DEMON'S VIRTUE

"I've had enough of this!" Zaragon yelled out, his head still being held by James. The large maw that was Zaragon's second mouth, that huge vertical slit running across his torso, opened up wider and wider, until it was large enough for a full person to fit into with ease. And then, a loud screech came out of this mouth, an ear-shattering one.

Eiro swung his hand around and manipulated the air in the room to make sure the sound couldn't travel through the air that easily, making it a lot quieter than it usually would have been. But even so, everyone was still quite affected, feeling at the very least dizzy. Eiro stood behind Zaragon, and stabbed his dagger into the center of his back. And while his black blood splattered down onto the ground, the scream stopped for a moment.

But whatever it was that Zaragon was trying to achieve with the scream had already happened, and the room shifted in a new way. Incredibly dense mana spread out from Zaragon, covering every single bit of space within this room. It seemed to practically push the walls away from where they were before, increasing the size of the room an incredible amount. It didn't take long until they were basically inside of a nearly infinitely huge white space.

"You should not have angered me, you fools!" Zaragon yelled, "This is MY space! I have complete and absolute control over what happens here! I am GOD in this place!"

All of a sudden, the ground shook like in an earthquake. A huge, enormous snow-white hand pressed onto the ground from somewhere below, as if they were all on some kind of large platform right now. Soon, a second hand followed. Then a third and a forth. A towering, enormous Zaragon pushed himself up, and glared down onto this platform.

He was grinning broadly, while nearly everyone here on this platform was stunned, unable to move in the slightest. There was just one being that could still properly move. Eiro dove back into the special air, nearly instantly reaching James, Jess and Krog. The Demon pressed his own hands onto James', as he was still holding Zaragon's head.

"Don't worry. It's just a trick, nothing more." Eiro explained calmly, pressing more tightly onto James hands. More and more, as the two locked eyes, Eiro's strength increased, until the sound of something cracking sounded out. It was clearly Zaragon's skull, but at the same time, the sky began to crack.

This was an illusionary space, after all. They were within Zaragon's mind, and if the head containing that mind was broken apart, it made sense for the same thing to happen to this space.

"What are you-" Zaragon's regular-sized head spoke again, while the huge version of himself froze, as if time had stopped for it, "Stop it! What are you doing?!" He yelled, his voice echoing through this huge, fake space, as if it was coming from all angles.

The rest of Zaragon's real body quickly fell apart into smoke, and nearly instantly reached a spot behind Eiro, despite the fact that it was still ablaze, and more parts of the body were taken over by ice.

Zaragon fought against it, clutching onto Eiro's body with his four arms. He tried to pull on the Demon's throat and shoulders, trying to rip his head off, but his physicality was far superior to that of Zaragon's. His head wasn't something easily taken away from him. And around that time, the next crack appeared in the sky, with a loud echo that permeated this whole space. Zaragon became more desperate, and tried to push his sharp, claw-like nails through his armor. But of course, even Zaragon wasn't able to push through a dragon's scales with sheer desperation.

Zaragon tried anything he could to get rid of Eiro, who was the greatest threat here, but seeing that it wasn't possible, he instead tried to go for one of the others. But even they weren't pushovers in the slightest. Krog and Jess had each other's back, and it seemed like not even Zaragon could get through the defense of the shield made of that weird metal.

"No, no, no, no!" Zaragon's head yelled out, as the body clapped all of its hands together. The room immediately shifted, even while the illusion was still active. Numerous weapons appeared on top of pedestals, and Zaragon grabbed a large blade from one of them.

He ran over to Eiro and swung the sword at him. And while Eiro wasn't able to just withstand this sort of attack with his body either... there was no need to. Krog rushed inbetween Eiro and Zaragon and blocked the attack for him, while Jess continued casting spells at him.

Again and again, Zaragon revealed all these items that he had in his arsenal, trying to use them to fight this group, but nothing worked. In the end, he became so desparate that he kept on trying to get the puppets out of the physical control they were over, since their bodies were completely filled out with rock.

But the only thing that happened was that their gears and joints practically shattered into pieces. All of the puppets fell into pieces, having been 'killed' by the one that controlled them.

And it was then that both James and Eiro gathered the determination needed to do this. Together, they pressed down onto the creature's skull harder and harder, while Zaragon couldn't do anything but scream out in pain.

The sky shattered into pieces as black blood came pouring out of his eyes. And a moment later... the room returned to normal, as Zaragon's body dropped to the ground, as James and Eiro crushed his skull together.

---

[You have done lethal damage to Zaragon]

[You have leveled up]

[You have leveled up]

[You have 20 unused stat points available]

---

Eiro let go of James' hands and took a step back. He looked into his companion's eyes, seeing that he received similar messages, just that he leveled up a couple more times. It seemed like it really counted as both him and James having killed Zaragon together.

And as James stood there, with the squished skull of this creature still in his hands, he had tears streaming out of his eyes. Tears of happiness that Zaragon finally died, that he was able to get revenge on this thing that ruined his life. And of course, tears of grief, as he remembered his friend and his love that he lost in this very room that day.

Slowly, he let go of Zaragon's head, and it fell to the ground just a few feet away from where his body was laying.

Eiro stared at Zaragon's body, making sure that both of his hearts had really stopped for good. He had never seen a being with two hearts before, so he needed to make sure that there wasn't something weird going on. When he made sure that everything was fine, Eiro pressed his foot into the ground and let his mana pulsate through the room. Now he was able to actually sense what else was around here. There were different chambers all around this space that were holding all the different items Zaragon had in his possession.

Eiro smiled lightly, as he noticed something else. The door to this room... It wasn't something that was part of Zaragon's abilities, but rather, it was an item of sorts that had been under his full control. The Demon walked up to it and pressed his palm onto the door, and let his mana flow into it. Through a thought, it seemed like he was able to manipulate it.

Sadly, it wasn't a sort of 'free' control, but there were a set few locations that the door could lead to. Luckily, one of those locations was surprisingly close to the Inn. They should be able to get the carriage and just put it in front of here, and put all the things they wanted to take with them in there.

But for now, Eiro just made sure to lock the door so that nobody could come in, and then started to walk over to the first access point for the items, so that he could get all of them out here. Everyone else was clearly extremely exhausted, and Nelli was already busy healing them.

"How are you fine after... that?" Jess asked with heavy breaths, and Eiro turned his head over toward her before shrugging, "My constitution is over 200, and I'm a demon, so... Most lesser injuries just heal close to instantly." The Demon pointed out rather bluntly, as he pressed his hand into the ground and ripped a large hunk of rock out of there, "Anyway, just relax for now. I doubt anyone is going to come up here anytime soon, so we can take our time. I might find some potions down here as well that could help you guys out."

Everyone nodded their heads, recovering after that more than stressful fight. Krog was taking a closer look at the puppets, that were now practically completely useless and broken. But at the very least, the weapons they had with them were pretty neat. And more importantly, nearly indestructible, it seemed.

Meanwhile, James and Jess were just sitting there, trying to recover from that fight, either physically or mentally.

And Eiro just grabbed any items that he found in the different adjacent chambers and brought them out into the main room, while already mentally deciding what to do with them.

But the whole time while Eiro was doing that, he had a soft, happy smile on his face, since he finally overcame one of his long-time goals after eight whole years.