DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro looked back at the figure in front of him, and simply chuckled slightly in response, "Haha, well, I know I'm quite scummy sometimes, but there must have been a reason that he chose me."

"No, he didn't choose 'You'. He chose the 'You' from before, the Sage before he passed. That guy was far scummier than you. Compared to him, you are an innocent child. He could be called more villainous than the Monster King himself."

"...So it really was like that? The Sage betrayed the others, and was then killed by the Hero and his companions?" Eiro asked, and the figure turned around confused, "How do you know that?"

"Ah, well... You must know that I have two spirit gateways fused into my soul now, right? Well, basically, whenever that happened, I met with the world and we spoke a bit. Although, the world was mostly relaying information from this 'Creator' guy. The one that gave me the gift." The Demon explained, before the figure in front of him stood there for a few moments as if in disbelief, "Is that so? Well, never mind that. More importantly, make sure that you use the abilities given to you properly. If you misuse them, nothing good will come from it for you."

Eiro crossed his four arms in front of him with a smile, "Actually, what would those abilities be? So that I know in a straightforward way."

"...Everyone that has been given a splinter has an incredible speed of growth. The same is the case for you now. The speed at which you learn abilities is greatly increased, your skill levels will rise more quickly, and the amount of stat points you receive each time you level up will increase by quite a bit as well. There is one ability that you must already be aware of to an extent, which is the one that led you to becoming this particular royal."

Eiro thought about it for a moment, and scratched the back of his head, "Is it that I can 'absorb' things? Like, I can increase my elemental affinity by being close to that element, but that should have just been a thing given to me since I'm a creation of the monster king."

"Yes, and no. Being a creation of the monster king, your body held the potential for such an ability, but in actuality, the gift given to you by the creator is what made that ability sprout. But that absorbtion is indeed what I am talking about. You have absorbed something important even before you were reborn." The being explained, and Eiro thought about it for a moment. And then, he remembered something that he heard the first time that he had an encounter with the 'Arcane Misfits', as this being called them. They said that Eiro had a single splinter, but one that was much greater in size than normal.

"The gift, my 'splinter', can absorb other fragments of that arcane force?" Eiro asked, and the being quickly nodded its head, "That is exactly it. It should have taken much longer usually, but through your death and rebirth in this unique way, your gift had absorbed the splinter of the Sage. The 'Sage' is no longer a being that can ever come into existence. And you must be aware that if you take the Hero-Splinter and the King-Splinter into yourself, neither of them will ever become reality ever again. They will be gone from history. Of course, after your death, that might lead to some other weird, crazed being coming into existence, but the Sage, Hero, and King will never be born again. Coincidentally, the same is the case with 'The World', as it is also something of a splinter. That card has been pulled from the deck forever."

"...That means... I could potentially take the cards from every royal and wipe them from existence as well?" Eiro asked, and the figure simply stared back at Eiro, "No, not currently at least. There are certain rules set into place, after all. Currently, you are a 'royal', so you do not have the capability of taking in another of those fragments in the first place to let it come to the absorption."

"...But when I'm the Monster King, then..."

"It will be possible, yes." The figure replied. And although it had no mouth, it seemed to be grinning softly, "Now, does this all make sense to you now? What the purpose of your gift- no, what your purpose is?"

Eiro thought about the figure's words and that weird vibe that Eiro was getting right now, when it all popped up into his mind.

"The creator wants to take all the arcane fragments back." He muttered, and the figure quickly nodded its head, the nonexistent grin simply growing further.

"Exactly. That means you are just a tool, nothing more. You are doing exactly what he wants, and you didn't even kn-"

"Shut it. I really don't care. It's what I want to do as well, so what does it matter? As long as he doesn't kill me when I'm done, that's fine. You know what, even if he does plan on killing me when he's done, I'll just collect every fragment that I can except a single one, and that's that." Eiro said, as he slowly turned around, "Also, I doubt that's really what the 'Creator' had in mind."

"What? Of course that is what he had in mind! I could never be wrong about such a thing!"

"Oh really? But think about this for a second. Does the carpenter tell his hammer about the house that he's currently building?" Eiro asked with a grin on his face, as the figure simply stood there, as if petrified. And Eiro simply kept on walking, not thinking about that being anymore, before the space around him finally seemed to be taking on a lighter shade once more. A day had passed, it seemed, and his evolution was most likely over.

Eiro opened his eyes, took a deep breath, and waited for the flurry of notifications to appear before him.

---

[Congratulations! You went through a legendary evolution and...]

---

The flurry of messages came so quick that Eiro figured he had to skip over the main evolution messages for now, and he instead moved on to the ones that were currently in the front of all the others.

---

[The Legendary Skill {Supreme Demon} has awakened]

[All basic abilities will be upgraded]

[Superior Skill creation has been initiated]

-

[The following skills will be combined:]

-[Intermediate Goblin Langguage Comprehension]

-[Apprentice Orc Language Comprehension]

-[Beginner Harpy Language Comprehension]

...

...

...

-[Beginner Ratman Language Comprehension]

[The Superior Skill {Universal Monster Language Comprehension} has been created. The ability to learn new languages has been increased by many times, but each language still has to be studied individually. Learning one language will increase proficiency in other, similar languages]

-

[The following skills will be combined:]

-[Advanced Water Magic]

-[Advanced Air Magic]

-[Advanced Fire Magic]

...

...

...

-[Apprentice Death Magic]

[The Superior Skill {Elemental Magic Mastery} has been created. The ability to awaken and advance through new magic skills has been increased by many times, but each magic skill has to be studied invidiually. Studying one elemental magic will increase proficiency in other, similar magics]

-

...

...

...

[The Superior Skill {General Negative Effect Resistance} has been created...]

...

[The Superior Skill {Physical Combat Mastery} has been created...]

-

[No further skill groups requiring a Superior Skill have been found]

---

Eiro looked at all these notifications, and ended up just being completely and utterly startled by what he saw. He immediately opened his status, seeing his list of skills shortened considerably. Quite a few of his skills seemed to have been placed into this superior skill list. And when he looked at one of them closer, he could access the information of each of the skills that had been taken into that superior skill, simply as if he was accessing another section of his status. It seemed somewhat weird, but these skills did seem quite powerful nonetheless. He would take a look at how his other abilities had been upgraded later, for now, he continued looking at the other messages. This time, the ones related to 'The World'.

---

[You have awakened as a royal monster, {The World}!]

[Absolute Elemental Fusion ability acquired]

[Physical Absorption ability acquired]

[Ability Absorption ability acquired]

[Domain Creation ability acquired]

[Servant Creation ability acquired]

[Special Skill – {The World} acquired]

---

Those messages were a lot shorter than Eiro had expected, but they were incredibly exciting. He knew about the 'Elemental Fusion' ability, since that was the one that he had been unlocking as he went along bit by bit, but he had no idea what the others were all about. Especially the 'special skill' with the name of his title, and what sorts of things it would allow him to do.

Eiro turned his head to the side, to look at the other notifications that he needed to look at for now. These three groups had been the most important, he would figure out the rest of the smaller notifications later.

---

[Congratulations! You went through a legendary evolution and created a new race! You are now a Lesser Arcanus!]

[Being the first of a new race, you are now the lord of all Arcanus and will be given your own throne in hell if desired!]

[The Arcanus are the first race of demons that are not direct descendants of the first Demon, and are as such exempt from the punishment of the first sin!]

[The Intermediate Holy Energy Resistance Skill has become useless]

---

The Demon stared forward in disbelief. He couldn't believe what he was seeing in front of him. He... became a new race? An 'Arcanus'? He didn't care about the 'Lesser' part of it right now, more importantly, the fact that he created a new race of demons altogether was completely insane. Eiro was no longer an Imp from this moment onward. He felt... sad, somehow. He had been an imp for literally his whole life, but now, all of a sudden he was something else? It just didn't make any sense to him.

And then the next part... the punishment of the first sin? If that meant that his Holy Energy resistance had become useless... then he no longer had a bane? The only reason why it could become useless is if he had no need for a resistance against Holy Energy.

Immediately, Eiro jumped up from his bed. He quickly clothed himself in his robes and ran through the house. His senses had become much stronger than before, even, so he was somewhat overwhelmed for a moment, but he could sense the location he needed to get to immediately.

Eiro rushed through the building at an incredible speed, and found himself in the sitting room, where his children were currently sitting, talking to each other.

"Huh? Dad? Wait, why're you wearing that..?" Arc asked confused, but Eiro didn't pay attention to his son. There was only one person that he was paying attention to.

He stepped forward, looking at his youngest child, and fell to his knees. Slowly, he grabbed the bracelets and anklets that she was wearing, and pulled them off her. Immediately, everyone freaked out, since those were for Eiro's protection as well.

But then, Eiro slowly pulled Avalin into himself, into a big, long hug.

"I don't feel a bit.." The Demon muttered, tears forming in his eyes, as he embraced his child without feeling any sort of pain for the first time in his life.