Demon's Virtue

Chapter 635: Restrictions

Eiro found himself in the mental library, but he wasn’t alone. Of course the mental duplicates were there, but Eiro didn’t count them as other entities, in the same way that he did with the ones on the plane of Water or Fire. Those two quickly appeared in the imaginary space themselves, as the three of them looked at each other.

“So… what exactly just happened there?” The Eiro from the water plane asked, but the original quickly shrugged, “I don’t even really know. I don’t think that’s a stealth ability…”

“Well yeah obviously, but if you want to be that stealthy, you need a ridiculous amount of control over your body. It makes sense that he’d be that strong,” Flame Eiro pointed out, “Though it’s still ridiculous that he managed to overtake you… us, like that, even with that strengthening spell active.”

Water Eiro shook his head, “Is it really that ridiculous? I mean, we’re just as strong as a regular Royal. Maybe stronger than average, but… still. We already guessed that the combat-oriented Masters are much, much stronger than royals. We know that Koperia is.”

The original slowly looked at the ground, “Even Jura… he was a craftsman, but his senses were so much sharper than even mine, and I’ve evolved multiple times while trying to strengthen them. The realm of a Master is much higher than you would think…”

“But… and I know we all thought the same thing separately, but don’t you think that if the Masters went against the Monster King, they could win?” Water Eiro asked, swimming through the air as if he was still in the plane of water, “What if we convince them to fight with us instead of just training us, that way we could take down the Devil with ease. We could take down the group above the ‘Organization’ and take the cards they have while we’re at it, we already sort of know that they’re involved with each other. And best case, they can even help us take down the Monster King. We could kill him, and then return to life with the kids sooner.”

The other Eiros thought about the suggestion for a short while, but Flame Eiro soon shook his head, “No, even if that does work out, we still don’t know what’s going to happen to us once we become the King. That’s why we’ve been dragging this whole thing out in our plans, to make sure that we’re strong enough to shake off any influence the King’s Splinter may have on us. And if we can’t even kill the Monster King on our own, then we’re definitely not strong enough for that.”

“More importantly…” the original added, “I don’t think the Masters can help us in the first place.”

Of course, he didn’t have to explain, as the others knew exactly what he was thinking, “Right… even before, we were reminded of the Invisibility Potion when seeing Shimour’s stealth. And if that was him still holding back…”

Water Eiro nodded, agreeing with the other duplicate, “A mortal person holding power that compares to a piece of the Arcane like that? There’s no way that they don’t catch the eye of some higher powers.”

“Whether it’s the gods, or that thing beyond the gods… it’s not unbelievable that they’re somehow restricted in what they can do. I mean, those Arcane people got restrictions placed on them too, right?” Eiro wondered, thinking of the group of Arcane beings that he spoke to, which included none other than the Arcane Dealer.

“Wait… is that the step beyond Master? Becoming one of them?” Flame Eiro wondered out loud, and the other two looked at him, exploring that train of thought, as the original nodded, “It’s not… impossible. Though I think we know too little… maybe Partax knows something? If he’s as knowledge-hungry as we were told, and if these restrictions exist… then he must have explored the question of ‘What’s Next’.”

“…Whichever the case may be, I think you should focus on what’s going on around you right now. The two of us will keep reading the books of the tower, I’m sure we’ll figure out something once we get a few floors higher. I mean, even the second floor had a book with a spell that even we couldn’t decypher right away,” the Water Eiro pointed out, as the original nodded, his mental body disappearing from the library.

—

Shimour squatted down in front of Eiro’s body, grasping his head in pain, “Fuck, I hate when I have to do this shit,” he complained, noticing that Krog and James were rushing over toward them. Not only that, but everyone else was also starting to gather outside. Jess, Ariella, Armodeus, the kids, and even all the manor’s Monster Servants were either pressed against the window or had made their way outside.

“Shimour?!” Armodeus yelled out, “The hell’re you doing here?!” he asked, quickly rushing over with his hammer in hand. Once he got closer, he saw Eiro’s body laying lifelessly in a small crater in the middle of the yard, and the Elder Dwarf’s fury was quickly directed at his old friend.

“Did ya seriously have to go all out against the kid?! Are ya insane, you fucking-”

“I didn’t have much of a choice, you old grouch. I had to stop the fight quickly, and that was the only way,” Shimour pointed out, wiping away the blood that was dripping out the edges of his mouth. Armodeus frowned deeply, “He’s… that strong already?”

“…Apparently so. It’s really quite ridiculous what this kid managed to do since Jura’s passing,” Shimour agreed, before slowly raising his hand. He caught the arrow that was flying at him and slowly turned his head, “Little missy, I’m in the middle of a conversation here.”

“Who are you?! What did you do to our father?!” Sammy yelled angrily, tears welling up in her voice, “Answer me!”

“I fought him, and beat him down when he used a spell that used Life Force instead of Mana,” Shimour explained, before catching himself. He looked at Armodeus with a frown, “This kid, she-”

Armodeus nodded, “Yeah, that’s the one with the voice. Don’t worry, lassy, he’s a friend. You know what your father’s like, he-”

“Oh to hell with that!” Ariella yelled out, flying over to Eiro’s side with Clementine in hand. Ariella was skilled enough at healing, but considering Eiro’s ridiculous body, she didn’t even know where to start looking for injuries. For that, Clementine wanted to help, “Daddy, please be okay…” Clementine cried out, grabbing her father’s hand. She looked at him, and blinked a few times confused.

“He… he doesn’t have a pulse…” Clementine muttered, and everyone stared at the demon’s body confused. That was, with the exception of Armodeus, Ariella, and Eiro’s party. They were the only ones that knew of the Demon’s nonexistent heart so far.

Quickly, before any of them could say anything, Arc, Rudy and Sammy started running toward him too, Leon and Avalin waddling behind unable to properly catch up, freaking out as much as their siblings.

“No, kids, listen-” Ariella started, before being quickly interrupted by Shimour, “What do you mean, he has no pulse?! That last attack was only mental- did the spell really sap away all his life force?!”

He squatted down next to Eiro to confirm what was going on, when Rudy pushed himself inbetween Shimour and Eiro to try and protect him, “Get away from him!”

“What’s going on? He’s going to be alright, right? Right? I mean, he’s our father, we know what he’s like… he… he can’t die, right?” Arc asked, but Clementine shook her head, unsure. She was too confused and scared and startled to answer.

Before long, Leon and Avalin also reached the small crater. Leon was already freaking out, which was affecting all the monsters in the manor. Seeingly even the bit of monster blood in Shimour was making him feel anxious. Shimour tried to stop Avalin from approaching Eiro, since he could sense the holy energy that was leaking from her body, even if most others couldn’t. But Rudy wouldn’t let him, “I said to get away from him!”

“Kid listen, if she gets close to your father when he’s like that, then- right now he might still be alive, but if she-”

Soon, at probably the worst moment, another guest finally arrived. Lognir fell from the sky, stopping himself with two pair of white and gold wings, “Oh? What’s going on here?”

“Lognir! You can help somehow, right? It’s dad, he-” Sammy yelled out. She didn’t know much about him, but everyone here had met Lognir before; and he was a dragon! Such a powerful creature had to be able to help Eiro out, right?

“Huh? I think he’s fine, though?”

“Fine?! What do you mean, fine?!” Clementine yelled out, “His heart isn’t beating!”

“No, no, it’s more like… he doesn’t have a heart anymore. Armodeus, I’m guessing he went throughwith that plot, finally?” Lognir asked, scratching his cheek awkwardly, before Eiro slowly shifted himself upward, “Erm… I was waiting for a good moment to explain, but yeah… I’m fine,” the Demon explained, as everyone looked at him confused and startled. Of course, they immediately responded with relief first and foremost, but since Eiro quickly had to calm Leon down to make sure the monsters didn’t go on a rampage, everyone had time to calm down and think about what exactly happened. And so, it was finally time for Eiro to explain to them why exactly he didn’t have a heart anymore, and why he hadn’t told them about something so important yet.