Demon's Virtue
chapter-535-30041322

Eiro stepped into the arena with a smile on his face. He looked at the symbol on the back of his hand, while Bavet whispered into his ear, "Eiro, what the hell did you just do? How can you just deliberately lose? I thought your plan needed you to become the hero's companion!"

Eiro smiled lightly, "Don't worry. My side of the deal was to stand still for five minutes without fighting back. It's not my fault if my opponent is too weak to beat me in that amount of time." He explained, and Bavet quickly caught on to what was happening right now.

"You... oh... yeah, I get it now..." Bavet replied, and Eiro walked toward the center of his arena, where he and Evelyn were being introduced further. Past achievements, personality, combat style, that sort of thing. They just wanted to entertain the people watching this tournament.

One of the referees hit the large bell, and the sound echoed throughout the arena. Evelyn immediately got into position on the other side of the arena, and Eiro... just stood there in its center, his hands pushed into his pockets while standing there, waiting for something to happen.

Evelyn was standing there, preparing her first attack. She was creating a whole bunch of 'Blood Golems' that she wanted to attack Eiro. And of course, they immediately came rushing at Eiro. So that they could actually damage the Demon, Evelyn froze their limbs. But when they came close enough to hit Eiro, and actually swung at him... those limbs simply shattered into pieces, unable to actually injure Eiro.

He had consumed quite a bit of metal over the past few days, and he was also using the slime that he was absorbing into his body while fused with Bavet to strategically weaken and harden specific parts of his flesh to create something of a shock-absorbing effect within himself, so that he didn't have to worry about anything of the sort reaching deep enough to actually hurt him.

"Huh? Are there some bugs around here?" Eiro asked with a light chuckle, as the blood golems regenerated their bodies to continue attacking the Demon. However, no matter what they did, they weren't able to do any particular damage to him.

And like that, two of the five minutes passed rather quickly. Two minutes that Evelyn had used to prepare her next attack, something rather powerful, it seemed.

She had created a large mass of compressed, frozen blood, and using a spell to compress it further and further into a sort of spear. And now, Evelyn was creating a spell to accelerate this blood-ice-spear as much as possible. If Eiro was hit head-on by that, even he would end up getting hurt to an extent, so maybe he should figure something out.

"Oh? Are you making me a toothpick? Do I have something stuck between my teeth?" Eiro asked confused, and Evelyn stared at him angrily, "I don't know what you're trying to pull right now, but no matter what it is, you will regret it soon." Evelyn replied immediately, not minding Eiro at all. Or at least that's what she was trying to make it seem like. Obviously, anyone would be completely bothered if such consecutive attacks didn't work for now more than two whole minutes.

"Hm, are you sure about that?" Eiro asked with a light smile, "I wouldn't be so sure about that. Also, I know that killing isn't technically illegal in this tournament, considering the stakes and all, but do you really have to aim that thing at my head?"

"Well of course, you're going to try and dodge this anyway! But don't worry, you won't be able to dodge..." Evelyn smirked lightly, and Eiro tilted his head to the side. He actually wasn't planning on dodging this at all. He was rather planning on something wholly different.

It took another minute for Evelyn to finish this extremely powerful spell up, which was apparently much quicker than she had thought. Which made sense, considering that she probably expected Eiro to actually fight back. Either way, soon enough, Evelyn shot the spear at Eiro. It really was incredibly fast. So fast that it broke the sound barrier and created a large dust of cloud where it started out.

Rather unluckily for Evelyn, however, Eiro didn't need to dodge this in the slightest. The spell was actually rather impressive. It was a homing spell, it seemed. It would continuosly move around the arena until it finally pierced Eiro. Or rather, until it 'passed through' Eiro once.

And so, to let this happen, the Demon simply turned his head to the side, winked at his children as he was doing so, and split his cheeks open for just an instant. Just large enough to let the spear pass through his mouth, which he figured counted as his inside as well, technically. Being a blood-based mage, the condition that Evelyn set was that it had to be completely surrounded by a ring of Eiro's blood, which was of course the case in this scenario. Luckily, Eiro could transform quickly enough so that nobody noticed. To others, it probably looked like Evelyn missed.

But the moment that the spear got stuck on the other side of the arena and stopped moving, Evelyn knew something was wrong.

"Wh-What, but- how? You didn't lose any- what did you do?!" Evelyn yelled out nervously, stretching her hand forward. In a panic, she created a large number of ice spears on her own accord. She, as well, was starting to realize that she still wasn't able to beat Eiro. She was simply too weak compared to him.

"One and a half minutes left~." Eiro said with a smile on his face, but Evelyn was just confused by that statement even more. She didn't know about the deal that her father tried to make with Eiro, after all.

Eiro simply stood there and continued smiling, yawning into his hand as he was doing so, "You know, this is quite boring. Don't you have something else for me?"

"Something else..?" Evelyn asked, and she glared back before starting to smirk. She pulled out a vial out of her bag. It was filled with the probably most potent Holy Water that Eiro had ever set his eyes on. When Holy Energy was still a bane of his, he certainly would have gone up in flames if even a drop of that hit his skin.

"Ladies and Gentlemen! I didn't want to do it like this, but I have to!" She exclaimed, and pointed at Eiro as she started manipulating the Holy Water in that vial, "Eiro Jura Daemonherz is a Demon! An Imp, to be exact!"

The audience looked into the arena, confused at what was happening, as Evelyn continued to explain what she meant. She explained the powers given to her by the Bloodstone, and how she found out about Eiro's true nature. And then, she explained the content of the bottle she was holding, introducing a well-known and trusted high priest that had apparently created it after months of painstaking work, just for this moment.

"Eh~?" Eiro let out, somewhat excited about simply letting this happen. So much so, that when the five minutes finally ran out, meaning that Eiro fulfilled his part of the contract, he still stood there, waiting to let all of this happen.

Evelyn did a few things to prove that this was actually highly powerful holy water, like cut her skin and let a few drops simply heal the wounds, and then took control of the water. She moved it around, and spread it out thinly, basically turning it into a mist of sorts.

To the extent where Eiro of course couldn't dodge it. The whole arena was filled with an incredible level of holiness, but... nothing happened. Eiro just stood there and looked at Evelyn with a wry smile, "You know, this is kind of getting quite embarrassing for you..." The Demon pointed out, as he stole the control of the Holy Water from Evelyn. He pulled it toward himself, and simply drank it.

"Urgh, tastes like shit..." Eiro muttered with a wry smile, as he started walking around the arena, "You know, Evelyn James is thought to be an incredibly trustworthy, and powerful woman. A hero of the populace, of sorts. The perfect person to join the actual hero on her journey. But did you know that she's actually part of a huge criminal syndicate, with her whole goal being power and eventual world domination?" Eiro asked with a laugh, "And of course, this sounds as likely as me being a Demon, but... Who would you rather trust at this very moment? A woman that, in desperation, made up such a ridiculous lie so that she wouldn't be forced to give up, or a man accused of being a demon, while..." He said, before pushing a certain magic out of his palm, "...himself being capable of using Holy Magic?"

The audience started muttering amongst themselves. Certain priests quickly confirmed that this was really Holy Energy that Eiro produced so easily, and all eyes were now focused on Evelyn, as Eiro reached the blood-ice-spear that was still stuck in the arena's wall.

"Of course, neither is true." Eiro smiled, "I was just trying to even the ground a bit, you see? And of course, after five minutes of taking attacks from this woman non-stop, I think it's my turn now." He explained as he pulled the spear out of the wall, and aimed directly at Evelyn.

With a single flick of his wrist, he threw the spear forward, so fast that it broke the sound barrier as well. What Evelyn had only been able to do with magic, Eiro did with just his body.

The spear shot at Evelyn, but actually came to an immediate halt in front of the center of her chest, as Eiro had manipulated it with magic to lose all momentum in that instant. And at this point, Evelyn knew that she had lost.