DEMON'S VIRTUE

Eiro slowed down, as Rudy stepped off the platform Eiro carried him on. He turned his head and looked at his father, slowly opening his mouth. But the Demon immediately flicked his wrist, throwing air magic at him to stop any sound from escaping his mouth. Eiro then slowly turned toward the bush and placed his finger in front of his mouth, to signal Rudy to be as quiet as possible.

Carefully, Eiro glanced at his own shadow, and had Mislan step out of it. Already aware that he shouldn't speak, the servant simply looked at his master. Telepathically, Eiro gave the shadow the command to distract the doubles gathered around here, as well as the mastermind behind all of this.

Without even finishing his nod, the shadow disappeared out of sight, and walked over to the opposite side of the clearing in front of them. And a moment later, Eiro heard a voice, "What a nice time for a midnight walk, is it not?" Mislan asked, his voice echoing through the area, like it did when Eiro infused his voice with the shadow element, even if a bit clearer.

"...Who are you?" The mastermind asked, in a slightly nasal, high-pitched voice. Eiro noticed that the chimeras had suddenly stopped moving in response to her hand being slightly raised, as if she wanted to see what was going on first.

"I'm nobody but a reflection of my master and his will." Mislan replied immediately, and the mastermind scoffed slightly, "And your master is that wannabe royal?"

"I will let you know that my master is the real deal. Rather, he is not like other monsters that have become royals in such a half-baked manner." He replied quickly, and the mastermind couldn't help but chuckle, as if she found that idea amusing, "Please, as if. He didn't even notice that obvious distraction. The fact that he's a royal got to his head while he was busy playing house with some little human brats, and only became more cocky." She pointed out. It was something that Eiro couldn't directly dispute either. He did get cocky, and that's why he didn't realize that there was a chance there was more to that attack than he thought.

But that didn't matter right now. Eiro fused his body with shadows, and dove into the darkness created by the bright light of the full moon, of which there was plenty here in this thick forest. He moved around to the right position. Eiro passed by under the half-dead bodies of the beings that the mastermind had been continuosly creating doubles of.

The Tortle and the Minotaur, both of which were stuck in large tubes, suspended in some weird liquid. They were being carried by spider monsters with metallic chitin, but they were clearly put together just like all those chimeras were. After all, those tubes with pipes, metal and glass connected to them that they were carrying were part of their bodies.

Luckily, Mislan seemed to have everything under control, and started to walk around a bit, to further distract the mastermind, "Even if that was the truth, then my master is one of the few that can allow themselves to become 'cocky', as you say. After all, he does not baselessly assume himself to be powerful. He fixes his mistakes, and he does everything with all he can. That is what my master is. And trust me, I know all there is to know about him." Mislan said, spreading out his wings, letting his horns show, while stretching out his arms and tail, "After all, I am his shadow."

The mastermind opened her eyes wide in surprise as she realized what was in front of him, "You are... you are a 'Servant'... I heard about the servants of royals, but... something like this shouldn't be possible..? He instilled a will into something without a soul... something like a shadow at that? How is that even-"

"Possible? I'll tell you, sweetheart. If I'm cocky, then you have a god-complex." Eiro said with a grin on his face, jumping out of the shadows right behind the mastermind to whisper into her ear. She jumped away, flapping her wings in confusion, as she saw the shadows flow out of Eiro's legs back into the ground. And right behind Eiro, she could see it. A shadow in the form of his armor, but the head, wings, hands, and tail were completely missing from it. She realized that Mislan was speaking the truth.

And before she knew it, Mislan fell to his knee in front of Eiro, who just smiled at him, "Thank you, that was enough of a distraction."

"Distract-"

"Meh, I don't feel like going through this whole thing. We won't be doing the weird back and forth anymore, you already did that with my other half. My shadow, that is." Eiro pointed out, "Instead, I'll just monologue a bit, while you realize that you've lost. How does that sound?"

"I-" The mastermind replied, but Eiro just rolled his eyes, "Right, good to see that we agree. Anyway. If you look around a bit more, you'll notice that I've rigged those two... well, things over there with some magic, that I can activate quicker than you can get rid of." The Demon said, "They're your sources for making duplicates, and I doubt you want to create duplicates of the duplicates, since those are clearly going to be... well, very bad. Or so it seems to me, looking at those guys and comparing them to those that I fought earlier. Although yours... seems different. So it reduces the quality when duplicating other things beside yourself, huh? Good to know. That card will be mine soon, after all." Eiro smiled lightly, but the mastermind looked back at him, confused.

"Why didn't you do it then, yet? Just kill them, kill me, and get it over with." She said, and Eiro's smile quickly disappeared, "Because I need you to tell me a few things. I can do it later when you don't have any limbs left on your body, or I can do it now, and then I will kill you painlessly."

"Hah, as if-" The mastermind yelled out, but she soon froze up as her whole body went into shock. She turned her head, and soon saw Mislan standing there, holding her arm in his hands as if presenting it to her as a gift.

"What do you expect? It's my shadow, it's got to be at least as fast as I am." Eiro pointed out bluntly, "Anyway, as you can see, it is very easy for me to do whatever I want. But that will take time, and I can't be bothered, so I was going to give you a deal."

The mastermind ground her teeth, as Eiro watched her arm simply regrow as if it was nothing. She had duplicated the arm that she was seeing Mislan hold, and directly connected it back to her own body. That was certainly a useful trick... Soon, Eiro could even fight back against losing limbs quite easily. Although it probably wouldn't let him regain the hand that had already been replaced by a prosthetic, his soul was too damaged for that.

Eiro smiled lightly, "Let's get this over with, shall we? Both of us know that you've got something big left in you. Let's see it."

The mastermind stared at Eiro, and started to grin. Her feathers stood on their ends as she looked at the two large tubes. Soon, right beside her, a mass of flesh simply appeared and started growing and convulsing as it continuosly changed. It was quite similar to what it looked like when Bavet changed his shape.

For now, Eiro just watched. It was part of his plan, after all.

Soon, the chimera was finished. It was larger and stronger than the others Eiro had seen so far, but it wasn't enough yet. He scoffed, just smiling at her, "Seriously? You think that's going to be enough to kill me? It's barely enough to put a scratch on me."

"Just try it then!" The mastermind yelled out with a broad, exhausted grin, as Eiro rolled his eyes. He waited for the chimera to target him, and soon shot forward. The amount of health he had was still substantial, but not large enough to overpower something created solely for having a large amount of health. As such, he had to do something that wouldn't kill Eiro, but would kill any other living being.

Eiro jumped up and pushed his hand against its chest, letting a large amount of mana flow into its veins, before starting to pop the chimera's skin open and forcing out as much blood as possible. Any living being would die when losing all their blood. All but Eiro, since thanks to the bloodstone that Eiro had already completely fused with his heart made it impossible for him to run out of blood in the first place.

But due to the nature of the ability, Eiro and the chimera bled the same amount. So while Eiro was standing there, in a pool of his own blood, the chimera soon fell over backward due to bloodloss.

"How...?"

"I'm a royal. Don't underestimate me." Eiro said with a smile on his face, quickly getting rid of all the blood, "Come on, let's make this more interesting. Make the biggest, baddest chimera you can. I will kill it with ease."

The mastermind glared at Eiro with a frown, "And why would I do that? If you do whatever you did just now, then-"

"I figured you would say that, so I brought someone along to make things even more interesting." Eiro pointed out, walking over to the nearby bush, where Rudy slowly stood up upon hearing the signal Eiro told him earlier, "You make that powerful chimera, and make it target my son here. The 'contest' will be between the two of them, instead of us. As our proxies."