Demon's Virtue

Eiro set down in front of the manor. He looked at the others who were slowly touching the ground again as well, and Eiro dissolved the duplicates that were attached to their backs.

"Get some rest, everyone," the Demon said with a smile on his face, "We all deserved some sleep, I'd say."

"Hah, you can say that again... I ain't waking up until a week from now," Krog exclaimed with a loud yawn, walking up to the stairway in front of the manor's main entrance. The door was quickly opened by one of the butlers, who greeted the group with a smile on his face.

However, his greeting was quickly overshadowed by the sound of footsteps and yelling approaching from behind, "They're back?!" Arc yelled out loudly, looking at the group.

Their clothes were in tatters and covered in darkened blood, but overall they seemed fine. Covered in dirt and all other sort of grime, but generally uninjured. At least, they still had the same amount of limbs they left with.

With a broad grin, Arc was the first to reach the bottom of the stairs, "You got him? You killed the Devil?" he asked excitedly, and Eiro quickly nodded his head.

"That we did," he replied, placing his hand onto his son's back as the two walked back toward the entrance where the others were waiting.

"Hell yeah, that's sick," Arc said with a happy smile, but as Eiro looked at the boy's siblings, he saw the more complex expressions that one would generally expect from the situation. They had all been practically tortured by the demons that the Devil had brought to that small town from eight years ago.

And they also saw the aftermath of their first direct encounter with the Devil, where Eiro was branded with the mark of wrath. He was struggling with it in ways that he wasn't able to properly hide from the kids, even if he regretted that quite a bit.

But since Arc's negative emotions about this situation were blocked by his unique skill, the only thing that he was able to feel now were the positive emotions; the genuine joy, happiness and excitement over the fact that the Devil was dead and nobody would have to fall victim to him anymore.

Eiro stepped up to the kids, and without having to say anything, they practically fell into his arms. He held them tightly, rubbing their backs.

"Daddy!" Avalin exclaimed from below Eiro, and the Demon smiled and quickly picked her up. The feeling of her arms and hands wrapping around his neck for support still felt oh so wonderful to him. The fact that he was able to hold Avalin without the pain of Holy Energy trying to break him apart from the ground up still filled Eiro with unimaginable joy.

The fact that he was originally an artificial demon really saved him there. If he had gotten to this point having been a true, hellborn demon, then by this point he would probably be unable to stay in the same room as his daughter.

Demon Lords may be a lot stronger than other demons due to their connection to hell, but at the same time, that also brought a deeper connection to the 'Demon King' with it. And with that, the consequence of the 'original sin' of rebellion against the gods, the bane of holy energy, was only that much more potent.

But now, Eiro was probably the only Demon Lord that ever held the Holy Priestess so tightly.

"Did everything go well?" Sammy asked, and Eiro hesitated to just nod immediately.

"I... the fight against the Devil himself went off without a hitch. Honestly, it went so according to plan that I'm still not sure if this is all some kind of bad dream, but... before we even got to fight the Devil, Nelly was injured," Eiro explained, and the kids looked at their father confused. To them, Nelly was a mother figure that none of them ever had before her.

They loved her dearly, and she loved them in much the same way. Before their worry could turn into panic, Eiro continued, "I already brought her to a place where she's been healed. She's recovering there right now, but she should wake up and come back to us soon. So there's no need to be scared for her."

Relief came over the children's faces, "Don't say it like that, then," Rudy said, letting out a deep sigh, "You scared me half to death here..."

"Sorry," Eiro replied with an apologetic smile, "I'll let you guys know the moment she wakes up, alright? But for now, just let us get through the door first, the others really want to get some rest."

"You'll rest too though, right?" Clementine asked with a slight frown, and the Demon nodded quickly.

"Of course. I have to talk to Armodeus and Partax first. I'm sure Bavet and Lugo are also worried about me," Eiro said, and noticed the deep stared of his kids basically drilling into his skin. With a sigh, the Demon smiled at them, "Seriously, I promise I'm going to sleep for a while after I talk to them, okay?"

"...Fine," Sammy sighed, "But if not, then you... can't give us any homework for a week?"

Eiro thought about it for a moment and then nodded his head, "Sure. I'm planning on keeping that promise, so that won't be an issue."

The kids groaned for a moment, and Eiro placed Avalin back onto the ground, rubbing her cheek with a smile on his face. As the kids properly greeted the others as well, Eiro made his way upstairs to where the others were waiting for him. Though, it wasn't just Armodeus, Partax and Bavet that were there right now.

The Demon entered the upstairs sitting room, where Armodeus and Partax were seated on some couches, with Bavet, in his snake form, coiled up on a chair by the window where he could bathe in sunlight.

"So you really are back," Partax scoffed in some disbelief, and Armodeus seemed to let out a deep sigh of relief, as though he had been holding his breath ever since Eiro left.

"Yes, I am. Things went just as planned. Though, I guess I have to apologize to you four, I sort of changed the plan while you were on your way," Eiro sighed, and both Armodeus and Partax raised their brows.

"Braggard," Bavet muttered from his seat, slowly stretching as he sat up and turned into his cat form, walking over to one of the couches. Meanwhile, Eiro got out one of his daggers, stabbing it right into the empty space next to him. The air crackled with sparks of fire that stretched out to the corner of the room, where three figures soon came into view.

The fourth was now behind Eiro, and the Demon had helt out one of his hands toward that point, carrying his other dagger right at the point where that person had suddenly appeared after moving so freely through this space.

"...You got better," Shimour pointed out, and Eiro just let out a slight laugh.

"Yeah, I guess you can say that."

"So, will you tell us why exactly you asked us to come here just to change your mind and go to kill the Devil without being taught by us?" Shimour, the Master of Stealth, asked.

Eiro replied quickly, "Because, as it turned out, I wasn't able to waste any more time. The Devil was making moves that would have messed this whole thing up at a massive scale, and I couldn't afford to take any losses. So, I just attacked him myself. And now that I have, I know that it was the right choice.

He was in the middle of manipulating the foreign affairs of a country to the north of Skyhart to plunge this place into a full-on war."

That was information that Eiro himself hadn't figured out beforehand. He knew that the Devil was planning something, but only with the knowledge that Eiro had harvested from the Devil's mind was he able to put everything together to figure out the plan.

"...That's a good reason, at least," the man behind Eiro pointed out, "Oh and by the way, do you think you could maybe take this thing away from my neck?"

The Demon scoffed, "As if I could stab you even if I wanted to."

"It's about the principle," the man sighed, taking a step forward. The dagger pushed right through his throat, but instead of actually being injured, his body seemed to just fall apart into mist right where he would have been touched, walking past Eiro with a slight smile.

Eiro looked at the four people that were stood in front of him. He already knew Shimour, but it was his first time meeting the other three face-to-face. Three other masters; the Master of Hand-to-Hand Combat, the Master of Dagger Mastery, and the Master of Freerunning.