Family heirloom, then turned into a demon girl

Chapter 4 Mission: 01-4 Demon's Blood
Nero, who escaped from the laboratory, did not dare to stop for a moment. He walked straight across the small square in the backyard of the castle, jumped over the railing and landed in the pool below the steps.

"Cough, cough, cough!"

Then, he spat out two balls of red liquid from his mouth, and the blood slowly melted into the pool.

Nero lay in the middle of the pool and took two breaths. He looked up at the overpass facing the waterfall in front of him, and his heart skipped a beat.

Nero knew this sky bridge. It was a secret passage hidden behind the waterfall, connecting to the forest across the bay. It should only be halfway up when no one passed by.

Now the waterfall was blocked by a sluice gate, and the bridges on both sides were connected. The mechanism had obviously been activated, and the people coming were naturally members of the cult. Worse still, Nero's heart was sending a signal that a demon was approaching.

This is a power that the original Nero possessed, and its location shifted as the injured part changed.

Could the person coming from the opposite side be a human who, like Agnas, has undergone the cult's "return to heaven ritual" and turned into a demon?

Even though Nero's wounds had healed after absorbing the Yama Blade, he was still quite weak and without any weapons to use, making it impossible for him to defeat such an enemy.

"Damn it, if at least the Yama Blade could be used..."

Nero stood up, her bloodstained monastic robes and her soft golden hair soaked with water and felt particularly heavy. She ignored them and stepped out of the pool dripping with water.

A gust of cold wind blew by, and Nero suddenly remembered that the Order's castle was located on a snowy mountain, and he shivered involuntarily.

"Da da da."

The sound of heels tapping on the ground grew closer. Nero squinted his eyes and saw the woman walking slowly and leisurely in the moonlight.

The man had white hair and black skin. He was wearing a white dress decorated with peacock feathers. Large areas of his skin were exposed in the cold wind of the snowy mountains. It was obvious that he was not a normal human being.

But after recognizing the attacker, Nero felt relieved. She dodged the sword wing that fell from above her head, and without looking back, she kicked the attacker into the pool, shouting, "Help!"

The woman didn't move much, but two flying knives suddenly passed by Nero's ears, cutting off a few strands of golden hair and nailing the two sword-winged demons to the wall bricks.

Then, like a phantom, the woman vanished from her spot and reappeared above Nero's head. Holding the throwing knife she had retrieved at some point, she snaked around the incoming Silver Knight, her hands wielding nimbly. In the blink of an eye, she had ripped the hollow armor into six pieces.

Nero picked up the fallen spear, waved it to string together two swooping sword wings, then threw it to nail the last one together with the previous ones to the wall, bent down and took two breaths.

The woman opened her arms and landed gracefully like a gymnast, her high heels making a light "click" sound on the ground.

"Thank you." Nero looked up and thanked her.

"Gloria," the woman introduced herself. She twirled the two throwing knives twice between her fingertips, tucked them into her boots against her thighs, and swayed her waist as she approached Nero.

She reached out her hand, and her fingers under the white leather gloves slid from Nero's jaw all the way to his earlobe, lifting a strand of golden hair.

Nero was nervous because the other person's face was close to him. He unconsciously clasped his hands to his chest and his whole body was tense: "Wait..."

"I'm sorry I hurt your hair." The woman who called herself Gloria immediately distanced herself from him. "Although I'm new here and haven't seen you before, you should be the Nero that Credo mentioned, right?"

"Yes."

Nero's voice rose a little, but she quickly lowered it. She knew that Gloria was a fake identity created by someone to infiltrate the cult and disrupt its plot. She was one of the few people she could trust at this moment.

"That's strange." Gloria held her chin and blinked, then said, "I heard that Credo's adopted sister was fatally injured and is being rescued by Agnus - but why are you here, being chased by these little 'toys'?"

"Agnus is a bad guy!" Nero answered subconsciously, then came to his senses and thought about how to convey his information to the other party without being abrupt.

"He said he would use my blood to awaken... the 'Savior'..."

Gloria raised an eyebrow. "Hmm?"

Nero calmed himself down and quickly reviewed his story. There really weren't any problems or loopholes. "I didn't agree, and then he turned into a demon! He wanted to kill me, and he said...

"Ah...alright, alright." Gloria interrupted Nero, folded her hands, and her attitude changed instantly: "I understand the situation. But I just asked a different question.

"Come on, answer me honestly. How did you get out? Here—"

She pushed Nero's protective hand away and touched the demonic flesh on Nero's heart: "What's going on again?"

Nero froze again and stammered, "I, I was already like this when I woke up."

Gloria closed her eyes, as if feeling something. Nero's breathing became rapid due to nervousness. She bit her lips lightly, her face pale.

"Could it be the real thing?"

Gloria frowned, opened her eyes, and withdrew her hand. She looked Nero up and down, his body tense, and suddenly said, "It's cold in those wet clothes, isn't it?"

"Eh?" Nero came back to his senses and realized that he had been trembling slightly. "It seems, a little bit."

"for you."

Gloria pulled out a long red dress with a shawl from somewhere and threw it to Nero.

Nero took the clothes blankly and looked at Gloria: "Ah...um, thank you?"

Gloria didn't answer, but stood in front of Nero, staring at her. After a moment, she said, as if realizing something was wrong: "Oh, maybe you want a more private place to change clothes?"

Nero's cheeks trembled and slowly turned red: "Isn't that natural?"

Even if Nero were still a man, he would not take off his clothes in broad daylight, even though it was moonlit.

She tried to lower her voice, but the end of the sentence still rose a little because of anger.

"Okay, I didn't think it through." Gloria shrugged and turned to walk towards the overpass: "Come over."

Nero grabbed his clothes and followed Gloria like a lost deer. The two crossed the sky bridge and entered the cave hidden behind the waterfall.

"Here is enough. Come, change your clothes and let me see them."

Why should you watch it?

Nero was silent for a long time, but in the end he did not ask the question.

The wet, bloodstained, and tattered monastic robes were thrown on the ground. Nero wrung her hair dry and put on the long dress Gloria had given her.

(End of this chapter)