DEMON'S VIRTUE

"Nelli, Gondos. What's happening?" Eiro asked, and the two spirits immediately turned toward him with clear nervosity. Although Nelli just seemed to be a bit agitated, Gondos was really freaking out.

"Th-There's something there... Something is coming out of there..." The Golem muttered quietly, and Eiro just turned his head as he watched the slab of carved rock in the front of the room. There really were some cracks in there. It seemed like a good idea to just get out of there already, or else this would turn out pretty bad for Eiro.

Although, just when he thought that, the slab of rock shattered into a million pieces. As if it just turned to dust then and there. And at the place where that slab was before, stood simply a figure. A figure made up of... nothing. It stood there, and Eiro could definitely see it there, but it was simply invisible.

"Do you two see it?" Eiro asked the spirits, and they immediately nodded their heads. Slowly, the invisible figure stepped forward. As it was doing so, the invisible figure was picking up parts of the rock slab that had shattered just now. The rocks were spreading throughout its body and making its physical shape look clearer.

It currently had the shape of an androgynous child, even younger than Leon. It was frail and was moving around slowly as it kept picking up more parts that integrated into its body.

Once there was no more space for the rock to fit into its regular form, it slowly started to grow in size, as if aging rapidly. And at some point, the figure was just grasping at its face and trembling, as if in an immense amount of pain. Hyjun immediately fell apart into black mist and appeared in front of the figure made up of rock.

Hyjun attempted to grasp it and seemingly somehow place a seal onto it, but it was apparently too late. Whenever Hyjun tried to grab it, it make the part where contact would have been move out of the way, and instead soon placed its hand onto Hyjun's chest. That was just before some of the rocks suddenly were pushed to the side from inside of the body. And just through some of the gaps in between the rocks, Eiro could see the slight golden glow of a card together with the vibe that was pushed off it. The card itself soon disappeared and turned into whatever item its real form was.

That item slowly travelled through the rock-figure's arm before appearing in its hand and replacing its rock index finger. It was a small, golden key. It was as if its shape was shifting around constantly, so every few moments it turned into a completely different form.

The figure pushed the key into Hyjun's chest, but it didn't cut into its white flesh. No, instead it simply created a light glow in that place and Hyjun's body froze up completely. The next moment, things like the magic circles that Hyjun had been creating appeared around the spot the key had been pushed into and just faded away.

"Did it just remove the seals Hyjun placed on itself..?" Eiro muttered quietly, confused, before he saw something else happening. It seemed like the card was the seven of wands. The key that could open everything and anything.

It was a gift that the Arcane Dealer gave to a man imprisoned in the deepest level of an impenetrable and inescapable prison. And with its help, the man could open the locks of any door, gate, and even shackle with only a single twist of the key.

With a deep glare, Eiro looked at the figure and Hyjun and thought, 'At least it's not a dangerous card...'. Although, Eiro noticed something else. All that the figure did was push the key into Hyjun's chest, it didn't twist it yet. It so easily removed the seals... as if they were dirt that was stuck inside of a lock that needed to be removed.

Suddenly, the figure did just what it hadn't done before. It twisted the key, and something happened. The key-hole widened, and seemed to have turned into an actual hole. But Hyjun still didn't bleed, it was just as if there was an incave in its body that had always been there as part of its natural body. The hole continued growing until there was just a small space inside of Hyjun's chest that seemed to be modeled after this very temple. Quite literally. The walls were clothed in the same wood and carvings, the windows were the same as well and even showed the outside world.

But inside of that space stood numerous small figures that all had Hyjun's shape. One was made of Hyjun's black mist, another one currently had its gaping central mouth open. The same that Zaragon had . Another was holding a book and reading, while another one was just currently forming one of those magic circles. There were many, many more of those.

It was as if that figure had opened up Hyjun's very being. It stretched its rock-hand out and grasped one of the figures, the one with the vertical mouth on its chest agape. It didn't seem to be struggling at all, and the rock-figure just pushed the tiny Hyjun into its face and had the rocks practically swallow it up.

Just a few moments later, a slit opened up on the figure's chest and turned into a gaping mouth with sharp teeth made of rock.

And then, Eiro realized what was going on. He tried to read up on some different Royal Monsters before... There was something that surprised Eiro a fair amount. One royal was not amongst the current generation. The last one disappeared maybe a hundred years ago. It was the royal with the ability to pull everything into itself and make it part of its own physical body. <The World>.

So it was sealed here? It seemed like Eiro really just fucked a lot of people... this thing was dangerous... far, far too dangerous...

Eiro immediately picked up Sammy and Leon, trying to hold on to both of them more easily through the use of the three of swords' threads. The Demon immediately tried to run out toward the door as quickly as he could. <The World> was too preoccupied with feeding on Hyjun's self at the moment, after all.

As fast as he could, Eiro made his way through the temple until he was all the way back at the gate leading into the courtyard. He was going to try to come up with a way to bring these two down the mountain as quickly as possible, although the quickest way was to make a direct path using earth magic. It would take a lot of mana, but Eiro didn't care about that anymore.

<The World> was dangerous, Eiro couldn't let it get to these two under any circumstances. But at least he understood why Hyjun was so desperate to reseal Leon's skills. It was a monster, so as weakened as it seemed to have been, it was most likely influenced by Leon's unique skills. Even Eiro was feeling the effect, even if it didn't seem to be too bad for him somehow. Maybe it was his high Willpower, or just because he had been with Leon for all of his life. Eiro was simply feeling a little nervous.

But somehow... just when Eiro thought that, he felt something approaching from behind him. It was a strong pressure and very obviously the source of the miasma that had been given off in this place for the past 100 years.

It seemed more collected, somehow, but it wasn't able to get out past the second layer of the seal nonetheless. But it had changed a lot since Eiro left that room. In that mere minute.

The figure had taken on the shape of Hyjun with its four arms, and its gaping mouth was slowly starting to move as black blood was flowing in between the cracks of the rocks.

"Give me your abilities. They are... tasty." It said, and Eiro stared at it with a deep growl, "No way in hell, you complete piece of trash!" He yelled out, and the thing just stared back. It tried to extend its hand forward. The rock went past the gate, but it was no longer part of <The World>'s Body and just fell to the ground together with some blood.

"Why isn't it using the key?" Gondos muttered quietly, and Eiro kept staring back at it. Honestly, Eiro had a pretty good idea why, "It probably has something like a cooldown, or some usage restriction right now... Or maybe it takes a lot of mana that it doesn't have to use it..." The Demon muttered quietly, "Or maybe seals can't be opened that easily after all?"

"Let's go. We need to..." Eiro said, before he noticed something else happening. The ground underneath them was tremoring and cracking. Why didn't he notice this beforehand? There were monsters underground! They were attracted by Leon's skills and were now going on a rampage underground!

And to top it off, they not only started destroying the path itself, but also the gate that was holding <The World> in the temple.

"Gondos! Help me out here!" Eiro exclaimed, and the spirit looked at him with a nod as he started to take control of the ground underneath them to somehow stabilize it while Eiro was starting to just run away down the path while carrying both Sammy and Leon. Both of them seemed to be slowly waking up at the moment, which didn't really help Eiro all that much in trying to get them down the mountain as quickly as he could.

"Hm... stop it..." Sammy groaned, and Eiro felt a ringing in both of his ears before his whole body completely tensed up. His whole body stopped moving and he wasn't even able to breathe anymore. To him, it seemed like everything stopped for a moment. The whole world simply frozen in the moment. But it seemed like there was one entity that wasn't affected by this. One that didn't have ears to listen to Sammy's words.

<The World> stepped through the broken-down gate and made its way past the cracks in the ground until it stood right behind the Demon. With a deep groan, Eiro tried to somehow force his body to move and then averted his eyes toward Nelli and Gondos, "Get... these two out of... here..." Eiro muttered quietly and made the three of swords disappear while trying to hand the children off to the spirits in front of him.

Sammy was slowly waking up by now, so she was somewhat able to walk even if she was still pretty hazy, and Leon was seemingly light enough to carry. Either way, the two spirits quickly followed the request the Demon made of them and pulled the children away. They were sure that Eiro was going to be able to survive this.

After a little while, Eiro regained his ability to move, which was when he was forcefully turned around by <The World>.

Eiro looked into the face of the creature in front of him, even if it wasn't really a 'creature'. It was just made up of black blood and rock, and was holding Eiro down while trying to press the key into his chest. And that quickly disproved Eiro's theory of the cooldown, because it went into his body without a hitch. The seals placed onto the mark of the devil and the mark of wrath were lifted, and Eiro could feel his stuck-in-place body cave in in his chest.

But just when that happened, something else appeared, and that was right behind <The World>. A pulsating gate made of flesh, blood and bones that seemed to lead right to hell.

And out of that gate stepped a well-dressed Devil.