Demon's Virtue

Chapter 695: Escape

Eiro crossed his arms. Something wasn't right here. It should be impossible for there to be a completely locked-off area like this in a space created by the Dungeon Map, he was certain of that.

In the elemental realm of fire, Eiro's duplicate hand found a journal from someone who used to be the owner of that artifact, and he had methodically noted down everything that he had done and what he had been able to do, step by step. To begin with, that man had been a researcher, so his methods were verifiable.

He was a from the central material plane, but had a particularly curious Salamander familiar who had transcribed the whole journal practically word-by-word, which is how that journal ended up in that realm.

However, it was very clear that one of the constraints of that artifact, as described by the system itself, was that he was unable to completely disconnect a space. There always had to be a path from any point in the dungeon leading toward the core, and if not, then that space would immediately fall apart and be undone.

And he was certain that there was no path from inside this large room, and he wasn't able to sense any particular magic from inside of the hallway either. At first he thought there was some kind of distortion created by spatial magic that sent Eiro back to where he started, but that didn't seem to be the case. So that was just some kind of effect created by the dungeon map itself.

But even that wasn't something that should be possible. A space couldn't be distorted to this degree either.

Eiro only saw two possibilities here. The first was that the Devil had found a way to use artificing to alter the artifact somehow to the point where this was possible. However, that seemed very unlikely. While still theoretically possible, the term 'theoretical' did a lot of work here. At the end of the day, the artifacts were arcane objects that had been created by the Arcane dealer.

And, if you possessed a power similar to that of the Arcane dealer's or any of the other Arcane entities, then it should be possible to completely alter those artifacts too. However, Eiro didn't believe that the Devil had managed to achieve that sort of power. After all, the rules of this world wouldn't allow it.

After some conversations with Armodeus and Partax, Eiro learned a bit more about causality. Once they had mastered skills, the world itself had set restrictions on what they were able to do. And after deliberating about it with those two for a while, Eiro had managed to come to a conclusion; that causality was a sort of protective measure.

One that was meant to protect the world itself and those living within her, as well as the ones who would break that causality in the first place. They were close to becoming beings of the Arcane themselves; beings close to the Arcane dealer. However, the process to do so required a lot of other materials; they had to receive a large amount of arcane shards, but they didn't exist anymore.

They were now fused either within the souls of every living being, or within the arcane cards. But even with all the arcane cards, it still wouldn't be quite enough to allow them to ascend; and instead, their power would run wild and do considerable damage to the world and their very souls.

That kind of restriction wasn't something that the Devil could just cheat or lie himself past; it was impossible for him to be able to control the arcane to that degree. Sure, it was possible to strengthen artifacts into a particular direction using artificing, but it wasn't possible to completely change its rules like that.

In that case, instead of having those powers himself, the second possibility was for the Devil to have found a way to change one artifact using another. If one combined two artifacts in specific ways, they could transcend what you would usually think to be possible. It would strengthen both in ways that you couldn't even imagine, which is why Eiro stayed hesitant about this as well.

The limit that he stayed at was duplicating them using the mirror of duplication; he understood how that artifact worked, and knew that this wasn't what a true 'interaction' between two artifacts was meant to be.

However, the Devil wouldn't be as cautious as Eiro was. His pride wouldn't allow him to imagine things going wrong if he really put his all into something. So, Eiro figured that he used another artifact, one that he also knew that he had access to. The Author's Pen.

A failed novelist, whose stories had ever only been perceived as low-quality, over the top, and way too far-fetched to be even understood by others beside himself, was suddenly gifted a pen by a 'fan'. Excited to have someone that enjoys his work, the novelist began to write using the gift, trying to make his stories more relatable to others.

And so, he wrote about some happenings in his village, simply putting a small twist to them. And before he knew it, he found that the stories he wrote suddenly came true, and his village was soon swallowed by catastrophe.

The pen had the power to affect the world around it; a war commander used it to his advantage to win some battles, a thief used it to create new escape paths, but more importantly; the pen had the ability to affect the status. Of course, these matters weren't things that actively created impossibilities.

They were illusions brought on by the pen, so believable that even the world couldn't see through the lie. The commander had made his opponents believe they would be fighting against a weaker, smaller army. The thief made construction workers believe in a job that was never given to them, using them to create hidden doors.

And of course, if one used the pen to alter the stauts, then it would affect the system itself to a degree.

You could change your system-acknowledged name, the name of your skills or class or race, and even disguise your stats. But these things were only surface-level. They were just disguises; the actual abilities possessed by one's soul and body weren't changed directly.

However, since it was clearly possible to affect the arcane, as the system itself was of an arcane nature, it might also be possible to affect other artifacts. And with one like the dungeon map, it might be particularly easy. Just drawing a space that shouldn't exist could, at least temporarily, make it true as far as the map was concerned.

In that same way, it could be possible to create effects that shouldn't be possible just by the map's general nature.

However, if that was the case, then this would be rough. Eiro tapped his foot and looked down the hallway. Even while accessing the Ultimate Domain of Truth, he wasn't able to see through what was going on. If it was the Author's Pen, then what was written or drawn was basically the 'truth' of the world for a while.

However, he was more than just worried about what would happen if that effect ran out, or if that part of the map was simply... erased. Would Eiro be ejected, or would he be crushed by the spatial, arcane distortion that existed outside these walls? He had cheated death once, but if he died again, then he wouldn't be able to come back.

"Well, I guess I can give that a try," Eiro muttered. He took a card out of his treasury. His daggers could be useful, but they weren't as powerful as the real deal. With a flick of the card, a large hammer appeared in Eiro's hand. He moved it around a bit, and the air itself seemed to break apart in response. As he held onto the hammer, he pulled out another card.

In his hand, it turned into a golden, decorated chalice with a clear liquid inside.

He poured the liquid down his throat, and as the effect of the invisibility potion came over him, he tightened his grip on the Mountainbreaker, getting ready to swing the hammer at the wall in front of him, "All I've got to do is make sure death can't find me, I guess."