Chapter 13:

After a few hours Ichigo returned with Ryōshi and his men. 12 grown men Lined up fearfully before Nero they all kept mute so as to not piss off the sadistic monster in front of them.

"Haa, I know we had a rocky start, but I'm in need of your assistance for a while longer. This time your services will be rewarded. If you have families then I'm protect them from the upcoming tribulation of war, if you want wealth I'll pay you enough so that you may never work another day in your life and if you want power then I'll grant you abilities beyond this world's understanding." Nero spoke slowly and moved purposefully before all of Ryōshi's men.

The seconds ticked by as the men considered Nero's proposal, they didn't dare doubt he had the power to do as he claimed, but the words of someone as unpredictable and villainous as Nero were just bullshit in their ears. On one hand he could be telling the truth but they all leaned on the latter that he'd use them and discard them. They had no doubt about this in their hearts!!

"How can we be sure that you're not lying?." One brave man came forward and asked what they were all thinking.

"I don't have a reason to lie, if I really wanted to I could raze Soragakure to the ground within a day I could also find serpent forcefully if I pleased, but I chose a much gentler approach since I wanted to keep the casualties to a minimum." Nero stated seriously.

Everyone listening to him sucked in a breath of cold air when they heard him. In their heads one question swirled as they stared at Nero. The very man who massacred dozens of men and even his own people was claiming to keep the casualties to a minimum. What kind of life did he lead in order to believe lives numbering above 60 were low casualties?

While in their eyes this was truly a huge number of lives lost, in Nero's eyes it was business as usual, he'd killed thousands of men on the battlefield over his life as a mercenary, at first he may have felt a guilty and regretful but as he went on more missions and killed more people his guilt was washed over by the philosophy that might makes right.

To Nero anyone who went against him should be disposed. He'd seen his talents when it came to causing chaos and dominating the battlefield so he simply embraced his nature.

Ryōshi who was silent the whole time approached Nero and bowed deeply before him. Now that he'd seen what true power was like he didn't want to pass up the chance, he had nothing to lose anyways since he already betrayed serpent by bringing Nero here.

"Please take me as your subordinate!" He declared loudly.

"I don't just take in subordinates, prove your worth through the mission that I give and I'll take you under my banner. But know this as my subordinate you'll fight in bloody wars were everyday might be your last." Nero stated plainly.

"I understand I only have one request please grant me power and I shall never fail any mission you give me." Ryōshi said solemnly.

"What do the rest of you say? Will you coorparate. I give you my word that I'll deliver on my promises if you deliver on yours." Nero said seriously to the rest of the men.

After a brief moment of hesitation one man came forward and also bowed, and just like that all of the men accepted Nero's offer.

After that, Nero filled Ryōshi and Ichigo in on his plan, since he didn't know how many more times serpent would pull a start similar to this one he decided to give Ichigo command and only be called when they have serpent's whereabouts. As for Ryōshi he was to lay low for now and act as normally as possible while digging for more info about serpent's intentions.

Nero then left Ichigo and Ryōshi to carry out their mission, he had wasted enough time as it is. Right now he wanted to improve his own strength and look for a new place to start his operations on a large scale.

.....3 weeks time skip

Ever since Nero assigned Ichigo on her mission his own time was spent on studying runes. He wanted to find ways to increase his durability and strength beyond his current capabilities.

He spent the first week finding a new and bigger location to continue his work, luckily for him he'd found a fortress deep within a forest a days walk from where he was previously. The place was abandoned and the walls were cracked with all manner of plants growing.

After that he spent his time there getting used to using runes.

He drew earth runes on a piece of paper, another one on a pice of wood while another one was drawn on a steel sheet.

After that he fed mana to the paper and watched as it glowed in an orange hue and a large chunk of the Earth slowly gathered before him, after that he stopped feeding mana to the rune as the paper was slowly being destroyed.

The paper soon turned to dust and flew off into the wind the only proof of it's existence was a dirt and stones that formed a rough cylindrical shape which was 10cm in diameter and 30 cm in length, this helped Nero confirm that imagination also plays a part when using runes, I only affected the shape of the element though.

He did the same thing with the rune written on a wooden surface and the same scene took place, the wooden medium took longer tk be destroyed and as a result a much larger cylindrical block was the result.

He went on to use the metal and a similar scene took place once more but this time the metal medium laster for an hour and a half before falling to the ground and slowly disappearing. For his last test he created a thin surface using his nanites and tried the same thing, the result was him waiting 3 hours before the sheet fell but strangely didn't disappear, when he picked it up he willed the nanaites to break apart and they obeyed as usual. Nero theorized that since his nanites are also fueled by mana they would disintegrate like the rest of the materials.

Satisfied, Nero spent the rest of the day waiting for his mana to refill before he started his construction project, he used earth written on small and thin metal sheets to bore a whole in a downward direction, he had picked the basement ro hide the entrance of his base.

Two days later passed and Nero admired his handiwork. He stood in a big circular room, it had a diameter of roughly 20m and a piller in the middle. The earth around him was harded using runes a d fire torches lined up the walls.He also created vents to allow air flow.

To the left of the domes midpoint was another passage that led to a smaller domed room, although the base was currently empty as of now Nero planned to move all his things here.

After a brief consideration, he went to a nearby town and rented a carriage. Afterwards he moved all of his equipment every night. From morning to evening he would train his runes while at night he kept moving his stuff.

Like this the first week ended, the second week was filled with mostly rune related experiments. He would capture animals and inscribe runes on their skin, he mostly focused on using sub runes to strengthen their bones by having them manipulate the magnesium and other minerals within them. The results led to success mostly but the animals also slowly parished since they also couldn't handle the power.

Seeing this Nero was frustrated but non the less he continued finding ways to utilize runes. With their help he was able to slowly expand his base ussing robots speciay made to build. He now had a smelting room, a science lab, a computer lab and the infirmary where he kept the two women asleep.

Although he was making great progress, he also realized that most of his money was now gone as he bought resources and burnt through them like a madman.

Now that money was also a concern Nero halted buying materials and started focusing more on creating a 3d printer. He didnt want to always use his nanites to build so the next best thing was a 3d printer. from there he'd use cybermimd to influence the shapes, size and purpose of what he printed.

That's how his second week ended, just as the third week came by, Nero decided to deliver on his promise and printed a bionic arm made of steel, he would upgrade it later when he had more material at his disposal but for now he was working with what he had. He used his nanites to create the other components and assembled them part for part.

The arm would work like normal, just more sturdy and stronger. He didn't want to add any functions yet, ans since Ichigo couldn't use mana he didn't add any runes.

The next thing he did was add some runes to his lurker armor, mostly they were wind runes to make it more silent but Nero couldn't help but add lightning a fire runes to assist in combat.

As the third week also passed, Nero received a signal from Ichigo along with a location, where serpent was meant to be.

Nero smiled in excitement as the time finally came, he would take over a large portion of the underworld and after that money wouldn't be a problem any longer.

He picked up Ichigo's new arm and also wore his armor before leaving. He checked the entrance and made sure it was well hidden, only after he was confident that only someone who had the byakugun and could see through surfaces would be able to find it.

After timing himself, Nero estimated that he'd take three days to get to the location by carriage, Nero decided against it and began running on horse since he'd take half the time while running at full speed.

.......

hope you like this chapter I for one feel like it's lacking but I wanted to keep a constant daily update, but I'll fix any issues pointed out in the comments.