DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro sat there, and looked up into the sky.

"There will probably be more people coming. How bothersome." Eiro muttered, "Although, I did manage to get here rather quickly, so in an emergency... And it's not like they can do more than what has already been done."

He thought for a while, about what the best thing to do would be for now, but when the vibrations underneath his feet stopped, he figured it was a good enough time to head off. But first, he wanted to do something else. Eiro stretched out his wings and shot into the sky. It seemed like one place where Eiro had removed a branch before had started caving in a little bit while the tree had been growing over the past few months. Or at least, no new branch had grown from this spot.

Eiro placed his hand onto the large, sligth incaved area, and quickly used death magic on it. He made part of the tree rot away, creating an incaved area inside of the tree. The sort of place where animals would often take refuge in other trees, although this one was a bit too large for that. Either way, Eiro used a combination of death and nature magic to create this hole in the tree, and soon stepped into its center.

Once it was large enough for him to stretch his wings out into all directions, Eiro let out a deep breath as he split off a lot of essence off of his mana, pushing it out of his palm. He soon created a sphere of essence that was probably the size of his whole body. One's soul held these things rather effectively, so despite this ball being so large, it was only worth about a tenth of his mana. That being the case, Eiro quickly formed a spell around it. It was the same sort that he had just used earlier, but simply a lot more complex.

Once he was done constructing that part of the spell, he even carved some runic patterns into the ground, and used arcane magic to encase the essence in a protective layer before he started. As Eiro activated the spell, so much mana was pulled from his body that the space around him seemed to nearly shift in a weird way, just like hot air distorted the view of what was beyond it.

Eiro's essence was compressed and crystalized as the arcane magic still protected it. The whole room was saturated in mana, and in just an instant, all of that mana was pulled into the crystalized, compressed essence.

It was now only the size of Eiro's head, as the Demon let out a deep breath of exhaustion. Having so much mana pulled from his body felt really weird, honestly. But even then, he still had more than one and a half million mana points left, so it really wasn't that big a deal at the end of the day. It was just that the scale of things was incomparable to before.

"Domain Creation." Eiro whispered, and immediately, the floating crystal of his essence that was fixed into this room started to glow slightly.

---

[A {Level 0} Domain has been created]

[Your influence must constantly be placed on this area for 24 hours to create a {Level 1} Domain]

---

Eiro slowly turned around with satisfaction. He would be now turning this tree, and hopefully soon the whole forest surrounding it, into his domain. And due to the essence crystal and magic circle array carved into the wood, he was able to 'place his influence' on this area even when he was back in Skyhart. But just in case... he still needed someone to protect this place. He had his earth servants to signal him when someone was walking through the forest, but he still needed something here that could fight off certain enemies even if Eiro was incapable of coming at a moment's notice. There were those times, especially considering that the start of the tournament was less than a week away.

Eiro stepped out of the large hole at the top of the tree that he had created, and looked around. Was there anything that he could use?

"Is there anything..?" Eiro muttered, and quickly flew onto one of the branches of the tree. Eiro stood on top of it and felt its structure. Figuring that it was good enough, Eiro took out his three of swords and quickly cut through the branch at a spot where he would have enough to work with. He didn't even cut off half the branch, so it should be able to regrow properly at some point.

Eiro of course tried to catch the branch before it fell down so that it couldn't do any serious damage to the forest ground. And then when he was standing there at the base of the tree, he quickly took out his tools, and fused them with the three of swords so that he could properly cut through the thick wood without damaging the tools.

And so, Eiro quickly got to work, using all ten of the three of swords' blades to cut apart the wood. It didn't take long until he had three sets of parts in front of him, each set slightly different. Eiro put the three figures together, like he was making humanoid mannequins with the physical structure that Eiro wanted them to have.

One of them would have the most strength. A bulky body, two thick arms and legs, and no wings, but otherwise a body that could survive falls from even high up. Since he didn't have wings, Eiro gave him claws to bury into the tree to climb it properly.

Then there was the one that was based off speed. Four arms, large, thin wings, and a generally quaint and small build.

And then the last of the bunch was one based on defense. Four thick arms, thicker than normal around the under-arm, and large, thick wings made not for flying, but for creating a defensive wall of sorts. He could still glide, but otherwise he would have to climb the tree like the strength based version.

Once he was done, Eiro looked at the puppets, and used his Servant Creation ability three times.

"Gilr, Rithia, Mackrist. Those are your names. Representing strength, speed, and defense. You three will work together in protecting this place for me." Eiro said in a clear, exhausted voice, as he watched the three of them suddenly start changing physically.

The gaps naturally created by their mannequin-like forms were filled in, and Eiro could notice that they were changing internally as well, as if they were all trying to turn into what their purpose was even more.

Gilr's body became flexible and dense in just the right parts, allowing him to exert as much strength as possible. His claws became strong enough to not break easily as well. Rithia's body seemed to become much lighter, and incredibly flexible, so that he could fly around more easily. And Mackrist's body changed in mostly one important way. His outer layer hardened even more than before, although Eiro had already made him something like 'armor' out of the bark of the branch he took.

---

[You have created the named Servant {Gilr}]

[You have created the named Servant {Rithia}]

[You have created the named Servant {Mackrist}]

---

Eiro ran his fingers through the notifications, and then looked at the tree standing beside him, "Get up there. If someone tries to do anything to harm this tree, do anything you need to do to protect it. But if they show no hostility toward it, simply observe them for me." Eiro told them, and watched as the three new servants disappeared from in front of him.

Girl and Mackrist climbed up the tree while Rithia quickly flew up. They were all rather quick in their movement, although Mackrist seemed to be the slowest climber, as Eiro had expected. A lot of his body was rather rigid, after all.

Eiro quickly flew up the tree, and quickly cast a spell in front of the large hole in which his crystalized essence could be found. It was an arcane spell, and Eiro was trying to create a barrier that would stop others from entering this space, or even perceiving it at all.

And now, being in the area, Eiro had a few other stops to make. He needed to visit a few people in town, and make sure that nobody would even think about going to where his old home used to stand.

With a few flaps, Eiro was already floating above the town, and looked at it from above. Eiro moved his hand to the side, and grabbed his mask out of his treasury as he fused his arms together again and pulled his tail into the base of his back.

As he placed his mask on his face, he let his cloak fall on his body. And quickly pulled it over his head, fusing his horns with shadows to make them disappear in the 'shadow space' of his cloak, and so that his cloak didn't have a weird shape on top of his head.

And just like that, Eiro pulled his wings into his body, and simply let himself drop down in front of town. He didn't even care about others seeing him appear like that, and he just stopped his fall with air magic and walked up to the confused guard standing in front.

"E-Eiro, is that... is that you?" The guard asked, and Eiro slowly nodded his head, "It is."

"...You need to be careful. Wearing that same mask? People will recognize you immediately... You know, since we know you're a demon, we-"

"Listen, I honestly don't care the slightest bit about that right now. I'm only wearing this to avoid as much trouble as possible. Well, depending on what happens, I might have to kill someone." He pointed out, and the guard took a confused step backward, "Wh-What? Kill someone? But-"

"Someone burnt our old home, dug up Jura's grave, and burnt his corpse along with everything else that we used to hold dear." Eiro explained in a blunt tone, and the guard opened his eyes wide, clutching his spear in shock, before he slowly spoke up, looking down at the ground, "...Head to the new bar that was opened up at the plaza. I think the one you're looking for is the new guide..."

Eiro smiled lightly underneath his mask as he stepped past the guard, "Thanks. Greet your father from me when you see him."

"...Sure..." The guard replied, as he tried to pretend he didn't just potentially assist someone with murder.

Eiro walked through the town, getting a few stares from people around him that recognized him despite the change in his figure. There were plenty of new people around here as well, though, so it made sense for Eiro to wear this mask and cloak after all.

The Demon approached the plaza, and looked around, quickly finding the bar in question.. And in there, with who seemed to be the new guide, was Tom, currently pleading with him about the exact thing Eiro came here for.