Chapter 41: Observations (1).

A week had passed since Nero had begun his hunt in earnest.

In that time, he had killed fifty-two Abominations and gained their Seals of Sin.

***

Seals of Sin: (80/1000).

***

His total now sat at eighty Seals out of a thousand. He was just a few steps away from his goal.

Thinking about it made him feel a faint sense of trepidation and… relief?

He was finally going to continue on with his journey, as dangerous and terrifying as it was, it meant he was making progress.

During this time, he had also expanded his hunting grounds. No longer did he remain at the very fringe of the Purple Evergrowth forest. Instead, he had begun venturing deeper, though still within the outer edges where the violet canopy was thinner and the dangers more manageable.

Each night, he returned to the cave.

And each morning, he ventured out again.

It had become his routine. A cycle of blood and death he slowly grew accustomed to.

And as he became engrossed in the pattern, he had begun to notice things— details that only revealed themselves through repeated occurrence and observation.

Sitting at the mouth of the cave as the grey sky began to darken, Nero pulled out his mother’s book and flipped to one of the blank pages near the back.

The scent of the corrupted earth filled his nose. It was not foul, but rather pleasant and calming.

It was the scent of rain…

With a piece of charcoal he had fashioned from the remnants of his cooking fires, he began to write.

His handwriting was rough and unrefined, but it was legible enough.

He needed to document what he had learned. If he died out here, perhaps someone would find this book and make use of the information.

Or perhaps no one would ever find it.

Either way, it didn’t matter…

He detailed his observations;

Most of the Abominations had become fairly easy to handle for him.

Not all of them, of course. There were still creatures that made his skin crawl and his instincts scream at him to flee. The chimera he had witnessed a week ago still haunted his thoughts.

But the smaller, weaker ones no longer posed the same threat they once did.

After surpassing fifty Seals of Sin, something seemed to have changed in him, but he couldn’t quite put his finger on it. It wasn’t as though he had suddenly gained some new ability or power up.

It was subtler than that.

His movements felt just a bit sharper, his reflexes faster, his body responding to his thoughts with less delay, as though the gap between intention and action had been bridged a tiny bit.

A Corrupted Scavenger that would have required careful planning and positioning a week ago could now be dispatched in two strikes.

A Hollow Wretch— one of the hunched, gaunt humanoid Abominations with elongated limbs and sunken faces— he had felled one of those in just two strikes.

He had noticed the shift during a hunt three days prior.

Nero paused in his writing and flexed his fingers.

They didn’t feel much different. Stronger, perhaps, but he couldn’t quite tell.

He wasn’t sure at all.

’The difference between zero and one is greater than the difference between one and a hundred…’

But there was something else.

Something he couldn’t ignore.

Setting the charcoal down, he pulled off his tattered shirt and examined his torso in the dim light of the cave’s glowing algae.

Dark welts had begun to grow across his skin.

They were hard to the touch. Slightly raised. And they itched every once in a while. .

At first, he had thought it was some kind of infection. A result of all the filth and blood he had been exposed to.

And maybe they were. But he was more convinced that his body was being changed and morphed by the Sins he had been consuming.

The welts were scattered across his chest, shoulders and his arms. Small patches of hardened, blackened skin that felt like tumors, making his already twisted visage seem even more horrific.

His reflection in the Silver Blade’s polished surface revealed more of them along his neck and jawline.

It was disturbing and filled him with immense terror.

But it was not surprising.

He had been consuming corrupted flesh for over a week now. The Ein Sof within that flesh was changing him. He had known that from the start.

Still, seeing it manifest physically was different from knowing it intellectually.

Luckily, after a whole week of devouring the disgusting flesh of Abominations he was convinced he would never get used to, he could hold his human transformation for a while hour.

It was a small progress, but it was progress nonetheless.

There was also another issue.

He hadn’t been sleeping well.

Each night, when he finally allowed himself to rest, he would wake in the early hours covered in a layer of foul-smelling black substance.

It clung to his skin, thick and viscous like oil, reeking of rot and decay.

The first time it happened, he had panicked.

He had asked the Oracle about it during his nightly descent into the void.

The response had been brief.

{The Black Body is dredging the impurities from the Heretic’s flesh to improve his physique. This process will continue for some time}.

“How long?” Nero had asked.

{Until it is complete}.

That was all the Oracle had said.

Nero frowned at the memory and picked up the charcoal again.

The second observation was more interesting.

The distribution of Abomination types was not some randomized process.

At first, he had assumed the forest was simply a chaotic mess of corrupted creatures with no rhyme or reason to their existence.

But that wasn’t true.

There was a pattern.

The Abominations fell into three distinct categories;

Humanoids, ghosts, and chimeras.

The humanoids were the most common.

Corrupted Scavengers, Hollow Wretches, Devourer Gnats— creatures that had been modeled, perhaps, after the image of humans. However, since the ancestors of these beings were created by corrupted Angels eons before he existed, Nero had no way of knowing for sure.

Then there was the chimeras. Creatures that seemed to be amalgamations of different animals and insects, their components not conforming to the laws of anatomy. Creatures like the thing with the stinger and single eye that had devastated the pack of Corrupted Scavengers, as well as she Soul Amalgam.

They were the most dangerous in direct combat, and were more powerful, in general, than the humanoid Abominations.

The ghosts, however, were different.

They were quite rare to encounter…

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