Demon's Virtue

643 Intruder

Eiro sat in front of the glass container that he was growing that mass of flesh in. That mass of flesh taken from Zeke, before separating the demonic aspects within it completely from the rest, so that he could grow a demon from it. He still wasn’t completely convinced that this was going to work, but he was sure that he could get something similar to the Devil out of this mass of flesh one way or another.

At this point, this mass had grown to a point where it was as large as a young child, maybe seven or eight years old. But Eiro wanted to grow it to the point where he could create an adult out of it. Even so, he had to do something very particular with this right now.

After Eiro’s last evolution, he had finally managed to break down the ‘Mark’ that the Devil had left on him. However, the Devil’s mana was still flowing through him after that, for a short while at least. Usually, it should have simply been broken down and become part of Eiro’s mana without a trace of the Devil’s left behind, but then, Eiro had turned into ‘The World’. The Devil’s mana was quickly absorbed and became part of Eiro’s, however, due to his nature, he was able to separate it from him again. The moment he had been able to do so, Eiro pulled out the Devil’s mana and practically isolated it in a small part of his chest, keeping it away from the rest of his mana.

But now, Eiro could finally use it. The container that this mass of flesh was floating in was completely filled with compressed Arcane Magic, the purest form of Mana possible. Until now, this was just to imbue this flesh with certain qualities, which Eiro would now make use of. He pressed his fingertip onto the lid of the glass container, and then pulled the Devil’s mana right into it.

Immediately, the mana started to fill the container, mixing in with the Arcane Magic. It was quickly tainted, and it seemed as though it was trying to copy the Devil’s mana, turning itself into it over the course of a few minutes. Now, due to the constant agitation of the magic inside of the container, it would take a while for this mana to break down. Before then, the mass of flesh should be able to absorb as much of it as physically possible. At the same time, Eiro slightly increased the amount of his own life force that he was pouring into the container, trying to make sure that this mass of flesh was growing as much as it could in a natural way. Sure, Eiro could use flesh magic to make it grow immediately, but that would lead to much worse results than the process that was happening right now.

By next week, this mass of flesh will have reached the state that Eiro wanted it to be at.

—

.....

A knock on the door, and Eiro let out an annoyed sigh. He was in his office at the academy, currently going through the assignments of some students on some basic magic circle structures. He was nearly done writing down notes for each of the students on what they should look into to improve, when he noticed that someone was hurriedly approaching his office.

While Eiro hoped that it wasn’t someone looking for him, he knew that there was nobody else in the offices around him right now. And he had hoped to be able to finish correcting these assignments, and only had three more to go, when the knock interrupted him.

“Sir Daemonherz, excuse me but there’s an emergency!” the man explained with a nervous tone in his voice. Eiro called him in, and the student stepped into the room. He recognized him from around the school. From the colours of his uniform, Eiro knew that he was part of the craftsmanship courses, and the residue smell of different oils on his hands told him that this student was part of the magic engineering courses.

“...What’s going on?” Eiro asked, and the student nervously tried to explain, “Th-There... we were waiting for our professor to arrive, it’s Professor Gartridge, he’s always late by at least twenty minutes, so it-”

“Skip to the important part. Did someone fool around and get hurt?”

The student quickly shook his head, “No, but- this random man just came into the room and started yelling about how crap all of our projects were, and he- none of us recognized him... and he wouldn’t tell us who he is... but he kept saying your name, so I-”

Eiro immediately shot up from his seat and rushed to the door, “That little-” he ground his teeth, “Thank you, come back to the classroom at your own pace, you must be exhausted. There’s a jug with water on the table, grab a glass and drink something before coming back,” Eiro said, looking at how heavily the student was breathing. The magic engineering course had classes in a whole separate building, and it looked as though he sprinted here from all the way there.

Eiro shot through the hallways of the school, knowing that the guards must have also been alerted already. Other professors were also likely on their way there; whenever even the slightest suspicion of an intruder popped up, everyone in the school was mobilized as soon as possible. Understandably so, after the incident last year, where Merlin had caused incredible damage to the whole school, killing some students and injuring even more. Even Charles, the prince, had been crippled.

That was why Eiro had to get there as soon as he could, to reach that classroom befor the main forces could. As he approached the building in question, he could already see a number of guards storming the building as students were rushed outside. Eiro glanced at the building and tried to figure out where he had to go, and quickly pushed his weight off the ground. Using magic to support himself, Eiro shot toward the closest windows to him, and quickly opened them up with a mage hand so that he could rush inside. The classroom that he entered was empty so he could rush through without issue, and then quickly entered the hallway.

Eiro ran toward the room in question, and spotted a guard in heavy armor being thrown out the door as if he weighed nothing at all.

“How rude!” an elderly voice exclaimed, as a metallic leg, like that of a spider, reached out of the doorframe. Soon, a few others joined it, as a figure was pulled out of the space. It was a man, a Halfling man to be exact, just a meter tall, being suspended off the ground using some kind of machination.

He sat on a small seat cross-legged and had a dozen of those spider-like legs protruding from it, letting him move smoothly within the room however he wanted, “I’m simply here to meet with my nephew! Bring him here already, will you?!”

“Please calm down, sir! If you would just tell us who your nephew is, then-”

“I’ve said it a million times, his name is-” the man yelled out, screaming toward one of the guards that was trying to calm him down, realizing that this man was a large threat. However, before he finished the sentence, the man spotted Eiro standing at the end of the hallway, “Ah, there he is! My dead nephew, Ei-”

This time, before the man could finish Eiro’s name, the Demon had closed the distance between them, and without a moment’s hesitation threw a fist at him. Of course, under normal circumstances he would’ve never done something like this, but he couldn’t believe that he would come here and do something like this instead of coming to Eiro’s home directly, like he was told.

Eiro’s hand was blocked by a barrier, finely and tightly woven around the man’s body, “Wh-What’s this?! What are you doing, you brat, did your father not teach you to respect your elders, you-”

“Shut the hell up,” Eiro clenched his teeth and pushed against the shield with all the weight in his body. Since his body was fused with water magic, a second wave of damage came through onto the shield, and this time, Eiro strengthened it as much as he could, and quickly pierced through the shield. He hit the man’s body full-force and threw him to the other end of the hallway, where he was caught by some other apparatus that carefully placed him down onto the ground, while he was heaving and recovering from Eiro’s attack.

Of course, the Demon already knew, but the damage-dealt message that appeared in front of him quickly confirmed it for him.

“Sir Daemonherz, this man- Is... is he really your uncle?” one of the guards asked confused, and Eiro sighed, “Sort of, I guess, though I’ve never met him. He was my father’s friend, and they were close enough to be brothers,” the Demon explained, “That man is Partax Evergreen, the Master Artificer.”