Demon's Virtue

The flames covering Eiro's body slowly simply stopped feeding on the Demon's flesh. For a moment, it was like Eiro's very own time stopped for a little while, before it started moving in reverse.

Nelli was forced out of Eiro's body, with deep wounds all over her body from suffering together with Eiro, and the Demon himself slowly started to recover. It was as if everything that just happened to the Demon was slowly being undone in reverse order of how it happened to him in the first place. It was like the flames were returning flesh to Eiro's body, and instead of spreading out and growing, they were slowly shrinking and disappearing.

Suddenly, the Demon's body jolted up as the ash that had fallen off his body before returned to him. Instead of causing it to crumble, the fact that Eiro grasped his face now caused it to be rebuilt. He slowly moved around backward as his wooden hand slowly was rebuilt.

The Demon soon stood in the center of the room, staring at the door, as the last bit of Sacred Flames disappeared from his skin.

[Your body has been reconstructed as it was in your latest memory]

[You have 9 Minutes and 59 Seconds until penalties will be applied. Until then, your body is incapable of shifting from its current state]

Eiro stared at the notifications in front of him, while everyone in the room was staring at him. Not even Edward was able to figure out what exactly just happened, and for him especially it was a paralyzing sight, simply because he didn't know what happened.

"J-Just how-"

"Shut up. I'm sick of this. If I can't beat you otherwise, then I just need to do this." The Demon replied in a growling tone as he pulled out the Ace of Cups card out of his treasury and poured his mana into it. It quickly transformed into a decorated chalice, and without a moment's hesitation, Eiro poured the black liquid inside of his down his own throat.

But instead of the effect activating... something else happened. Eiro felt his body cramp up in a painful manner before the black liquid simply came back out of his mouth and re-entered the item in his hand.

"...What...?" The Demon muttered quietly, and before he knew it, Edward started to laugh loudly, "Hahaha! Even if you did something insane just now, it seems in return, you have been punished! Face it, my dear friend, there is no way you will ever be able to beat me."

Eiro slowly put the Ace of Cups away again as he read the notification in front of him.

[Your body can not accept the Ace of Cups' power, as it is incapable of shifting from its current state]

The Demon realized what this meant. He ran his fingers through the notification and looked at the time he had left in this state. 9 Minutes and 37 Seconds. The Ace of Cups' liquid stayed inside of him for around three seconds before he rejected it like that.

And with that, Eiro came to a conclusion. That he had to make use of this to the fullest extent possible. Eiro pushed his hand into the satchel that had been thrown a bit away from him. He grabbed one of the small cloth bags inside of it, and without hesitation, Eiro ripped open his clothes and smashed the small pouch against the center of his chest, causing an explosion of white flames to unfold in front of him.

The Demon stared at Edward, who was standing there even more confused than before, simply trying to analyze this situation while Eiro used as much mana as possible to control these flames. And immediately, he focused them to dig through his skin, which they did. Of course, soon after, his body rejected this from happening and tried to repair his flesh.

The first attempt failed, but Eiro luckily still had the Sacred Flames under control. And so, he had to do something else instead. Instead of digging through his flesh to get to his heart, he should just try and infuse it into himself immediately, something that he attempted without a second's hesitation. Eiro didn't have much time to do this, after all.

The flames disappered in Eiro's skin as the Demon infused the center of his chest with the the Sacred Flames, a mixture of Fire Magic and Holy Energy. At first, only a part of his skin turned into a pure white color, but the moment that the infusion had been extended to Eiro's heart, it coursed through Eiro's body, pulled along by his mana.

The Demon's whole body turned into a pure white, and even his horns paled compared to before.

Of course, Eiro's body was fighting against this immediately. It was trying to reverse what was happening to him as quickly as possible, but at the same time, Eiro was accelerating the spread of the Sacred Flames inside of him. And the moment that this happened, the flames were rejected from him, and Eiro suddenly worked together with his body again. Instead of trying to infuse himself, he pushed all the sacred flames out after he had increased them this much using his own flesh. He was now basically cloaking himself in them, in a different manner to before, however.

At some point, Eiro managed to establish a point where his health and flesh was regenerating just barely quick enough to combat the destruction caused by the Sacred Flames, but not enough to stop the flames from burning, as he was constantly feeding them more and more mana to keep it going.

This, however, didn't come without any consequences either, as Eiro was filled with the neverending, constant, high-level pain of his bane ripping him apart, on top of the pain coming from his very being rejecting the 'state change'.

It was hard to focus at the start, but he was able to concentrate at a little bit after.

Slowly, the pure-white, glowing figure of the Demon took a step forward toward the Demi-Lich, and his glare focused on Edward's eyes.

It seemed like at first, he didn't really take it seriously though. Edward just snapped his fingers, and a shadowy figure appeared behind the Demon. The Demi-Lich was summoning another Undead to restrain the Demon, just like how he did with Sammy, but the moment that the skeletal figure tried to touch him, it simply disintegrated. It wasn't fully put-together yet, so that was probably the reson why it reacted so strongly just now. But was definitely effective, considering that Edward seemed to have started freaking out a bit.

"Stop right there! Or I'm killing these children!" Edward exclaimed, somewhat desperately, so Eiro stopped walking like requested. Something was weird, though... It was as if... Edward was struggling to figure out what Eiro was about to do all of a sudden. As if this was something he wasn't used to, something that was out of his control although control was all he really wanted. And so, Eiro gave it to him.

"Fine." Eiro said. He stopped in his track and looked at Edward, who was even more surprised than before. He probably tried to read Eiro, but failed miserably again, not expecting him to do this of all things. But that didn't matter to him anymore, and Edward slowly glanced away to look at a different part of the room for just a moment.

And that was enough for Eiro. He kicked off the ground and jumped at Edward, extending his range with the three of swords. Of course, Edward wasn't hit by this attack, but he still had to dodge and was actually injured a little bit by the flames cloaking Eiro's form.

"H-How are you able to-"

"... I wonder." Eiro replied bluntly, interrupting Edward. Whether it was the flames weakening Edward's powers, as Holy Energy was a weakness of his, or whatever just happened to Eiro, it seemed to be working out.

Enough to let him get a benefit against Edward, at least. The Demi-Lich looked at Eiro and slowly turned around, trying to regain some of his control, "Fine. You won this round. This is too much to bother truly dealing with this right now. This is not something you can do without consequences, anyway, so those will come soon, and at that time, so will I." Edward announced, as he tried to make use of his own stealth abilities to hide himself as he ran away, although he shouldn't have stopped using his necromancy as he did. While James was dropped to the ground from the ceiling, the skeleton holding Sammy's mouth shut also disappeared.

Without hesitation, she shouted the one thing she thought she should to not cause any damage to anyone else, after collecting herself again from before, "Don't hide yourself!" She exclaimed, and immediately, it seemed like Edward followed up on that.

Eiro was able to see him, smell him, hear him, he was able to completely sense every part of this Demi-Lich.

"Thank you, Sammy... Don't worry, I will take care of this." The Demon exclaimed. He flapped his wings and tried to fly out the door, since it would be faster than walking, and he flew into the snowstorm wreaking havoc outside, following Edward as he was at it.

Eiro didn't know why Edward suddenly ran instead of fighting. Maybe there was some kind of limit to his ability as well, although Eiro had no idea what kind it would be. But it didn't matter. Eiro threw himself forward and tried to stab through Edward with as much Holy Energy as Eiro could muster in his body.

Edward's body cut open as if he was made of seafoam, and Eiro grasped at the Demi-Lich with his whole body, trying to destroy him with the holy energy he was giving off himself. Edward's body was slowly reacting to the Holy Energy, slowly being damaged bit by bit.

"This is it..." Eiro muttered, with a weirdly lifeless tone that he didn't expect from even himself. As if he wasn't controlling his own body, and it was on autopilot, going for whatever it could to beat Edward, even stupidly destroying itself.

Eiro was grappled onto Edward, but just before he had been able to finish it, a notification appeared in front of the demon. A different kind, the fake one from the organization, notifying Eiro that he failed one of his quests. The one about killing Edward. The time limit was over.

And with a slight laugh, Edward turned the whole situation around once more, "So this is it, I see... Hah... Hahah..." The Demi-Lich, who had Sacred Flames pushed against his skin, laughed loudly, not caring for the fact that he was about to die.

This wild blizzard, strong enough to nearly start covering Eiro's blazing body in a layer of snow, slowly started having Edward's ashes mixed into it. The snow turned black in some parts, as the Demi-Lich laughed. This wasn't Eiro's doing, after all.

"I may not be able to kill you right now anymore... But I can surely end your life nonetheless..."

[Lethal Damage done to Demi-Lich]

[You have leveled up]

[You have leveled up]

...

...

...

[You have leveled up]

[You have 90 unused stat points available]

Eiro looked at the notifications in front of him with a slight frown on his face. What just happened? Why did Edward accept his death just like that, despite trying to flee in order to save it just now?

"I should head home... for now..." The Demon muttered quietly to himself as he stood up, grabbing the golden card that appeared where Edward was just now, getting rid of the Sacred Flames on his body as a notification appeared in front of him.

[An enemy's spell did not take effect, as your body is unable to change its current state]

"Heh... And your last try didn't even work... Pathetic." The Demon muttered quietly to himself as he turned around and started walking, "Now, let's get ho-"

[The strengthened effect of <Memory of a Scholar> has ended. Penalties will be applied]

[For 6 Days, 23 Hours, 59 Minutes, and 59 Seconds, your ability <Memory of a Scholar> will be replaced by <Memory of the Forgetful Demon>]

"-me... Wait.... where was it again?"