Demon's Virtue
chapter-295

Since Eiro seemed to have convinced Krog for now, the Demon rushed through the building as quickly as he could. He looked around, trying to find any clue as to where the Ghost might be right now. And that's when he suddenly heard it. On the other side of the building, there was an unnatural scratching over the ground. It was rather strong, which was the only reason that he was even able to notice it in the first place. That, and the fact that he was coincidentally focused on what was going on in that direction.

So of course, Eiro immediately stopped in his track and turned around. Within a few moments, the Demon made his way to the other end of the hallway, and then rushed up the stairway in front of him. He hit the underside of one of the paintings' frames and caused it to open up, revealing one of the many hidden passages here in the building.

Eiro jumped inside and rushed through, before rapidly stopping in front of this passage's exit and pushing the tip of his foot against one of the bricks. The passage slowly opened up, and Eiro slipped through the very moment he could.

And then, all that was left for him to do was to run through this hallway toward the door at the end of it, where he heard the scratches coming from. Immediately, Eiro used his momentum to press his foot against the lock and break the door open, pushing away a wardrobe that had been pushed in front of it. This seemed to have been the cause of the scratching. And inside of the room, Eiro saw his children.

Arc, heavily injured, was laying on the bed while being treated by Clementine in collaboration with Nelli. Sammy was trying to help Rudy get rid of what seemed like a lump of metal enclosed right around his hands, holding them together as if he was wearing shackles.

Seemingly quite scared, Leon was sitting on Felix's lap on one of the chairs. The moment that Eiro stepped inside, Sammy reacted and stood up to look at the Demon, "Le-" She started to say, but before she could finish the first word, Eiro pulled the air around her toward him for just a moment. It wouldn't injure her in the slightest, it would just cause her to be unable to speak for a moment.

"I'm here to get rid of the Ghost, don't worry. I'll help you." The Demon pointed out. With a quick step, he walked over toward Rudy, who of course immediately tried to stand up and get away from this random man who forced his way in here. But Eiro immediately grabbed him by the shoulder and pushed Rudy back down onto his knees with ease.

The Demon placed his hands onto the lump of metal enclosed around his hands and quickly caused it to heat up to the point where it actually started to slightly glow, to the surprise of everyone here. After all, nobody in their right mind would do something like this after saying they were here to help. Except if they knew about Rudy's Unique Skills, of course.

But just a moment after Eiro heated up the metal, he rapidly cooled it down. This wasn't enough to break it just yet, but it did create a small crack, which was more than enough for Eiro's purposes. He pulled out a small pouch out of his satchel and poured some of its contents into the crack of the metal before pressing his hand onto it.

Immediately, the seeds sprouted and grew deeper into the metal, using raw force to crack it apart around Rudy's hands, quickly freeing him from this within just a few seconds.

"How did you-" Rudy asked, but Eiro immediately interrupted him, "I'll explain it to you later." He said and quickly stepped over toward the Spirit that was floating next to Clementine. She was obviously incredibly weak right now, since she didn't receive any mana from Eiro over the past few days. Hence, the process of healing Arc didn't work out that well.

And now that Nelli saw Eiro again, she must have obviously felt the connection of the contract between them. Something she didn't remember forming. Clearly, this stunned her and gave Eiro the chance to press his finger onto her forehead and push some of his mana into her. It was enough to help heal Arc at least.

"What happened to him? His broken bones are misaligned." The Demon asked as he turned toward Clementine. She stared back at the blank mask and nervously looked back at Arc with tears in her eyes.

"H-He... That Ghost possessed him... And forced Arc to fight against Rudy... It didn't work of course, but Arc was made to heat up the metal that the Ghost then somehow controlled to squeeze itself around his hands..." She explained, and Eiro slowly nodded his head.

"I see." He muttered. The Demon looked at the unconscious young man laying on the bed in front of him, and then simply pulled on his arm and pressed down on his leg in different places. With a loud crunch, Eiro aligned his bones properly so that Nelli and Clementine could heal him now.

"Where are Gondos, Jess and Avalin?" Eiro asked into the room in a calm tone as he slowly walked over toward Leon and squatted down in front of him. With a wave of his hand, he pulled out a small piece of candy that he somehow had in his treasury, handing it to the boy, who slowly took it from the Demon.

"How do you-"

"I asked you where they are, please answer me. We don't have time for this." Eiro said bluntly, replying to Sammy, and the girl slowly looked back at him, "...The Ghost... k-kidnapped Avalin... Jess and Gondos followed him... and told us to stay here... They're still in the building, I think..." She pointed out, and Eiro ground his teeth together angrily.

"Ahh... That damned piece of garbage..." The Demon muttered quietly to himself, just lightly glaring at the notifications right next to him.

[You are under the effect of Wrath]

[Others around you will feel your emotions in their purest form]

[Your basic abilities will be temporarily enhanced by 10%]

[Instead of Mana, you will instead consume Health to use your abilities]

Eiro could feel something inside of him shift just so slightly. It was as if his Life Force was slowly transforming into mana, or as if it at least got ready for this to happen at any given moment. As if his Life Force took on a new state that was neither mana nor life force. But Eiro didn't care. He had plenty of Health right now, more than he had mana at the moment, at least.

And Eiro was truly furious at the moment, there was no way that he would care for something like this after seeing his children in such a state. Especially Arc was something that Eiro didn't want to see at all.

The Demon took a deep breath and spread out his mana. Or rather, his Life Force. It coursed through the manor, bouncing back to alert Eiro of where everything was. And now, the Flower Bud didn't really seem to be influencing the Demon's perception all too much either, maybe because that perception didn't function with mana anymore.

Before he knew it, Eiro could feel something particular bounce back. As if he just injured someone with a raw pulse of this special Life Force. And there was only one being that Eiro could think of inside of this building that would be injured by Life Force. And that was the Ghost. Bahlsen, or Edward or whatever he was called now.

Without hesitation, Eiro kicked off from the floor and rushed through the hallway, before jumping up just in front of the window. He kicked against the upper edge of the slighty ajar window and caused it to open up, before he pushed himself off of the window.

With one swift kick off of the window, the Demon reached the next floor above, and then kicked off of the windowsill there to reach the rooftop, where he felt the response from.

There was a small terrace up here that seemed to be a nice place to be in summer, although it really couldn't be used that much in winter. And right there, Eiro could see four figures.

Jess and Gondos right next to each other, and Avalin with the Ghost towering right above her, bawling her eyes out. It seemed like Jess was trying to cast a spell, but the Ghost was preventing her from doing so.

Eiro took a deep breath and filled his lungs with air, the little bit that he could get in this weather where you could barely breathe properly. He condensed the air in part of his lungs and then moved it back up his airpipe before letting it sit in his mouth, where it was protected from the snowstorm for now.

In front of his mouth, as he slowly approached, Eiro drew a small pentacle. It was the simplest form of Magic Circle, meant to simply create a focus of a certain sort of element that was pushed into it by the caster.

And in this case, it was Flames. Flames that Eiro summoned from within the Gateway of Flames within him. The Demon created a compression of flames that he slowly placed into his mouth. Combined with the air, the flames nearly blew up for a moment, filling out the Demon's mouth. But due to the Salamander King's blessing, Eiro's natural flame resistance had gone up quite considerably, so it didn't hurt him.

Eiro moved the small pentacle closer to his mouth as he slowly opened it up, pressing the pentacle into the strong flames ravaging in the Demon's own mouth. Through the pentacle, Eiro was able to help focus and strengthen the flames into a smaller point as he forcefully shrank down the pentacle. As if swallowing it, this compressed ball of flames moved down Eiro's throat, right down to his vocal cords.

And right there, the Demon made use of the fact that in this state of 'Wrath', his voice had a lot more power than usual, and infused with these focused, strengthened flames.

Of course, this all happened within a split-second, before anyone could even react to Eiro's presence. And with clear determination, he glared at the ghost, "Cease."

The flames, infused into the Demon's voice, caused the snowstorm to simply stop around him and the others for a moment, and since this was a spell cast with Life Force instead of Mana due to his state of Wrath, the Ghost let go of Avalin and started to give off smoke as it got heavily damaged in a way that it never could have anticipated.