Chapter 167: The Return (1).

Nero limped toward the exit of the skull, each step sending fresh waves of pain through his battered body.

With his broken arm still uselessly attached to his side, and his injured leg threatened to give out with every movement, with the lingering ache from the Mark of Mephistopheles, everything just felt so surreal.

He looked up through the shade of the enormous skull’s opening.

The clouds in the sky were an array of colors. In a sense, there was a subtle wave of beauty to this tumultuous world of danger.

One that struck at the depths of his soul almost poetically. A rich vibrancy that even words would fall short of when used to imagine.

He put one leg after another as he kept moving forward.

After he had grabbed it, Gungnir had finally calmed down. Using the spear as support, he trudged forward.

The opening at the base of the skull seemed smaller than when he’d entered. Either way, he squeezed through with difficulty, scraping his shoulders against smooth bone that still felt oddly warm.

When he finally emerged into the ravine proper, Nero took a moment to simply breathe.

The air here was still thick with spores and corruption, but compared to the oppressive atmosphere inside the skull, it felt almost refreshing. He looked up at the rim of the ravine, at the colorful carpet of fungi that marked the edge, and felt a wave of exhaustion wash over him.

He had to get out of here by climbing back up and returning to the shore where the Teargail Fungus awaited him. Then, he had to somehow cross that toxic bog again and reunite with Lucy and Aisha.

The task seemed insurmountable in the moment.

Not to mention the burden of the knowledge he had just acquired. His mind was still reeling from everything the Oracle had told him, from the visions of the Age of Gods, from the knowledge that he was now carrying around a piece of a dead god’s memory.

He didn’t want to think about it.

One problem at a time.

First, he needed to get out of this ravine.

Nero pushed away from the rib and began making his way toward the wall. His eyes scanned the moss-covered surface, looking for handholds, trying to plot a route that wouldn’t require too much use of his broken arm.

That was when he spotted it.

A thick, dark green vine hung from the rim of the ravine, trailing down the wall like a rope that had been left specifically for him. It was covered in the same colorful moss as everything else, but beneath that growth, the vine looked sturdy enough to support his weight.

Nero stared at it for a long moment, suspicious of anything in this place that seemed convenient.

But what choice did he have?

He approached the vine carefully, testing it with his good hand. The plant was firm and surprisingly dry beneath the moss, its surface rough enough to provide decent grip. When he pulled on it, the vine barely moved, anchored securely to something above.

“Good enough,” Nero muttered.

He wrapped his good hand around the vine and began to climb.

The ascent was agony.

Every pull upward sent shockwaves of pain through his broken arm, even though he was trying not to use it. His injured leg struggled to find purchase against the slick wall, slipping more often than not. The moss made everything treacherous, and more than once Nero found himself dangling by one hand, his feet scrambling for a foothold.

Sweat poured down his face, mixing with the blood that had dried there earlier. His breathing became labored, each gasp burning in his lungs. The spores in the air grew thicker as he climbed, making him dizzy and disoriented.

But he kept climbing.

What else could he do?

About halfway up, Nero had to stop and rest. He wedged his good arm through a loop in the vine and just hung there, his body trembling with exhaustion. His vision swam, black spots dancing at the edges. For a terrifying moment, he thought he might pass out and fall back down into the ravine.

Then the climb continued.

By the time Nero finally hauled himself over the rim of the ravine, he was barely conscious. He collapsed onto the ground, his chest heaving, his entire body shaking with the effort of what he’d just done.

An hour. It had taken him an hour to climb out of that ravine.

He lay there in the colorful fungi, not caring if they were poisonous, nor about anything at all for that matter, except the fact that he’d made it.

Eventually, his breathing steadied. The trembling subsided to a manageable level. Nero pushed himself up onto his hands and knees, then slowly to his feet.

He was out. Now he just had to get back to the shore.

Nero began following the path he’d taken earlier, retracing his steps through the forest of deadly mushrooms. As he walked, he glanced down t the back of his hand. The runic symbol glowed vividly.

Then a thought came to him.

“Oracle,” he said quietly. “Tell me more about this subspace of the Mark of Mephistopheles.”

The response came immediately, as if the Oracle had been waiting for him to ask.

{The mark granted to you by the Demon God Mephistopheles, Fourth Prince of the Seven Hells, Lord of Bargains and Keeper of Debts, embodies his attribute of collecting what he is owed. It contains a tremendous amount of space that scales with the Heretic’s Ein Sof reserves, which means it will only grow larger as you grow stronger. At the moment, the space within is comparable to that of a small house}.

Nero stopped walking.

A small house worth of storage space. Bound directly to him, accessible at any time, requiring nothing but his will to open and close.

“That’s…” he started, then paused.

That was the solution to his problem.

He didn’t need to figure out how to carry the Teargail Fungus across the bog. He could just store it in the subspace, along with everything else. Gungnir, his supplies, all of it could go into the mark’s storage.

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