DEMON'S VIRTUE

"You dare attack me..." Eiro ground his teeth, "Don't you see who – what I am?" The Demon asked, glaring at the Minotaur. After huffing some air out of its nostrils, the Minotaur actually replied, "All I see is a weakling."

Eiro glared at the Minotaur, and slowly pushed himself up until he stood on the water himself, using Arcane Magic to accomplish this. The turtle had stopped moving as well, so that now, Eiro and the Minotaur were standing right in front of each other.

And then, the Demon let out his aura, letting it loose and focusing it on the creature in front of him. Immediately, the Minotaur ripped open its eyes, and tightened its hand around the handle of its hammer.

"Royal... you're a royal..." It muttered, and Eiro simply sighed, "Yes, that I am. You're clearly a high noble, so you must understand what that means."

"Yes... yes! It means that, if I beat you, I'll be a royal!" With that, the Minotaur swung its hammer toward Eiro again. But now that the attack wasn't pointed at the beach anymore, he could simply dodge out of the way instead of having to somehow block the attack. He jumped up, all the whilst activating his Three of Swords. The blades fit perfectly into his armor as he slashed at the Minotaur's arm while he was still swinging the hammer, and the blades had been buried deep into its flesh. But even then, it didn't let go. Instead, something else happened.

Out of the corner of his eye, Eiro could see the flow of the water changing unnaturally, and through the water, he could see the turtle's legs tilt in a specific way. He saw the Minotaur slightly rise up, and immediately, the Demon knew that he now had another opponent to worry about. And this one didn't seem to be particularly normal either.

While it didn't seem to have an arcane card, it did seem like it managed to attain some sort of unique evolution. At the very least, it didn't look like any of the known common evolution paths for its kind, Tortles. And its smell had a sort of unique zinginess to it that only monsters with special evolutions had. And considering that it didn't have a card to bring it to that point easily, that made Eiro think it either had a unique skill, it used to possess a card and it was stolen from it, or it was simply skilled enough to reach a point where it could achieve a unique evolution just on its raw abilities.

The second of the three possibilities was the most unlikely, though. Clearly, they were sent here by something, probably another royal, to take out as many champions as possible. No royal in their right mind would send a monster that ended up losing an arcane card. The other two were things to look out for, though. Either way, he wasn't able to directly predict this Tortle's abilities just yet, although he was sure they laid somewhere on the defensive spectrum.

Eiro quickly proceeded to strike at the Tortle, piercing the blades of the three of sword toward it as quickly as he possibly could. The moment that the blades hit the Tortle's flesh, Eiro could feel the same exact wound form on one of his own arm,s as he felt something warm practically wrap itself around his heart.

Without having to analyse this feeling for too long, it was clear what was going on. Eiro had been marked.

"So it was the first option after all, huh..?" Eiro muttered, grinding his teeth. Unique skill holders were really a pain to fight against. Obviously, they were rare. It was practically a miracle that five of them were in the same spot in the form of Eiro's kids, but that was because they were brought from all over the continent and Eiro happened to intercept their transport.

Unique skills had the tendency to, well, be unique. It was impossible to directly predict them. Sure, they often had certain patterns to them, but quite often, there were extra twists, turns, or conditions to mess up someone's deduction, even when that someone had the ability to deduce absolutely anything.

"A reflective ability...? No, its wound is there as well..." Eiro whispered to himself, as the Tortle started to laugh, its head just slightly above water to make sure that the Minotaur could still stand on its shell, "Thou hath now way to figure out mine ability. Thou shalt cease to live before then." It laughed, but instead of getting annoyed, Eiro started slightly grinning.

"Tortles are known to have a surreal amount of health even amongst monsters... allowing for the possibility of certain abilities..." The Demon muttered, knowing that unique abilities do tend to have a connection to the person's talents and born traits. And then, he finally saw something else that led him to figure out the details of the Tortle's ability, "I've got it figured out. Good to know then."

Eiro immediately held one of his claws to his hand, and pierced it, watching as the same wound formed on the Tortle as well.

"Hah, alright, so it really does work this way as well. Makes sense, I guess there's a reason why the Minotaur stopped attacking." Eiro said, before looking back at the other monster, while the Tortle looked back at Eiro confused.

The Demon immediately kicked off from the ground, and started to attack the Minotaur. And he didn't hold back either. Rather, he buried the three of swords in its arm and violently tried to carve its bone marrow out of its still-attached arm.

But then, Eiro could feel the warm sensation around his heart disappear, right when the Minotaur swung the hammer at Eiro again. But instead of focusing on that, the Demon kept glancing at the Tortle, proceeding to figuring out even more aspects of its unique skill.

For now, killing these two would be a bit annoying, exactly due to that unique skill. If Eiro wasn't careful, with a quick fatal attack against either one of the two, he could end up just killing himself. Sure, right now, it seemed like the ability only applied to the Tortle, but that could be a trick to make him slip up. It could very well be used on other people as well, he just had no way to know right now.

And then, the Demon slightly turned his head. He noticed that the flock of monster birds was nearby again, the same one that had watched what was going on earlier. It would be dumb to assume that they were here just to watch.

"I have a suggestion for you." Eiro said in a clear tone, "This is obviously not the best place for any of us to fight. How about we go to another spot... it's not too far away, and there's plenty of space to go all out."

"And why would we do that?" The Minotaur asked, ready to swing the hammer once more. But the fact that it stopped to ask made it clear to Eiro that it was at least interested in a more straight-up battle than now. Clearly, the Minotaur was interested in rising to the position of a royal, which is why he would need to fight Eiro in a proper environment.

"Thou shalt guide us." The Tortle said, slightly raising its head from the water, and Eiro simply smirked. He started walking, over the water, toward the beach closest to the stone circle that all the champions' events had been held. For now, it really seemed like the Minotaur, Tortle, and those birds were following behind him, until they reached said beach. From there, they just had to walk for two minutues until they reached the circle.

"Ah!" The Minotaur exclaimed, "A fitting arena for this fight!"

"I'm glad you like it. I do feel like we can go all-out here." Eiro said with a smile on his face, looking at both the Tortle and the Minotaur. And then, right beside them, the birds landed as well. One of them stepped forward. Eiro could feel a 'vibe' from all of them, but it was quite weak compared to a normal one. But the vibe from this bird was the strongest. Eiro saw the bird's body contort and change, and soon, a humanoid monster stood in front of him. It reminded Eiro of that damned crow quite a bit, but it was clearly a different creature. It was a tropical bird that simply followed a similar evolutionary path.

But then what about those other birds? They looked the exact same as each other, so this wasn't a hive-monster situation. Rather, it was something else entirely.

"The Mirror of Duplication, Page of Wands. And the Mountain Breaker, Ace of Swords. That's quite a nice reward for dealing with you three." Eiro said with a slight smile on his face. There was nobody around here at all, he knew that for a fact. So, he slowly took off his mask. He let his wings and tail sprout, and split up his arms and mouth, while slowly pulling down his armor's hood, showing off his horns as well.

He fully let out his aura, completely unfiltered. That Bird and its duplicates, as well as the Minotaur, slightly jumped. Not because of his aura, but rather because they were now able to sense the vibe that Eiro had stopped from escaping.

"Hahaha, becoming a royal, and getting more cards at the same time?! That is what I call a reward, Demon!" The Minotaur said, getting ready to swing his hammer, just when Eiro started feeling that warm sensation around his heart again. But instead of aiming the swing of his hammer at Eiro... the Minotaur hit the Tortle's stomach.