Although Nero had not had the privilege of going to a farm himself, he had seen pictures at least. Sugarcane was not a common plant, but wherever it was planted, it would usually be in aligned columns and rows. There was no such symmetry here.
The canes grew randomly and haphazardly, each one thicker than the girth of his glaive, and taller too. Their dense population and tall height hindered much of the light of day, and filled the air with a faint, sweet smell that Nero could detect even through his mask.
More importantly, they created an almost suffocating environment, surrounding Nero with wonder and danger due to the limited visibility. He only walked for a couple of minutes before he lost sight of his team entirely. Instead of feeling more strained, however, Nero felt more relaxed.
Now that he was alone, he didn’t need to hold back whatsoever.
His eyes sharpened, and he looked all around him. Sugarcane was supposed to be a delectable crop, but it was also easily corrupted and cursed. Here, all around him, he could feel a sinister intention in the air, as if the canes had eyes and watched him like prey. But was he not doing the same?
The congested path made it difficult to wield a glaive properly, but there was an easy solution to that. Nero waved his glaive, backed by his full, enhanced strength, and even used Radix Augmentation.
To no surprise, the sugarcane proved too sturdy and dense to be cut down easily, and using aether in his glaive didn’t help much for the sugarcane too was filled with aether! In fact, there was too much aether!
Nero hesitated, and then decided to test out Pot Prison. He suspected that these sugarcane was some kind of mutation, and that the sap within it somehow carried aether as well as sugar.
This was not a random, wishful guess, but one based on the fact that the sweet scent of the plant could somehow even pass through his gasmask.
Nero switched to Virtuous Moonlight, shone the light on the sugarcane, just to make sure it wasn’t cursed, before repeatedly hacking it and then storing the cut down sugarcane in a glass orb he then put in his bag.
After that, well, Nero hacked and slashed his way through the jungle of canes, unconcerned about attracting the ire of any nearby curses. He could confirm that there were plenty of them in the region, but a quick test with Virtuous Moonlight proved that they were hesitant to come close to him.
As always, curses stayed away from the light, and any creature that touched the light otherwise would go prone. So far, the Primal Exarch had proven to be the only exception to this. Nero still needed to test the ability on humans to understand if it worked on them, and if it did, why exactly they went prone, but he’d be doing no such thing here.
Unfortunately, his stroll could not be entirely peaceful, since he couldn’t keep Virtuous Moonlight active continuously. It drained too much aether. As a result, he only flashed it once a minute to scare off anything close to him. Of course, he also activated it immediately as soon as he saw something move towards him.
It was remarkable how broken the ability was. Nero was literally safer alone because of Virtuous Moonlight than he was with an entire team, since this way he was not continuously being attacked by everything in his vicinity!
Chopping down sugarcane and absorbing the vitality from it was also quickly helping him with his absorption, and he was sure that he was getting closer to the limit of the Neophyte realm. The reason he was so quick was because even though everything here was suppressed due to the unusual rules of Perilith, originally everything here was of a much higher level than him.
Nero smiled, and almost felt the urge to whistle, as the walk through the scary, cursed sugarcane field ended up turning into a pleasant walk in the park - an expression that was originally said in irony due to how lethal parks were, but became literal in his case!
Nero suddenly paused, grabbing ahold of his glaive with both hands, and his smile fading. Something was following him - it had been for a while - but it had finally shown a hint of its existence.
He had seen a blur run through the sugarcane, leaving behind a trail of black smoke. But the thing, whatever it was, had been moving too fast, so Nero lost sight of it.
In fact, the real reason he had been cleaving sugarcane like a child on a sugarhigh was because he could feel the intensity of that creature’s gaze on him. He had opened up a small area for himself to fight freely in. With all the sugarcane turning into ash, he didn’t need to worry about bumping into stumps.
For a few seconds he stood still, waiting, listening, yet nothing happened. He pondered for a bit, but decided not to leave his carefully created battlefield just yet. Instead, he used This is Us to create an image of himself just outside of the range of the cut sugarcane. Then he created a couple more in various parts of the boundary, all clones of himself looking outwards.
At the same time, he switched from Virtuous Moonlight to Cryoflame. Virtuous Moonlight was very good at intimidating curses and keeping them at bay, but it did nothing for physical attacks. If the creature, whatever it was, lunged at him, disregarding the deterrent of the Virtuous Moonlight, then he would still suffer from the attack. Cryoflame, instead, would at least do actual damage to the creature.
Seconds passed by slowly, a slight breeze whistling through the tall canes, causing them to dance lightly. Amidst the serenity, Nero picked up faint hints of sound in the distance. It was as if the slightest bit of dirt was being pushed back, almost like something very light was running very fast.
For a while nothing happened, and it seemed like nothing would. But when the change came, it took only a split second.
Nero heard a soft crunch behind him, like the sound of something kicking off the dirt, and he moved to the side just in time to see a black blur dash straight through one of the clones of himself.
A lifetime of training kicked in, and Nero swung the glaive with perfect timing, channeling his Cryoflame into it, and cut the black blur.
There was a squeal so sharp and loud it almost disoriented Nero - almost. Instead, he shifted his leg and used the full weight of his body to slam the glaive into the ground, cutting the blur stuck in the blade in half, finally revealing its actual form.
It was a large, grey hare almost 1 metre (3.2 feet) in size with black eyes and razor sharp horns sticking out of its decapitated skull. Two jagged teeth stuck out from the front of its mouth, covered in sap and dried blood.
Nero only saw the appearance of the creature for a few seconds before it turned to ash, and a rush of vitality filled him. The strange, mutated hare was not a cursed creature, but it was definitely rabid, and it didn’t seem to be alone.
The sound of something rushing through the air attracted Nero’s attention, and in a seamless flow Nero moved himself, swinging the glaive to cut through another blur.
This time, he did not waste any additional effort in trying to cut it in half, instead he let the hare escape. With his flames gripping its body, not only would it be easier to spot, it would slow down significantly.
It was much less of a threat to him. Instead, he focused on cutting every single blur that shot at him, finally kicking off his venture into the depths of a cursed forest of sugarcane properly.
It wasn’t like Nero had spent his childhood imagining himself fighting alone against incredible odds, holding back a tide of curses and coming out victorious. To be more specific, such thoughts used to fill his head even up until very recently, so in a way, Nero was living his dream.
In the heat of battle, where even the slightest mistake would cost him dearly if not his life itself, Nero felt exhilarated. Maybe it was his Kolari blood that hungered for battle, or maybe he just enjoyed the feeling of perfectly executing what he had trained for his entire life. Either way, surrounded by ravenous hares, dashing at him from all sides, Nero could not remind himself to be humble, so he let his true nature bare.
Outside the field, the team flinched the first time they heard a squeal, and all looked towards its depths, as if searching for a sign of what had happened. For a brief second, they almost imagined that something had struck down Nero.
Then, the squeals continued, and didn’t stop, indicating that it was Nero doing the striking down.
Vanessa was the only one in the group who didn’t sigh in relief. She had no doubts to begin with.