"Now, let's go to Neró..." I said then opened a gate beneath our feet. We then appeared in a strange planet, levitating above water. All around us there was nothing but an ocean as far as the eye could see. 'Is there really life on this planet?' I thought to myself.
This was the exact opposite of Asími, where water was so scarce. I was about to advance forward, but then noticed something wrapped around my arm. 'A tail?' I thought to myself. I followed the trail of the tail and at the end of it, I saw Kitsune. She seemed to be using her tail to grab onto my arm and hold herself upright.
"Explain yourself." I said to her annoyed. "I never learnt how to fly…or swim. As long as I have my speed, these things are beneath me." She still managed to say this with pride, but was unable to look me in the eyes whilst doing so.
"How can you lack so much, yet, be so proud?" I asked her. I then removed the tail wrapped around my arm, but she quickly grabbed onto me. "Tailed Lilith, hold this one for me." I said then threw Kitsune her way.
"Why should I? Let's just leave her here. It's not like she is going to drown." She said to me. "Hey, I may not drown, but I still can't swim. I'll just keep sinking to the bottom of this ocean, and I don't know what might be down there!" Kitsune retorts.
"You have your speed right. You have nothing to be scared of." The tailed Lilith said to her sarcastically. "Just hold onto her. Unless you want to fight that." I said to the tailed Lilith then pointed towards a 12-foot reaper. It's body looked like it was comprised solely of water. It was engaging Azrael in battle at the moment and had not paid us any attention.
Azrael seemed to be in trouble as his entire head was covered in a sphere of water. The water looked different from the one around the planet. Like the reaper, this water looked almost solid with a deep dark blue color. 'Is it trying to drown him?' I began to think to myself.
'Neither I nor my shadows can drown as we do not require oxygen to breathe. However, if the water came from that of a reaper's body, then perhaps it might be a different case?' I thought to myself.
Not only was Azrael being slowly drowned, but he continued to evade Neró's relentless attacks. His flexible arms moved like tentacles as they desperately tried to strike Azrael down. Azrael kept dodging each one, not being hit even once, and even getting a few slashes of his sword in.
However, whenever Azrael attacked the reaper, the greatsword simply went right through it as if he were slashing through water. Neró then increased the number of tentacles and caught Azrael off guard. Water then began to cover Azrael's feet.
Azrael used his sword to slash at the tentacles around his feet and broke free. With an addition of 6 more tentacles, Neró continued his relentless attack.
"Actually…I would like to be caught- I mean fight that tentacle reaper. I've read about these creatures before." The tailed Lilith said, clearly having ulterior motives. "You're disgusting. Stay here and hang on to Kitsune." I said to her then proceeded to fly towards Azrael and the reaper.
The moment I was within the tentacles range Neró stopped attacking Azrael then shifted his focus on me.
"Reaper, you dare send your slave to attack me!" Neró said to me with a voice filled with anger. "Yes…I dare." I said to him then landed on the surface of the water.
Keeping a layer of my dark cloud beneath my feet made it seem like I was standing on water. However, instead of stepping on the surface of the ocean, I was actually stepping on the cloud.
I then began to walk on the surface of the ocean and towards Neró. "Leave now before I end all of you!" Neró said to me. Azrael then attempted to attack Neró again, but I raised my hand, signaling him to stop his advance.
"Don't make threats you can't follow through with." I said to Neró then surrounded my entire body with purple lightning, which served like an armor of sorts.
He then immediately attempted to strike me with one of his tentacles, but I remained unmoving, not even trying to block the attack. As soon as the tentacle made contact with the lightning, it quickly evaporated. I continued to walk towards him as sparks of purple light flew around me.
He quickly grew another 6 tentacles, now 14 in total, and rained down a barrage of attacks at a blinding speed. Despite the effort, not a single drop managed to touch my body and was completely evaporated.
Slowly but surely, I kept shortening the distance between myself and Neró like this. I kept walking towards him until I was directly in front of him. Neró then joined the tentacles into one big armor and tried to crash me with it. There was now a bruise on my forehead.
"This is Armando's power...How-!" Neró said to me in complete disbelief and fear. "That kinda hurt, asshole!" I said to him. In his desperation, clearly a last resort, Neró threw a small, dark blue, drop of water at my face. The drop then expanded and covered my entire head. I started to feel my energy being slowly drained by this water.
Neró seemed pleased by this and said, "There is no way of removing that unless I decide it. It's only a matter of time now."
I quickly flew up till I was directly in front of Neró's face. Before he could react, I stretched my index finger forward, into his forehead. I then inserted a miniscule portion of my dark cloud into his body.
"Who decided that?" I said through the water.
He immediately began to cry aloud as his body slowly began to solidify. This was the effect of the red poison that I had acquired at Herb Haven. After it merged with my dark cloud, it became even more deadly than it originally was.
Neró continued to cry aloud as half of his body was already solidified from the inside. "Damn…that probably hurts like a bitch." I said as my voice travelled through the spherical water around my head.
"You fucking insect. You will pay for this humiliation. Thanatos will not keep silent about this. My helper will see to your downfa-…" Neró rumbled on until his entire body was completely solidified. Soon after, the water around Azrael's and I's head collapsed, no longer able to maintain its spherical shape.
"Aha." I said expressionlessly then punched his solidified body. Neró then shattered into a million pieces and sank into the ocean. "Master, I didn't collect the head!" Azrael cried out to me disappointedly. "Oh…right." I said as I recalled Azrael's request to me to collect the heads of the deafeated.
'I'm not doing that.' I thought to myself.
Dark blue droplets of water began to rise up from where Neró fell, then dissipated into the air. "Hey look, that's weird. Isn't that weird?" I said to Azrael whilst pointing towards the rising dark droplets of water, trying to change the subject. I then stared deeply into the dark droplets and almost immediately, my conscious got transported into a dark abyss.
This abyss was similar, but slightly different from that of Armando's. It was completely dark and felt empty, but I could feel droplets of water all around me. Neró's screams were coming from every direction and it was deafening.
"Neró!" I called out, then my consciousness immediately went back to my body. "Master, we must keep a memento for each one of your victories." Azrael said to me disappointedly still not forgetting that I shattered Neró's body.
"It was made of water anyways. Where would you even keep it?" I said in my defense.
A dark blue liquid then began to rise from where Neró fell then twisted like a tornado. A 12-foot, liquid like, reaper then started to form from the dark liquid.
'Wow, after all that talk before he died…unlike Armando, there was no resistance with Neró when I called him out of the abyss.' I thought to myself. Neró hovered before me having a similar appearance as he did before, excluding the vein like patterns in his liquid body. Like Armando's, his veins also pulsated like they were alive.
Neró then reached into his chest and pulled out a steaming, dark blue, liquid like orb. He then bowed and stretched both his hands to offer me the orb. I then picked up the orb off of his hands and absorbed his soul.
I was quickly connected with the shadows of this planet and began to feel the lives within it. I heard multiple conversations all around the planet in a language I had never thought possible to speak. Nonetheless, I could understand every word.
The entire civilization was under water. They didn't exactly communicate words, rather they communicated intentions. Which sounded like a sonar echoing in the distance. "Okeanós, that's the name of this planet." I said out loud as I kept learning about this planet from the billions of conversations within it.
"Okeanós of the Beta Region; has over 30 billion inhabitants." I said out loud as I basked in the significant increase of power I felt rising within me.
120 years…
80 years…
150 years…
Deaths all around the planet continued to give me strength. I now was gaining strength from 3 different planets and the number could only increase from here onwards!
"Oh, great sovereign, ask anything of me and it shall be done." Neró said to me respectfully, but interrupted my moment. "Ha- haha- HAHAHAHAHA!" I began to laugh hysterically.
"Aaaah, Neró you clown." I said out loud. "You are so different from the Neró that was threatening me just a few seconds ago." I said to him amused by the switch in his character.