DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro looked at 'the Death' with a broad grin on his face, as this child-like figure in front of him looked back at him in confusion, "But- But how is this possible?"

"Well..." Eiro muttered, rubbing his chin in thought, "Obviously, it's because you underestimated me. You know..." With a smile on his face, Eiro moved his hand forward and went through the motions of pulling something off a table, before the card of 'The World' appeared in his hand, "You're not the first royal I've faced."

The death stared at the large golden card that Eiro was holding, and was utterly perplexed, "B-But it was sealed! How did you..."

"Does it matter?" Eiro replied, placing away the card again. The death was slowly becoming more and more upset. After all, even if it held the memories of all the lives it took over in the past, right now it had the body and brain of a child. And that had to affect its behavior at least somehow.

Eiro took on his regular stance with a dagger in one hand and his other hand being free, and locked eyes with the Death.

"Now, let's see if you can still adapt." The Demon smirked, and pushed off the ground. Through the powers of the undead that Eiro was fused with, he nearly instantly appeared in front of his enemy, and grabbed onto the Death's collar. Thomas would never use grappling-based attacks, so the Death had no way to defend against something like this. Of course it still wasn't as easy as Eiro hoped, since the death's body was still quite strong and agile nonetheless.

Eiro pulled the death's body toward him and stabbed his dagger toward a specific spot in its neck. Its head was mostly protected, since Thomas did quite often aim for it at large especially with blunt shield attacks, so he couldn't directly attack it that easily. But that didn't mean that Eiro couldn't injure the Death's head. After all, it had no protections against attacks from the inside. Thomas couldn't do such things, after all.

But Eiro was able to press a certain liquid right into the Death's body, pushing it through its empty veins. It was still an undead, and it had gotten rid of all of its blood somehow. Eiro realized this relatively soon after entering battle with it. This, of course, was only something Eiro did as a setup for later, however.

He continued on fighting with the Death. It didn't seem capable of adapting to Eiro's attacks directly anymore, but it was clearly able to adapt mentally to an extent. Since it did have plenty memories of combat, its combat sense was incredible, so this was in no way a simple fight for Eiro. Due to the huge disadvantage that the death received through its extreme adaptation to an enemy that wasn't technically Eiro himself, as well as the advantage that Eiro got through this action on top of the undead he was fused with currently increasing his strength incredibly, they were relatively equal.

That, of course, still showed Eiro just how powerless he was in comparison to the royals.

This enemy had such incredible disadvantages, on top of having a body innately not meant for such combat, while not being able to make use of its true specialty, necromancy, and Eiro only just barely was on even terms after being incredibly empowered in this way?

It made Eiro terrified of having to fight 'the Devil', a royal that would use everything in his power to ensure he had the advantage throughout the whole fight. But at the same time, it made Eiro ecstatic for the level of power that he would reach once he next evolved into a Legendary being, even before becoming a royal.

The Demon's heart kept on beating, strong enough for Eiro to feel the pressure reverberate through his whole body. He stabbed the death, and the death dug its fingers into Eiro's flesh. The two kept on fighting and fighting for the next hour in this way, until Eiro made sure that the death's health, or 'durability' due to its nature as an undead, was low enough for this to work. He once more pulled out the vial filled with everburning holy flames, and pulled a small spark out. He increased the size of the flames and shot them at the Death as well as the splatters of the same liquid that he pushed into the death that were covering the ground.

The moment the flames came in contact with that liquid, they spiked up for a moment.

"You're the death, but you can't even manipulate someone else's blood placed into your body?" Eiro asked with a grin on his face, and the death groaned loudly as the flames hit his body. Eiro's blood that had filled out the death caught on fire, and was destroying this royal's body. Its durability went down further and further, until the body collapsed, turning to dust. However, the body was still being kept together somehow, and Eiro knew why. He turned and yelled, "Koperia, now!"

But of course, the queen of undeath was already working on it. She held the heart in her hand and just a few seconds later, it rotted away and all that was left were the metal parts of the clock-aspect of the phylactery, although even those soon rusted and shattered apart, unusable.

And at that exact moment, the death's current body fell apart as well, and all that was left was a bone-like, egg-shaped mass that fell to the ground. This was the Death's true form. It most likely just created a protective shell outside of its body to protect it from damage for now, but Eiro didn't care that much. Koperia came back in to get a proper look at this slime, and was curiously staring at it.

"Can I try to break it open, or do you want to take a look at it first?" Eiro asked with a grin on his face, still excited from how this battle went. Nelli already came out to heal his wounds, though, since he was covered in them from head to toe.

Koperia smiled at Eiro and shook her head, "I will inspect its corpse, so go ahead and kill it. We can't risk it infecting another body."

"Sounds good." Eiro replied, and shifted his life force through his body, and used anything he could to increase the strength of a downward kick, before pressing his foot down with as much speed as he could. The moment his foot hit the shell, it cracked open, and the slime inside was revealed.

"You fought well, you were just really unlucky." The Demon pointed out, and pressed holy flames into the shell. More and more, he was damaging the Death, until a storm of messages appeared in front of his eyes.

[Lethal Damage done to <The Death>]

[You have slain a royal. Experience multiplied by 10]

[You have leveled up!]

[You have leveled up!]

...

...

...

[You have leveled up!]

[You have 450 unused stat points available!]

Eiro leveled up 45 times in one go. Even more than when he killed 'The World'. That version of the world was incredibly weak, practically had no form or 'experience' to give. But this version of 'the Death' was incredibly strong and old, and was never fully sealed like 'The World' was, only being entrapped instead.

But even so, this was far beyond Eiro's expectations. He was now at level 85. Eiro was far closer to evolution than he expected he would be. This was... amazing.

"Thanks for the help, Koperia. I doubt I would have been able to do it without your undead's help. And on top of that, you seem to have kept in all of the Death's magic so that it couldn't create any undead to help it, right?"

"Eh, something like that." The queen of undeath winked, and proceeded to send her undead to pick up the leftovers of the death's body, while Eiro picked up the card that was left behind. He could practically feel it rejecting him to an extent, since he was the candidate to be 'the world' already, but at the very least it didn't go so far as to disappear into a random place. So, Eiro quickly put it away into his treasury to keep it safe there.

"So, what are you going to do now?" Eiro asked, turning toward Koperia, "Are you going to stay in the area, or will you keep travelling? I'm only 15 levels away from evolution, so it might be worth it to stay around."

"Hm..." Koperia thought about it for a moment, "I'll come back when you contact me, but I don't like staying in any one area if I don't have something to do there. Except if you'll let me-"

"I still won't let you kill people around here, Koperia." The demon said with a wry smile, before he pressed his hand onto the mask on his face. He had to take it off now. He stopped his fusion with it, and his body became instantly weaker, but he regained a healthier complexion. It seemed like the mask literally fused with his skin though, so Eiro had to pull on it quite a bit. He infused himself with air for a moment to properly get it off of him.

"Ouch..." Eiro said with a wry smile, having Nelli help heal his face in that area, and Koperia looked at Eiro surprised, "You got that off yourself? That undead is incredibly invasive, he should have not let go of you without my command."

"Eh?" Eiro asked with a wry smile, "What do you mean? I just fused with it like normal."

"Like normal?" Koperia asked, unsure what he meant, and Eiro quickly looked at Nelli.. She understood what he meant, and the two quickly fused, looking at Koperia, "Just like this."