured in there, considering it too dangerous, but had spotted what looked like the Sage herb they were searching for beyond it using a scouting card.
Now, Nero alone would be venturing in, mainly because the sugarcane field carried a very dense cursed energy, and it would be too dangerous for anyone else to follow - at least without a sufficiently strong team.
"You have three hours," Vanessa said, her expression grave."You must return in three hours regardless of whether you find the herb or not. If you take longer than that, we will not be able to wait here for you as we have to account for our return journey as well."
"I’ll be back before then," said Nero.
"Take this card. If you find the herb, you have to use this card to contain it. Don’t try to touch or harvest the herb yourself, or you might damage it - or it might hurt you."
Nero took the card Vanessa was giving him and took a look at it.
Name: Pot Prison
Image: A potted plant inside a glass orb
Type: Trap
Star rank: 0
Ability: [Seal a plant within a glass orb, preserving it for 10 hours. The glass orb can sustain a small amount of damage before shattering, destroying the plant.]
Flavour text: "We cultivate the lands as we cultivate our bodies, and sometimes we prune plants as we prune our malicious thoughts," - Sage Demeter
"Sage Demeter," Nero murmured, his gaze lingering on that name for a while. She, much like General Astarties, was a follower of the Emperor, and was widely considered as the creator of modern agricultural practices, creating a method to safely plant and harvest crops.
In a way, her contributions were just as vast as the emperors, for without food, there could be no people. Also, she used to have a badass wooden staff - Nero had seen depictions of it.
Although a staff and a spear were not the same, they were close enough for him to idolise her quite a bit.
"Don’t worry about it, I’ll see you soon," said Nero, taking the card and depositing it in his card case. Then he looked at the others in his team, who were all staring at the sugarcane field with fear in their eyes, before turning.
There was no hesitation in his steps as he ventured forth.