After eating the meal, Nero decided to head to the hot spring, and it was only ten minutes walk from the inn.

Nero thought he would rest there in peace— not quite literally as Emilia and Sophia decided to go with him.

The hot spring was said to be possessed by an evil spirit that showed them their deadliest nightmares, which piqued Nero's interest.

When Nero reached there, Emilia and Sophia insisted on joining Nero and having a mixed bath, but Nero rejected them as he wanted to rest in peace.

He planned to reset his body cores, and for that, he needed deep concentration and precise handling— but if two naked beauties were with him, he wouldn't be able to concentrate, let alone think straight.

"This seems nice," Nero awed as he glanced around the hot spring.

He snapped, and his clothes disappeared, revealing his heaven-defying physique.

He dipped one leg, then another, and yawned loudly, "This is so effective."

He sat down and leaned back to the rock as he closed his eyes, "This is more of a blessed hot sprint rather than a possessed one."

Nero opened his eyes for a second and closed it, then uttered, "Only if there were some music playing in the background, it would have been perfect."

"What?! Why do you have bigger breasts than mine?!" Emilia yelled from the other side.

Nero shook his head as he muttered, "Not this music."

Nero's hands were also resting on the rock on the side, but not for long. Nero moved his right hand and tapped his index finger on the water.

A small trail of water started floating upwards as it moved according to Nero's finger. When it reached about the height where his finger could no longer move up, Nero swiped the finger of his other hand and broke the trail of water.

The lower part of the trail submerged in the hot spring again, but the upper part was still floating. It revolved around Nero's finger as he kept cutting it into small slices. He then slapped those pieces, and each of them spread in the air.

Nero finally opened his eyes and looked at those particles.

"Hmm."

His eyes shined white as well as those particles. Soon, the particles started shaking— then, Nero snapped.

All the particles burst into infinite amounts of particles— and each of them further divided into more— hovering in the air as though time had stopped.

He then grabbed one of the particles and squeezed it before saying, "Corpus."

All the particles in the air started shining— even more— as all of them connected each other by a thin thread of light— and turned into a hologram— each of them showing Nero's body core.

There were different colors of cores of various sizes— connected to glyphs. It was like infinite stars in the galaxy— which was indeed Nero's soul and body.

"They have increased so much," Nero poke in the air, "Pela."

The weak cores turned transparent, and the strongest cores came forward. "I guess I will need to reset them manually."

'If I seal all my cores, I might become weak, but…' Nero looked at all his cores, then chuckled, "Even if I seal one core in 1 second, it will take me more than 300 years to seal all."

Nero swiped his hand, and the core map changed. The cores were now pulsing, and they were connected by blood— it was Nero's Vampire core.

"This one looks fine… I guess?" Nero had seen his vampire core before, but it was before he ever used his vampire powers. And now that he used his vampire powers, the map was changed, and he wasn't familiar with it.

Nero clapped his hand and the core map again. All the cores were connected to nothing but darkness, and they were chained— it was Nero's Demon core.

"I hope I never need to use my demonic powers. They are beyond me to control," he looked at the bracelet on his left hand and muttered, "I wonder what this bracelet is made up of. It's holding back all my demon powers for ages."

Nero sighed and rested his head on a rock, then looked up and saw his body's 14 main-base cores— that were empty.

"I never thought I would say this— but, 'Time to get them back'." Nero closed his eyes and started humming.

Behind him, there was another core map— that had nothing but darkness— they were all Nero's curses.

Nero stopped humming and opened his eyes, then exhaled sharply, "I don't even wanna look at that."

Nero only checked his body cores, vampire cores, demon cores, and curses— which he didn't look at. Besides that, Nero had soul cores that he wasn't familiar with, and he couldn't check or see them no matter how hard he tried.

Nero then started resetting his cores one by one— with the speed of light. He reset all his cores in 15 minutes. After that, he learned to differentiate and alter the channeling of his mana so he could fake his race.

"Finally done~" He yawned and stretched his hands, and eventually fell asleep.

As soon as Nero closed his eyes, he had a dream— a nightmare.

He saw his mother saying all those words to him and then saw her getting chained by the holy knights.

After that, they hung her up with Letra chains and Letra shackles— in the middle of the town, right where she hid Nero.

Nero could see everything but couldn't do anything as his body still hadn't developed. He tried to move his body and use his powers— but it was impossible.

Even though it was raining, all the townspeople gathered around his mother and threw stones at her till dawn. Her clothes and body— even the floor soaked with her blood.

She kept glancing at Nero once in a while— in a way that the townspeople wouldn't know.

As she was a vampire, she didn't die from blood loss or even severe injuries.

When the sun rose, the clouds covered it, and it didn't affect her. The townspeople were planning to burn her with the sunlight.

When it was noon, the sun was above their heads— but nothing happened to her. They all believed the fairy tales where vampires would die by sunlight, but that wasn't the case.

"This is enough. I don't want to see more," Nero uttered as he opened his eyes.

[I showed you the least cruel memory of yours— but that was also too cruel for me,] The voice echoed in Nero's mind.

Nero frowned his face and said in a solemn voice, "Show yourself."

The water started taking shape, and it took a form of a girl— only her upper body was visible, and the rest of her body was transparent— though her body was made of water.

She smiled wryly and bowed down a little, [It's been a while, Zeus]