Demon's Virtue
chapter-461

Zaragon's body reformed, and so did his ability to fully think and react to what was happening around him. And to his surprise, this group had managed to take on the mechanical warriors quite well. It seemed rather bothersome to him, though.

So, Zaragon clapped two of his hands together while using the rest to fix his suit up a bit. Together with the clapping sound, something in the room changed. It was sudden, so much so that even Eiro nearly missed it. But he didn't, and was able to react in time. Right from above the Demon, a thick stream of holy energy came flowing onto him.

It was strong and concentrated, but... Zaragon clearly didn't expect that which Eiro did next. He waved his hand around, making a black sludge pour out of his fingers. The sludge stayed in place, and diverted the flow of the holy energy, and let Eiro control them instead.

"Thanks for that~!" The Demon said with a smirk on his face, and soon, the flow of holy energy from above simply stopped. Eiro took the essence that he had pressed into his hand to have some form of reserve for it, and quickly compressed it while the essence turned into the fuel for holy flames. Eiro held his hand forward toward the flames and used another sort of magic.

Slowly, a mass of incredibly pure mana flowed out of Eiro's right, wooden hand and wrapped itself right around the holy flames. He was creating a barrier around the flames using Arcane Magic. Eiro moved his hands around as if he was physically squeezing something into a small ball, as the holy flames became incredibly compressed right within that special arcane barrier.

The Demon then grabbed that small orb, which was now small enough for him to hold in one hand, and then grinned lightly.

"Huh... You are able to use rather unique magic, I see." Zaragon said, genuinely surprised, "But no matter that. Let's end this, shall-" Before he was able to finish that sentence, Eiro threw the orb filled with those compressed holy flames right at his enemy. The air let out a loud cracking sound due to the speed of the orb. But of course, instead of hitting Zaragon's body, it simply flew through him. But right when the orb was within the space of that monstrosity's body, Eiro released the barrier. And even Zaragon wasn't able to properly react to it.

The flames spread out within a moment and latched themselves onto Zaragon's body, since Eiro's essence was also still within the orb. And that was when Eiro finally some some damage notifications for Zaragon.

"It's working." Eiro said with a grin on his face, watching as Zaragon's body immediately fully turned into smoke. But even though that was the case, the flames were still moving along with that smoke, as if the air itself was on fire. And of course, since smoke had rather bad defensive capabilities, the damage that was being done to Zaragon increased, causing him to return to a physical shape a moment later.

"H-How is it still... sticking to me..?" He asked with a practically growling voice, and Eiro couldn't help himself but grin as he was pushing one of the puppets away, basically kicking it to the other side of the room with surprising ease.

"That stuff is my essence. It's not a physical thing in the first place, and it's completely and utterly under my control." Eiro explained with a broad grin on his face, as he stopped moving. But he wasn't the only one that stopped moving. So did the puppets, as well as Eiro's party members.

With a snap of his fingers, the metallic puppets stood up straight, albeit clearly against their will. Their metal sheets, tubes and gears were creaking loudly, as if their whole bodies were about to explode, but they weren't able to do anything against what was happening. Every bit of hollow space within them was now filled out with Gondos' rock, after all.

And that meant that Eiro and his contracted spirit had complete and utter control over them from the inside. With a grin on his face, Eiro made the puppets simply kneel to him, as he turned his head over toward James, Jess, and Krog.

Krog was still holding the large shield made of this nearly indestructible metal. Him and Eiro locked eyes, and Krog immediately knew what to do, stepping in front of Eiro and holding the shield in front of the whole group, all the whilst Jess grabbed a handful of the special spell-filled orbs. She let her mana flow into all of them, but didn't activate them just yet. Instead, she made sure install some sort of delay into them for now, so that they would activate once they got far enough away from them.

And then, while Zaragon was nearly forced to stay in a solid form, since he otherwise would end up simply burning away due to the holy flames that he himself created, multiple high-powered spells created together by Eiro and Jess exploded outward.

The first one to activate was a wind spell, causing a flurry of air-bolts to be shot right at Zaragon. Meanwhile, Eiro was making sure to create a small barrier around himself, James, Jess and Krog so that they air wouldn't be sucked away from them, rather just taking the air only directly around Zaragon himself. Another reason why Eiro sealed the entrance they took back up.

Once all the air in that space was compressed and shot at Zaragon, this creature was just filled with holes. He did manage to reduce the damage that was being done to him by turning smaller parts of his body into mist instead of his whole body, but that was fine. Since that was somewhat the plan anyway, it was just working out a lot better than expected.

Soon, the next spell activated. It was a water magic spell, that was mixing the thin mist that Nelli had been spreading throughout the room with Zaragon's mist. And right then, the next spell orb activated. It was an ice magic spell this time. Once more, parts of Zaragon's body were forced into having actual, tangible mass. But this time not through that creature's own active choice, but because Eiro wanted it so.

The air immediately froze. Or rather, the mist in the air froze. This was the last bit that forced Zaragon's body to keep on staying like this. And since Holy Flames didn't actually give off too much heat, and simply radiated Holy Energy instead, the frozen air could be kept frozen.

And just like that, the situation had been turned around. Eiro slowly moved the water that was still infused into his left arm and slowly spread it throughout his whole body, before freezing that water. Eiro's skin turned pale and somewhat glittered, as Eiro combined the ice magic with the air around him. He was infusing himself with a mixture of ice and air. He was turning himself into the same substance as what the air was right now. And for a specific reason, of course. So that he could move through this space as freely as Zaragon did just a few moments earlier, while Zaragon wasn't able to move at all.

And through the unique nature of the air right now, this mixture of ice and air, Eiro was able to practically jump from one place to another instantly. And with a clap of his hands, he disappeared, just to be standing behind Zaragon.

"This is rather familiar, is it not?" Eiro said with a grin on his face, placing his hand onto Zaragon's chin from behind, turning his head around with a broad grin on his face. As the two locked eyes, Eiro quite literally pulled Zaragon's head off his body.

His skin had begun ripping a bit, and his spine nearly shattered in his neck, but before that was possible, Zaragon used his smoke to split his head off his body in a special way. And since the rest of the head was still burning with those holy flames, he wasn't able to turn it back into smoke or else it would be damaged even more. And even if that wasn't the case... his smoke would mix with this frozen air, and then it would be game over.

With a grin on his face, Eiro kicked Zaragon's head over to the other side of the room toward James, who slowly picked the head up. He buried his fingers within this creature's skin, and made him watch what Eiro was doing to his body.

While Zaragon was trying to fight back, without his ability to turn into mist, he had lost his greatest strength advantage. In a straight-forward feat of strength, Eiro would overwhelmingly win every single time. That was very clear now.

And there was of course another aspect than just strength. Motivation. What Eiro was doing this for was revenge. He wanted to hurt Zaragon for what he did back then. He wanted to kill him, get rid of his trauma, and live a life that wasn't influenced by this being in the slightest.

Eiro never wanted to have a nightmare about that day again.

He never wanted to break out into cold sweat the moment he thought about this place.

He didn't want this stuff to influence the friendship that him and James were finally building.

As Eiro was breaking the bones within Zaragon's body, the creature's health decreasing bit by bit, black blood pouring out of his wounds... He threw him to the ground. He watched as Zaragon laid there on the ground, slowly trying to push himself back up.

And that was when Zaragon went for a last-ditch measure.

His suit was slowly being burnt away by the holy flames, and his body became exposed. And on his torso, a huge, gaping maw appeared, as it let Eiro stare deep into this seemingly infinitely deep abyss that was Zaragon's throat.