Chapter 173 - Z3R0

Aaron watched as the Hero sunk to the ground, and all he could do was smile. He was once in such a position, or at least something similar. He couldn't help but feel sympathy for the Hero, but he just wanted to see what happened to him when he believed he couldn't win. Aaron wanted to leave things the way they were. He wanted to go along with the original plan of slowly building trust with people, but if the Hero was going to spread bad word about him and Crystet to the inhabitants of this world, it really wouldn't help them with what they wanted to do.

"So, now that we're both sure of our positions, I'm going to tell you what I want to do. I want to live a quiet life. Me and the person you call a Demon Lord will live peacefully, away from humans, and maybe, one day, we'll interact with humans again, which will probably be very soon because I might get bored. We're taking the child too, simply because the humans here cannot be trusted to take care of her properly. After all, they sacrificed her to the now-dead Demon King, so I won't be forgetting that any time soon." Aaron explained, his hands by his sides, looking down at the Hero. The Hero looked up into his eyes, and all he could see was an area void of light, but it felt as if Aaron's eyes were pulling him inside. He was being dragged by Aaron gaze, but he couldn't figure out what was causing it to happen. It was almost as if an outer force was dragging him in.

The Hero's eyes went blank, and for just a second, Aaron could feel something hitting his eyes, but he only thought something was up when he saw the Hero fall to the ground. 'Memica, do you know what's happening?' Aaron asked his system, Memica.

[No, I don't! All I know is that someone has let him into your body, and I can't kick him out! I don't know who let him in, but I can't get them out either!] Memica yelled out in fear, as she couldn't understand what was going on. She was worried that she'd either be shut off or somehow be removed from Aaron's mind, as this person had the power to not only access Aaron's mind and bypass her built-in firewalls but even make themselves untouchable while in there. It was unheard of, so she couldn't do anything to fix it. [We just have to wait until they do something. Then they might expose a weak point from which I can eject them.] Memica compromised, which Aaron didn't mind. If she could get them out at some point, he was happy. 'Well, at least I know it wasn't you, Memica. I guess we need to just wait until something happens.' Aaron responded as he looked down at the Hero's limp body. Crystet stared at them from a distance, wondering what was going on.

The Hero's mind floated within the endless void, which was Aaron's eyes. At least, that's what he thought he was going through. He saw nothing but darkness for a few seconds, but he saw a strange blue light floating around the void. The Hero decided to move towards the light as it got brighter and closer every second. His ethereal hand touched the floating orb, and his vision filled with the blue light that it was made of. He felt it permeating every pore of his skin, almost like the light was trying to take hold of his senses. A single word appeared in his mind, and it wasn't even a proper word. It had numbers mixed in with it. "Z3R0? What the hell does that mean? Surely it stands for something." The Hero said to himself, and he was, almost instantly, ejected from Aaron's body.

Without any warning, the Hero's body began to rise as Aaron looked upon it in shock. His eyes no longer had any whites nor pupils. It was just a blue light that had replaced his eyes. Aaron watched as the Hero's body fell to the ground, his feet touching the ground softly. A blue liquid shot out from the Hero's back, encompassing his body like it was taking control. It reminded him of when he was being coated in corruption or when N had taken control of him for a bit. Aaron watched the blue substance stop spreading, and it began moving around, testing out its new body. It appeared to be genderless, but when it started speaking, Aaron could tell something was up.

"Ah, it {feels so strange} being free from that {place}! I now have a physical body. {Where's my body?} I can now live! {I want to escape}. It feels so weird being {free me}!" The voice yelled, being obviously male, but something was wrong. Every once in a while, his voice would be replaced with the Hero's voice. "You. What have you done to the Hero?" Aaron asked, getting into a fighting stance. "Woah! No {need to escape} of me! I'm just {my body}. I'm an incarnation of {let me free}. I've taken this body as a {I don't want to be a vessel} host! It really fits {me free}!" The voice yelled, causing Aaron to barely understand what he was saying. The Hero's voice kept on getting in the way, causing the sentence to be almost impossible to hear. "I can't understand a single word you said, person. The voice of the Hero kept on interrupting you." Aaron stated as the voice began laughing.

"So, that's {what's stopping me from leaving}? I'll go tell him to {shut up}!" The voice responded as Aaron waited for the conversation to resume. "Sorry about that. He was having a mental talk with himself and kept interrupting me. Let me explain. His body was a perfect vessel for me, so I now have consciousness. Think of me like your system, just less limited. I actually have a physical body!" The voice exclaimed as Aaron stayed in his fighting stance. "That doesn't answer my question. Who ARE you?" Aaron asked.

"Well, think of me as the physical manifestation of one of your skills that you forgot about. Did you forget about me, Z3R0, or more commonly known as N0N3?"