64 By a hair's breadth

Slowly, the corpse of the undead rose.

With pale and lifeless eyes, it seemed to look directly into Nero, exploring him and his innermost being.

Nero recoiled, "What in the name of..." he began to curse, then paused.

-In the name of whom?- he wondered confusedly, but then realized that this was absolutely not the moment to be thinking about such things.

He refocused his attention on the lifeless body. The two unfamiliar mages backed away from the creature and stood beside Nero.

"The fuck did you do?" the woman asked him.

Nero furrowed his brow and looked at her. "I was hoping you could tell me. Isn't this one of your magic tricks?"

She didn't take her eyes off the undead, "Undead magic doesn't exist anymore," she said thoughtfully.

The man beside Nero shook his head, "That's not entirely true."

The woman looked back at him, her brow furrowing, "You don't mean..."

Another burst of laughter silenced the woman. The laughter didn't come from any of the three individuals but seemed to come from all around them.

It was guttural and croaky. It was so terrible that it hurt Nero's ears, but he ignored it.

The other two mages were not as resistant to the noise, covering their ears and grimacing.

The laughter subsided shortly afterward, and a figure emerged into the light.

Nero tensed and instinctively activated his magic.

The entity that entered through the door was the most horrifying thing Nero had ever seen, even though there was a living corpse standing beside this creature, its chest open and devoid of a heart.

This entity was large, about two meters tall. It had the form of a woman, yet Nero's mind refused to accept it as such. The creature's skin was a repulsive pale gray, and it didn't seem to adhere directly to its body; it looked as if it had put on its skin like a suit.

In some places, the skin hung slack, while in others, it was tightly stretched to the point of tearing. Faint blue and rust-red lines crisscrossed the entire surface.

Nero could imagine the revolting smell, but fortunately, the overpowering scent of blood masked everything else.

The creature's eyes were unusually far apart in its head, emitting a dangerous lilac glow. They resembled the eyes of a cat, with a long, thin pupil that seemed to split the eye.

The creature's hands were long, hairy claws, ending in three talons.

Strangely, this creature resembled the Polykenas. However, Nero had never been repulsed by the Polykenas, as despite their bizarre appearance, they possessed a certain naturalness.

They exuded pride and grace that seemed fitting to them, but this entity was simply wrong.

The thing opened its mouth and it did something that Nero could only see as a smile.

A shudder immediately ran through Nero. The adjacent corpse should really take lessons from this creature, as its eerie grin didn't even come close to the horror and grotesqueness emanating from the red, fleshy mouth of the unknown creature.

The teeth were crooked in the putrid flesh, long and pointed.

Slowly, it opened its mouth wider, then closed it again, only to reopen it once more.

Then, it began to speak,

"Ohhhh...how delightful. More humans."

It was the most horrifying thing Nero had ever heard in his entire life. The voice seared into his being and grated against his eardrums. The woman beside him even staggered, and the man vomited.

Only Nero managed to remain upright and meet the gaze of the creature.

"From what hell were you freed, you aberrant entity?" Nero asked before he could stop himself. He furrowed his brow at his own words. It had been a while since he had spoken so recklessly.

The creature's eyes immediately fixated on Nero,

"Human! I don't know what you saying, but I'm looking forward to eating your heart."

Nero couldn't help but shudder.

"You fool," the woman hissed, "That's a demon!"

Nero looked back at the creature that the woman referred to as a demon.

The man groaned, "What's a demon doing here?"

"How would I know?" the woman asked angrily.

"What in the name of Orin should we do now?" the man then asked scared.

The woman hesitated only briefly before raising her hand. A spark erupted from it, directed straight at the creature.

The creature had been attentively listening to the entire conversation and had not moved.

It seemed to Nero that the creature didn't perceive the mages as a real threat, and that worried him even more.

The woman's lightning bolt crashed into the creature with a loud noise, causing it to stagger back slightly. Another crack appeared on its skin, revealing a hairy form beneath, but it didn't seem further harmed.

It fixed its gaze on the woman and leaped at her.

She was fast, very fast.

Besides all of his fear, the man next to Nero reacted quickly. He raised his hands and pressed against the air. An invisible force struck the creature, blocking its leap and sending it back.

It crashed against the wall, leaving a crack in its wake. It hissed and rose again, but Nero had already hurled a golden blade at it. It screamed as the blade struck its skin and sliced through it. "HUMANS! DIE, YOU HUMANS! I SHALL DEVOUR YOU, YOU HUMANS!" it screeched in an inhuman voice, swallowing some words in the process.

The three of them didn't give the creature a chance to recover, bombarding it with spell after spell. Sometimes it was struck by lightning, other times by golden blades, and whenever it attacked, a shockwave threw it back. But Nero could see cracks forming on the fingers of the two unfamiliar mages, from which blood slowly flowed. Nero's own hand was covered in a web of cracks too, which were slowly inching toward his magical heart.

"We really could defeat it," the man panted excitedly, but he celebrated too early.

"AHHHHHHHHH!" The creature suddenly emitted an ear-piercing screech.

This time, even Nero couldn't withstand it and pressed his hands desperately against his ears.

An incredible sense of dizziness and panic suddenly overcame him, and breathing became difficult.

The two magicians around him seemed to be even harder hit. They fell to the ground, vomiting blood and bile.

Trembling uncontrollably, they struggled to catch their breath.

Nero looked up again and looked at the creature. It had undergone a strange change.

It now radiated a strong, threatening aura as its hungry gaze fixed upon Nero.

But Nero had noticed something else.

He immediately turned around, using magic to hurl a wave of golden light at the window behind him.

He didn't know if it would work, but to his surprise, the window shattered.

Nero seized this opportunity and leaped out. It wasn't a very deep fall, but still, Nero's stomach churned as he hung in the air for a few seconds.

Then he fell like a rock and crashed hard and clumsily onto the ground.

He tried to roll with the fall to lessen the impact, but he landed awkwardly and ended up tumbling.

The air was knocked out of him, and it took a few seconds for the dizziness to subside.

He fought against the faintness that threatened to overwhelm him and struggled to his feet.

His whole body ached, but to his amazement, he seemed to have suffered no serious injuries. While he had torn his skin in many places from the jump through the shattered window and the impact on the glass shards, nothing seemed to be broken or dislocated.

Nero shook off the last traces of dizziness and started running.

He couldn't control the direction he was running; he just wanted to get as far away from the house as possible. He didn't know what kind of creature that had been, but it had become immediately clear to him that he had no chance against it.

Nero looked around as he ran, but he didn't see the creature. It seemed to be preoccupied with the other people.

Nero breathed a sigh of relief when suddenly something leaped out of the window and headed straight for him.

Nero cursed, using words that would have gotten him hanged by his former church.

The thing landed hard just a few steps in front of him, and the ground beneath it cracked.

It stood up to its full height and stared at Nero, who had come to a halt and turned around with a sigh. It smiled again that gruesome smile.

"Human thinks escape, but human too slow!" it said.

Nero believed he even detected a hint of humor in its voice, though it was hard to discern amidst the varying tones and dialects. It sounded like it was just parroting words it had picked up from other humans.

Slowly, it advanced toward him.

Nero quickly gathered all the remaining magic he could muster and flung a blade that shone so brightly he had to squint his eyes. He quickly hurled it at the creature before him.

Cracks appeared all over its skin, and a stabbing pain shot through his chest where the magical heart was located when all his magic was squeezed out of his body in one go.

An incredible weakness came over him, but he resisted collapsing. In all the years he had possessed magic, he had never pushed himself to this extent.

It was the first time he had used up all his magic, and it felt terrible.

Like being drained.

Struggling, he focused his blurred vision on the creature as he staggered back. It was difficult, but he managed it.

The creature knelt on the ground, its skin now hanging in tatters.

Underneath, a short brown fur covered its entire body. The creature looked up, and Nero gasped as panic once again gripped him, threatening to bring him to his knees.

He couldn't resist it anymore; he was drained. He fell to the ground and braced himself with his hands.

Looking up, he saw the demon slowly rising, a black spot marking its chest where Nero's attack had struck.

The fur had been singed away, and a white fluid oozed from the wound. Blood? Nero wondered.

Then he shook his head. This wasn't the time to be thinking about such things. He needed an escape route, and this quickly.

Slowly, he got to his feet. He almost collapsed again but managed to maintain his balance. He stared at the creature, racking his brain for an escape plan. He stumbled back from the creature, which was advancing on him seemingly unbothered. Nero didn't know what to do.

Suddenly, seemingly out of nowhere, a gigantic pillar of flames erupted onto the creature.

Nero froze.

He looked to the source of the flames. It was none other than the Pegasus he had saved from the wolves a few days ago.

Its wings beat rhythmically as it hovered above the creature, spewing red-orange flames from its mouth.

The heat singed Nero's brows, and he stumbled back, dazed.

Then the torrent of fire ended, and the Pegasus landed next to Nero. It lowered its front half as if urging Nero to climb onto its back.

Nero looked doubtfully at the spot where the demon had just been and watched in shock as the creature rose again.

It was even more grotesque without its fur, but a black fluid flowed over it, seemingly healing its wounds.

Nero cast aside all his worries and leaped onto the Pegasus.

It spread its wings and took off into the air. Swiftly, it soared away, and soon both the house and the demon vanished from Nero's sight.

Carefully guiding the horse, Nero cut through the air. Below him, the landscape raced by, and Nero finally dared to relax.

His magic began to recover, coursing through his body once more. His magical heart beat faster, and even his wounds began to close at an unusually rapid rate.

He had escaped by a hair's breadth, considering the hopeless situation Nero had been in.

He had lost complete control of what had happened, but by sheer luck, he had survived almost unscathed.

Yet his face still bore worry and even fear. It didn't stem from the events that had occurred, nor from the fact that he was thousands of meters in the air atop an unfamiliar creature, with one wrong move capable of killing him.

The concern came from the pain, slowly spreading once again in his chest.