Demon's Virtue

Chapter 554 - Superior

Eiro looked at the boy curiously, not sure what he was supposed to expect. Clearly, the other mages had also already realized what was going on. That this boy had cast magic without the use of a wand, and that he created a magic circle in an instant like that.

However, the magic circle itself seemed quite... basic. It was a simple air magic spell. An air bullet, nothing else. Or at least, that's what Eiro thought. In a moment, an incredible amount of air was gathered and compressed into a bullet. Compared to the mana used, and the complexity of the magic circle... That bullet was far too powerful. One more thing that convinced Eiro that this boy was summoned by the god of magic. Increased magic potency.

The bullet shot forward at an incredible speed, and ripped apart the monster that had been prepared for him. It looked like someone had shot explosive magic at it, the way that its parts splattered around like that.

But then, the boy slightly turned his wrist, and proceeded to pull all of the blood out of the corpse and away from the ground, pulling it toward himself and freezing it in the air as he constructed a complex replica of that monster's veins in an artistic manner. Then, he raised his other hand, and pulled rock up, making it wrap tightly around the frozen blood, as the boy recreated the body of the creature in an instant.

Once he was done, the boy heated the rock up, and metal was pulled out onto its surface, creating a thick armor around this body with its frozen blood and flesh of rock.

And then, the boy snapped his finger, and suddenly, the artificial being seemed to come to an artificial life. It was a doll created with life magic. Truly, this boy was a powerful and versatile mage. And despite the fact that he did all this, he didn't even seem bothered. Rather, he was yawning, as if he was bored by what was happening.

The other mages were jealous of how much magic this boy was able to use, and the people of Baram were more than excited about a mage like this teaching the hero. The hero himself had been watching everything with bright, excited eyes ever since this display of abilities began.

The rest of the champions were quite... boring, compared to this one. Most people began to lose interest, since they thought that the most impressive ones had already passed. And then, it was the turn of the second to last person. Biril.

Everyone was already quite bored, but he was sure to grab their attention again. Slowly, he drew his blade, a single sword, like a fusion of an oversized greatsword and a scimitar. He held the blade in his hand, as his body began to bulge up. The fur all over his body increased, and his muscles seemed to want to explode out of the contains of his skin. Biril, in just a few seconds, grew to be larger than even the goliath from earlier, and now, his blade seemed like it was a perfectly normal scimitar wielded by this oversized being.

Biril turned his head and looked at his target, a large pillar of rock that had been prepared for him. He stood in front of it, and swung his arm to the side just once. Smoothly, as if the rock was really just a mirage of mist, Biril cut through the pillar and caused the top to slide off of it. Power and speed were displayed in an instant. And then, the monsters that he asked to be prepared were shown to him.

They were powerful, and many, and they all came rushing at Biril. But the transformed beastman simply stared into the sky, and let out an ear-deafening growl that affected even some of the guides here, the weakest people gathered, together with the monsters, who were the real targets.

Immediately, the monsters were frozen in fear, and were unable to move. Some even fell unconscious just from that. And then, Biril proceeded to slaughter the monsters with ease, showing off his power to all. At least, they were now all paying attention.

Once Biril was done, he undid his transformation, and looked around with a gentle smile. He walked back up to Eiro, as if it was the most natural thing in the world, "It's your turn now, Eiro."

"Huh? Eiro? What bastards gave you that name?" Someone asked with a deep, annoyed frown, "Don't tell me it's your real name."

"Of course it is, it's as real as the fact that I'm standing in front of you right now." The Demon said with a gentle smile, as he made his way to the center of the circle, as everything he requested was being prepared.

People were hauling the corpses of the monsters from earlier up to him, and all the remaining monsters that had been captured for this were brought into the circle.

"I will be doing a few different things today. Let's hope that ten minutes are enough, shall we?" Eiro said subtly, as he turned toward the monsters, "Release them." He instructed, and the warriors quickly opened the cages and let go of the larger monsters' restraints.

They ran at Eiro, and the Demon immediately got to work. Once more, he let his aura escape, and spoke a command, albeit not in the common language.

"Kneel." Eiro said, using both of his voices as he spoke, to increase the potency even further. He used magic to make his words reverberate through the air like an echo further and further, as he said the same thing in all the monster languages that he knew this word in, which happened to be quite a few.

It didn't take long until the array of voices became so overpowering that it sounded like a huge amount of people were yelling things out toward the monsters. And without a single exception, the monsters stopped. In fear, in subservience.

All the monsters kneeled in any way they could. Those that were humanoid fell onto their knees. The beasts fell onto their stomachs, trying to imitate this themselves. Like this, Eiro had created an army for himself. With that, he trumped the second transmigrator in an instant. No more than 20 seconds had passed.

And then, Eiro looked at the corpses that were laying by the side. He raised his hand toward them, and snapped just once. He spread out some mana toward them, and quickly used necromancy to instill a foul mockery of life into the corpses, as they slowly stood up. They as well were now kneeling to Eiro. For those who were missing some body parts, Eiro quickly used nature magic to create new limbs or create a barrier to hold their internal organs in.

"D-Death magic?!" One of the mages yelled out, "But how-"

"Silence. For the sake of killing the monster king, even this wicked magic is not off-limits." A Baram warrior interrupted, watching carefully as Eiro continued.

After creating his army of monsters, alive and undead alike, Eiro moved on. He pulled one of his daggers out of his treasury, and cut into his left wrist. Blood poured out of him, incredible amounts. Soon, it was more than his body should be able to hold. All this blood filled out the cracks and carved patterns of the huge stone circle that everyone was standing on, and in an instead, frost spread around, freezing the blood.

Slowly but surely, Eiro twisted his hand around, shifting the rock to turn everything into a huge magic circle, but it wasn't done yet. The Demon smiled as his grimoire appeared beside him, just floating there. It flipped from page to page as Eiro started constructing another, second magic circle above the first, albeit a bit smaller, maybe half the radius of the main stone circle.

And then, another magic circle was constructed above it, half the size of the second. And then another and another, until the top magic circle was the size of a dinner plate. With a deep breath, Eiro activated the spell, which took an incredible amount of mana to do so. So much so that one of the mana crystals within his chest simply shattered, having been used up. But this was a good thing, since this increased the potency and speed of the spell even further.

All the rock of the huge circle was pulled to the center, as the people and monsters jumped off it. Out of this, a huge creature of rock had been created, towering over the forest. The cracks had been filled in by the frozen blood, making its body surprisingly smooth. And then, from the ground, soil, grass, and roots climbed onto it. Its body was starting to overgrow with plantlife all over, before Eiro waved his hand around. Out of nowhere, water was being summoned. It was known that Eiro had contracted spirits, but it was nowhere to be seen. Eiro was creating the water himself, or at least that's what it seemed like to everyone.

Eiro used that water to create rivers on the body of the huge humanoid being of rock. He was turning it into the world, a humanoid representation of it. Eiro even created a moon using earth, ice, and shadow magic, as well as a sun using fire that he summoned from the gateway of flames.

Now, five minutes had passed, and Eiro was still not done. The huge humanoid carnation of the world itself stood behind the army of living and undead monsters, with Lugo standing at the front of said army, right behind Eiro himself.

And with a snap of his finger, three spirits appeared around Eiro. A Naiad, a Golem, and a Salamander.

"Are you guys ready?" Eiro asked, and Nelli looked at him with a wry smile, "It worked when we tried last time... just don't overdo it now, alright?" She said, and Eiro smirked slightly.

First, Nelli floated up to his chest, and fused with his body. At the same time, Bavet concentrated hard, keeping up part of the transformation as Eiro and Nelli became one. He was quite important, as he wasn't allowed to let Eiro's demonic form shine through despite all of what was happening.

In this form, Eiro looked similar to how he normally looked fused with a spirit, simply lacking his horns, wings and tail. Instead, his rainbow-colored hair took on a river-blue color. But that wasn't all. Next, Gondos floated up to Eiro's body, and dove into his chest as well. A dual-spirit fusion. Eiro's flesh stayed that light, gentle blue, but now, he had masses of rock covering him like armor, particularly around his legs, arms and back, and his hair was now a mix of blue and yellowish-brown streaks.

And then, it was Sarius' turn. As he dove into Eiro's chest, the tri-spirit fusion had been achieved.

Eiro's hair now had blue, yellow, and red streaks in it. In addition to his blue skin and rock-like armor, cracks formed in the rock where flames could now be seen, while parts of his skin turned into a light red instead of blue, although the colors were reversed compared to normal. Red limbs, but blue everywhere else, the opposite to what it was like normal.

The Demon stood in front of his familiar, slightly tilting his head to the side as he smiled gently. It was an eery smile, one that made everyone's heart skip a beat. They all realized that Eiro was a being that stood a few stages above them on the food chain. They realized, as Eiro let pure mana and magic flow out of his body, that this was not the limit of his powers. If not the hero, then this was the man that was going to kill the monster king, or become a foe even more dangerous. He was simply superior.

With a soft tone, using both of his voices, Eiro said, "It's nice to meet you all.. I hope we'll be able to work together quite well."