Demon's Virtue

Cracks spread through the water in a ripple-like pattern, soon filling the entire room in an instant. It happened so fast that the water wasn't able to properly flow and fill in the gaps created through those cracks right away, so of course the Naiad Queen wasn't able to react right away either.

The special dagger's cracks soon reached the powerful spirit's body, digging their way into her flesh. Deep wound were created all over her body. Though, of course, they weren't lethal. Eiro wasn't trying to turn this whole realm into a true enemy whatsoever. He was just trying to scare her a bit, and it seemed like that worked. The shaking naiad queen stared back at Eiro, confused.

"Wh-What's going on? Why would you...?" she asked, shivering from the pain and shock, but Eiro just glared at her silently.

"I'm just showing you how powerless you are," the Demon replied bluntly, staring at the figure in front of him, "If I had wanted to, I could have killed you right this second. Something that will indeed happen if you choose to target the guardian beasts. If you dare injure them for even a single point, I will come seek you out and make sure you pay any damage back hundredfold."

The naiad queen stayed silent, clearly trying to understand why any of this was happening. It really seemed like she had no intention of trying to see things from Nelly and Eiro's perspective; she simply didn't understand the gravity of what it meant to kill those beings. It would severely weaken the water element, and that would throw all other elements out of balance.

Like the water that had crashed into the empty spaces created by the cracks, all other elements would try to fill the space that was created. But in the end, the power imbalance of the water element wouldn't just happen by having it shrink; if that were the case, all it would mean would be that water magic would grow weaker, while some other elements would grow a bit stronger.

While it would cause some immense ripples and changes throughout the world, it was something that could be adjusted to over time.

But the weakening would happen very similarly to the cracks that Eiro had just formed. Those cracks, instead of being filled back in with the water element, would be filled with others. And with the water element surrounding them from almost all sides, those elements would slowly diffuse into the water. It would be forever changed. Muddied, cursed; polluted.

That was something that was never allowed to happen, no matter what. It was something that Eiro was going to make sure would never happen, even if it meant killing the spirit monarchs. Rather, he would even go so far as to seize power himself.

Though, killing the Naiad King might be a bit rough for Eiro right now. The queen was weak; she was a healer, not a fighter, so she had almost no way to defend herself. She could heal her body, but was useless if she died before she could attempt to heal herself. But the king would be another story.

Of course, Eiro was sure he would be able to figure something out after his evolution was over, but that wasn't anything that he could totally count on right now. These duplicate bodies were practically stuck in a 'snapshot' from the moment before the evolution started, it wasn't possible to make them significantly stronger than the main body.

That was especially the case with the duplicates in the elemental planes; as their bodies were made largely of magic, their physical form mattered less for their strength anyway.

Either way, if Eiro had to figure something out, he could come up with some countermeasures against the naiad king. In the tower of the elemental plane of fire's top floor was a book that described some weaknesses of each Salamander King. Eiro was sure there would be a similar one in the top floor of the tower of books in this plane, though he didn't know that for sure, of course.

The naiad queen stared back at Eiro, "How- How dare you..? I'm just trying to do what's best for the people of this realm!"

Nelly silently glared back at her, unable to respond to her former pupil. The dagger's cracks had damaged the wall behind the naiad queen as well, which was to some extent Eiro's main target as he hadn't wanted to kill the queen yet anyway, and it was now slowly crumbling apart, opening a pathway for a simple escape.

Eiro and Nelly both swam out, as clear, thick magic flowed out from the naiad queen's wounds. The two continued to swim as the queen began to hurl insults at them, growing more and more resentful the further they got away. It didn't take long until some mages were made aware, and spells were soon thrown their way. Of course, Eiro retorted very simply; he just casted a counterspell.

He saw the beginnings of the magic circle they were creating, figured out what magic they were trying to use, and quickly casted the counter-spell that Eiro had already prepared long beforehand. After all, the spells that these mages were using weren't original in any way; they had been trained to be protectors of the naiad queen, and that included specific spells.

Spells that were written down and recorded in a book, which Eiro had found actually rather early as he climbed the tower of books in this realm, so as he worked on analyzing the book's content for any benefits he could draw for his own magic, Eiro had taken the liberty of preparing any and all possible counters for the magic no matter the tweak that was made to it.

A counterspell had to be perfectly accurate to be able to really put a stop to the magic that someone was casting, which was why it wasn't a technique that was made use of that often anymore. Back in the day, when spells cast minutes at a time to cast in some cases, it would have been easier to figure out the spell and properly prepare the counter in time.

But now, with the casting speed that had been carefully developed over the past few generations, it was nigh impossible for anyone but Eiro to really cast a proper counterspell.

That being the case, Eiro and Nelly were able to swim away from the castle pretty casually.

"Are you okay?" Eiro asked, looking over at the naiad next to him. Of course, he already had a pretty good idea at the answer to that question. Looking at Nelly's expression, there was no way she was fine with what just happened.

"No... no, I'm not okay... I can't believe that she would actually still be like that... I thought it had maybe just been something like youthful naivete and a severe lack of experience that made her think like that, but now...

it's clearly just willfull, blatant ignorance that she is displaying for no other purpose but to prove herself right," Nelly pointed out, slowly turning around toward the castle and glaring at the structure bitterly.

Eiro looked at her with a sorry expression, "I'm sorry. I shouldn't have pushed you to go and talk to her."

Nelly instantly shook her head, "No, don't apologize. I didn't... I didn't not want to talk to her. It's a complicated situation, obviously... even now, I do still cherish her. She hasn't yet gone past the point of no return, so I hope that someday she can see the truth and actually understand what it would mean to kill the guardians.

Though, luckily, I doubt they could do it even if they wanted to."

"Yeah, the guardians' power is nigh insurmountable," Eiro pointed out, "Though, they're luckily incredibly intelligent too, so we should be able to communicate with them. I've wanted to try and find them anyway, so maybe we should warn them and help them hide somehow. Even if they're hard to kill, you never know what kind of things the monarchs could have figured out."

The naiad next to Eiro slowly nodded, "I think that's a good idea... Do you have any clues to where we need to go to find them?"

"Not yet, but when we get to the tower's top floor, we should be able to find a clue, at the very least."