DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro watched as the man in front of him slowly approached the glass at the side of the room. He was going to let him open it for now. For one, he was rather curious what he was planning on doing, considering that there was something rather weird going on with all of the spirits inside there.

But since he didn't know it, Clark rushed up to the Demon and tried to pull on his shoulder to turn him around, "What are you doing? You can't just let someone do whatever they want in a situation like that!"

The Demon slowly turned his head around and glared at his escort, "If you don't like it, go ahead and kill him yourself." With his arms crossed, Eiro just turned back toward the man who was dragging his body that was basically slowly melting over the ground.

He pulled his arm forward and stretched his hand out toward the glass. The moment that he touched the surface, it started to glow before a large circular opening appeared on the glass. And the moment that this happened, something that Eiro hadn't seen before now was revealed to him.

New threads appeared between the man and a large number of the Vulcani inside of the area that had been encapsuled like that. And of course, these weren't threads that signified contracts, as you were only able to form a contract with a single spirit per element, but instead it was the same kind of magical thread that Eiro had seen between the man and his slaves.

Eiro squinted his eyes as he tried to figure out the situation, and soon managed to spot some glowing runes placed onto the chest of a Vulcanus. They had a cold air to them, somehow, which really opposed the flames rather intensely.

"Ah... I got it... Elemental Spirits don't have banes, but they still have weaknesses. And Salamanders and especially Vulcani are especially weak against the Ice Element..."

"No, isn't the Ice Element weak against Fire, and not the other way around?"

"They're weak against each other." Eiro replied to Clark bluntly, "But this guy... That Organization, rather... They created a specially altered version of slave crests that can be used against spirits."

Eiro started to grind his teeth together as a deep growl was being formed within his throat, "Oh, how I'm gonna enjoy killing him." The Demon slowly took a step forward toward his enemy as the enslaved Vulcani streamed out of the place they had been imprisoned in until now. But Eiro managed to quickly make them back away by just pushing the air in front of them to far below zero.

Sure, Vulcani were easy to influence, and they were probably the only ones that you could enslave like this, but on the other hand they were submissive to their instincts. And of course, their instincts still said to back away from things that could hurt them, which in this case was the cold of Eiro's Ice Magic.

Their bodies that basically just looked like solid flames with an incredibly raw humanoid form immediately backed away and slightly weakened, their flames even growing a bit darker.

The Demon stepped up in front of the Letter of the Organization. He extended his palm toward the man who was staring up at Eiro in fear. And then, Eiro was thrown through the room at such force that the rock-wall formed cracks and the Demon lost more than half of his total health.

His clothes were scorched away at the side of his body. It happened so quickly that Eiro wasn't even able to react to what just happened to him. But the moment that he gathered his thoughts, Eiro peeled himself off the wall and stared at what was standing there, still only having come into existence halfway.

It was a male figure that was even taller than Eiro was, even if not by much. He had charcoal skin and flaming hair atop his head that was waving back and forth. His upper body was completely exposed and showed a rather muscular form, while the lower half of his body was covered in a pair of loose red pants.

This figure's arms were covered in cracks that flames basically poured out of as he stood there, having just pushed Eiro out of the way before he managed to kill the man in front of him.

And to the Demon's surprise... There was a thread connecting him to the fat, melting man on the ground. It was neither a thread of a contract nor that of enslavement, but something... inbetween. Something weak. Something that could snap at any moment, and looked as if it was just about to.

"Oi... What was that for?" Eiro asked, but the man, this special spirit, stared back at the Demon and spoke with a pained voice, "I apologize... Even though I am aware of your connection to my dearest friend, I have little choice but to do this."

"Hm... I wonder, how did a weakling like that manage to enslave the Salamander King?" The Demon inquired as he held the side of his body, but the spirit just shook his head, "I am not enslaved. This is nothing but a temporary contract. Or else, all these children of mine are doomed to suffer. The life of a single Demon is a lesser sacrifice than thousands of my own kind."

"You know... If I kill him, all those enslavement things are going to disappear. You can just... let it happen?" Eiro suggested to the Spirit King in front of him, but he just glared back, "Usually, not this time. If you kill him, they will all die under immense suffering. I assure you of this."

Slowly, the Salamander King slid his foot over the ground, creating a large wave of flames that shot toward the Demon at an incredible speed. And on top of that, the heat was something that Eiro wasn't used to either. The ground itself was immediately melting just from touching them for a moment.

Even with his physicality, Eiro would immediately die when hit by this. As quickly as he could, Eiro infused his body with Air Magic and pushed himself out of the way. But even then, the Demon's foot was slightly scorched, rather painfully so.

The Demon ground his teeth together as he tried to understand the situation. He had to get a good grasp on this. Eiro's mind was racing, and he was aware that he had already forgotten his whole reason for even being here.

"I need to get the book..." Eiro muttered to himself as he turned his head into the direction of Clark, who was pressing his own hands against his stomach after keeling over onto the ground. Right next to him, Eiro could see his notebook going up in flames. The notebook in which Eiro had gathered a lot of his memories so that he could cope with the fact he was losing them all.

The pieces of paper were slowly rising into the air due to the heat of the air as they were burning up, and the Demon slowly turned his head toward the Salamander King.

Eiro didn't even care about the notification in front of him, and just waved it away while anger was building up inside of him. However, just as he did, he noticed the tiniest bit of resistance. He re-discovered that he was able to interact with things like this.

And this managed to pull him out of his anger for just a moment, a moment that he was able to use to come up with a tactic. As his concentration hit the peak of what he could imagine, it was like time had slowed down. The Salamander King once more slid his foot over the ground and Eiro could see the flames sparking up again.

But at the same time, Eiro could see lights appear all around him. A phantom-like copy of the space around him appeared in his mind, and he went through exactly the one possible way that he would be able to pull this off.

Once more, Eiro started to see threads, but different ones to those he had already been seeing. These connected outward from him, numerous threads that were going to pull him into the direction that he had to go.

As if he had lost all control over his body, the Demon kicked off the ground and flapped his wings as he controlled the air around him to cause his body to spiral at a quick speed. At the same time, his tail touched one of the flaming pieces of paper floating through the air, and Eiro infused his body with them, increasing their volume immediately until his whole body had turned into flames. The same sorts of flames currently shot toward him.

Pure flames, stronger and hotter than Eiro had ever been able to produce. He was taking damage just from infusing himself with them. But that didn't matter for now. Eiro had to use fire to fight fire. The Demon kept spiraling around, using his wings like a shield from the wave of flames flowing toward him.

And sure, they pushed him back a bit and hurt like a bitch, but Eiro was able to push through this wave. The moment that he got through, Eiro opened his wings. He pushed his feet and hands into the ground, kicking forward as if prowling like a wild animal. Eiro flew forward toward the Salamander King, who was quite obviously going more than just easy on him.

If he wanted to, he could have killed Eiro with that first attack. But it was like he knew what Eiro was going to try to do. When the Demon reached the Letter, the first thing he did was push his right, wooden hand toward a random thread in front of him.

His hand had as much mana in it as Eiro could spare right now. Slowly, Eiro's fingers ran through the thread, and he could see it slowly start to vibrate.

"It works." Eiro whispered to himself, and at the same time, the Salamander King seemed to have heard his voice. He grabbed the Demon by his neck and stopped his movement immediately, stopping his movement.

A cold shiver ran down the Demon's neck as he felt incredible heat running through his body. But then, he understood what was going on.

The flames in his body had been focused for just a moment and became part of Eiro's hand. He pulled it up as quickly as he could and once more ran his fingers through the thread. Instead of just shivering for a moment, the thread caught fire and burnt up.

The special slave crest on the chest of one of the Vulcani disappeared together with the grip that the Salamander King had on Eiro's neck.

Eiro glanced at the Spirit King, noticing that his body was cramping up in immense pain. But that didn't matter for now. Eiro pulled his own body around to move his hands through all the threads in front of him, and they all caught fire.

The enslavement of the Vulcani had stopped.