DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro turned his head to the side, and in the distance, he spotted something rapidly approaching him, "Huh. So I am in the right place." The Demon muttered to himself, accompanied by a deep sigh of relief that he didn't waste his time on this trip. After all, there was a wyvern, that looked quite a bit like the one that the Demon just met yesterday, coming at him.

From what Eiro could see, it was starved nearly as much as that wyvern from yesterday, and after spotting something edible, in this case Eiro, it came at him. The Demon just stayed in place and activated his Three of Swords. He really just needed a single blade, though, and to increase the size of it in this case, Eiro fused it with highly compressed air that he gathered within a few seconds before the wyvern actually reached him.

Eiro waited there, and the moment that the wyvern was in range, its huge snout pulled open while showing its sharp teeth, the Demon pushed himself down with air magic and used the wyvern's momentum, as well as the three of swords' surreal sharpness, to cut the wyvern in half.

He cut through its brain and heart, and watched its body fall down into the snow deep below him.

"Hm?" Eiro muttered quietly, as he picked something up when the wyvern passed him, "It smells of sulfur."

Was it just related to the Devil's influence? Although, Eiro's mark never really gave off the scent of sulfur, so he quickly ruled that out. Instead, he figured that there was probably some kind of volcano around here. Due to the weather, people didn't really travel here a lot, so there were still plenty of unexplored areas of this part of the kingdom, and the continent in general. So it certainly was possible that there was some sort of volcano around here. And if that was the case, then it should be a bit easier to find.

At the very least, Eiro would be able to follow the sulfur scent rather easily, it was incredibly distinct compared to everything else that could be smelled around here. The Demon flew forward, and just about ten minutes after he started moving, the scent of sulfur started to become clearer. But there didn't seem to be a proper volcano anywhere around here, so it was probably something like a volcanic underground chamber that the wyverns had made their home.

"So that's why they were here." Eiro whispered quietly. The Devil found this volcanic chamber, and put the wyverns in there, basically trapping them through the environment they were in. Being cold blooded, flying through this freezing environment could just as well mean death for them. And being creatures controlled by instinct, they must be aware of that. So basically, this was one of the few clever ways that the Devil could take advantage of a large space to entrap a large amount of wyverns without the threat of too many of them escaping.

Eiro let out a deep sigh as he pulled his wings close to his body to just immediately drop down. He had a rough idea where the cave entrance could be found. For one, it was the only place that was covered in a lot of ice instead of just snow. The heat escaping through the caves would melt the snow, which would cause it to immediately freeze over. And since it wasn't actively snowing right now, it made sense that there wouldn't be any snow around there.

The Demon landed in front of the entrance, and immediately sent in a pulse of magic throughout the mountain to figure out the structure of the place that he was about to invade. First, there were about half a dozen possible exits and entrances large enough for wyverns to escape through. So of course, the Demon quickly flew around the mountain and sealed them up by simply sqeezing it shut with earth magic.

And not too long later, Eiro was done, and stepped through the last possible entrance, closing it off behind him as well. He snapped his finger, and beside him appeared three spirits.

"Huh, it's kinda hot around here – you sure we're in the right place?" Sarius asked the moment his head fully formed, and Eiro immediately nodded his head in response, "Yeah, the wyverns are just ahead. More importantly, how's the situation going at home?"

"The children are alright... maybe a bit annoyed that you're gone again, but they're fine for now. I'm guessing you'll have an easy time coming back anyway." Nelli pointed out with a light shrug. Eiro let out a relieved sigh.

"You're right, it should be fine. And if I'm right, then all those wyverns in here are going to be enough to push me over the edge as well." Eiro explained, "Obviously I'll only initiate the evolution once I called Koperia over again, and once I'm home and all. Unique evolutions are more taxing on the body than regular ones as far as I can see, so a legendary evolution... might be rather violent." He added, as he started walking through the cave in front of him.

As they moved further down the cave, Gondos was curiously looking at the walls, when he took notice of something interesting, "Eiro, correct me if I'm wrong, but does this cave not seem like it has been created artificially?" The Golem asked. Eiro raised his brows, and took a closer look at the walls. He hadn't even really considered that, but now that Gondos mentioned it, he had to admit that everything did seem to have some sort of pattern to it. Of course, that pattern could just be something that Eiro was imagining, seeing a pattern in nothing, but he wasn't sure if that was entirely the case.

"You do have a point. If so, then the Devil must have used some form of magic to excavate this place after finding some underground channels of magma." Eiro said, "I don't think it matters too much, but it's certainly a good hint to figure out what he's capable of..."

Eiro kept looking around as well, unsure if the one that created this cave system was actually the Devil or if it was a servant of his. He did have quite a few skilled ones, after all. The Demon let out a deep sigh, figuring that he couldn't really be sure if either was the case. The knowledge that was out there about the Devil was extremely limited, and any actually 'confirmed' information may very well be fabricated, no matter how likely it seemed. The Devil was a master of lies and trickery, after all.

However, it seemed like Eiro didn't have too much longer to think about these things, as he was soon faced by his first few enemies. There were a few wyverns laying around near the entrance, trying to sleep to fight against the hunger. Eiro stepped in front of them, and cut through their skulls with incredible ease, and they were only able to let out a few yelps before they were all dead. Their blood soon covered the ground, and Eiro continued as if nothing really happened.

"Hm, that seems to be giving me a decent amount of experience. Seems like this really will work out exactly as I hoped." The Demon said with a light grin on his face, killing a few more stray wyverns as he walked through this part of the cave system. But soon, he reached a deeper part of the cave, and the heat had really picked up once he was here.

Eiro saw the large central 'bubble' of this cave system. The whole ground a few dozen meters down was just nothing but incredibly hot, bubbling magma. And along the walls, in little nests created by the wyverns digging into them, sat numerous of these reptilian creatures, practically just waiting to be slain by Eiro.

All the wyverns stared at the intruder that just entered their home. Eiro turned his head toward some wyverns that were currently feeding on one of their own to sate their hunger, before he smiled slightly. He made sure that his voice held quite a bit of charisma so that he could push them over the edge, "Come on, kids, dinner is ready." He said with a grin, and this sentence was what made all the wyverns simply jump out of their nests so that they could try their luck with him.

But of course, Eiro was able to dodge any possible incoming attack from them, cutting through their bodies with his three of swords, and using magic to simply crush them to pieces. He burnt them to a crisp, drowned them by pushing water into their lungs, or slammed them into the ground to shatter their skulls.

One by one, the wyverns all died in front of Eiro, and he was always happy when notification windows appeared in front of his eyes

Eiro leveled up twice surprisingly quickly due to the constant barrage of wyverns that were simply throwing themselves at him. However, when Eiro reached level 99, things slowed down to a crawl. He had killed only a third of the total wyverns in here to level up twice, but he was no longer sure if the remaining wyverns were going to be enough for him to really reach level 100. This was something that the had been waiting for for quite some time, and he was really excited at the prospect that he might reach this goal today.

Well, even if he didn't, he was so much closer to his goal than he was this morning, so even if it wasn't enough, he would be able to figure something out.