DEMON'S VIRTUE

The bone-like stubstance that had been covering 'the Death's body was starting to gather around its legs as it sped up. The substance merged with the child-like body, turning its legs into the shape of a horse's. But it was a rather grim version, as it was covered in nothing but half-rotten, dried up flesh.

Eiro took a deep breath as he looked at the figure ahead of him. And 'the Death' soon jumped up as high as it could. The moment its hoofs hit the ground, he pushed himself off for an extra boost, now running and jumping around the room as quick as it could.

It seemed like instead of going for defense, the Death was now trying to go for the ability to dodge. And it was incredibly capable at that. None of Eiro's or even Koperia's attacks were hitting it.

"Koperia, you have any large-scale attacks ready?" The Demon asked, but she quickly shook her head, "Sadly not, I don't have that child with me at the moment. I figured this would be a bit less annoying to deal with, you see?"

"Then get yourself and your undead out the door, I'll fill the room with holy flames." Eiro suggested, and Koperia shrugged. She waved her hand around and had black flames cover her and her undead, before they all disappeared. Eiro sensed that they reappeared in the 'control room', so he could quickly fall back and-

Just as Eiro was about to finish that thought, he sensed that the Death was on track to move through the door behind Eiro, but the Demon wouldn't just let that happen. He spread out his wings and pushed himself back as quick as he could, blocking the entrance before the Death could reach it. With Gondos' help, Eiro placed a slab of rock in front of him to trap the Death inside of the room, and spread the holy flames through the room so that the Death had no chance to escape.

Eiro saw the messages in front of him popping up one after another. And while the damage was certainly decreasing, it seemed like now, the Death had little chance to escape. Or so Eiro thought at first. However, he soon felt like something was amiss. This was far too easy... wasn't it?

Something was wrong, something was very, very wrong. It seemed like the Death was holding back...

"Koperia, don't you-"

"Yeah, I see it too. It's a bit weird, isn't it? Far too boring compared to what I was hoping would happen." Koperia replied in a disappointed voice, "But well, if this gives me the chance to more easily get some new knowledge, I don't really care. Should we just destroy the phylactery already? It will take a while to reform it, and until then, it should be weak enough to be killed by us."

"That's right, the phylactery...!" Eiro turned his head and looked at the glass container that held the heart turned into a clock, "The Death is obsessed with time. It has abilities related to it, but until now-"

Just as Eiro was speaking, he heard a noise that he hadn't heard before. The ticking of a clock. As if on command in response to Eiro thinking about it, something happened.

The heart-clock was ticking all of a sudden. It was standing still before, but now, it no longer was. But the most threatening thing was that it wasn't running normally, but instead it was running backward. Like a countdown of sort.

"Koperia, something will happen in four minutes and 49 seconds, I just don't know what exactly that is." The Demon said with a deep frown, and Koperia shrugged, "So? I'll just destroy it anyway, so what of it?"

"Well, just go ahead and try." Eiro told her, and Koperia looked at the phylactery a bit confused. She cracked open the glass container and held the heart in her hand. She tried to use magic on it, and she even had her undead attack it, but it was resisting all attacks.

And something else was worrying. The Death was still moving as fast as before, but Eiro was already doing no damage to it at all.

"I think for the next five minutes, its 'adaptability' is incredibly strengthened. We need to take it out now." Eiro said as he got rid of the rock slab in front of him. The Death immediately went for the attack, but Eiro was able to defend himself, luckily. It wasn't particularly physically strong, after all. But even so, Eiro took quite a bit of damage.

"Koperia, a little help?" The Demon asked as he flapped his wings and flew into the center of the room, trying to defend or evade any of the Death's attacks.

Koperia muttered something to herself as she pushed her hand into the chest of the undead next to her. She pulled her hand back, and was then only holding part of a skull. It was only half, stopping right underneath the eyesockets, and it didn't have a back either. Like some sort of mask.

Koperia stepped into the room and had an undead eagle present the skeletal mask to Eiro, "It's one of my strongest humanoids, treat it well, will you? I'll act as support for now."

Eiro held the skeletal mask in his hands, and got rid of the one that he was wearing right now. He already knew what Koperia wanted him to do. This thing was brimming with death magic, but not just the regular sort either. There was something else imbued in this mask, something that Eiro could fuse with.

The Demon placed the mask onto his face, and took a deep breath. He pulled the magic into his body and fused it with his heart.

Eiro felt the power imbued into the mask in his whole body. He went through the same process as regular infusion, or when he merged with the spirits. Eiro's body started to feel different. More powerful, lighter. He felt pain course through him as his flesh was basically rotting, but different to when he usually infused himself with death magic, he didn't feel lethargy and weakness. He felt better than he ever did before.

And he could hear another voice reverberating inside his mind, as if someone was speaking to him, "Control over space is yours. Distance is nonexistent. Cross it instantly, attack from anywhere. That is my power."

Eiro understood what that undead meant immediately. The Demon swung his hand to the side, and he felt an impact. The death's body was hit, and it now slid to the side. It didn't do much damage, but Eiro was still just getting a grasp of this ability. It was exactly what this undead used to attack Eiro not too long ago.

The Demon got out his daggers and three spirits appeared beside him, "If he gains resistance to one thing at a time, then I'll just have to hit him with everything I have in my arsenal."

Eiro tilted his body around and pulled some regular flames that Sarius was creating for him, shooting them at the Death instantly. He was still dodging, but there were simply some things you couldn't dodge. And that is if the attack follows you wherever you are.

Eiro did the same with spears of ice and slabs of rock that he continued to use to attack the death. More and more, its body was changing. However, Eiro realized something else as well. While the body was changing, the Death's mind became less powerful. Its moves became sluggish, as if it was forgetting about the things it had learned.

However, this wasn't a consequence of the changes, but rather of the damage that Eiro was doing to it. It seemed like the Death was trying to heal itself by sacrifing something. Undead couldn't heal like normal, after all. They were unique 'lifeforms' whose rules worked different to normal, and that had to be true for an undead royal as well.

Eiro continued hitting the Death with all that he had, trying to do as much damage as possible, and whenever one type of attack stopped doing damage, he switched it out. Soon, Eiro couldn't attack the death with magic any longer, and instead had to resort to melee combat.

Cutting it soon stopped working on it as well, and blunt attacks also did. It would seem like Eiro was setting himself up for failure, as he was basically actively creating his own worst enemy that he had no chance of beating, but this all gave Eiro a deep insight into how the Death's ability worked.

Most importantly, he realized that it was an active change, and not a passive one. The Death was reacting to any attack and then actively began to control this bone-like substance that was changing its body.

And that substance was, rather simply... the Death itself. The slime that took over this child's brain. The Death was using its own, original body to change the vessel it was controlling.

That meant that more and more, the body of the child was being replaced by the slime. He knew how these beings worked, he was fused with a slime quite often himself after all.

In these five minutes that the death was changing and adpating incredibly quickly, Eiro had to use this chance to completely destroy the original body by forcing the death to create ways to counter everything that Eiro attacked it with.. If he did that, and the body was destroyed by the death's own choice, the phylactery would certainly be destroyed as well, or they would at least get the chance to go for it at least.