Ongoing

Nero looked at his prideful griffon and gave her some strokes at the side of her head. There was already a saddle equipped on her back and even the special armor on her body just told about the state of affairs.

Luna screeched softly in pleasure at the attention from him and then looked over to someone else that came closer.

"Everything is ready, my lord. With your word we can start marching towards Amaranthine." A blond woman reported to him and stood at the ready.

"And what about our ships? Are they also ready?", asked Nero back and looked at Artoria in her full plate armor.

Analyzing it he could only nod to the craftsmanship. It looked very robust but also elegant enough to give way to move unhindered. Just what he would expect from Celebrimbor.

"Yes, my lord. Elise has put all useful soldiers that could be used as sailors under her wing and the sea should be ours according to her words..."Artoria seemed to look away for a short moment when answering.

Nero could only smile softly. "Don't worry. I trust her ability to command the sea. How many ships did we end up building again?"

"Our fleet is 32 large ships and some smaller ones, my lord. We also brought very few of them as your orders dictated. So most are our own build ships." Her answer was fast and precise.

"Good, that should be enough to keep everything under control...You can also move ahead with the plan. I will meet you guys there. Until then the command is temporarily given over to Syllia. Should something dire arise, then you can use the scroll I have given you."

With those last words Nero mounted Luna and she started spreading her wings.

"Yes, my lord!" Artoria saluted one last time before she started walking somewhere.

From atop the skies, Nero could see the banner flying in the wind and his soldiers were already ready to move out.

It was a very satisfying look he had on his face since a whole 6500 men stood at the ready to move out.

He deemed that number enough to suppress a simple rebelling noble. Well, in actuality he still left the other 5000 men at the fortress to keep the Darkspawn at bay.

The activity lately has increased but with his own newfound powers, he could counteract the blight to some degree.

At least the disease was not a problem anymore. That helped his soldiers to keep healthy. Some even remarked him as a new saint for that.

Especially the church did so now after one of their sisters came to visit at the fortress and somehow had seen him heal a blight infected human soldier.

Why a sister came to his fortress was even a surprise to him at first. But it made sense since they wanted to spread their faith in cities. Even some small settlements had them.

And since the Fortress started to become bigger and bigger to the point where it was seen as another city by many, it was inevitable.

And what city should lack a curch? That was about the thinking the chantry had.

Looking at his ring a slight thought about his own sanity was arising.

Was he maybe already tempted or worse influenced by the sheer power of the ring he had? Would he fall again?

He only shook his head after clenching his fist tight near the reigns. "Some things are necessary sacrifices..."

Problems about being a so-called saint also had dark sides to them because he was easily discerned as an apostate by the more unruly folks from the church.

But those problems had to wait at the moment since they could not clearly discern where Nero's power comes from. It was a lucky stroke but people still felt to put it together with magic.

Funny, right? Andraste is being worshipped as a holy maiden but everyone denies she had anything to do with magic. Anyone with a bit of a decent brain who really researched her background should find out that she had a talent in it.

Anyway, right now he was flying away from his own army to make a certain deal he should have made sooner. It has been half a year by now since he established his court and the time of disaster called the Blight was crawling ever closer.

It was remarkable how people did not know when such a thing would happen. Every mage should know about the time. He could basically feel it in the mana. There was a certain foul feel to it that crawled through his very body at times.

He even had sleepless nights with nightmares because of it. At first, Nero did even think he was infected with the blight or that he did get ill but resisted the corruption.

It was a silly thought thinking about becoming a grey warden out of an accident.

He was not yet ready to just throw away his libido. Even if he was not yet thinking about having children either. It is just a weird thought knowing your body slowly decayed over time to the point where you become sterile.

Not to mention turning into a Darkspawn.

With all those thoughts in his head over his future and being a massive busybody, he didn't even notice that the time flew away like nothing.

Flying was really the best way to travel. What took a long time only took half a day.

Now standing in front of a forest Nero calmed down Luna which seemed to vary of something.

"I know, girl. You can feel it too. Just let me unsaddle and you can go back into the sky."

Right after he said that and now was on the ground himself Luna seemed to look at him worriedly and then went off into the sky after a soft pat from Nero.

Walking into the forest it soon became thicker and the sun also started to set.

Making a camp was easy for Nero since he learned all those things while training.

Being alone on the other hand was a first for him. Well, to be true he was never really alone.

Proof of that was the ghostly wraith sitting close by.

"What do you expect to find here?" Celebrimbor asked looking away into the woods.

"Why so curious now? You were pretty silent while we traveled here."

"This place...Something dangerous lurks here."

Nero stopped eating his jerky and looked away from the campfire to his ghostly friend. Then a soft snort came of his mouth. "The mighty smith is scared?"

That sentence was not something Celebrimbor like at all and one could see his frown. But before he said anything there was a twig sound nearby that interrupted him.

Nero looked over to the origin of the sound but did not see anything.

"No use hiding there. I can sense you." Nero said and slowly stood up with one hand on his blade while the other still held his food.

What came out behind bushes and other objects were 5 wolves. They were intently staring at him and started to circle the camp.

The slow and methodical moves seemed to discern and the gazes at him tried to find out how much of a threat this prey was.

"Want some?" Nero asked with wiggling the jerky.

Surprisingly that got the wolfs to a stop and one of them that looked a little bit bigger started to snarl.

Nero only sighed and pulled his sword. "Being greedy is not something that is good for your health..."

Just when his words fell the wolves attacked him. But he stayed calm and slashed one wolf after the other while dodging their lungs.

It was no challenge to him and he soon dispatched three of them with fatal striked while one was tugging its tail between its legs and whining with a bleeding wound on its side.

When it tried to run away Nero took his bow from his back and shot it dead with a clean shot from afar.

The remaining wolf that neither attacked nor retreated looked at him and also started to growl.

But Nero just sat down ignoring the wolf. That somehow let a confused look appear on the remaining animal's face and it started to look at him intently.

Nero only threw some jerky over to the animal and grinned. He did say greed will be the demise of them but he was fair to the last one that neither attacked nor was coward enough to flee.

Besides that, he knew this animal very well. Just the thought about it brought an even bigger smile to his face.

The wolf sniffed the food and took it. Then it left but not without looking back one more time.

"Why did you leave it alive?", asked Celebrimbor after being silent the whole encounter.

"Hmm, I wonder?" After Nero finished eating and burning the corpses of the wolves so no other predator comes knocking after smelling the blood he went ahead and lay down. "Anyway, I am going to sleep for now. If anything interesting happens wake me up, will ya?"

Celebrimbor looked at him and after noticing his light slumber he soon saw the wolf again that had reappeared nearby. But for some reason, the animal stayed far away and only observed for a while until it left once more.

"..."