Demon's Virtue

Eiro looked at his wrist, watching his muscles slowly repair themselves. It was taking a bit longer than before, most likely due to the constant, rapid deconstruction of his body throughout the evolution in the first place. He took a deep breath and sighed. Mana flowed through the blood in his veins, which Eiro quickly used as a conduit for healing magic to speed the process up more.

The demon carefully made his way to the small room connected to his bedchambers, where he stretched out his arm. He wanted to keep movement to a minimum, so using Arcane Magic, he quickly created some translucent mage hands to assist him. They took clothes from the hangers and shelves and carefully put them on Eiro's body, letting him leave his room.

As he walked through the manor, past the servants and the scurrying spiders, that at this point acted as safety surveillance drones, he spread out his perception to the surroundings. Everything about his body was completely out of whack. This evolution was taking a lot out of him already, and it's only been a few days. It would be rough, incredibly rough.

Stepping down the stairs, Eiro walked into one of the sitting rooms. Arc was playing with Leon and Avalin, right in the middle of the room, but that was quickly interrupted when the kids spotted their father.

"Daddy!" Avalin jumped up from the ground, sprinting over toward him as quickly as she could. But from Eiro's point of view, she might as well be standing still. Boosted Agility and Perception working together, combined with his increased processing speed after he increased his stats... everything felt off, as if he was slowly crawling through one of his own memories from five minutes ago.

He carefully squatted down, catching his youngest daughter with a happy smile. Every single time he hugged her was a defiance of every single way the world was supposed to work. A Demon Lord holding the incarnation of holiness. A ridiculous idea, really.

Avalin's hand pressed against Eiro's arm, holding onto him. His skin slid around too much, as if only loosely laid over his flesh. Using some magic, he held it all in place, but he'd have to check on that in a bit.

"How are you, sweetheart? Have you been good while I was sleeping?" Eiro asked, slowly running his hand through Avalin's hair as the young girl quickly nodded.

"Mhm! I was the best! I ate all my veggies, and I went to bed early, and I only got my dress dirty while playing outside once!"

Eiro smiled broadly, "I'm very proud of you, my love. How about your brother? Do you think he was a good boy too?" he asked, holding his hand out toward the more slowly approaching Leon.

Though, somehow it seemed like he actually hit a sore note with that. The boy flinched slightly, glancing down. His heart was beating strong in his chest and his ears were twitching anxiously, "I-I... I was..." Leon whispered, tears welling up in his face.

Eiro immediately stood up, picking up Avalin with one of his arms as he did, to go and pick up Leon with two of his others, trying to hold him tightly, but carefully, to comfort him, "Oh, I'm sorry... What happened?"

"I... I came to your room... and I... you were..." the tears were strong in Leon's eyes. He didn't know what he was talking about. Usually when he slept with his main body, he still had duplicates that were active and he could still sense things to an extent, but after the start of his evolution, that hadn't been possible.

The only thing that happened was that he retrieved the memories of the two duplicates in the elemental planes, and now they were back to the full, regular connection.

"Calm down, I'm here," Eiro replied, rubbing the tears off his cheeks. His skin was starting to be covered in a thin layer of fur, "Deep breaths, alright? Like we spoke about."

Leon stutteringly nodded his head. He pressed his lips together and pushed out the air in his lungs, before filling them up fully again. He repeated this a few times until he managed to calm down again.

"Great job, Leon. Now, could you try telling me again?"

"I was worried because you slept for so long... because you tell me that you're worried when I sleep so much, so I came to your room, but you were laying in bed and you looked in pain and... and I was scared and..." tears once more welled up in Leon's eyes, as Eiro understood.

"And you lost control of your ability again?"

"Just... just for a moment..." Leon replied, "But, but then you started shaking and looked in more pain and... I stopped the ability again, but you were still in pain, and..."

Eiro slowly ran his hand over his son's wild head of hair, "I'm sorry, son. But you don't need to worry, I wasn't in pain because of you, okay? I'm feeling a bit sick at the moment, I strained myself a bit too much on that trip we went on. You did nothing wrong, and I'm very very proud of you for managing to control yourself all on your own."

While Leon was trying not to cry any more, Eiro heard a whisper from Arc.

"Evolution?" he asked, and the Demon quietly nodded his head while locking eyes with him.

Arc smiled curiously, but Eiro sensed some slightly worried undertones.

Eiro properly stood up with Avalin and Leon in his arms, walking up to Arc as well. He held his son and rubbed his back with one of his free hands, "Don't worry. It's a strong one, but that just means it's going to turn out even better."

Arc pushed his father away, locking eyes with him, "Are you serious?" he asked, slightly frowning. But immediately, that frown turned into a smile as his skill took over, "You know what? Sure. I won't worry, not like that's something I can do anyway."

Eiro looked at his son a bit confused. He squatted down and let Leon and Avalin go, "Sorry, can you two go play again for a bit? I want to talk to your brother about something. I'll be right there with you, okay?"

The kids quickly nodded their heads and moved back to their play spot. Frankly, Eiro wanted to pay some more attention to Leon, but he seemed to already have recovered a bit. Eiro was sure that his older siblings already spoke to him about a lot of these things, and seeing Eiro just brought the emotions back for a moment.

"Arc, what's wrong?"

Arc's eye flinched, "Nothing's wrong. Nothing can be wrong, Dad, you know that."

"...Then why don't you tell me what specifically you're glad about right now, seeing me."

"..." Arc hesitated, trying to gather his thoughts, "I... I'm glad that you're here. That you can talk to us, that you're holding together well. That you're doing everything you can to hide the insane pain you're in from Leon and Avalin."

Eiro looked at his son with a sorrow-filled frown, "I'm sorry, Arc. I know that you don't like seeing me like this. You never have. But this is something that just... happens to monsters. Our bodies break down and are rebuilt.

And when you get to the point where I'm at... those changes are a lot more extreme."

Arc sighed loudly, "I know that, Dad. Doesn't change that every time you go through an evolution, my unique skill levels up a few times."

Eiro placed his hand onto his son's shoulder, rubbing the side of his neck, "Son, I'm fine. This pain is nothing compared to the joy I feel as I spend my time with you all. You really don't need to worry about me."

Looking down at the ground, Arc took a deep breath, "Well, fine, whatever. If you say so. Oh, right, your new 'friends' said that they'd be going out into town for a while. I don't know if that's something you want to check up on or not."

Eiro looked at his son's eyes. He was sad to see that his skill was still active like this. If any of them, maybe he could find a way to relieve Arc of his skill. They were unique skills bestowed upon him after his death in another world, so maybe it was possible.

"I'll check on them later. Don't worry. For now, I'll play with the kids for a while."

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