Demon's Virtue
chapter-296

Eiro looked forward at the four figures standing there, while the Ghost was still hovering right above Avalin. The Demon was absolutely infuriated, and that seemed to show to them.

While Avalin didn't seem to be capable of really paying attention to anything right now, the other three certainly were, "Who are-"

"Be quiet, Jess." Eiro growled quietly, his voice melting the snow that was rapidly falling from the sky. Steam rose up from all around him as Eiro stepped closer. Jess was unable to really speak due to the pressure that Eiro was giving off, especially after he had basically commanded her to be quiet. The Demon glanced at Gondos for a moment. The two of them locked eyes, and Eiro could tell that the Elemental Spirit had also realized the connection between them, and was staring back confusedly.

But that didn't matter, as Eiro just slowly held his hand up toward the Ghost. It seemed like he was freaking out over practically everything that was happening right now.

"B-But how, this doesn't... This doesn't make any sense!" The Ghost yelled out, "How can there be a being that can completely resist this spell, and why is it a damned deer? How am I being pushed back, how did you injure me, just how?!"

"Oh... Right. You don't have your investigative abilities anymore, now do you?" Eiro muttered quietly, "So you wouldn't know. You just can't tell. Well, if you were capable of it, you would have already given up in despair, since there is no way you will get away from here. Not after what you did to my children." Eiro said to the Ghost, slowly turning his head toward Jess and Gondos.

"It's a good time for you two to leave. I don't know if I can protect more than one person right now, and the one that I will protect over anyone else here is my daughter." The Demon said with a deep glare, and Jess simply fell onto her back in fear of the Demon. But soon, she understood what was going on and slowly turned away, rushing off of this rooftop terrace as quickly as she could together with Gondos.

"Sarius, you should go too."

"Heh, and leave you alone? What if ya forget again, you dumbass? I'm your temporary memory for now." Sarius smirked slightly, and the Demon nodded his head as he slowly took off his cloak and mask, spreading out his wings.

The Demon gathered a large amount of flames in front of him. Flames that he first summoned from the Elemental Plane of Fire, and then had Sarius properly refine. Of course, all this took a fair amount of mana, or in this special case, Life Force. That's what Eiro was betting on, really. To be able to create a single attack that might be able to take the Ghost out. Or at least damage it enough to get Avalin away from here.

The Ghost, obviously quite scared, swung his arm upward in a panic. Eiro could hear something dig through the wood underneath his feet, but he managed to dodge quite easily. They were metal nails that the Ghost apparently manipulated to try and get a sneak-attack on Eiro, although this was nothing more than a worthless trick right now.

The nails were floating around the Ghost, being infused with necromantic energies, while he prepared to fight Eiro.

"Interesting... Metal magic... Who'd have thoguht you'd have such a rare magic." The Demon muttered, not really as interested as he was pretending. In the end, he didn't really care that much about it. Sure, it was a sort of magic Eiro had never gotten the chance to see before, but what use was it at the moment when he already forgot all about it after thinking about it like this for just a moment? Exactly. None at all. Eiro knew that, which was why he concentrated on the Ghost and Avalin instead of these useless things that he would be able to avoid with ease.

Right now, this was like some sort of standoff. Eiro with a focused ball of refined flames that would heavily damage the Ghost when hitting it, and the Ghost with necromancy-infused, sharp metal nails floating above Avalin's head and near her face. Eiro wasn't sure if he would be able to go fast enough to completely stop all of them if it came to it.

"S-Scared, huh? Yeah, of course you're scared! There's no way you wouldn't be!" The Ghost exclaimed, "Do you know why you're scared of me? Because you're weak! You're predictable! You are no-"

Just before the Ghost could finish his small, useless speech, Eiro shot the compressed orb of flames directly at the center of the Ghost's chest, where its body was most dense. Eiro figured it was something like a core, an energy-source of sort maybe.

The flame-orb shot through it and cleanly got rid of a circular area right in the center of that 'core'. As if the edges of that hole started to catch fire, the hole simply grew larger like it was burning away. But of course, like Eiro expected, this wasn't enough to instantly finish off the Ghost.

Instead, once it realized what exactly was going on, it swung down its arms and tried to push all of the nails either into Eiro himself or into Avalin, since the Ghost knew what she meant to the Demon.

Eiro was able to rather easily dodge all of the nails aimed at himself, but it was a different deal with Avalin. This situation was a bit more worrisome.

For one, after the fight that Eiro and this Ghost had before while the Ghost was still 'alive', as alive as a Demilich could be at least, the 'shackles' that Avalin had to wear to suppress her own Holy Energy were cracked, meaning that they couldn't suppress the Holy Energy as well anymore. Eiro had to repair them when he had the time to, but he simply didn't until now, for rather obvious reasons.

Hence, Eiro wasn't able to directly touch Avalin right now and move her out of the way. On top of that, the Ghost seemed to have restrained Avalin through magic somehow, as far as the Demon could tell. And so, in his mind, Eiro had only one possible choice of things he could do so that he could properly fight against the Ghost afterward.

He knew that there would be some form of consequence, but he couldn't concentrate well enough to figure out which it was at the moment. But still, he couldn't just let Avalin be hit by rusty, dangerous, magically-strengthened nails. In her head.

The Demon stretched his arm out as quickly as he could, and managed to 'catch' the nails. In his own arm. Some of them just got stuck in Eiro's prosthetic, but one managed to scratch the Demon's actual flesh.

And once the nail fell to the ground after that, the Ghost began to laugh maniacally, "You're an idiot!" He exclaimed as Eiro could feel the tiny scratch suddenly burn with incredible vigor. He knew what was about to happen, but it might actually be a rather positive consequence. After all, since the Ghost was now trying to possess Eiro, it was impossible for it to flee.

Through the small cut that the nail caused on Eiro's arm, the Ghost tried to get into the Demon's body, as if trying to fuse with him. But since Eiro had experience with fusing with other beings, he was able to prevent this from happening, at least somewhat.

And of course, by then covering his body in flames created with his Life Force managed to hurt the Ghost quite a bit. But then, the Ghost did something that Eiro didn't think about. It was a clear mistake on his part. After all, Eiro hadn't slept for a few days now, and he was constantly trying to get his chaotic mind under control, so he was incredibly fatigued. It was just bad, horrid luck that this was exactly the point where his mind happened to slip up.

The Ghost, for just a moment, controlled Eiro's arm and grabbed the flower-bud out of the satchel, and threw it right onto the ground in front of Avalin.

"You know how flowers work, r-right?" The Ghost asked, "The bud isn't the final stage... They of course have to bloom at some point as well!"

And just as the Ghost said so, the flower-bud started to slowly open up, revealing the sight inside of it. Those lumps of flesh, blood, and organs, even eyes and a brain, assorted as if they were some form of sick artpiece. The eyes of this flower, taken from a human, stared at Avalin, who slowly stared back in fear, overwhelmed by everything that was going on.

Avalin broke down crying, her emotions running wild together with her Holy Energy. The 'shackles' cracked even more, releasing an incredibly large amount more Holy Energy than before. And all of it was absorbed by the corpse-flower.

At this point, Eiro realized what was going on, and a few moments later, he also felt it. He felt the slight burn on his skin as one of the snowflakes hit him. Holy Energy was slowly starting to fill the air, and especially with Avalin right in front of him, Eiro was being heavily affected.

"Don't... screw with me...!" Eiro growled as he pulled his arm to the side and broke out of the possession of the Ghost. Or so he thought at least. Instead, it was as if the Holy Energy was forcing the Ghost deeper into Eiro's body, as if it was forced to search for a place to hide out.

Slowly, the Ghost took over Eiro's body, albeit just barely. It moved him closer toward Avalin, forcing him to take more and more damage. Eiro could feel the outer layer of his skin slowly singing off. And of course, that this demonic figure was approaching Avalin didn't really help her fear either, obviously just strengthening it.

"You can't... I won't let you... Make her... kill me..." Eiro growled deep within himself, but the Ghost, practically sacrificing its own life just to take Eiro with it to its true death and cause him all this despair, didn't try to listen.

Eiro was fighting against this with all he could, literally even breaking his arm and some ribs while trying to force himself out of this possessive control. The Demon could feel it. He was about to die. The town was being filled with Holy Energy, and Eiro couldn't do anything about it. He basically had nowhere to run.

Maybe that's why the worst thing that could happen right now, did happen.

[The Skill [Supreme Demon] interacted and momentarily strengthened your [Holy Energy Resistance] Skill]

[Your body will now absorb Holy Energy and even be healed by it instead of being destroyed by it]

[You have 9 Minutes and 59 Seconds until penalties will be applied. Until then, your body is strengthened by Holy Energy]