Demon's Virtue
chapter-690

Eiro looked at the four others that accompanied him here; that excluded Diabolus, as that special servant was currently hidden away using the Invisibility potion, and would simply act according to Eiro's commands anyway.

"The Devil has the dungeon map," He explained to them, "And that tower is the dungeon in question. The space inside of it has been twisted and distorted. From here, I can't even tell what's really in there, and once we're inside, my senses might not be that useful in guiding us around either."

Jess soon replied, a nervous frown on her face, "Just how many artifacts does that guy have..? That means he also has a ton of unique abilities, right?"

For a moment, Eiro thought about it, but wasn't sure exactly, "He'll have a few, at the very least. But I don't know when he got these artifacts and how often he's actually managed to evolve so far. It won't change anything in the end; our approach will stay the same."

"But isn't this even worse than before?" James asked with a frown, "If he linked the Dungeon Map to this place, then isn't it his main base? Or at least, one of his main bases. We didn't attack him at the old location because the possibility of extensive traps, but here they're definitely going to be a thing."

"Well," Eiro replied, "I guess that's the case to an extent. But honestly? This is the best case scenario," he grinned lightly, staring at the tower from afar.

"How's that the case?" James asked, not understanding where Eiro was going, and the Demon quickly explained, "So, the dungeon map is special because it allows to expand and bend space unnaturally. You can manually control it however you want, basically. But at the same time, it's an artifact with a lot of drawbacks. One being that the dungeon has a central 'core', like living beings. If that core is destroyed, then the space will return to what it was before. And most importantly; in order to actually use the dungeon map, the user has to interact with the core."

"...So if we find the core, we're going to find the Devil? Is that it?" Krog wondered, but Eiro shook his head, "No, I don't think so. The Devil actually isn't the kind to keep artifacts to himself. Instead, he gives them to his underlings. The Devil itself... frankly, I'm not sure how strong he is. He's a commander, a plotter; instead of fighting himself, he has his underlings do it for him, so he strengthens them. That's why I think the same is the case with the dungeon map. Someone else controls that place so the Devil can concentrate on other matters."

"So we're going to find the core and take over?" Ariella asked, and Eiro smiled at her with a quick nod, "Mhm, exactly that. And once that is the case, the benefit that the Devil has for this being his base will be gone."

"Right, but I think you're making it sound a little too easy..." Jess pointed out.

"It's not going to be easy whatsoever. But we do have a certain benefit that's going to well... make it a lot easier," Eiro replied, before looking back at the tower, "Enough talking for now. It's time to head inside."

Eiro snapped his fingers, creating three duplicates of himself. They were heavily altered, being basically just a pair of wings and some claws that would latch onto the back of Jess, James, and Krog. They had to approach the tower, and doing so in the skyship was going to be far too reckless.

The group of five, plus the hidden Diabolus, quickly flew toward the tower, approaching the large gate in the front. A space manipulated through the dungeon map could only be entered and left through pre-determined paths, and Eiro doubted there were any other ways for them to get inside. Eiro placed his hand onto the door. It wouldn't budge. So, Eiro just pushed a bit harder. The door's hingest were starting to get bent out of shape, and it didn't take long until they gave in, as Eiro just forced the gate open. With an extremely loud noise permeating throughout the massive entrance hall, the gate fell onto the ground, and the rest of Eiro's party just stared at him.

"What? They'd have known we're here right away no matter what, making some noise doesn't change anything. Anyway, duck," Eiro said somewhat nonchalantly, but this way of doing things had already been engrained in the party's bodies. Ariella lagged behind a bit as she didn't expect it, but she had the reflexes to do as the others did, as a massive boulder, taller than Krog even, was shot at them from across the room. But it flew high enough that just by ducking, they wouldn't be hit.

Once the boulder was right above the party, however, a secondary opening on its underside had been revealed and an a thick spike was shot out of it. The spike got stuck in the ground, and a mechanism activated within the boulder as it shattered apart. The individual pieces of the boulder moved to specific spots in the air, creating the focus-points of a barrier formation, with the spike at its center. Eiro could immediately tell what was going on before the barrier fully activated; it was a special trap that had been constructed with the 'Stopwatch's power, which would encase the party in a field of frozen time indefinitely.

Since the boulder's fractions had already been influenced by the stopwatch, the barrier-deployment was near-instantaneous. As such, Eiro wasn't able to actually move out of its confines. This would have been a perfect trap, if it weren't for the fact that Eiro's mana could move faster than this stopwatch replicant.

He deployed a duplicate of himself onto the outside of the barrier. And that was when his body completely froze, but his consciousness was still inside the duplicate.

The duplicate acted quickly before other traps could be activated, and used one of Eiro's duplicated daggers to stab into the barrier. Cracks formed on the barrier, and it was immediately shattered and disabled. From the perspective of the other party members, they ducked, and then the boulder above them was replaced with a spike and some smaller stones, with a second Eiro now standing a few steps away.

"Alright, shall we go?" Eiro asked, dusting himself off a bit after parts of the boulder landed on him, as the duplicate quickly dissolved.

James stared at the ground annoyed, "That was the first trap? Are we sure this was a good idea?"

"It's going to be fine," Eiro replied immediately, stepping further into the entrance hall. The others stuck by him closely.

"How can you be so sure about that?"

"...You guys know about the Devil's abilities, right? And I don't just mean the current Devil; the card 'The Devil'." Eiro asked, and the first to answer was Ariella. While the others also knew, Ariella was the most confident in her knowledge about that being, "The Devil is the Lord of Sin, so his abilities are generally centered around the manipulation of desires, which the seven deadly sin center around."

"Correct! Gold star! And now, do you also happen to know the drawback of the Devil's card?"

The others were surprised, "Drawback? What do you mean?" Jess asked, and Eiro replied bluntly, "All cards of the minor arcana have drawbacks. Did you think the major arcana was excluded from that? I have a drawback as well. 'The World' allows me to integrate everything around me into myself. But if I'm not careful, I start dissolving into the world instead. My mind and body are constantly at threat of breaking down and becoming one with nature around me. Not that it's really anything to worry about though, my Legendary skill actually negates most of that if I'll be totally honest. But when I fuse with things I still feel some of it here and there," Eiro explained. He knew that the others would worry, so he hadn't told them so far, but at this point he couldn't explain that all royals have extreme weaknesses and not explain his own. Though, Ariella had already known about this ever since Eiro had become a royal. She was the first to be told of this weakness, "While I... don't like how nonchalant you are about this, what you're saying is that the Devil also has a weakness like that, right?"

"Of course. It's the... flipside. It's like royals are affected by their own abilities. So the Devil is afflicted by 'Sin' constantly. Wrath, Gluttony, Sloth... For someone so keen on planning things, he tends to make certain mistakes far too often. Especially in regard to me; I'm getting to him. He gets angry, so that's wrath. He eats a full person every day, apparently, so that's Gluttony. Despite being the oldest royal, as far as I'm aware, he hasn't used that time as he could have. He probably has periods of time where he just hibernates for years, and his servants act for him. That's sloth. And the sin that the Devil stinks of the most? By far, it's Pride."

James raised a brow in thought, "So... what you're saying... the guy we're fighting against is highly organized, has an arsenal greater than any empire that ever existed... but he's too lazy to do anything most of the time, too pissed off constantly to not react to provocation, too greedy to not go after whatever he wants... and too proud to realize faults in his actions?"

Eiro turned toward the others behind him, showing off a slight grin, "Yup."