(Literally inside of a gods corpse)
The five adventurers trudged through the monastery's shattered nave, their boots grinding over what seemed to them like centuries of dust and bone.
Robed statue saints loomed along both walls with their stone eyes eaten away by time alongside cracked stone hands,
Cold air leaked from every direction; from the floor, the ceiling, the statues even as if the dead god they were in were exhaling frost. Cloaks fluttered and metal charms clinked, while smell of mold and old incense clung to their throats.
The first adventurer, a frost-marked battlemage with runic plates hammered across his chest, hunched deeper into his azure mantle. "Fuck it's cold in here."
The second, a spear-wielding lancer wrapped in red wolf pelts, smirked under her breath. "Maybe you're scared?"
"N-No!" His voice cracked, and she grinned wider.
The third, a short scholar-class caster in layered parchment robes and a brass arc-lens strapped to his left eye, muttered while adjusting a satchel full of crystal inks. "There's nothing to be scared of really, we have that otherworlder with us, and he has that weird weapon that shoots stuff!"
The fourth, a bruiser in plated bark-armor carrying an enormous iron cleaver across his back, scoffed. "He's only been here two weeks, he said, but he's already well known through the continent. Already calling himself a 'Badass Gun Mage,' or whatever."
The fifth adventurer, a soft-spoken healer draped in maroon silk threaded with prayer stitches, lifted her lantern toward a series of cracked murals and paintings on the wall. "Nothing will happen to us while we raid this god's body. We hired Nero to protect us, we have nothing to worry about.."
The battlemage glanced around, hugging himself. "I don't see him though…"
"He's a sniper he said!" the lancer replied. "He stays away from the group's radius to provide cover!"
The bruiser folded his arms and shook his head. "Sounds chicken to me. Plus he demanded a thousand gold for protecting us, using a forced voice that was supposed to sound scary and menacing. I don't know about that kid. We're wandering through a god's carcass and I'm more worried about him than the dangers that lie ahead."
"But the Crown could be here!" the scholar blurted out. "And anything we find in here can be taken back to the real world for good gold! We're in good hands."
"Or we just take it for ourselves. What about that?"
No one noticed the faint glow flickering against the rafters above them.
[Level up!]
[Level up!]
[10x rewards!]
[20x rewards!]
[Would you like to purchase the 100 dollar crate?]
[Would you like to purchase the assassin bundle for 30 dollars?]
[What about the Juggernaut crate?]
[Come on, just fucking buy it]
[You cannot skip this ad]
[You cannot skip this ad]
[Stop trying to skip this ad]
High above the group, perched on a fractured balcony of collapsed stone, Nero sat hunched over a floating translucent pane, the system window that only he could see, tapping the system window furiously with both hands like a kid losing an arcade match.
His messy brown hair stuck out from beneath a black sackcloth hood, the strands wild and uneven as if he cut them with a combat knife. Dark pink eyes sharpened with irritation, one scar dragging from cheekbone to jaw, and another shallow line beneath his lower lip.
"Ads?! Ads?!! You bastard! I almost won!" He exclaimed.
The system window pulsed smugly.
More ads popped up when he tried to swipe the first ads away, and his jaw tightened.
The sniper rifle, his pride and curse, unfolded across his arms in a cascade of moving metal, chambers sliding into place, vents hissing faint smoke. It was a long, black, industrial-looking thing with rotating components and exposed coils, a machine that looked as if someone forged a sniper from clockwork.
The moment he leveled the muzzle at the screen, a halo of black bullets materialized over his head, the halo spinning slowly as if suspended by an unseen chain. He exhaled, aimed down the sight. His right eye clamped shut, and a single tear of blood trailed down his cheek.
"I'll finish you here then."
The system flashed.
[How many times have you tried to shoot me, fool? You can't]
"S-Shut up! I don't care! You making ads pop up is insanity! You're supposed to be some fucking all-knowing, all-powerful system thing like the ones in my old world and yet I'm bombarded with dumb ads in my face!"
Another gleam of text:
[Ouch]
Down below, the healer squinted upward. "There he is! And he's… talking to himself…?"
The group turned, just in time to see Nero abandon his tantrum and, with a speed that made them second-guess what they'd witnessed, transition into a composed sitting pose with his rifle laid across his shoulders, halo tilting lazily, expression carved into stoic indifference, clearly putting on a fake image.
He cleared his throat. "Only the strong will hear the whispers of a god's tomb. I hear the voices…it argues with me…."
The adventurers whispered among themselves:
"He's so mysterious…"
"Only the strong can hear the whispers… does he think he's better than us…?"
"Let's just keep going. He's obviously communicating with some outer force… he's amazing…"
Once they vanished deeper into the monastery, Nero rose again, wiping the blood-tear with his thumb. "Yeah, that's right. See how they all praise me like I'm a badass? You think someone as menacing as me should see a single ad?"
The window flickered.
[You were quiet in your old world, a contract killer with 800 confirmed kills. Now that I gave you some power, you're loud and on my ass about an ad? Bills are high]
Nero's grin twitched and stretched tight, more anger than humor. "You bastard…"
A soft hop landed on his shoulder. A black cat with fur sleek as ink settled there, its three tails swinging lazily behind it. Red horns curled from its head, and its spiraling orange eyes glowed.
"You're really arguing about ads to the system, brat?" Torch's voice rumbled like a disapproving uncle who'd seen too much.
"What bills does it have to pay?" Nero snapped. "The gall… I want to fight. I need compensation for my mental state, Torch. Demand it to give me compensation! When I got here, you came with this glowing window, so communicate with it."
"I can't go against or speak against it," Torch said, stern and flat. "Or I'll explode."
The system added one last note:
[Brutally]
The monastery stretched onward as the others continued to wander, pillars rose in crooked rows, each engraved with hymns. Then the group came to a complete stop.
"There it is…" the healer whispered, raising her lantern just enough to illuminate the far chamber.
"A fallen Angel…" the lancer murmured, gripping her spear until her knuckles paled.
"Bastards are always defending the gods' corpses…" growled the bruiser.
In the cratered hall ahead, the creature rested. Its lower body resembled a colossal griffon with massive talons curled under its chest, fur matted with dried blood.
Above that savage frame rose a wounded human like torso that was pale and muscular, wrapped in gashes that exposed faint glimmers of ruined divinity. Long messy blonde hair draped over its shoulders, untouched by dirt despite the surrounding ruin, and light blue eyes stared emptily at nothing.
Two wings clamped tightly around its curled body, and above its bowed head hung a halo that was engraved with an ancient language, each glyph sliding in a steady turn around the rim.
The scholar's lens glimmered as he adjusted it. "Its name is… Razael."
"Don't hesitate…take it down!" the battlemage snapped. "It'll try to kill us if we don't kill it first!"
"Got it!"
Razael didn't react at first. It breathed slowly and hollow and almost human. Then its eyes sharpened. Its wings peeled apart with a sickening sound, revealing the full extent of its broken grandeur. The halo drifted higher, twisting once before settling again.
The creature raised its head.
Its sad cry tore through the hall like a blade of sound, shaking dust loose from the walls and pillars.
Before anyone registered the movement, Razael surged forward and swept one wing in a fast sideways carve. The force flung all five adventurers across the chamber, bodies smashing against columns and warped pews. Blood dotted the stones where they landed, breath ripped from their lungs.
They staggered upright and trembling, forcing their bodies into stances they barely remembered.
"Shit!" The bruiser roared. "Brace!"
The battlemage pressed his palms together, igniting frost along the runes of his armguards. The lancer adjusted her grip, sliding from one stance to another, spear held low like a striking fang. The bruiser tore his cleaver from its sheath with a grunt, both feet digging into the floor. The scholar flipped through glowing pages, murmuring activation rites. The healer's lantern brightened, threads of light wrapping her hands.
Still perched high on the decaying ledge, Nero barely glanced at them, he was still locked in verbal combat with the translucent window floating before him.
"Huh?! Say that again?!" he barked at the screen, rifle pointed inches from the glowing text.
[The gold will be useless if the party you were meant to protect dies]
"I'll go if you promise you won't drop any more ads in my face! What kind of system gives an ad? You're supposed to be turning me, the ultimate Gun Mage, into a god!"
Torch bit Nero's pant leg, tugging with frantic, useless force. "Brat! Your clients are getting mauled!"
"And why did more ads pop up when I barely tapped the system screen?!" Nero snapped. "Are you itching to die?! Don't put games on the system if you're gonna blast ads at me! I'm not buying a shitty bundle or ugly cosmetics for anything!"
Below him, the fight descended into frantic brutality.
The battlemage thrust both hands forward, jagged frost erupting along the floor as he sprinted sideways. Razael swerved toward him, its massive claws scraping trenches into the stone.
The battlemage ducked low, sliding beneath a wing that cut the air above him, and acted by driving a frozen fist into the creature's lion-like ribs. The impact cracked ice across its hide but Razael turned around fast, kicking him hard enough to send him tumbling across the pews, its claws slashing the battlemage's chest open in a spray of blood.
The lancer intercepted, thinking, 'While he's distracted…!' leaping from a broken pillar and driving her spear toward Razael's exposed shoulder. The creature twisted roughly, grabbing the weapon's shaft with one hand and jerking it upward, yanking her right off her feet. She began swinging her legs over its arm and hurling her weight downward, ripping her weapon free, but the angel whipped its other wing across her side, crushing her against a saint statue that shattered against the explosive impact.
The bruiser charged next to a blindside attack, his cleaver sweeping upward in a heavy climb toward Razael's torso. The angel kicked off the ground, landing behind him, grabbing his head with both hands and ramming him face-first into the floor. He roared, twisting his entire body in desperation, catching Razael's jaw with the blunt edge of his gauntlet and knocking the angel back two steps.
"I'm going!" The scholar fired a volley of sigil-lit shots from a glyph inscribed tome, each bolt carving through the air with a sharp whistle sound. Razael deflected them one after another using his movements: forearm, wing-edge, claws: each parry fast enough to rattle the glyphs' light apart.
The healer darted behind the scholar, channeling strength into her group, barely keeping them upright.
"Stay focused. We wanna not look like pushovers in front of the Gun Mage!"
The scholar nodded, "Tch. Yeah."
Razael raced forward another time, its entire griffon body ramming into the battlemage and bruiser together. Both lifted off the ground from the sheer force, smashing into the far wall hard enough to break the old tapestries. The healer sprinted to them, dragging both backward just before one of the angel's claws carved a crater into the floor where she'd stood.
All five regrouped, breathing hard, bleeding and shaking but refusing to fall.
Razael's gaze remained empty, it stepped forward again, each movement tightening the tension around them.
And still above, Nero argued.
Torch latched onto his cloak now, pulling with wild panic.
"Focus!" the cat snarled. "They're losing!"
Razael's claws scraped the stone as though gravity had doubled on him, and his wounded torso quivered with a strange rhythm the adventurers didn't recognize until the angel cradled his face in both hands and let out a trembling sob.
The sound carried unevenly through the ruined hall, the adventurers blood still pooled beneath them, their breath ragged, their weapons trembling in their hands as they struggled to rise.
"It's crying…" the healer whispered, clutching her lantern close to her chest.
"Don't get distracted…" the bruiser snarled through split lips. "They all cry… murderous bastards…"
"I feel no sympathy," the lancer hissed, wiping blood from her jaw. "If even one of them gets free, they go on a killing spree…"
The scholar adjusted the glowing lens over his eye, voice shaking. "Its name… it's spinning slower and slower…"
"What about Nero the Gun Mage?!" the battlemage croaked, dragging himself upright against a shattered pew. "Isn't he supposed to be aiding us?!"
"We… we haven't lost yet!" the healer insisted. "Plus, Nero wouldn't leave us if he wants to get paid!"
"Fool!" the bruiser barked. "We're done for!"
Razael lowered his hands.
Tears cut through the blood on his face, trailing down his jaw and neck. But when he looked at them again, his expression twisted into something calm then stretched into a grin filled with malice. His wings lifted, the halo shook, and he leaned forward.
Then he moved.
Razael crossed the chamber in less than a breath, wings stretching wide as he lunged in to finish them—
—A thunderous crack tore the monastery apart.
A sniper round punched straight through Razael's upper chest, shredding flesh and bone in a gruesome eruption. A smoking tunnel blasted open where his heart should've been, while the impact hurled him backward with force, slamming him through a stone wall and leaving a crater of dust and pulverized debris.
"He's come!" the lancer gasped.
"Nero…" the healer whispered.
A figure stepped through the settling dust. Boots clicked against fractured marble. Nero held his rifle lazily over one shoulder, his other eye bleeding that single red tear that marked every shot he took.
He walked past the battered adventurers like an actor stepping onto a stage.
"I watched you all from afar," he said, deepening his voice into that forced and dramatic timbre he thought sounded legendary. "I come from a world where proving your worth is what makes or breaks you. I had to be sure you were worth my protection… along with that lump of gold you're gonna give me once I slaughter this bastard."
Behind the shattered wall, Razael staggered upright. The hole in his chest exposed mangled organs and a lattice of bright red runes shaped like a skeletal cage, twisting symbols that thumped like a heart.
The battlemage swallowed hard. "Can you… decipher those? Like you did its name?"
The scholar stared, pale. "I can't… decipher that."
"Hm. Then let's let Nero take care of it…"
"I've wanted to watch him in action anyway…"
"That halo above his head… they say it only appears when he has his 'gun' out…"
"Could he be a fallen angel too…?"
Torch perched atop a piece of collapsed stone nearby, curling his tails beneath him. "I'll be over here, kid."
Nero angled his head slightly, whispering toward the system window screen floating beside him. "Oi. Play me some of that badass music I like. The epic sounding stuff."
[Got it]
A cheery, bouncy children's tune began to play.
The adventurers froze.
"That music…"
"It's very… childish, no?"
"Is Nero a bard as well…?"
Nero's eye twitched violently. He slowly tilted his head at the system window and tapped the skip button faster and faster with growing fury, but the song wouldn't skip.
'You piece of shit! You're embarrassing me! I'm supposed to look menacing in front of them!'
[This is what happens when you argue me down about ads. They have benefits, you know]
Nero tapped harder. "Bastard bastard bastard bastard bastard—"
The adventurers whispered:
"Is he okay…?"
"He's tapping the air and talking to it…"
"Shhh! He knows what he's doing!"
"Yeah he's definitely not crazy…right?"
Torch nearly fell off the rubble laughing, his tails thumping against the stone. "Haha! They think you're insane!"
Razael was shaking with anger and he glared at Nero. His halo's runes unraveled from their circular restraint and twisted through the air around his body, rotating like a predator circling prey. He took in the bullet halo above Nero's head, and something inside him snapped.
The angel charged as he began to cry again.
His body became a streak of divine light, his claws ripping the floor apart as he tore toward Nero. The symbols trailed around his body in fast spirals, his wings beating hard enough to kick debris into the air.
Without looking, Nero pointed the rifle sideways with one hand.
Razael veered away from the gun, He vanished from one side of the hall and reappeared near the ceiling, dropping like a meteor toward Nero's skull.
Nero stepped aside and rotated once, and slammed the back of his sniper directly into Razael's jaw. The strike detonated across the angel's face, sending him tumbling violently across the chamber, rolling and tearing up the stone floor before crashing into a broken column.
Dust rippled out, and the adventurers stared, stunned.
Nero grinned, lifting his rifle. "This'll be easy. I'll beat him up."
He set the weapon against his shoulder, leaned into the stock, and his closed eye bled another slow blood tear.
"Hold still so I can shoot your head off."
Razael lurched up on its shaking legs, the open cavity in his chest still sizzling with the remnants of Nero's last shot, and every inhale and exhale rattled like broken glass.
Then he came with those ruined wings blasting wide as he threw himself forward to fight. Each slam of his fists into the ground detonated in eruptions that shredded chunks of the corpse sanctuary around them, he moved fast in speed from angle to angle, trying to catch Nero in just one explosive blow strong enough to pulp him or kill him instantly. He moved like a bullet that was bouncing from corner to corner, trying to catch Nero off guard.
But Nero slipped through every thunderous blow without losing a breath, stepping aside in amused pivots while the world tore itself apart around him; Razael's rage then frayed into raw panic.
Nero's laugh cracked across the chamber. He caught one of Razael's explosive swings on the length of his sniper, parrying it with a sharp twist and a damaging, redirecting punch that snapped the fallen angel's trajectory off balance.
Before Razael could recover from that, Nero spun the rifle in his grip and launched it forward like a harpoon. The barrel punched straight into Razael's face with a nauseating crunch, embedding itself deep as the impact launched the enigma tumbling backwards in a jagged streak of broken wings and spraying ichor. He hit the distant wall so hard the stone caved around him.
Nero was already dashing after him, grinning as he skidded up in front of the pinned body. The sniper was still jutting from Razael's skull like a handle, and Nero wrapped a hand around it, leaned in close enough that the fallen angel's remaining eye could see that smile, and pulled the trigger. The chamber bucked. Then bucked again. And again. Each internal blast carved fresh tunnels through Razael's head, shredding it from the inside until the whole upper half detonated in a fountain of blackened bone dust and residue.
A soft ping lit the air.
[100 XP gained]
[200 XP until Level 4]
[Would you like to purchase the red camo bundle–]
"I'm gonna rip ya in half," Nero muttered at the window, wiping gore from his cheek, "spouting all that ad crap when I'm in the killing mood. You must've forgotten what I was before I was forcefully dragged to this fantasy land. Filled with elves and talking animals and a bunch of other weird crap."
'And I hate that ping noise. Turn it off.'
Behind him, the adventurers were standing as the healer mended their fractures and torn tendons. One of them whispered, "You're amazing…" Another simply stared, mouth open.
Nero turned, flashing a feral grin. "Told you I'd beat him up. I'm unstoppable."
Torch hopped lightly onto his shoulder, his three tails curling lazily. "Something's coming," he murmured, voice low plus bored. "Don't get distracted."
A deep rumbling pulsed under the floor. Dust sifted from the ceiling. The adventurers stiffened.
"Something's coming!"
"What could it be? We already checked everything out in this god's body besides this section. This carcass is nothing but a destroyed sanctuary, unless—"
Torch's ears flicked. "Use those big human heads of yours. They were waiting to herd us into a corner. They're about to come from all sides."
The rumbling grew closer like an incoming transfer truck on a highway, turning into a violent tremor that rattled the old bones of the divine wall.
Nero's grin widened. "Doesn't matter! I'm the best! So we're not losing!"
The walls split and the floors buckled like a knee injury. Scores upon scores of fallen angels erupted through the surfaces, the floors, the ceilings, and the walls too.
Each one bore disfigured variations of humanoid forms: elongated limbs scrawled with crawling runes, wings warped into predatory blade-feathers, hagged spiked halos over their heads; Their weapons were relics of seemingly impossible construction, mythic metal curved into crescent bladed weapons, spines sharpened into hooked glaives, blades humming with forgotten consonants.
"Shit! Shit!" The scholar snapped.
"Ambush!" The bruiser got prepared.
"There's too many of them!" The healer rushed to apply her healing magic faster for her comrades, to heal them quickly so they can either fight or escape.
Torch sighed, stretching like a bored housecat. "Guess I'm up then."
Then Torch began to change forms, his body growing larger and taller, resembling a jaguar as he was 20 feet tall, his body covered in black flames, horns glowing red, tails snapping behind him. His spiraling eyes burned through the haze as he stood shoulder-to-shoulder with Nero. The adventurers recoiled, awe eclipsed by raw fear.
Another system window flickered.
[New assignment: Kill All Fallen Angels In Under 2 Minutes. Reward: 150 XP, and 0.5 seconds of ad free games–]
Nero's voice dropped to a dangerous rasp. "Die in hell, window."
The first wave of fallen angels began to cry as they went to attack, their weapons flaring into radiant sigils that wrapped their blades in bright colorful lights.
[Skill used: Red Roulette]
Nero jumped into them with a leap, five black orbs stabilizing around his torso like a dark halo.
The moment he fired, his body glitched and jittered into a new position, an uncanny displacement that left the angels carving empty air.
One massive fallen brute swung a mace forged from braided runes; Nero planted a hand on the weapon's spine, strafed sideways, and hammered a boot into the creature's jaw before snapping another shot. The bullet detonated inside the angel's skull, and Nero glitched and reappeared atop a shattered pillar as the corpse crashed down beneath him. "You're no match for me! Haha!"
Torch bolted underneath him like a shooting star, he tore through two angels in a single swipe of his claws, each strike leaving a searing trail that pulverized holes in the ancient floor. A spear-wielding fallen angel tried to catch him off balance, and Torch's tail smashed him sideways, crushing the warrior against a column and igniting the runes etched into its armor. The explosion of black fire folded the entire structure inward.
Nero whistled, diving off the collapsing remains, catching the falling cleaver mid-drop and driving it through another angel's shoulder before kicking off its chest and rolling back into a ready stance, aiming his sniper behind him, and shooting a fallen angel through the neck.
'I don't care if these are the weaker fallen angels…I still look unstoppable to those adventurers since they could barely handle one. Or this is their first time raiding a god's body….'
A group of slender, four-winged angels came at him with razor-thin weapon-glyph sabers that hummed like hymns. Nero pierced himself through them, flipping over one as he slammed the butt of his sniper into another's throat. He tore the rifle free, fired a Death Spiral:
[Skill used: Death Spiral] —
—one colossal black bullet ripping through their tight formation, carving a brutal path and detonating against the far wall. The orbs around Nero drifted, synchronized, ready for the next shot. He fired again with his body jittering into a new angle, allowing him to step on an angel's shoulder before landing behind it and braining it with a sharp knee strike, followed by a twisting kick, then a sniper shot to the chest.
"Out of the way, brat!" Torch exclaimed.
"Huh?! You're stealing my glory! Fight the ones over there!" Nero pointed away.
Torch looked and saw there were dead fallen angels he was pointing at, saying, "Very funny."
Torch intercepted the next cluster of enemies. One fallen angel swung a weapon shaped like a ring of mirrored blades; Torch braced, letting the metal skim across his hide, and countered by locking his jaws around the angel's face. He crushed it, hurling the limp body into three more attackers before ripping across the battlefield with a trail of burning footprints.
His tails hammered down rhythmically, one strike collapsing a column on a squad, another slamming a winged creature into the ground so hard it cracked through three layers of old deity bone. He glanced at Nero, spiraling eyes brightening; Nero immediately felt his next chambered bullets ignite with black fire.
[Skill used: Black Flame Resonance]
Nero fired, each shot leaving a streak of ravenous black flames in his path. The burning rounds tore through angels, carving through their radiant armor and detonating inside their torsos. Nero dashed across a fractured platform, caught a descending enemy blade between his sniper and forearm, twisted it from its wielder, and hurled the fallen angel off the ledge with a kick.
Another came from behind, Nero bent backward, letting the blade slash over him, then hooked the angel by the ankle and dragged it down into Torch's waiting sharp teeth. Torch bit down; the body ruptured in a plume of black flames.
The angels regrouped, forming a dense formation. Their weapons thrummed with magic as they charged.
Nero glanced at Torch. "Let's do that one move. That'll make those adventurers gasp and whisper about us."
Torch nodded. Nero sprinted up his companion's back, kicked off his shoulder, and crashed into the center of the mob with a ruthless dive. He tore through weapons, knees, throats, helmets shattering their structure with a relentless chain of elbow strikes, rifle butt blows, somersaulting escapes, and brutal shots,. An angel swung a radiant glaive, Nero caught it between the sniper's frame and his knee, snapped the weapon in half, and drove the broken end straight through his opponent's face before glitch-shifting out of the grasp of another attempting to impale him.
Then, Nero stood proudly on Torch's broad back, boots planted, a grin stretching across his bloody face. In the distance, the adventurers escaped down a narrow corridor, they realized the swarm hadn't even looked at them. Every angel had been locked onto Nero alone, as if drawn by something none of them could name.
"Let me finish them off…" Nero growled, bracing himself.
His pupils blazed red, trails of blood falling from the corners of his eyes as a new system window blinked into existence:
[Aimbot Ultimate]
Nero threw his head back and let out a jagged, unrestrained laugh as the aimbot took hold, his eyes thumped, trajectory lines he didn't consciously see dragging his aim from one skull to the next in a mechanical rhythm.
Standing atop Torch's broad shoulders, balanced like he'd done this his entire life, he squeezed the trigger once, then the rifle snapped to a new target on its own. Another shot. Another. Another. Each kill punctuated by the flat, mocking chime of the system window.
[100 XP]
[100 XP]
[100 XP]
[100 XP]
Then the system flickered, smug and bitter.
[Level 4 reached! I'm not saying congratulations. You have 500 levels left to reach to be maxed out anyway]
Nero's laughter only got louder. His sniper jerked left, right, diagonally, tilting at impossible angles as every fallen angel that emerged from the destroyed corridors had their head ruptured in an instantaneous strike.
His body barely moved only the rifle danced, twitching while his boots stayed firm on Torch's back. Fallen angels barely had time to raise their weapons before their skulls burst apart, runes halos over their heads and bodies dissolving mid-fall.
The adventurers watched from behind pillars, stunned silent. Nero didn't miss once. Not even a stray shot, headshot after headshot after headshot until the last fallen angel spasmed, collapsed, and the entire battlefield went dead quiet except for the last few bodies thudding against the ancient bone floor.
Nero snapped out of the trance, eyes flickering wildly as he leapt down and scrambled up to Torch's face, whispering in a frantic hiss, "Come on! Come on! Get in the stance! They'll take us even more serious!"
Torch blinked. "Huh?! I hate that damn stance!"
"Do it anyway!"
As the final bodies began to hit the ground in a grim rainfall, Nero and Torch moved into position. Nero stood with his back turned toward the adventurers, head slightly tilted, the lingering red glow in his eyes giving him an ominous silhouette.
His sniper rested across his shoulders as if it weighed nothing. Behind him, Torch crouched low, fur bristling, teeth bared in a slow, intimidating growl that vibrated through the floor.
'I feel like a phony.' Torch thought. 'But the system chose him…a youngling who is used to killing, who is ruthless and won't hesitate to finish the job. With 800 confirmed kills in his old world as a hit man, he's the perfect choice.'
The adventurers stared, dumbfounded, the chamber gone still.
"You…" one whispered.
"It's as the rumors say… Nero the Gun Mage…"
"He's even more deadly in person…"
[150 XP gained]
[Quest complete]
[2 skill points granted]
Nero deepened his voice to the lowest register he could muster, trying to sound like some immortal hero out of legend. "Heed my words, children. Always be prepared for the worst outcome…"
The line sounded grand to his own ears. It was dramatic, ancient, deep, and wise. He'd made it up three seconds ago.
The adventurers exchanged awkward glances, then gave weak thumbs-ups.
"Yeah, we got it. Thanks again."
Nero walked past them all, making his sniper vanish slowly, his black halo of bullets over his head disappearing as well, and Torch was going back to his small form.
Nero said with a forced deep voice, "Told you. I cannot be beaten."
Torch whisperered, "Those were the weaker fallen angels you know? The ones that show emotion? Now if we would've ran into one that was emotionless…"
Nero whispered loudly, "Shhh! Shhh! Don't state the obvious!"
"Yeah yeah, just don't get killed. If you die, then the same thing happens to me."
"As long as I got that Aimbot Ultimate skill that came out of nowhere, we're good."
Then again, the system flickered in front of him:
[Aimbot Ultimate was a time limited skill you got from watching the ad from earlier. It can never be used again. See what happens when you watch ads? It's a 11% chance you'll get a rare time limited skill. I was just giving you a taste]
Nero stopped, and said, "No! I'm never watching those ads! Come outta there! What kind of scam is that?! Gotta watch a 60 second ad for a 11% chance of a rare skill?! And you thought I would be tempted by giving me that aimbot thing, to persuade me to watch those dumb ads? How dare you manipulate me and I almost fell for it!"
Nero started throwing punches at the screen but it only phased through as Torch used his teeth to grab Nero's pant leg, and dragged him away. "Come on. Come on. Let's get out of this place."