DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro looked at Koperia, "The ability works by putting Life Force on the line, so if you want to trick the Chimeras, you need to make undead with a certain amount of it in them. As little as necessary would be perfect." The Demon pointed out, and Koperia just scoffed in response, "What, you think I wasn't aware? I'm preparing them as we're speaking." She replied immediately.

Eiro turned around and looked at the people gathered around him, "None of you will face them. You will stay here behind the barrier. If they target you, then you're basically already dead, you got that?"

"But you can survive going out there? What makes you think that we're just going to sit here and let you do all the work?" Tin pushed others to the side, stepping right in front of Eiro, who looked up at him annoyedly, "If you want to die, you can go out there. But I'll have you know... I'm not going to be attacking any of these guys out here. That's what Koperia is for, again. I'm going after the source. And also... I have far, far more health than any of you do, so I'm the only one that can beat those Chimeras in the 'Contest' anyway." The Demon said bluntly, before he turned around, stepping through his own shadow-magic barrier.

Once outside, he immediately fused his body with air, and used his stealth skill, rushing through the village. He soon reached the hut in which Eiro sensed Ariella, Leon and Avalin in, and quickly stepped inside. And there, he saw Ariella, her wings spread out and covering the two children's bodies to protect them, like some sort of capsule. As Eiro stood there, Bavet jumped at him in the form of a spear, trying to pierce his neck.

"Damned idiot, it's me." Eiro sighed, catching him mid-air. Immediately, Ariella pulled her wings away, looking at the Demon relieved, "Thanks the gods, you're alright..." She said, as Leon and Avalin immediately ran to their father.

Eiro squatted down and hugged them, before quickly explaining the situation, "Listen, I need all of you to stay inside here. I'm going to set up a barrier around this hut to make sure the monsters outside will ignore this, but I don't want anything to happen to any of you."

"...You know just as well as I do that I'm strong enough to take care of some monsters..."

"Well, these are different. It's complicated, but your combat ability doesn't matter in this right now. What matters is your health. Your health is pretty high, so you'll be fine at first, but if you're not quick enough, that doesn't really matter." Eiro explained, "I just needed to check on you, alright? I'll take care of everything in a bit after I check on the others."

The Demon stood back up, bringing the kids back over to Ariella, who pulled them both closer, "Fine, I'll trust you, but... Are you going to be alright?"

"I will be, don't worry. I boosted my health, so even if they managed to attack me, I'll be fine." He explained, looking at Bavet, who was struggling to get out of Eiro's hand after turning into a snake, "You too, stay here. If anything happens to them, you're dead." He said, throwing the slime onto the ground before leaving back out the door with an expression of pure relief. He knew that nothing had happened to them, but he had still been scared until he saw and spoke to them.

Stretching his hand forward, Eiro pulled out the Ace of Cups and his Grimoire, quickly flipping through the pages of the book before starting to set up a barrier around the hut that would stop anyone or anything from finding this place. Rather than just being invisible, this whole place would be completely ignored by others, which was what he wanted. He didn't want anyone to come near here. The moment that he finished setting up the barrier, Eiro rushed over to the other huts, where his kids had been gathered. They were fighting right now, making a little bit too much noise for Eiro's liking.

One of the Chimeras was slowly walking up to the hut, to the point where it was reaching out for the door. His sword in hand, Eiro ran at the monster, trying to stab it from behind. It took a bit more force than Eiro had liked, but that was to be expected because of the Tortle-shell on the Chimera's back. Before the cracking sound coming from the shell even stopped echoing out, the Monster's heart had already been stabbed, and it fell to the ground.

Eiro threw the corpse into the water next to the pier-like path, and quickly pulled open the door, where Rudy was standing with his shield completely blocking the entrance. The Demon let out a deep sigh, "Good idea, but don't put yourself in that sort of danger." Eiro said, and Rudy immediately pulled his shield to the side, "Dad!" He exclaimed, "What's going on?"

"...I was careless, and quite cocky, so I didn't realize that this whole thing was bigger than I thought. I figured I could just take out some monsters that were coming here just to bother us, but as it turns out, they're a lot better at this than I thought. But no matter, more importantly, is everyone here alright?" Eiro asked, looking around the room. The six people gathered here, Eiro's kids as well as Felix and Hannah, were all fine. Apparently none of them had gone outside, although Arc very clearly was planning on it.

"All of you, stay inside. Their way of fighting others makes how strong or capable any of you are completely useless. With a single attack, any, or all of you, could die for all I know. And I don't want to risk that." Eiro said immediately, "I'm setting up a barrier around the hut, so stay inside." He told them, ready to turn around immediately again, but Rudy grabbed his father's arm before Eiro could leave.

"Wait, I... Are you sure I can't help? I saw a little bit of what was happening, so... could I distract them, maybe?" Rudy asked, clutching his shield nervously. Eiro looked at him with a frown and shook his head, "No, you can't. I'm sorry, but their ability penetrates any armor, so I'm sc-"

"They can't damage me." Rudy said, and Eiro looked at his son's expression, grinding his teeth, "They attacked you?"

"...Yeah, they did. I was about to go on a walk when they all appeared. One of them hit the other, and I saw the '-0 Health' notification pop up like it always does." Rudy said, and Eiro widened his eyes, understanding what this meant.

"I..." Eiro sighed. He didn't want to put his son into any danger, but he was the one that asked if he could help. The Demon closed his eyes in thought, and said, "Fine, you can come with me. But the rest of you... you stay here."

"What? Why can Rudy come? That's unfair!" Arc exclaimed, wearing his armor and holding his weapons, ready to fight. Eiro looked at him, not wanting this to turn into some sort of discussion, "If you can hold out against a 500 thousand point attack that even I wasn't able to defend against, then you can come. But otherwise, stay in here." Eiro said angrily, "I know you guys might think that I was just trying to one-up you the other day. You've barely been talking to me since. But really, it's just that you guys are overestimating yourselves. Unique skills don't make you insanely powerful right off the bat. You're not powerful enough to fight this battle yet. But Rudy... Rudy can actually help this time, because of this very specific situation, alright? If it comes up, I will be bringing you to places where only you can help out as well. Until then, I'm going to do everything I can to protect you, even if you don't think you need it." The Demon opened the door back up and stepped outside after leaving his children speechless, with Rudy quickly following him. Eiro set up a barrier using the Ace of Cups around this hut as well, and then quickly looked at Rudy, who was staring at Eiro in thought.

"I'm sorry if that was harsh, but we can talk about this more later, alright? Right now, we need to make sure we can stop these monsters. Although... I'm going to need you to trust me. And I apologize in advance for what my plan entails for you." Eiro said quickly, "I'll explain it to you on the way."

The Demon quickly created a platform of frozen blood and forced it underneath Rudy's feat, so that he could make sure that they could both Rush to the place where the mastermind behind this attack could be found.

On the way, Eiro explained his plan to Rudy, who slightly grimaced at the idea, "So you want to use me as... a weapon, basically?"

"...I know. I'm sorry. But it's only in the worst-case scenario. Hopefully it won't happen, but... I'm not so sure." Eiro pointed out, grimacing to himself underneath his mask, as he really didn't want to do this either, but it seemed like this might end up being their only choice in a certain set of scenarios, "But don't worry. I'll make sure that you won't be bothered in the slightest by what I do."