Demon's Virtue

Chapter 621: The Heartless Demon

Eiro slightly rubbed his eye a few times, feeling quite some discomfort, “Is everything alright?” Armodeus asked with a concerned expression, and Eiro looked at him and quickly nodded his head, “Yeah, I’m fine. It just seems like I’ll have to be a bit more careful with this than I thought I’d have to be,” the Demon replied. He had just spent some time trying out his new ability to duplicate things through his vision, and after a while, it was starting to get a little uncomfortable. It was worth it considering the benefits that this ability had, but there was some negative feedback to it.

Eiro’s vision was noticeably reduced after continuing to use the mirror of duplication that was replaced his eye’s lens, even if it already seemed to be slowly returning to normal. And even then, his vision had still been quite potent. Considering that Eiro still had the vision through his other eye, as well as all his other senses, this wasn’t something that he really had to worry about.

The Demon looked into a mirror hanging on the wall, trying to see if everything was alright with the lens itself or if there was something wrong with it that could only be seen from outside. But from what he could tell, there was nothing wrong with it, “It’s possible that it’s a side-effect that appeared due to the nature of how I used this mirror. I’ll have to see if the true mirror’s potency decreases if I overuse it over some time. It makes sense for it to have to recharge some of its capabilities,” Eiro pointed out. Every artifact had some side-effects connected to it, some more imminently than others of course, but it seemed as though Eiro was starting to neglect this fact a little in the back of his mind. The artifacts that he made use of had side-effects that Eiro was able to counteract incredibly easily to the point where he didn’t notice them, as was the case with the Marionette Blades, or he simply used the artifact in a way that he didn’t have to worry about the side-effect too much, such as the Potion of Invisibility.

It seemed like this mirror in his eye was going to be somewhere inbetween those two. The side-effect that just appeared was negligent, and Eiro doubted that he would integrate this ability into his regular combat arsenal all too much anyway. He would only really need it for the highest tier of enemies, of which there aren’t too many. And a slight, temporary reduction in visual ability was something he shouldn’t worry about in such battles at all.

Eiro turned away from his reflection and instead looked at the Elder Dwarf, “It’s a masterpiece. Thank you, Armodeus.”

With a slight smile hidden behind his thick beard, Armodeus replied, “Nothing to thank me for. This is exactly the reason I’m here, lad. I came to stay with you in this manor because I knew I would get to make unique things like that,” the dwarf said with a tone that couldn’t hide how excited he was, “That being said, got something else for me?”

“Yes… I think I do, but this is going to need a bit more planning, I think. Because it might as well backfire immediately,” he pointed out, before pulling a card out of his treasury. He held it forward, and soon, the card transformed into a large warhammer, the Mountainbreaker, “I want to turn this into a better weapon for the way I fight.”

.....

Immediately, the battlesmith in Armodeus came out. He went silent and grabbed the hammer from Eiro, trying to take a closer look at it. Of course, the whole time that the dwarf was holding it, Eiro was making sure that he could intervene in case the hammer’s head was going to hit something. He doubted it, since Armodeus was incredibly careful during his work, but just the slightest mishap could make this whole building collapse in on itself. The mountainbreaker was dangerous like that.

“You fight with blades, or your hands. What are the effects like when you change its shape to that of a sword or dagger?” Armodeus inquired, and Eiro quickly replied. He had tested this all out plenty, “Basically, it makes it easier to cut through particularly tough materials. A normal blade pushes the material out of the way, and the mountainbreaker practically pulverizes the material to make that much, much easier. It also causes some incredible impact in the rest of the target’s body. So having it as a dagger would be great. I have two that I generally use now, the hollow Assassin’s Dagger you gave me, and the Flame Dagger I got back then. But in case I have to, I would like to have one or two more so that I can fight with all four of my hands.”

“…You still use those, huh?” Armodeus asked with a gentle smile, “They aren’t in great condition anymore either though, right?”

Eiro leaned against the wall behind him, “They’re not. Their durability increases a lot when I fuse them with the marionette blades, and you always take care of them on top of that, but… it does seem like they’re both reaching the end of their lives.”

“Lad, this is just a suggestion, so you can turn it down if you want, but… what if I reforge them and combine them with parts of the mountainbreaker?” Armodeus suggested. Eiro raised his brow and thought about it for a moment, but slowly shook his head, “It would be nothing but sentimental to do something like that. At the end of the day, I don’t think there’d be much worth in keeping the raw materials of the blades around. There’s nothing too special about them, right?”

Armodeus sighed, “There’s nothing wrong with being sentimental. And more importantly, there certainly is quite some worth in the metal the blades are made of. They’ve been continuosly imbued with incredible amounts of your mana, and have been repeatedly fused with an artifact. That makes them the perfect candidates for some decent improvements that go beyond what the mountainbreaker can offer.”

“You can improve on the mountainbreaker?”

“Who’d’ya think yer talking to? It’s certainly an incredible piece, but with the help of some modern techniques of craftsmanship, there’s no way I wouldn’t be able to do something with this,” the dwarf said with a smug grin, and Eiro couldn’t help himself but feel a little excited at the idea. He brought out the two daggers and gave them to Armodeus, “In that case, I’ll entrust these to you.”

The dwarf grabbed the daggers and carefully placed them onto the table next to him, “Now, the only thing that worries me is how I’m supposed to work the metal from the mountainbreaker…”

Eiro created a duplicate of the mountainbreaker that Armodeus would actually be able to take apart, handing it to the craftsman, “The power output is controlled through the mind, it doesn’t naturally display its properties, otherwise the air would quake just by it being moved slightly. As long as you don’t see it as a weapon, but just as a raw material, it should be fine. Of course, you still need to be careful, but I’ll be here for now in case something happens.”

Armodeus raised his brow, “If I’m supposed to be that careful, it’s going to take quite a while for me to finish the daggers. Are you sure you want to wait throughout all of that?”

“Well, if need be, I can leave a duplicate here. But since I need to spend some time doing some other changes to my body that you can’t directly help with, I might as well do it down here,” Eiro pointed out, and the dwarf sighed before giving up. He preferred working in peace, but Eiro wasn’t the sort to disturb his work anyway. And considering the material that he was going to be working with, having Eiro around might be the best choice he could make in the first place.

“Then I’ll get started right away,” Armodeus said with an excited tone of voice, looking at the Mountainbreaker with a grin. He immediately held its head into the soaring flames of his forge, waiting for the metal to heat up enough so that he could start working with it.

Meanwhile, Eiro sat in a quiet corner of the smithy, making sure to keep his eyes on Armodeus while also shifting some of his focus inward. It was time for him to start the transformation of his internal body, starting with the fact that he wanted to get rid of his heart. After a few deep breaths, Eiro started. He had complete control over his own body, so doing something like stopping his own heartbeat was simple enough. Using magic, he could also very easily keep the blood flowing through him. It would take a decent bit of concentration to do this all the time, all the whilst making sure that his blood was flowing properly despite certain injuries he might receive in future battles, so Eiro quickly created a sub-consciousness using the mirror of duplication. Different to the duplicates that were currently existing solely in the mental library, this was an even more specialized existence. Eiro removed its own consciousness from it completely and only gave it a single task, and only the abilities to complete that task. To make sure that his blood was flowing through his body correctly.

Since Eiro’s thoughts were shared across all of the duplicates of himself, he could make immediate adjustments, on top of knowing the state of the blood pumping through his veins at all times without having to waste any time thinking about it.

And so, this sub-consciousness already got started on this job, continuing to make the blood flow through Eiro’s body correctly. The Demon no longer had a heartbeat, instead, his blood moved through his body in even streams without the slightest amount of fluctuation. It felt a bit unusual, even invigorating for a few moments, but it was certainly something that he would have to get used to. Either way, just through this, he already got rid of something like the weakness that was his heart. But even now, he still had his heart as a physical organ, something that he simply didn’t need anymore. Rather, it was just something of a hindrance now. Instead, he could use that space to store more crystalized mana if he needed to.

As such, Eiro infused his heart, as well as the rest of his circulatory system with his recently acquired flesh magic, starting to fuse them together. His veins were strengthened through the muscles of his heart, and now also had the bloodstone sligthly diffused within them.

It took a few hours to finish this whole process to perfection, making sure that every part of his body really received everything that was needed. And then, he relaxed, letting the sub-consciousness in his head do all the work. He just sat there, silent. Eiro, the demon without a heart.