After the encounter with Nero, we were left as we were before. Wandering the vast wilderness of this forest with next to no direction whatsoever. A part of me wishes I'd have been able to question Nero further, perhaps find out what he was doing here, but a part of me had the feeling I'd be seeing him again soon enough.

Me and Lady both headed deeper and deeper into the forest, at this point we had little to no idea what we were looking for exactly, however we could hope that it would have something to do with either the invading demons, or the Order of the Sword's plans.

Eventually we arrived at a clearing in the forest, a small stone structure was carved into the ground with wooden steps heading into it and out the other end. Similar steps headed up to an alcove between two rocks which appeared to be our best bet.

As we headed toward it however, as you'd expect by this point, we were ambushed by demons. At first it was just six of those Blade demons so me and Lady instantly began cutting through them. I lunged forward, slicing at one with Eclipse before switching to Light and Dark, performing an X motion to cut through a second one.

The third was just as easy as I used Ifrit to punch it to the ground. Lady took down the rest and at first we thought that was the end of it however straight away, something happened that caught me off guard.

From the body of the blades, something burst forth. This something was revealed to be anew type of demon! I will admit, I was surprise, I'd never seen anything like this happen before so it came as a shock, I soon regained my composure.

Image of a Chimera Seed:

I drew Eclipse as Lady raised Kalina Ann. As the demons lunged at us to attack, I wasted no time countering. I dashed forward just as one of the demons lashed out with a blade attached to a tentacle! 

Barely avoiding it, I sliced upwards and cut the tentacle off. The demon howled in pain before once again trying to lunge towards me. I proceeded to cut it in half with ease. I turned to a second one and instantly stabbed it before it could make a move, I spun around and cut it down just to be sure.

While I was doing that, Lady effortlessly blasted one of them to pieces. She then drew her handguns and filled a second with bullets and killed a third with a shotgun. The third one I killed was also blown up by my grenade launcher. And with that, all six of these strange, almost parasitic demons had been dealt with.

I just sighed as the demons disappeared. Lady asked "Where do all these unique demons come from? It seems whenever there's a load of them there is always at least two new demons." I muttered "Yeah, I'd say I've seen it all, but I know there'll be more later down the line."

After that little exchange, we headed through the alcove and from there we were back to just wandering through the forest. It seemed that aside from the odd run-in with a batch of lesser demons, we'd just be wandering aimlessly. That would soon change.

Once we'd walked for a fair bit, we eventually found ourselves in yet another clearing. This one was much larger than the last one. Much like that one though, initially it seemed completely quiet. There was one thing that instantly caught my attention.

A giant stone rectangle jutting upwards towards the sky. Running through it was a large fissure emitting a bright green light. Both me and Lady instantly knew what this was as she asked "Is that-?" I approached it responding "Yeah, a Hell Gate."

I stood right in front of it, reaching out to touch the green glow asking "So, where's-." I was cut off when Lady abruptly exclaimed "Y/N look out!" I was barely able to lunge out of the way as a giant snake shot past me, clearly attempting to eat me whole!

Flipping backwards, I landed on my feet just as the giant snake coiled around. Upon closer inspection, it seemed that the snake seemed to be almost plant-like in nature. It them swiftly attempted to launch towards both of us once again.

Both me and Lady managed to evade the attack I actually grabbed hold of its body and stabbed both Light and Dark into it, using the hooks to maintain a firm grip. To say the demon took me for a ride was an understatement, I actually had trouble keeping a firm grasp.

I then began using my Hook swords to CLIMB along the creature, similar to how you would climb a cliff face. I eventually reached the top of the creature's head and yelled "Try eating THIS!" I pulled out my grenade launcher and fired a round directly at the demon's face!

It let out a scream and the next thing I knew, I was flung off the demon and landed on the ground, Light and Dark both landed at my feet. I looked up at the demon with a glare and noticed its mouth open up to reveal a humanoid figure.

Image of the Demon:

She shrieked at me "You BASTARD! You'll pay for that!" It shot a series of spikes at me however I just used Cinder to effortlessly shoot each of the spikes before they could hit me. I then looked up at the demon, asking "And who the hell are you?"

The demoness exclaimed "I am Echidna! Ruler of the great forest in the Demon world! And you! You are the one who slayed my children!" I raised an eyebrow and asked "Children?" And it was at this point things clicked.

The parasite demons I'd fought not even an hour ago, they must have come from this demoness. She then proceeded to screech "Now you will PAY!" Her humanoid demonic torso was once again covered by the mouth as she shot towards me from the sky.

Lady fired at her with Kalina Ann, actually doing some damage as we could hear Echidna scream. We both avoided her attack though causing her to come to a stop and coil up once again, revealing her humanoid torso again.

She screamed "I'M GOING TO SWALLOW YOU BOTH WHOLE!" I just commented "Good luck with that." She laughed and stated "You fools! No human could ever defeat me!" I grinned again before replying "Well then its a good thing I'm not fully human, isn't it?"

I lunged forward, going for her torso. I one hand I held Eclipse but with the other, I raised Cinder and fired several rounds at her, each one hit, causing her to let out grunts as she rag dolled a bit from the bullets force.

She lashed out with her tail and actually managed to hit me, knocking me back and causing me roll for a moment before coming to a stop on my knees. I growled for a moment, Lady fired two rockets from Kalina Ann towards Echidna, hitting her with significant damage.

In response to this Echidna did something interesting, she hid herself in the mouth again before holding her body up with large vines. While this protected her body, it actually provided a new weakness in the form of a bulb that was now exposed.

I didn't bother with close quarters combat for this, instead I used my grenade launcher and shot at the bulb as Lady used Kalina Ann. The amount of damage dealt caused her to quickly change positions and go in for yet another charge attack.

She flew around for a while evading our gunfire before once again rushing us. This time I wasn't taking any chances as I took to my Devil Trigger. I raced forward and instantly attacked, I landed a barrage of slash attacks.

Echidna rooted herself to the ground which left her completely exposed as I charged in one last time and landed a powerful slash right through her torso. She let out another ear-piercing scream as she fell backwards. She revealed her whole snake body once again but didn't attack.

Instead she just stared at me in horror. "I-I cannot be defeated, not by HUMANS!" I just stepped forward before calmly responding "It's like I told you before, I'm not fully human. This sword should be evidence enough of that." I held up Eclipse.

Her mouth dropped open before she abruptly spun around and took off towards the gate. I snapped "Oh no you don't!" Raising my Grenade launcher I fired one last shot that impacted its tail however it didn't have much effect and Echidna escaped!

The Hell Gate closed as the green light faded away. I stepped forward yelling "Damn it! It got away!" Lady stepped forward, calmly placing her hand on my shoulder, saying "It's okay. Come on, we need to get going. There's probably even more Hell Gates like this one on the island." 

I turned to her, calming down and saying "Right, lets go." That was when my attention landed on something on the ground, two things to exact. I approached and picked one of them up. I muttered to myself "Some kind of fruit." The fruit-like object caught me off guard. I assumed Echidna was responsible for dropping it.

Image of the Sephirothic Fruit:

What happened next even stranger, the fruit began to glow in the palm of my hand. My eyes widened as there was a quick flash and just like that, it was gone. I stared at my hand in confusion for a moment as Lady asked "What was that?"

I noticed another fruit on the ground as well, I decided to leave it though as I turned to Lady shrugged and replied "I don't know. Never mind." With that, we actually headed out, we came across some strange roots however they began glowing red and faded away, allowing us to continue. 

The fact that there was a Hell Gate here concerned me. These gates could spawn some powerful demons. I would have to keep my wits about me.

Timeskip, a few minutes later...

Nero POV

I stepped out into a strange opening, right in front of me was another one of those gate things, similar to the one I found near Fortuna. However this one seemed to have already been closed. I muttered to myself "Looks like I'm late to the party."

Before I could leave though, I noticed a strange object on the ground. I picked it up and had a look at it. It looked like some kind of demonic fruit, probably from whatever demon had come out of this gate.

Suddenly the fruit began to glow before being absorbed into my hand. I stared for a moment before letting out a sigh and turning to the path out which seemed to have already been opened to me. A part of me had a hunch that Y/N from earlier had something to do with this gate...

Author's Note: And that's it for this chapter, we're getting closer to the second part of this segment so hopefully you enjoy that. I hope you liked this chapter as well and as always, thank you for reading.