Nero’s jaw clenched. He wanted to demand answers, but sothing else had caught his attention.
He couldn’t sense any corruption from this thing.
None at all.
His Heretic Eyes had always allowed him to perceive Ein Sof, to see the flows and patterns of corrupted energy that saturated Abominations. It was how he gauged danger. Every creature he’d encountered, from the weakest Grade F to the strongest, had radiated a distinctive taint.
But when he looked at this creature, he saw nothing.
It made no sense.
Nero’s eyes narrowed as he studied the creature more carefully. The four arms. The grey, ash-colored skin.
Everything about it was very off-putting and irregular.
And yet his senses told him nothing.
’What in the seven Hells is this bloody thing?!’ he asked the Oracle.
There was a pause,
{I cannot determine its nature. The being is actively obscuring itself}.
Nero’s blood ran cold.
The Oracle rarely failed to identify sothing. Even when it couldn’t provide complete information, it had always been able to give him sothing.
But this?
This was a first.
The creature tilted its head, that unsettling gesture. Behind its mask, Nero could swear he saw sothing shift in that darkness.
Nero took a step back.
"Now, now," the creature said, its tone almost chiding. "I told you, I an no harm. If I wanted to hurt you, you’d already be hurt."
"That’s not reassuring," Nero said through gritted teeth.
The creature’s mask seed to smile wider, though the carved features hadn’t changed.
"Reassurance wasn’t the point. Truth was. And the truth is, I need you alive just as much as you need . So why don’t we stop this tedious dance and have an actual conversation?"
"Fine. What are you?" Nero asked again, his voice harder this ti, each word clipped and precise.
The creature straightened. All four of its arms clasped together in front of its chest in a gesture that seed almost pious, almost reverent.
"I," it said with a theatrical flourish, "am an angel."
Nero blinked.
Several seconds passed in silence.
"An angel," he repeated flatly.
"Indeed!" The creature’s voice took on an enthusiastic quality, as if it were delighted to finally share this information. "A good angel, in fact. Not one of those corrupted Grigori you’re probably familiar with. No, I served faithfully during the Demon Wars, fighting against the forces of darkness that sought to consu this world."
Nero stared at it, his expression carefully blank.
The creature continued, apparently undeterred by his skepticism. "Alas, I was defeated. Betrayed by those I fought alongside and sealed in this wretched place by those who feared my power. I’ve been trapped here ever since, slowly recovering my strength, trying to break free from this prison."
"You expect to believe that," Nero said. It wasn’t a question.
The creature spread its four arms wide, the gesture sohow managing to convey wounded innocence despite the grotesque appearance.
"I know what you’re thinking. How could such a magnificent being be trapped in such a humble form? The answer, my young friend, is that this is not my true body. rely a manifestation, a shell I’ve created to interact with the physical world while my true essence remains bound."
"You’re lying," Nero said.
"Am I?" The creature tilted its head again, that darkness behind the mask’s eyeholes seeming to deepen. "Tell sothing, young man. Do I look corrupted to you? Do you sense any taint of darkness about ?"
Nero said nothing.
Because the creature had a point.
He’d encountered countless Abominations since leaving Gor. He’d faced evil spirits and possessed humans and things that defied categorization. And every single one of them had radiated corruption like heat from a fire.
But this thing?
Nothing.
Just that empty void where Ein Sof should be.
And he knew from experience that appearance ant nothing when it ca to determining a being’s nature. Sariel had appeared as a golden doe, a fair man, a voluptuous woman. The Defiled Cherub had spoken in nine voices, promising warmth and ho while its very presence caused flesh to bubble and souls to scream.
So of the most beautiful entities in this world were utterly evil.
So of the most monstrous were relatively benign.
Still, everything about this situation scread danger. Every instinct Nero had developed through months of survival in the wilderness, through battles with creatures that should have killed him, through his transformation into sothing inhuman, all of it was telling him to run.
But there was nowhere to run to.
The creature seed to sense his internal conflict. Its posture relaxed slightly, the four arms lowering to its sides.
"I understand your hesitation," it said, its voice taking on a more gentle quality. "Trust is a difficult thing to give, especially in circumstances like these. But consider your situation rationally. You’re trapped down here with two unconscious companions. The way you ca is blocked by rubble. The pool behind you leads to depths that would destroy your mind if you looked too deeply. And this chamber has exactly two exits, both of which I control."
It wasn’t a threat.
Just a statent of fact, delivered in that sa eerily cheerful tone.
Nero looked back toward where Arthur and Jacob lay in the blue-lit darkness. They were still breathing, he could see their chests rising and falling. Still alive.
But for how long?
Without treatnt, without food or water, their chances of survival grew slimr by the hour. Arthur’s leg was broken badly enough that infection could set in. Jacob’s head wound could lead to complications Nero had no way of addressing.
And he had no way out.
The rubble pile blocking their original entrance was massive. Even if he were healthy, even if he had all his strength, moving those stones would be impossible. The structural instability alone would bring down more of the ceiling.
He could try exploring the chamber, looking for another exit.
But the creature had said it controlled the only two ways out.
And Nero believed it.
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