Demon's Virtue
chapter-44

[You leveled up!]

[You have 1 unused Stat Point]

Slowly, the Imp turned toward the notifications and slashed through them with his dagger, at the same time getting rid of the man's blood that ws still on it. And then, the Imp just started to look through the book again, now that he could do so undisturbed.

Surprisingly, the book told him about the characteristics of each of the Lords. Apparently they were written down by hand, though, so some parts of it were hard to decypher, but at the very least, the Imp was able to read the most important things.

And in the end, he quickly found the one that seemed the most dangerous at the moment, in the sense of probably being the first to cause any sort of injury or even death in one of the children. The Lord of Gluttony.

According to what was written in this book, the Lord of Gluttony never stopped eating, and never hesitated to devour even living creatures to take their life with his stomach. The others seemed more harmless than this one, at least initially so, meaning that the Imp should try and go there first.

As far as he remembered, the one that was sent to the Lord of Gluttony was Clementine. Even if she was used to experiencing pain, she was a frail young girl, and probably the weakest out of the group with the exception of Leon and the Priestess, of course.

So it seemed like a good idea to take care of them first. He thought about getting the Priestess or Leon first, but as long as he didn't have someone else with him to carry them, he wouldn't be able to do much anyway. And the Priestess especially might be fine for a while just because the Demons would avoid her, or would be unsure of what exactly they should do with her, considering that she constantly gave off Holy Energy.

As far as the notes went, the Lord of Gluttony was the one that was most easily avoidable out of the Lords, because his body was so overwhelmingly large that he couldn't even carry it himself, meaning that he was simply sitting around in the central hall of his castle at all times.

So, the Imp now had to go there, quickly pushing the book into his bag while rushing out the door again, stepping over the Elderly man's dead body as he was doing so, and then made his way outside, where the corpse of the Tenaga-Jin was still on the ground, slowly turning into a mud-like form probably due to the holy energy still contained in the inside of its body.

But even then, none of the other Demons seemed to even care all that much, so the Imp hurriedly made his way around town toward the closest gate. There, the Imp was soon able to see a few demons that seemed like they would know which is the castle of the Lord of Gluttony, considering that they were stuffing their faces with food constantly.

And so, the Imp quickly stepped over to them. "Where can I find the Lord of Gluttony?" The Imp asked quite clearly, before one of the Demons looked down at him annoyedly. "Huh? What's this shrimp asking?" One of them said, and the Imp just stared at him, waiting for an answer.

"It's that one." The Demon told him, or that's what the Imp thought he said. He couldn't really hear, because his speech was muffled by the cake that was filling out the near entirety of the Demon's mouth.

But at the very least, the fat Demon pointed at one of the castles, and it was the one opposite to where the Lord of Wrath was, so the Imp nodded his head and quickly turned around.

Moving his legs as fast as he could, the Imp moved through the gate, not even waiting for the Gatekeeper's question before answering with "Wrath", rushing to the other side into the Demonic Town immediately, where the Imp had to push himself through the crowd of different Demons first and foremost.

He fixated his eyes on the large structure looming above him in the distance, at the side of this giant mountain, and simply moved along the path that seemed to be the shortest toward it.

A few times, he ran into Dead-Ends in this maze-like town, but after simply trying again, the Imp managed to properly get close enough, and then stood in front of the stairs to the castle.

Right around here were basically only Demons that were eating as much as they could, and each and every single 'shop' seemed to sell only food, although it all seemed quite dirty and disgusting, even though the Imp really didn't mind.

But when the Imp tried to make his way up the stairs, he was stopped by what seemed to be a Guard, currently eating the leg of a fellow Demon.

"Where is your offering?" The Guard asked, and the Imp looked at him confused. "No offering, no audience." He said and momentarily pulled the leg out of his face to block the stair, before the Imp looked at the Guard.

"I am the offering." The Imp explained, so the Guard looked the Imp up and down and shrugged. "Then go." The Guard said quite clearly, making way for the Imp again before the young monster stepped up the stairs in front of him slightly confused. This was far too easy, wasn't it?

With a slight frown, the Imp continued, starting to rush up the stairs as he was doing so, before he started to hear crying. Crying that he quite quickly recognized, because he heard it the first time he actually consciously paid attention to Clementine.

The Imp picked up his pace and tried to rush up the stairs on all fours, immediately turning toward the large space beside him, before seeing what was practically a wall of red taking up at least half the giant room.

Most of it was the skin of a certain Demon, which made the Imp understand what exactly was meant in the book.

And then, the Imp looked around, trying to find the source of the crying, before he quickly found Clementine sitting next to that large Demon, her hand forcefully pressed against its skin while she was obviously having more than just pain in her stomach.

Immediately, the Imp rushed forward without a moment's hesiation, getting his dagger ready while trying to run past the Demons here in this room, most of which were distracted with eating something. Even the Lord of Gluttony was. And so, the Imp had the chance to instantly just grab Clementine and pull her away from the Lord.

The moment he did so, a few things happened, however. First, Clementine immediately collapsed into unconsciousness, while the Lord of Gluttony's body started to react by forming cracks on its stomach's skin, followed by a loud scream caused by the pain accompanying that.

"Who dares..?" The Lord asked, chunks of meat and coagulated blood flying around as he was doing so, and the Imp just tried to run away back to the exit, although his path was quickly cut off by the other Demons in the room, whose attention was drawn to him now.

"Don't... let them... go!" The Lord exclaimed, and immediately, the other Demons in the room rushed toward them, but they were all so round and heavy that they were too slow for the Imp, letting him run past them quite quickly. But sadly, it seemed like the door was just closed by some of the Demons, so even then, the Imp couldn't escape.

Quickly, he let Clementine's body down, and even if it maybe was a bit rough, the Imp didn't have time to be careful. But even then, he still pulled out the white cloak that was in the chest at the bookstore, immediately wrapping Clementine's body with it. Even the Imp's fingers were hurting as he was touching it, so he was sure that none of these Demons would dare touching Clementine like this.

But now, the Imp had to think. He had to really, really think about what he needed to, or even just could, do in order to get out of here safely.

And so, while rushing through the room, trying to dodge the heavy Demons around him while attempting not to slip on any blood or meat on the floor, the Imp took out whatever he could that had holy energy out of his bag and wrapped it around his hand.

He stuffed the White-Golden Magic Stones inbetween the layers of cloth on his hand, and wrapped that necklace that was in there around his hand. And then, the Imp grabbed his dagger in that hand as tightly as he could and rushed toward the Lord of Gluttony, immediately heading for the cracks in its stomach.

Immediately when the Imp got close enough into stabbing-distance, he simply pushed the Dagger forward, all the whilst trying to push out as much of his mana out of his hand as he possibly could, to activate the card and the Magic Stones he had there all at once.

[-221 Health]

Ignoring the notification, the Imp tried to press furhter forward, just staring at the point where his Dagger touched the Lord of Gluttony's body. The string of the Three of Sword had slung itself around the dagger and their blades had become one, while the Dagger itself was burning its way through the Imp's hand.

Cracks seemed to have formed around where the tip of the Imp's dagger touched the Demon in front of him, and starting from those cracks, the whole area around its stomach began to bubble and sizzle, giving off steam or smoke, and the cracks just grew farther than they were before, and in the end, enveloped a small area with a two-meter diameter in the front of the Demon'sstomach.

And then, as if it was made of opaque red glass, it simply shattered into pieces. Blood and stomach acids poured toward the Imp, which he quickly tried to avoid by just stepping to the side.

[Lord of Gluttony's Shell -1342 Damage]

The Imp immediately ignored the notification and sprinted through the flood of liquid liquids intertwining with each other, slowly digging through the floor underneath them. The Imp didn't care all that much about that, though, he managed to get through without actually touching any of the parts that dissolved things, and while trying to use this time that the Imp gained by surprising and confusing the Demons in this room, who were all running out of this room all of a sudden, opening the door for the Imp while they were doing it, the young Scholar Imp made his way toward the young girl at the side of the room.

As quickly as he could, the Imp picked Clementine up and ran toward the door, and only then really had time to look at the notification that appeared.

Only then did the Imp realize that something was up.

He damaged the Lord of Gluttony's 'Shell'. He didn't damage the Lord of Gluttony.

Slowly, the young Imp turned around to look at the figure of the large Demon, whose stomach was cracking open more and more. And then, through the opening in the stomach, from the darkness that was inside of that false Lord's Body, another form stepped forward.

It wasn't nearly as large as the Demon from before, similar to the Lord of Wrath in both shape and aura, while the true Lord of Gluttony slowly opened his mouth.

"Ahh... How hungry I am..."