Demon's Virtue
chapter-529-30041322

Eiro simply sat there, for an hour. Maybe two. The tears on his cheeks had already dried, and there was nothing else coming out of his eyes anymore. He slowly looked up into the sky, "I will kill whoever did this."

The Demon stood up, pushing aside as much of the scorched wood as he could, trying to find every part of Jura's body. And when he did, he used earth magic to create a new grave for now, "Once I am done, I will come back and bury you properly again, alright? Just hold out for now."

Eiro turned around and spread out his perception. He looked at the footprints on the ground, their depth, size and shape. With a quick sniff, he picked up on the scents of about a dozen people. A large group, most similar in stature and build, with a few outliers.

The fire itself was started at different points, some apparently even with magic, and others using oils from lanterns. Eiro stepped forward, and as his foot pressed into the ground, he flapped his wings, shooting into the forest to follow the scents that he picked up. He dodged by the trees, flying past some familiar wildlife, until he once more reached the 'World Tree'. Just that now, underneath it, a group of about a dozen people had set up camp underneath it.

Their statures fit. There were mages, and lanterns with oil dripping slightly off the side.

"Fucking shit, I think I burnt myself back there... it's really hurting, man." One of them groaned and complained, while another, one of the apparently two mages, tried helping him.

"Who cares if you burnt yourself! We're fucking heroes, man! Heroes, I say! Hahahah!" Another laughed loudly, pouring some liquor down his throat like it was water. Eiro recognized that bottle. It was one that Jura kept by his chair by the window in case he wanted to drink something in the evening. The last bottle hadn't been opened. He didn't get the chance to. And now, it's being used for others to celebrate the destruction of Jura's grave and home.

Slowly, Eiro pointed his hand forward, and let out a small drop of his essence that he quickly transformed into something to be used to relay his magic. It floated over toward the man holding the alcohol, without anyone noticing. And then, Eiro connected that part of his essence with one of the gateways in his mana core. And all that he needed was a small spark.

Just like that, while that one guy was pouring the alcohol down his throat, it simply ignited. Burning alcohol was being poured down his throat, and Eiro quickly continued incinerating as much of the rest of the alcohol as possible. The alcohol currently flowing around in his stomach soon exploded, obliterating said stomach. The explosion was strong enough to blast open his skin, causing the explosion, stomach acids, urning alcohol, and a fine mixture of blood, flesh and intestines, was splashed on the two people that the man was facing.

"What the fuck?!" They yelled out, jumping up in confusion and fear, and some in pain, as Eiro walked forward.

"Not so funny when you're the ones burning, is it?" Eiro asked, drawing the attention of some of the group over toward him, "Holy shit! W-What is that?!"

"A demon! Chris, just-"

"Shut the fuck up, I'm on it!" Someone said, who seemed to be a priest of sorts, as they conjured up some sort of spell or miracle to throw at Eiro. It was basically just a concentrated ball of holy energy that he then shot at the Demon.

With a deep sigh, Eiro stood there for what seemed an eternity for him. It was simply so slow, and Eiro could have killed everyone here by now. But he figured that he should wholly terrify them before he did. And so, he let the ball of holy energy simply hit him. It hit his chest, and Eiro simply stood there, accepting it.

"Is that all you can do? Silly things like banes matter little to me." Eiro explained as he closed his eyes, "Hm, I guess it's a good chance to try out my new skill."

Eiro held forward his hand, and used his special skill 'The World'. With this skill, he could access a lot of things that every single royal could do, simply 'flavored' for his own royal status. And as he did so, he could see a notification appear in the eyes of every single person he targeted with his skill.

[{The World} is targeting you]

"The world..? A... a royal?" One of them let out, while others fell to the ground in fear. Eiro looked back at them with a slight grin on his face, "What beautiful expressions you all have."

Eiro pressed his foot into the ground and started to restrain everyone, "You know what, I think this is a pretty good moment for me to test this skill out on you all. It's useless without targets, and I can't just go around doing it with random people, so... Let's make you all suffer."

Eiro approached the first of the group, that was still alive, and pressed one of his hands on their forehead, "I wonder, is that 'Mark' a thing only the devil can do?" He muttered, and tried to activate his new skill in a different way compared to before. From the spot where Eiro was touching him, a certain pattern spread outward.

[You have marked a target]

"Huh, neat." With a light smile, Eiro took a step back. He could now sense where exactly this person was, his emotional state, as well as his physical state. It made Eiro's skin crawl that he felt so much of this being's existence, so he grabbed his forehead again and killed him with a quick blast of magic.

"Alright, next test." The Demon cracked his fingers as he walked up to the next person, "Since I honestly don't know what else to do with this skill for now, let's try and turn you into a servant instead."

Eiro pushed his mana into the person in front of him as he initiated the 'Servant Creation' ability. This man's veins started bulging up, close to bursting open. The man's body started changing, as two crystal-like horns started sprouting on his forehead. His skin changed from a light pink over to a soft crimson red.

This was what a servant was. If he did it on a living being, if he fed them enough mana, their physical form would change to be as similar to Eiro's as possible with their own form. This guy wouldn't grow wings, a tail, or new arms, but other physical aspects would become like that of an arcanus demon. Just something of a 'corrupted' version of it. Just that there was one catch.

[You have failed to create a servant]

The body of the man in front of him convulsed, and Eiro could hear his bones breaking as this man slowly died. The chance of a servant being successfully created out of living beings was incredibly low, because they needed to be strong enough to withstand the stress happening during the transformation.

Eiro let out an annoyed sigh. He turned his head, smelling that multiple of these leftover people had soiled themselves.

"How bothersome. He seemed like the physically strongest of all of you. If he can't take this, none of you can." Eiro pointed out, as he walked past all of the still living people, and placed his hand onto the huge tree in front of him. It was his own tree, so he could use it as a wand if he wanted to.

"Did you guys know, that you just destroyed my old home? The home of my father, and my children?" Eiro asked, and everyone looked at him confused, and scared, as Eiro smiled at them, "So for now, at least try to make up for it a little bit by becoming food for my beautiful tree."

This tree was his wand. So of course, he could use magic through it, and especially nature magic was quite efficient due to the nature of this 'wand'. The enormous roots of the tree were pulled out of the ground, and started slithering over the ground as if they were alive. They replaced the mounds of rock in what was restraining these people.

"Honestly, I don't even feel like doing the whole 'scary scary Eiro' bit. I just want to see you all die." Eiro said, as he one after another crushed the bodies of each of these people, and proceeded to have the ground swallow their corpses.

"Really doesn't feel like a win right now." Eiro said to himself as he leaned back against the tree. He grabbed a small handful of dirt, and used the 'servant creation' ability on it. The dirt came together and turned into a small ball, which soon unrolled and showed itself to be a tiny demon with small wings that wouldn't be able to carry it, four arms, two legs, a thin tail, and completely wrong proportions. It didn't look exactly like Eiro, just shrunken down, but it was like a small monkey had been turned into a demon like this. But this wasn't the only servant like this that Eiro made. He made a few dozen of them, and then looked at all of the small demons made of earth, "Spread out through the forest. If you see someone approach that hill over there, signal me. If you see someone try to destroy this tree, signal me as well.." And so, with that command, Eiro made the first batch of servants run off into this forest, while Eiro just sat there, feeling the light vibrations of the heartbeats of the dying people underneath his feet.