Published at 30th of July 2022 8:56 am

Chapter 578 - Chimeras

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Eiro looked at the monsters standing in front of him, slowly holding his hand in front of himself, "Well, at least, that's what I'd prefer the most, but... you three can surely be useful to me. As long as those two give me their cards, I might consider letting you all live and taking you under my wing." He suggested, before the Minotaur let out a loud laugh, "You wish! As if we would ever work for you! We will kill you, and grow stronger, step by step, leap by leap!"

The Demon slightly chuckled, "It's good to see you have such opinions of growing stronger, but if that's the case, I guess I don't have any other choice."

Keeping up his soft smile, Eiro slowly lifted up his right leg, and proceeded to manipulate his own blood and muscles to squeeze onto his bones, soon making them break. The same thing happened in the Tortle's body, and it soon fell down. Eiro felt some scratches on his back and side in response, which was actually a quite weird sensation, considering that Eiro himself didn't even fall over.

"Hm, how much do you have left, I wonder?" Eiro crossed his arms in thought, looking at the monsters again. None of them could attack Eiro right now, since somehow, the Demon had forced the Tortle's mana to stay inside of his own body, so if they were to attack, they would kill the Tortle instead. It was clear that they were at a disadvantage now.

But then, Eiro's ear slightly twitched, and he shot around, staring into the direction of the hut-village, where everyone else was currently at.

"Someone was killed?" Eiro muttered. Someone whose shadow Eiro had turned into a hidden servant had been killed. But none of the servants that Eiro had stationed around the village had seen anything.

"...The activation requirement for your skill... What is it?" Eiro asked, looking at the Tortle, who was simply grinning at Eiro, "Sight." It replied, and Eiro glared back, before releasing the connection between him and the Tortle, before he shot a bullet of compressed blood at its head, killing it instantly, "No experience points... It was a duplicate." Eiro ground his teeth annoyed, "And so are all of you, huh?" The Minotaur started rushing at Eiro. Now that the Tortle was gone, there was no reason for it to not try its luck.

But of course, Eiro had enough of playing around. He pulled out his new greatsword, the one that he had created out of magic the other day, and swung it at the Minotaur at a speed that it clearly wasn't able to react to, and cleanly cut its body in half. The body stayed behind for a while, but the Mountain Breaker turned back into a card. But rather than the golden color that all cards had, it turned into a black and white version, showing that it was a fake.

The vibe felt completely real. The Mirror of Duplication was something that could create perfect copies, after all, to the point where even Eiro hadn't been able to tell. Eiro stepped forward, and reached the flock of Birds in that single step, cutting through their bodies with ease as well. However, the leader of this flock, the one that had turned humanoid, was showing an expression for the first time. It had been emotionless until now, but what Eiro saw while its head hit the ground was not an expression of fear or grief over its own death like the Demon experienced many times before, but it was smiling. Grinning, as if it had won.

"Of course, there is no way they would send three monsters to kill everyone here... they just want to do as much damage as they can. And the best way to do that is to send multiple waves." Eiro muttered, not even waiting for the Bird's head to stop rolling as he pulled up his hood, pressing his horns down onto his head again, and shot up into the sky while placing his mask onto his face.

Eiro flew toward the village, getting continuos signals of killings and danger from his scattered servants. He made sure to pull his arms together and force his tail into his lower back, and pulled his wings into his upper back when he was close enough to the village.

Eiro shot forward and landed in the center of the village, stopping himself with air magic, as he saw what was going on. At first, the Demon thought they had only created one duplicate, but no. There were a dozen pairs of Minotaurs and Tortles scattered around, killing as many of the guards and warriors as possible, while the champions were getting ready to help fight against them.

A large amount of birds were flying above them, every once in a while exploding while the Tortle was being healed. Eiro ground his teeth, angrily. He steadily walked forward, approaching the first pair. It was clear that they were currently trying to heal up, so Eiro shot forward and cut through the Tortle's head, before stabbing his sword through the Minotaur's heart.

As for the others... it wouldn't be as easy taking them out, considering that they were all busy targetting the guards. If Eiro attacked the Tortles, he would end up killing said guards as well. But they were all dying like flies already anyway.

So first, Eiro had to do something else.

Eiro held his hand forward, and spoke his chant, "Take my blood, take my essence. Take that which gives me life, and use it to take another's. Seek their heart, and extinguish their flame." The Demon said loudly, as a magic circle appeared in front of him.

The moment that he activated said magic circle, Eiro could feel his veins popping open, as blood poured out from his armor. A few champions had finally stepped out of their huts, and were looking at Eiro. And of course, upon seeing this figure, they couldn't help but think that the intruders managed to kill Eiro as well.

But then, the blood gathered in the center of the magic circle in front of Eiro, and split up into small marble-sized bubbles, which soon froze and hardened. And then, they shot up into the sky. Dozens of projectiles were shot, followed by a rain of blood and dead birds falling down from the darkness above.

Eiro turned around, looking at anyone that was capable of fighting.

"Target any of the birds you see around here. Fight against the Minotaurs. Do not attack the Tortles, no matter what you do." Eiro yelled out loudly, his voice carrying throughout the whole village of huts, and all the champions quickly got to work, trying to fight back against the sudden intruders.

Eiro kicked off from the ground, shooting through the village to help anyone that he could. He used shadow magic to blind one of the nearby Tortles, and would then wait for their ability to cancel before killing them, and in the meantime would attack the Minotaurs. But the issue was that the amount of intruders only increased, rather than decreasing. Swarms of them came out of the nearby forest, attacking anyone in sight. Eiro was trying to kill as many of them as he could, but he wasn't able to go for huge all-out attacks because of the people that were in the way. He didn't care whether they lived or died, but he couldn't just kill them himself, or it would ruin everything that was going on here.

The worst part was that there were just so many Tortles leftover that nobody could attack, because they themselves would receive damage if they did. They now resorted to fighting against each other, simply punching another version of themselves in the face or stomach, to damage their targets, since the Minotaurs that would have usually done so were already dead.

Eiro ground his teeth annoyed. People were dying all around him. Even some of the Champions ended up being crushed by the new Minotaurs that came and attacked as many of the Tortles as possible. Eiro looked into the sky, and contemplated for a moment, maybe two. He spread his perception out as far as he could into the direction where the hordes of duplicates were coming from. And when he did, he soon saw something else.

"What the..." Eiro let out. He had sensed a large bull, a Minotaur... with a huge amount of health. Its back was covered in a thick shell. Its internal organs had changed as well. This was a hybrid. A chimera of the Tortle and the Minotaur. But how was this possible?

While that question echoed through Eiro's mind, he watched as the chimera swung its hammer at its own face, making the head of one of the guards explode. The pairs of Tortles and Minotaurs were soon replaced, and only these chimeras came at them. But they were changing, as well. Some of them were more like the Tortle, others were more like the Minotaur, but all of them were a lot more bothersome to deal with than before.

"Everyone! Run away! The ability's activation condition is sight!" Eiro yelled out loudly, as he tried to create a veil of shadows between the incoming Chimeras and all the people that were here, trying to get them to run away.

"B-But... my husband is still in the hut!" One of the champions exclaimed, and the moment that she did so, everyone else did the same. Nearly none of them had come alone, so of course they wouldn't just run away in a situation like this. And beyond that, there was still the issue of their pride as warriors.

"Did you seriously forget about me?" A voice asked from behind Eiro, clearly annoyed, "I'm here as well, right?" Koperia said. The Demon turned around and looked at her.

"I didn't forget about you, I just figured you were too bothered to help out. But if you're here... well, that does change something, at least." Eiro pointed out with a slight grin on his face, ready to put an end to all this.

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