DEMON'S VIRTUE

The Demon soon reached the end of the tunnel, which thus far had been renovated quite extensively. Instead of the rough cave that they had used before, it was a large and wide tunnel that could even hold a carriage or two right next to each other. It was in preparation for potential import and export with the monster town. Eiro entered into the wide open space in front of him, looking at the expanded ravine stretching out in both directions. All different sorts of monsters were walking around here, at the different levels of this place.

Eiro really liked these moments, stepping from the dark tunnels into the bright open view of this ravine, since it was just a great sight to him. It was like he was shown that what he was doing wasn't in vain, but that he really could find a way to fix this messed up system ruling over this world. But that moment didn't last long this time, since he soon saw the monster that had caused trouble for this whole place. If Eiro hadn't been lucky enough to be there, he'd have to cover up five adventurers that went missing in the middle of his territory, because he certainly wouldn't have let them leave alive after seeing the town.

In a straight line, the Demon approached the monster. It was a young Lizardman, who was crouching by the wall, with his heart beating so strong that it was obvious he did something wrong.

"The hell did you think you were doing out there?" Eiro asked, in Lizardman speech.. It had a weird sort of guttural sound to it which sounded weird sometimes, but it was important that this Lizardman understood what he did wrong. He raised his head, and soon saw Eiro's horns glistering in the sun. Just a moment later, his tail fell off out of fear as it nearly had a heart-attack.

Eiro rolled his eyes with a deep groan, "Come with me, I'll talk to you about this in front of your leader." The Demon said angrily, grabbig the young monster by his shoulder, dragging him over toward the other side of the ravine where the town hall stood. The Lizardman Leader was working in a special, humid room that represented the best possible climate for the lizardman race. It was basically a literal swamp in there, but Eiro didn't really care.

He stepped into the room, and immediately got rid of all the humidity in the air, of course waking the lizardman leader up from his nap, "By Lady Winter, what the fuck is wrong with you? You're just laying here, napping?"

The large lizardman leader glared down at Eiro, "I need my sleep."

"And I need you to do your job, which is to take care of the other lizardmen. Do you know what this guy did? He went outside, and got caught. Because of you, we're going to need to deal with some bothersome idiots running around this town." Eiro said bluntly, and the lizardman leader slowly looked at the young monster that Eiro was holding onto.

With a scoff, he shook his head, "Not my fault. He got caught. Not me."

Eiro took a few steps forward, standing right in front of the lizardman leader, "Listen up, asshole, if I say it's your fault, it's your fault. If I tell you to do your fucking job, you do your fucking job. If you don't understand that, I'll bury you in this very room and appoint someone else as the lizardmen's leader." Grinding his teeth together, Eiro made sure that the monster in front of him would understand that he wasn't kidding around.

"I take care of it. Now go. Leave him here." The Lizardman leader replied, and Eiro sighed deeply, "Just to make it clear, I don't want you to kill him, torture him, or even scratch a scale on his body. Anything you do to him, I will do to you, ten times over."

Eiro turned around and left the room again, returning the humidity as he made his way over to where Gobo was right now. He wasn't in the town-hall, though. Eiro stepped outside annoyed, leaving Bavet here, "Go and keep sleeping or something, I'll pick you up later."

"Sure thing, boss." Bavet said with a light smirk on his face, as he casually walked through the place. Meanwhile, Eiro stepped outside again, looking at Lugo, "And you, just stay here for now. I'll be flying over there." He told his familiar, spreading out his wings as he did so. His mood had already been soured, so he didn't really want to play around right now, and instead just wanted to check on everything as he planned before, and then make his way back to Skyhart.

Eiro shot into the sky and made his way over toward the other part of the town, where construction, or rather reconstruction, was underway. About two months ago, Eiro was given permission by Solomon to take apart the floating island, using the materials from the ruined city to create a new town here in the mountains. Some buildings, Eiro was able to just take and place down into the new location nearly fully impact, but others had to be taken apart into their small pieces so that those pieces could be used to build new structures. The deconstruction was finished not too long ago, so Eiro had come here to figure out what to do with the rest. With the giant gravity magic stone that had been keeping said island afloat.

For now, they couldn't directly use it, but Eiro found another place to keep it for now, and that was where he was going.

The new part of town was in the area where Eiro had kept away the floating island for those few months, and right next to it was one of the largest mountains of this whole mountain range that Eiro ruled over. And Eiro hollowed out part of that mountain to hide the huge magic stone inside of it, until they found a proper way to make use of it in the future. However, through that giant magic stone which seemed like it could never run out of magic, Eiro was able to start working on something quite interesting, and Gobo was right at the site where that 'interesting' thing was being constructed.

Landing right next to the entrance to the building, Eiro could already feel the large amount of magic being gathered in one spot not too far away from where he was standing, and quickly stepped inside. He looked at the intricate carvings all over the walls, floor and ceiling, as well as the four wooden pillars placed into the center of this quite large hall.

"Gobo, what are you doing in here?" Eiro asked, and the Hobgoblin slowly turned around, the two will'o'wisps floating right beside him.

"I was just checking on it to see if everything was alright, Master." He explained quickly, "How was the trip?"

Eiro scratched the back of his head, before a handmirror appeared on his palm. And a moment later, one turned into two, and two turned into three, as a trio of Eiro's suddenly walked around the room, "It was alright." The original said, as the copies started to explain the story in tandem, while the original focused more on the center of the room. By the time the story was over, Eiro had continued carving slightly into the wooden pillars, as if preparing them for something.

"So you've got two more cards now?" Mikey, one of the two will'o'wisps next to Gobo, asked, and Eiro immediately nodded his head, "Yes, exactly. One of which will come in quite useful in finishing up this whole thing."

"How so?" Gobo asked, and Eiro slowly turned around, "It's quite easy. In order to perfect this array, we would usually need four experts working perfectly synchronized with each other. That, or one mind and four bodies." The Demon pointed out, as another double appeared, and the three doubles all stepped up to one of the wooden pillars.

"But isn't it already working well enough?" Gobo asked curiously, and Eiro shook his head, "Not well enough, no. It isn't concentrated enough to allow for the crystalization of this magic, especially not on its own. But when I add all of this..." Eiro said, as one of his doubles continued, while all four of them were intricately carving into the surface of the wood pillars, using his knowledge of Artificing that he had built up over the past few months while working together with Armodeus.

Suddenly, as the four of them were done, the magic that was being pulled into the center of the room was more intense. Far, far more intense, to the point where it was affecting its surroundings. Gravity wells were being created all over the room. Gobo felt three times his weight pushing onto his body, while Eiro himself felt practically weightless.

He made the doubles disappear, and took a few deep breaths. He slowed down his heartbeat more and more, until his heart completely stopped. Instead, Eiro moved his blood using magic, making his heart unnecessary for that moment. And that was for the simple reason that Eiro had to do this in order to finish up this thing that they had been working on for a while now.

Just recently, Eiro had come to understand the crystal formations in his chest more and more, after using them up all at once, and feeling them reform bit by bit over time.

The Demon pulled his dagger out of his treasury, and stabbed it into his chest, just barely missing his heart as he did. Eiro pushed his hand into the cut, and slowly moved it closer toward the first of the two crystals, and pressed his fingers around it, slowly pulling it out. It was painful, incredibly so, but it wasn't the worst pain he had felt by far. The crystal laid in Eiro's hand, and the Demon took a deep breath, as he pushed his hand into the cut once more, this time trying to pull out the other crystal as well. If Eiro wasn't able to manipulate his joints like he did, he never would have been able to pull the crystal out of there so easily. The two bloody crystals were now laying in Eiro's hand, as the damage he did to himself slowly regenerated.

Letting out a deep breath, Eiro looked at the two notifications in front of his eyes.

---

[You have forcefully removed 1.000.000 Mana from your body]

[You have forcefully removed 1.000.000 Mana from your body]

---

"Alright, there we go." Eiro said with a loud groan, while Gobo was standing there, looking at his master perplexed. Never had he seen anyone force their hand into their own chest like that, procuring something that Gobo didn't even know existed. But the Demon wasn't paying attention to that. He slowly removed the blood from those crystals, and watched as this concentrated mass of mana acted exactly like the Demon wanted it to.