Demon's Virtue

The gem was laying there on the ground, and Eiro's focus was pulled toward it whether he wanted it to happen or not. It was like his head was forced into its direction, and there was nothing he could do about it.

Eiro pushed his foot under it and kicked it upward, as he wasn't really able to easily pick it up right now. In the end, he caught it by just making a small 'nest' with his arms in front of his chest. The impact hurt a quite bit as his arms were broken right now, but in the end, he could get through it.

Quickly the demon made his way over toward the others so that he could get some healing. The guy that threw that boulder into his direction most likely just left right away after the Lady disappeared. Or that's what Eiro thought at first, but then he turned around as another boulder was coming. This time he wouldn't be able to block it, but he couldn't just dodge either... the children were right behind him.

But before Eiro could finish his thoughts, he could feel something pull on his cloak as his feet were pulled from the ground. Rudy had grabbed Eiro and then followed up by throwing him behind his back.

The young man placed his hands in front of his body in a simple defense stance so that he could stand there in a stable position. Rudy would definitely be thrown away! He wouldn't take damage, but he wasn't strong enough to make the boulder stop either!

But just when Eiro wanted to use magic to somehow help Rudy out, the boulder already reached him. It pushed onto Rudy's arms, and Eiro thought that any moment now, he would be flung away, but instead something else happened.

Rudy had positioned himself so that he wouldn't catch the boulder on the height of its center of gravity, but rather so that he would be able to get it far below it, at the lowest point possible. Sure, Rudy was pressed onto the ground and slid across it into the guards standing behind him, but that wasn't all. Because of his positioning, the boulder was pushed up a bit and missed everyone standing behind Rudy. And to top it off, Rudy wasn't thrown away nearly as much, because the force was more of a downward force rather than a straight one, a lot of it was pushed into the ground itself.

With a loud groan, the boy stood up and scuttered over toward Eiro, to the surprise of everyone in the crowd that witnessed this happen. Seeing Eiro block the first one and stop its movements completely was impressive enough for them, but seeing such a young man handle it like this and be unaffected was also a sight to behold.

"Are you alright? What can we do to help?" Rudy asked immediately, staring at Eiro with worry in his eyes, and the Demon just sat there, looking at everyone for a moment, "Rudy, protect the others, including Solomon and Charles. Sammy, tell the townsfolk to get back into their houses. And Arc, you grab Avalin and Leon and bring them somewhere safe. Clementine, can you-"

And just as Eiro turned his head toward the young girl, she was already staring at Eiro intensely. She had a certain expression on her face that Eiro really didn't like. The Demon clicked his tongue and turned toward Gondos. Providing him with as much mana as necessary, he made Gondos create a capsule just large enough for Eiro, Clementine, and the two spirits. Arc, Rudy and Sammy already knew what was going on, but basically everyone was confused and startled.

Clementine's hunger was going wild. Recently, she really hadn't been surrounded by people that were injured in a major way, and this was right during the time where they were trying to help her practice keeping that hunger under control, so she was more sensible to feeling that sort of hunger. And Eiro was really in a lot of very pure pain right now, which had to seem delicious to Clementine.

The demon ground his teeth together and stared at the girl, "Clementine, you can wait a few moments, right? I really, really need you to wait." Eiro told her, trying to help her get her mind under control, which Nelli was assisting with as much as she could herself. Eiro threw the gem he had been holding onto the ground and then tried to enter a quick meditative state to increase his mana-flow. Meanwhile, Nelli was wrapping his arms in magic water to assist him.

Eiro didn't have any particular talent for healing magic, but broken bones like this should be able to be healed in roughly 10 minutes. Time that they didn't have. But at the very least, Eiro was able to do something else.

He himself used water magic to control his blood so that he was able to push his bones properly into place, trying to at least make some of the fractured and splintered parts heal back together. But the major cracks were still there. Really, Eiro had wounds like this in his bones all over his arms right now, which was really, really infuriating.

The Demon ground his teeth together to try and get through the pain when he heard another loud slam outside, followed by Rudy falling to the ground and another slam a few moments later, which was probably another boulder impacting on the ground after being diverted by Rudy.

The next moment he-

"Eiro." The demon heard Solomon's whisper outside of the hull he was in, and slowly focused his attention on him, "I won't let anyone cause chaos inside of this town like this. Everyone else will be leaving in a few moments, so I ask of you. Help us in whatever means possible. I will cover up anything that needs to be covered up. Just do me this favor."

And before Eiro had any chance to react, Solomon followed the guards as they helped him flee from this attack.

"Clementine..." The Demon muttered quietly as he pulled his cloak off his body and got rid of the two shadow magic stones he used to conceal his 'true' nature. He extended his arms toward Clementine, and before he knew it, the young girl ran her hands over them. For a moment, the Demon felt the pain of the touch before he felt his bones being corrected. Clementine's hunger disappeared, but instead she was now in immense pain after having her arms broken apart like this after healing Eiro.

"Shh..." The Demon hushed quietly as he enveloped the girl not only with his arms but also with his wings while Nelli dove right into his back. Eiro's body changed as he merged with this spirit, before the Demon slowly proceeded to use magic on Clementine's arms. She was too upset to do it herself right now after all.

But luckily, despite Eiro's low skill when it came to healing magic, due to Clementine's immense receptiveness for it, he was able to finish mostly healing her in under a minute.

Clementine sat there on the cold ground, exhausted by what happened, while Eiro and Nelli split apart again, so that Clementine could finish fixing herself up now that she managed to calm down. Meanwhile, Eiro pulled out his three of swords and made the blades combine with the different parts that used to make up his wooden hands. Eiro recently found that they were able to combine with much more than he thought, and not just weapons or tools, but also things like this.

Using this ability, and the fact that Eiro was able to perfectly manage using these five blades separately all at once, Eiro managed to fix his wooden hand for the most part within just a few moments. Luckily he basically prepared parts for a whole new replacement hand, so he was able to get it done without having to make new parts.

But to Eiro's surprise... while he was putting the hand back together, some of the parts that were broken actually 'healed' themselves. Sometimes the pieces were practically pulled back into place by Eiro's hand itself without him needing to actively bring them there. It seemed like this wooden hand had really become a part of him now.

Once the demon was done with this, he quickly scanned the area around him to make sure that everyone was gone or hiding.

And the only ones left on the streets right now were Rudy, a few guards that didn't want to leave Rudy alone, as well as some random scouts trying to gather information on this attack.

With a deep sigh, Eiro took off his satchel and gave it to clementine together with other things that may reveal his identity when he was seen.

He pulled out the ace of cups and poured the contents on his skin and tried to infuse his body with it.

[The power of the Ace of Cups flows through you. For the next 1 hour, you will avoid the world]

The moment Eiro turned invisible, he removed the rock capsule around him and jumped into the air as strongly as he could. Luckily the effect was somewhat activated. Others wouldn't be able to notice him at all, probably, but he wouldn't receive the 'luck' that he had whenever he usually used the ace of cups, where any sort of attack would completely avoid him. It seemed like others didn't forget about him either. The effect was obviously massively weakend, and the time it was active was lessened by a lot too.

But at least it was enough for what Eiro actually wanted to do. For the first time, Eiro flapped his wings, trying to control the air around him with magic. Immediately, he shot up further than he expected. These wings had immense power to them, that was for sure.

And now after he was at the highest point, he let himself drop a bit and twisted his body around before stretching his wings out. He made himself glide into the direction where those thrown, growing boulders came from.

Soon, he spotted who it was. It was a young man, wearing gloves and sitting on a small pile of fist-sized rocks. He pushed his hand back and then with a swift motion threw the rock forward. It was basically travelling in a straight line, and its speed was insane. It even audibly made the air crackle.

Immediately, Eiro dove toward that rock. Right now, it was only head-sized, and it seemed like the weight was proportionate to the size of the rock. So, Eiro was able to pretty easily kick the rock down onto the ground.

It slid further for a while, but stopped before it even entered the plaza, and then grew to its full size. Slowly, Eiro stopped the ace of cup's infusion and poured the rest into the actual cup before putting the card back into his treasury.

"Hey, you brat..." Eiro growled deeply as he stared at the young man that was standing there, full with pure anger in his eyes, "Didn't your parents teach you not to throw rocks around?"