274 Melting

Eiro looked at the man standing in front of him, trying to figure out what he was about to do. And then, the fat man just started to laugh loudly, "Hahaha, you think you can kill me?! Don't be ridiculous!" 

With that, the man started to run forward toward Eiro. He slowly twisted his body around and slid over the floor as he prepared to hit Eiro with his open palm. His body right now was waving and shaking around, so he was probably trying to divert the force that his whole body was creating toward a single point that he could use to inflict a particularly large amount of damage.

However, Eiro very easily stepped to the side and dodged the incoming attack, trying to cut right into the man's arm. But once more, before Eiro's blade managed to touch the man's skin, it had been turned metallic.

But somehow, while this was the case, these metallic areas were still waving around like normal, and the man turned his palm toward Eiro at a speed that the Demon didn't expect this person to have. The man pressed his palm onto the Demon's side, and Eiro was soon damaged and pushed away quite a distance.

"Oh? How conceited... Naming their child 'Eiro' while you are a peasant without even a last name. Disgusting." The man said with an expression that fit in perfectly with what he was saying, one that was twisted in disgust, "I'm going to enjoy killing you even more now."

But while he was speaking, Eiro just held the side of his body and rubbed over it for a moment. Sure, it hurt, and it damaged him a bit but even then... "That was a super weak attack, wasn't it?" Eiro pointed out. The fat man stared at him with a deep glare as he started to laugh, "Haha, keep pretending! I know that I caused a lot of damage to you! More than 5000 Health being removed from you is not 'weak'! That must have been a good chunk of your total health!" 

"Huh?" Eiro replied bluntly as he started to think about what this man was saying, "Is it normal to have that little health... I have more than twenty times that." 

Eiro started thinking about what exactly this man was talking about, before realizing something important, "A right, right, Monsters usually have much more health than people."

After Eiro bluntly said this within this room filled with people, most of which wanted to kill him, everyone slightly froze up, "What do Monsters have to do with this?" The fat man asked with a glare, "Don't tell me you somehow accessed the artificial health-increase the organization is experimenting on! That's unfair, I-"

"They're doing something like that? Interesting... I should remember that. But anyway, you're a bit stronger than I imagined, and it doesn't matter at this point anymore either. Clark, come over here for a moment." The Demon exclaimed as he waved over his escort while pulling the satchel off of his body and handing it to the man together with the book that Eiro was still holding the whole time.

"Hold these for me. Ah, and keep the book open at all times on the latest page so that I can recall certain things if I need to. Thanks." Eiro said bluntly as he pulled off his hood, revealing a shadowy mass right above his head that slowly disappeared and turned into colorful horns that were twisting around this figure as if they were a crown, before the Demon pulled the full cloak off, having two large wings sprout out from his back.

"This is always so uncomfortable." Eiro pointed out as he put the cloak away in his treasury while slowly taking off his mask. Clark, understandably, was probably the most shocked right now. After all, why would the King of this country ask him to escort a demon like this on a mission to gain something that would only make him stronger than he obviously already was?

But that didn't mean that the fat man, the Letter S, was any less surprised. He took a step back in confusion as he stared at Eiro, but the Demon didn't really care. He quickly pushed his shoes off his feet so that he could properly move around while fighting and pulled up his sleeves while his tail slowly unwrapped itself from around his hip, slowly waving around from left to right behind him.

"This is much better." Eiro said bluntly. Because of the Knight of Pentacles, to an extent it was like his perception was increased manifold, even if it really wasn't. He just gained a new depth to his senses that made everything feel rather overwhelming to an extent, and that even meant the clothes on his body or the shadow magic he was infusing himself with to hide his true form.

Eiro took a deep breath as he slowly slid his foot over the ground, momentarily glancing at the page of the book Clark was holding open for him. It was a page filled with spells that Eiro figured to be the most important for this fight in particular.

Quickly, the Demon slammed his foot into the ground perfectly vertically, using earth magic to crack it up and sling large rocks upward, that Eiro immediately shot right toward his opponent by kicking them directly toward him. 

And then there was the last of the rocks, instead of shooting it toward the man, Eiro jumped in the air and twisted his body around sideways and spiraled around, and when he kicked his foot into the rock, he immediately infused it into his body.

His foot took on quite a lot of weight and Eiro used that to crack the ground up even more when he pushed it inside. With the large rocks that were now flung into the air, Eiro infused the rest of his body. And the moment that his full body was infused, he took it a step further. With a deep breath, Eiro got rid of the actual rock-like texture of his skin and flesh, but moved on to a second-step infusion that allowed Eiro a lot more mobility while still increasing his defense, especially once he combined it with his 'rock skin' ability. On top of that, it increased the weight of his attacks, which seemed especailly important when it came to this sort of opponent.

Eiro took a slow step forward toward his opponent, who seemed a little more hesitant now that he saw what Eiro was in reality. But in the end, the man was able to overcome that very quickly and just continued to fight Eiro nonetheless. It seemed like he was even more hyped up now when comparing him to before.

The man seemed to attempt the same thing from before, trying to create a focus-point at the center of his palm for more power while the waves from his body poured toward that center-point. It was a technique that Eiro himself used as well when infusing himself with water, but he didn't really have access to that much water right here.

As Eiro's opponent swung his hand forward, Eiro pushed his dagger forward and kicked off the ground to really put all of his weight behind this. The moment that all the force focused on the man's palm, Eiro pressed the dagger onto that exact point.

The Demon could feel the dagger nearly slip out of his hands due to the force, but Eiro tightened his grip instead and managed to prevail. Due to the two opposing forces hitting each other, the result was that the brunt of the force was directed at the one whose attack was weaker. And in this case, this was Eiro's opponent.

So now, with the advantage that Eiro had, the Demon pushed the dagger further onto the man's palm and tried to swing his body around so that he could grip onto his arm with his legs. Now, with all the force in his body and his increased strength due to his infusion as well as the disruption of the man's attack, Eiro was finally able to pierce the man's palm. And as he was wrapped around his arm, he of course could keep pushing it in even if the man tried to pull his arm back.

Seeing his chance, Eiro cooled down the dagger in his hand to open up the holes inside of it, and then controlled the liquid he filled into it to pour right into the wound. It was a bit of a mixture of the different poisons that Eiro had gathered over time, and the moment that it mixed with the man's blood, Eiro noticed that it took effect to an extent.

The man's arm softened up incredibly and started drooping down, stretching out as if the man's body was slowly melting. 

With a satisfied expression, Eiro jumped away from the man and then swung the dagger in his hand around, controlling the poison-mixture to cast a spell using it. Eiro had managed to confirm that the man's skin had been weakened considerably around the areas affected by the poison, but the man was trying to control his own body as well as possible to keep all of it only in his arm.

So, Eiro figured he should make sure that this wasn't possible. The Demon finished the magic circle in the air, and it immediately took the poison that was used to create it and turned it into a single, thin thread that shot forward toward the man and pierced his weakened skin. Once inside, it started slithering through his body as if it was a snake, and soon reached the man's heart.

"Wh-What, but h-how?!" He exclaimed, and Eiro sighed deeply as he stopped his infusion with the rocks that soon dropped to the ground around him. The demon looked at the man in front of him whose body was slowly falling apart as if melting. Of course, this wasn't inherently an effect of the poison, it was just something that happened due to this man's rather unique physicality.

Seeing that their boss was no longer capable of fighting, rather obviously, all the others tried to fight Eiro. But they didn't stand a chance. They were just small fries, so Eiro was able to quickly figure out the best pattern in which to kill them.

He slid over the ground and stabbed their throats, hearts, or foreheads, and within half a minute, there were only three living beings within this room, excluding all the spirits of course.

Eiro, Clark, and the fat man who was somehow still clinging onto life.

To Eiro's surprise, the man was slowly crawling over toward the glass dome that was keeping all the spirits in, and Eiro figured he wanted to open it up for some reason. And so, the Demon figured he should let him do it instead of having to find the way on his own.