Demon's Virtue

Holding Leon in his arms, Eiro just sat there on the chair for a while, feeling his own heart beat strong enough to potentially explode any moment now. Slowly, he looked around at the others while both Nelli and Clementine were doing their best to somehow heal any outward damage that was done to Leon's body, although it luckily wasn't much.

"What exactly happened?" The Demon asked, and Sammy slowly spoke, although she really wasn't in any proper state to do so. After all, she just saw what would happen to her if they didn't manage to get to the person that would get rid of the seals in time, "It-It just happened so suddenly... He got a fever shortly after you left, and then just two hours ago, it turned out this bad... We didn't know what to do, Clementine did her best to try and heal him, but he was just in so much pain..." Sammy explained, and in the next moment, Eiro turned his eyes toward Clementine. She seemed to be a bit more pale than usual.

"Rudy, come hold Leon for a bit." Eiro said, swiftly handing the boy in his arms over toward Rudy, interrupting both Nelli's and Clementine's healing-attempt.

"Wh-What are you doing?" Clementine asked nervously, but Eiro didn't listen to her for a single moment and grabbed the bottom of her shirt, pulling it up immediately to expose Clementine's stomach.

"Clementine, did you eat the injuries the seals gave Leon?" Eiro asked, and with a nervous expression, the girl just nodded her head before Eiro ground his teeth angrily, "I-I'm sorry, I know I'm not supposed to just eat injuries, b-but regular healing wasn't working a-and he-"

"Stop it." The Imp interrupted, "Why are you apologizing? I'm the one that should do that, seeing how I'm the reason you had to resolve to eating them in the first place. For now, just concentrate on healing yourself, alright?" Eiro asked her with a light smile, and then stood up with his eyes closed, tapping his foot on the ground a couple of times.

"What are you doing now?" Arc asked confusedly, since it seemed like Eiro was thinking about something, but the Demon just signaled him to be quiet for a bit, "I was just checking if we have something else laying around, but we don't. Get in the carriage, we're heading off." Eiro told them, and everyone immediately agreed and got their bags before heading outside toward the carriage parked by the side of the house.

Arc immediately went to grab the horses and attached them to the front of the Carriage, and Eiro removed the wheel-blockers so that they could all get going now. Eiro himself chose to ride on Lugo, since it allowed him to react quicker to any sort of monsters that would come to attack them.

At some point along the path, Eiro called out to Arc and pointed to a different, slightly less tread path that they could ride on, "Take that route. We're taking a shortcut." Eiro told him, but Arc just looked at Eiro confused, "Isn't the river that way?"

"It is, but we're crossing the river over there. Just trust me with this, it's going to save us quite a bit of time if we don't have to head to the bridge." The Demon explained, and Arc just nodded his head in response, swiftly steering the carriage along that path. It was a bit rough compared to the other path, but it was not too bad to handle.

Roughly an hour later, Arc stopped the carriage in front of the river. Or rather, in front of the large pale blue tree that stood there. It was maybe fifteen meters tall and had thick roots that reached either river-bed. Both the one where they were currently standing, and the one on the opposing side.

"Eiro, isn't that the tree you planted? How is it so big?" Arc asked confused. He wouldn't have thought this was the tree if he didn't recognize the wood to be the same as Eiro's hand's. The Demon slightly sighed and climbed off of Lugo's back as he approached the water, "It's just not a normal tree, I guess?" Eiro replied, slowly looking over at the tree as well.

He knew the reason, actually, he just didn't want to waste time by explaining it just yet. He would do it later when he calmed down a bit again. The reason why it grew that much was rather simple. Over the past year, every chance that he got, Eiro and Nelli would come here to level up the Spirit Magic skill by continuosly refining the river-water and immediately 'feeding' it to the tree so that they wouldn't just waste it.

At the beginning, the water would just drip off like normal water would, but after a few months, once it grew a meter or so, it started actively absorbing the refined water. And water in general, actually, even if that wasn't technically as much. But in the end, noticeably less water went past the tree than actually reached it.

For now, Eiro had to properly control everything around here so that they could actually pass. And for that, Eiro did something that the others really didn't expect. Eiro grabbed his carving knife and carved a bit of the bark away so that he could place his hand onto the actual wood behind it.

"Eiro, what are you doing?" Nelli asked nervously, and the Demon just turned toward her with a light grin, "It's obvious, isn't it? If this wood is the perfect material for my staff... And this hand of mine is fusing with me perfectly, while still being this same wood... Then shouldn't I be able to use this tree?" Eiro asked, but Nelli still didn't fully understand. No, actually, she completely understood what he was saying. She just couldn't believe it.

"Eiro, you can't-" The Spirit started, trying to stop the Demon, but he himself didn't care. He wanted to get past this river, so he had to do everything he could in order to do that. The currents were rather high and strong right now, so there was no way they would be able to get past there if Eiro just tried to regularly manipulate the water. That was way too risky.

With his feet both pressed onto the exposed roots of the tree, Eiro got started. With both of his hands, he pushed as much of his mana into this tree as he could muster at once, and tried to let it travel through it in order to reach his feet again. And then, it once more travelled through his body and out his hands.

Like this, Eiro created a rapid current of his mana that caused his own internal mana generation to skyrocket, and he could always use a part of this newly-generated mana to push it into every nook and cranny of the tree, before Eiro noticed some notifications appearing in front of him.

[Warning! Your Body is experiencing an overwhelming amount of mana! If you don't keep it under perfect control, you will experience severe repercussions]

[Your mana is mixing with foreign mana]

[Due to an overwhelming amount of foreign mana, your body is slowly changing]

Eiro completely ignored all these notifications and simply kept on doing what he was doing, no matter how much stress his body was under in response. They just had to get through right here. He didn't know why, but he just knew that they couldn't make their way toward the bridge no matter what. It was as if his instincts were screaming that at him.

Through the roots that were underneath and inside of the river, Eiro then finally got started releasing some of his mana, making it intertwine with whatever it could. The first thing he tried to do was stop the water, and its flow rapidly slowed down, but that wasn't enough yet.

So, he thought of freezing the rest, before a large wall of Ice started forming right in front of the tree. It was hard to keep up, but in the end, it slowly seemed to work. Then at the same time, Eiro used Earth Magic to raise the ground a bit higher for the carriage, while using Fire Magic to dry it enough for the carriage not to get stuck.

And at the same time, he used wind magic to help push the carriage over that dirt bridge, and Arc swiftly rode the carriage over the wide, deep river. Actually, it seemed to have somehow increased in width and depth over the past few years as well... Although, Eiro wasn't entirely sure if that was because of him or not.

But just when the carriage reached the halfway point, the stream sped up, as if someone removed some sort of blockage further up. He definitely wouldn't be able to hold it like this... So, without a single moment of hesitation, Eiro pushed half of his available stat points into intelligence, and the other half into wisdom, prompting another few notifications to appear.

[Your Intelligence has passed the 100 Point Mark! <Thought Processing> Ability gained!]

[Your Wisdom has passed the 100 Point Mark! <Perfect Memory> Ability gained!]

[Since the <Perfect Memory> ability is lesser to the <Memory of a Scholar>, you will enter an alternate ability-path]

[<Perfect Memory> ability replaced with <Speed Learning> ability]

[Thought Processing - An ability that increases the speed at which you process information]

[Speed Learning – An ability that increased the speed at which you learn mind-based skills]

"Just... shut up!" Eiro yelled out, trying to get rid of the notifications immediately, and then just started to properly increase his area of control over the river.

But then... Something else happened. It was as if something was breathing down his neck. He felt hot air that gave him goosebumps the moment it touched him, and then soon came a blood-red hand with long claws.

"How... interesting." Whatever being this was muttered quietly. Its voice alone, as calm and soothing as it sounded outwardly, made Eiro immediately want to run away for his life. His body froze up, but for just a moment. Because in the next, he could noticed that his control was breaking down, so Eiro just pushed it as far as he could for a single moment, and soon noticed the carriage reaching the other side.

Without hesitation, Eiro ripped his hands away from the tree to get away from whatever creature it was standing behind him, but at that moment, two things happened.

One, a red notification appeared, followed by one that disappeared as soon as it came before all the writing even appeared on it. Of course, this still brought a large amount of pain to Eiro. It said there would be sever repercussions, after all.

[You lost control over a large amount of foreign mana]

[Foreign mana locked aw-

Two, he couldn't move an inch. The light grasp on his shoulder that this creature had on him was enough to make his body be completely stuck without any hope for escape. And even when Eiro wanted to speak, he couldn't. Not a single sound came out of his mouth.

"I have been looking for you for a while, you see?" The soothing voice explained, "I don't like my toys being meddled with like that. You remember, don't you? My rare little mister Wrath." The voice explained, and immediately, Eiro understood what kind of creature this was behind him.

Slowly, he opened his mouth, and with all the will he could muster, he spoke, "The Lords of... Sin..." Eiro muttered quietly, and with an excited tone, the figure behind him continued, "You can speak even in my presence? As I thought, the willpower of you artificial goons is astounding. It makes sense, the King can't just have you running away out of fear, after all." The creature chuckled lightly, and then held its mouth toward Eiro's ear, just quietly whispering.

"Don't worry, I'm not mad at you for killing my toys anymore. I just found a way better toy, thanks to your little display of Wrath in that tiny village too boring for me to even touch. So they are still alive, if you want to return and end them yourself sometime." The voice laughed, and the hand suddenly went away, letting Eiro turn around.

In front of him stood a tall figure, maybe three meters in height, with a slim and slender build. It was obviously a Demon, although Eiro wasn't sure what kind. It wore a pitch black shirt and boots, with a dark red vest and pents on top. It had two large black Horns on its forehead, each maybe half a meter in length, just curving up into the sky.

Outwardly, this Demon mostly looked like a person if you ignored its red skin, large horns, and monstrous claws. And next to that Demon stood a... thing, that Eiro didn't even know how to start and describe at first.

It was like a mixture of something that lived and an inanimate object. Like a chair made of flesh that was constantly convulsing and shifting. And on top of that chair sat the unconscious, blood-covered figure of the man that Eiro thought to have killed. The Pyromancer.

And then, while Eiro was trying to assess the situation, he heard the voice of a certain little girl scream toward him, "Daddy, where are you?" Avalin asked, and Eiro's body immediately tensed up. He read about the Monster King's army, and if this was the being that Eiro thought it to be, then she would-

"Oho, is that the little Holy Priestess? Sun was rather mad about not finding her that day, you see? He destroyed the whole capital out of frustration." The Figure laughed, "So she was with you, huh?" The Demon asked, just lightly glaring down at Eiro, and without hesitation, the young Imp readied his dagger even though he knew he could never win a fight against this being. But then, it just laughed once more.

"Don't worry, don't worry. The Sun can't exist without the sky, so he listens to all of our King's commands without hesitation. But I myself just want to have fun. And I think this will turn out like far more fun if I leave her with you." The Demon pointed out, and Eiro just stared at it.

But without doing anything else, the Demon turned around and waved his hand to the side, making a demonic gate appear in front of him, the domain of hell beyond it. And once the living chair stepped through it, the Demon just lightly winked at Eiro and stepped inside, swiftly disappearing.

[You have been Marked by <The Devil>]