Demon's Virtue

The flood of Demons in front of Eiro came to a halt. Even if Eiro hadn't claimed his throne yet, he was still someone that could exert an energy, especially on demons, that these lesser ones could never hope to hold out against. With a broad grin on his face, Eiro stretched out his hand. These demons weren't under the control of the Devil, they were simply bloodthirsty from the start.

But that didn't mean that demons couldn't feel fear. Rather, it was the opposite. Demons, from the ground up, were some of the beings that were the most connected to their emotions out of all that Eiro knew of. And they fell prey to them very easily as well.

It was probably part of why the Devil ended up being so affected by the Sins that the card brought with it as well, since he himself was born a demon too.

The Demons looked at Eiro, and in the unholy language of Demons, he spoke the few words that he managed to find through some old transcripts. Luckily, some of the most common words of the language of Demons that were known here in the central material plane were ones related to death and war, so the few words he found were related to it as well.

His mouth had already split in two, so that he could overlap two commands onto each other, strengthening the effect even more. One mouth spoke with the influence of a Royal. The other spoke with the influence of a Lord of Hell. But both sent a very clear message.

"Turn on each other." – "Feast on your brethren."

Without a moment's hesitation, the Demons did as told. The ones with claws swiped them at their neighbor, the ones with fangs buried them in another's leg or arm. The smell of demonic blood was so disgustingly familiar and sweet that Eiro wanted to throw up from utter disgust.

"Didn't you just say we can't kill them?" James asked confused, still holding off some of the other monsters, but Eiro just turned toward him and explained bluntly, speaking until the right opportunity presented itself, "Demons are hardy, we don't die that easily. Most of us have regeneration that comes close to a Troll's. That's why the feeding habits of wild demons in the underworld are a bit...

unique. They throw themselves on their prey, destroy its limbs, and then bring it to their home. And then there, they will continue feeding on their victim for weeks until they finally succumb. And that's what I told them to do. I told them to Feast; not to kill."

Eiro looked at the demons, seeing that exactly that was happening. Of course, some of them were quickly killed in that rowdy mass of Demons, but it was just a small number compared to the ones that were specifically keeping each other alive in the worst way possible.

Seeing that the area had thinned out enough, Eiro quickly motioned at the others to get moving, "We need to hurry though, it won't be long until the Devil will interfere and make them stop somehow. Until then we have to keep moving."

"But where are we supposed to-" Jess began to ask, but was quickly interrupted by a sweep of Eiro's hand. He surrounded the members of his party in a massive, ethereal mage-hand that carried them over the mass of demons at a fast speed.

That being the case, the sheer mass of demons and the speed at which Eiro had to move them to bring them as far away as they needed to meant that he used most of his saved-up arcane magic. He quickly got started to try and fill his tank back up, but it would take a little while until he could do something like this again.

"And now, just run. No matter what happens, don't engage in any combat unless I say so. And Krog, carry Jess," the Demon instructed, and Krog, who was already carrying a massive load of weapons, sweeped up his lover without a moment's hesitation as the party started to run forward as fast as possible.

Both James and Krog had done extensive endurance training for situations exactly like this, where they had to sprint for an extended period of time. But Jess' training was mostly focused on expanding her mental capabilities, even if she was also given a bit of physical training.

And of course, Ariella, being a very powerful fighter to begin with on top of being technically a monster, she was able to keep up without any issues either, even if the ever-growing wave of demonic, unholy energy was making her feel worse by the second.

Eiro glanced to the side, locking eyes with Gondos. He had already been instructing the Golem on his part of the plan. Sarius had already went off to get started the moment they left that central cave, but now it was Gondos turn. He shot into the wall, diving through the thick stone of the mineshaft.

If anything went wrong on either Sarius or Gondos' side, he would immediately summon them back here to a more safe place. But hopefully, nothing should really go wrong.

The party skillfully dodged around as many of the monsters and demons wandering the mineshafts, but every once in a while, there was a group right in front that couldn't be avoided. So instead, the party would incapacitate them and continue running forward.

---

As the original Eiro and his party were running through the mineshafts, the duplicate Eiro in the elemental plane of water was currently approaching the current location of the Naiad Queen. Floating in the distance was a massive castle of shells and gemstones, their magic glimmering in this endless ocean. And just as Eiro expected, he wouldn't be able to get in there particularly easily.

He could see Naiads surrounding the castle, acting as guards, and many Magic People were swimming around as well, either being servants or even more guards. Of course, it made sense. The Naiad King and Queen were two of the most powerful beings in this realm.

They had many enemies that would simply love to take a shot at them; though it wasn't as though they had any chance at even touching a single strand of mana on their bodies, even if the two were left completely unguarded. But that didn't change that these spirits and people were incredibly serious about their jobs.

Eiro wouldn't just be able to swim in there, saying he wanted to meet the Naiad Queen.

"Sorry about this Nelly, it's going to get a little bit rough for a few moments," Eiro apologized, shifting the way that he was holding Nelly to make sure that she was more stable throughout this. The demon's duplicate expanded his senses throughout the magical water, pinpointing exactly where every individual was and what areas they were able to see, hear, or otherwise sense.

As soon as he approached the castle, he started swerving around any of the surrounding buildings and structures, dodging past anyone and everyone that he came across as fast and smooth as he could, making sure that Nelly's condition wouldn't worsen because he was too rowdy. He swam and swam, soon reaching the large door in front of the room that the Naiad Queen was.

This was the only real way into this room, as the windows had thick glass made of elemental water in front of them that Eiro wasn't able to get through fast enough.

At this point, he just had to gamble.

Eiro flapped his wings for just an instance as one of the Guards looked away and the other blinked, shooting through the whole hallway. He floated in front of the large door, pushing his back against it as much as he could, and very carefully opened the door.

He also manipulated the water right in front of the door to make sure that there was no change in its natural flow that could alert the guard that something was going on, and then carefully floated through the door, closing it behind him.

And there he was. The Naiad Queen's bedchambers. There was a large, well-decorated bed on one side of the enormous hall, and what seemed to be a desk on the other side. And right above Eiro, toward the ceiling, the Naiad Queen floated. Her body, dozens of feet tall, floated there as she read a book. Before long, she glanced at Eiro.

"What?" she let out, in a confused expression, "Who are you? Guards, there-"

"Please, stop," Eiro said in an almost begging voice. He swam up toward the Naiad Queen, who carefully backed away. Even so, she still carried herself in a dignified, almost fiery manner.

She held forward her hand and started to control the water in front of her palm, but that was when she managed to get a closer look at the Demon, his own energy, and the energy of the Naiad that the Demon was holding onto.

"You... what happened to Nellissa?" She asked carefully, and Eiro approached closer, carefully holding the spirit forward, "She... a memory of hers had been locked away by powerful magic, and that lock was forcefully ripped away... Nelly told me to bring her to you. Please, I don't think I ca do anything myself, so just... save her."

Eiro watched the Naiad Queen's expression. He figured that there had been some kind of connection between Nelly and her, but had never asked about it. But whatever connection it was, the Queen must be able to figure something out.

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