Demon's Virtue

Chapter 622: Rebirth of Fire and Ice

Eiro continued sitting in Armodeus’ smithy for a while, just watching him work to make sure that nothing was going to go wrong with the duplicated Mountainbreaker. Even Armodeus, who spent his whole life perfecting his craft, took quite some effort in even taking the weapon apart. However, since Eiro was here and helped created the best possible environment through the help of powerful magical flames and by simply assisting Armodeus however necessary, the dwarf was able to offset at least part of the troubles that he had with this project. But even then, his work wasn’t a simple one.

Instead of simply having to reforge something normally, he had to combine high quality steel with the material of an artifact. Since the two materials were very different to each other, it took quite some finessing to make sure Armodeus didn’t end up damaging the steel while he was working with it. But soon, he managed to salvage the steel of both of the daggers and combine them with the mountainbreaker’s metal. Since something like alloying wasn’t possible with these two materials, he instead layered them, folding the metals over each other again and again, until it was nearly impossible to even see any layers without inspecting the metal for some time up close.

Once the base material was finished, Armodeus used an ability that he didn’t have the chance to make use of for quite a while. As he continuously advanced through different grades of classes, even to the point of advancing his own race to that of an Elder Dwarf, he acquired a few useful abilities. Most of them simply helped him in honing his craft, or retaining the knowledge of different techniques or materials, as well as finding new ones. But there was one ability that was different to the others, one that he received a surprisingly long time ago.

As he was in the process of creating an item, under the right conditions, he could pull out certain special aspects out of it. The times that he was able to meet those conditions could be counted on one hand, but now, he could add another to the toll.

The conditions that Armodeus had managed to figure out thus far were relatively simple. The material needed to have a high amount of magic naturally imbued in it over some time. While this usually took much, much longer, due to Eiro’s massive amounts of mana as well as the abilities he received once he first picked up the card of ‘The World’, Eiro’s magic seemed to seep into physical objects much more easily.

The second condition seemed to be that there was a strong emotional connection to the items in question. This condition was very easily fulfilled through the dagger Eiro inherited from Avalin way back then. He had been carrying it with him ever since, caring for it dearly. Armodeus was actually worried that this condition would only be fulfilled by that dagger, not by the Assassin’s Dagger that he gave to Eiro when they first met, but surprisingly, Eiro was attached to that weapon quite a bit as well. Maybe it was because Eiro simply took this part of his life very seriously and naturally considered the daggers as much more important than many others would, or maybe it was for some other reasons that Armodeus couldn’t understand for now. The important part was that this condition was also met.

As for the last condition, it was one that Armodeus wasn’t even fully sure of. It seemed to have something to do with luck, or maybe it was his own condition. Not only did the material, and whatever object resulted from it, have to have the deep thoughts of a being held within it, but Armodeus also had to truthfully and genuinely place a lot of meaning into this object, whether it was the base material or the purpose he was creating the item for. And right now, it was simple to say that Armodeus’ physical condition was the best it had ever been. Eiro had been taking care of him incredibly well, not only with the food that he provided, but also by using magic to alleviate any issues that he might have from his work. He felt like he was a hundred years old again! Mentally as well, Armodeus was doing quite well; he was excited to work on this, not only because it seemed like these items possibly could become unique masterpieces, but also because he was happy to do this for Eiro. He wanted to help this man out. And lastly, it was because these daggers were things that he had created in the first place. Seeing how well they had been treated by Eiro, and how much love he ingrained within them, was something that filled Armodeus with the greatest joy any craftsman could ever feel.

Like that, after working over the magical flames of the forge tirelessly, Armodeus finished both of the daggers together. They were still separate, holding their own properties from before they were reforged. The flame dagger could still become surgingly hot, and the hollow assassin’s dagger gave off a deathly cool air while the flow of liquids throughout it had stayed as good as it had always been. It was just that they were much more than what they were before.

Their shapes barely changed, even if they might be a bit larger than before, but their color was noticeably darker as an influence of the mountainbreaker’s metal. They were heavier, but due to Eiro’s physical strength, this was barely noticeable. Rather, he preferred the extra weight they had to them.

The demon held the weapons in his hands, and let his power flow through them. As his magic flowed into the flame dagger, it immediately began to glow from the heat it created. The air around the blade shifted. It was so hot that the air itself could have long caught flames, but the heat was deeply focused on the blade itself.

As Eiro filled the assassin’s dagger with his water magic, he could feel it freezing nearly immediately. Or rather, it cooled down to a point where it should be frozen, but through the dagger’s own influence, it stayed liquid as it fitted itself to the shape of the blade nearly on its own. These two properties of magic that Eiro most felt connected to, fire and ice, had always been deeply ingrained in these two weapons ever since he started using them; and now that was underlined immensely.

These weapons were new, they were changed. But they were still the same ones that Eiro had always used. He even nearly felt like shedding some tears over this fact. He was worried that he would have to abandon them, but through that masterful craftsman next to him, it seemed like he wouldn’t ever have to do anything of the sort.

Feeling an immediate sense of excitement, Eiro looked at Armodeus, “I can’t thank you enough. Do you want to take a break and watch me as I try it out?” the Demon asked, and Armodeus let out a slight chuckle, “Aye, of course. I want to see what these children of mine can do now.”

Eiro and Armodeus walked out of the basement and made their way into the garden. The Demon waved his hand, and a woodland critter came rushing over to him in the form of a small squirrel. Upon closer inspection, Armodeus realized that it was completely made of wood. It appeared to be one of Eiro’s servants created through the help of his royal powers combined with nature magic.

In its mouth, it held a nut that it dropped onto the ground in front of Eiro. Near instantly, its shell cracked open and thick roots grew from where it landed. The roots burrowed into the ground and twisted around themselves, creating the thick trunk of the tree. It grew quite tall, taller than most of the trees surrounding the manor. Of course, the sudden appearance of a tree this size attracted the attention of everyone else living in the manor. Thankfully, Eiro had already picked up Bavet on the way to the training grounds, since Noma and Naomi were still currently at the manor. They would most likely also want to take a look, so it was unavoidable.

He waited for a while until the tree grew properly to the point that he wanted, and at the same time, it gave the others a chance to arrive here properly to witness this moment. Armodeus seemed a bit nervous because everyone was watching now, but at the end of the day, he was confident in his work and he knew that everything was going to work properly. The only issue was that even he didn’t know the extent to which the natural abilities he drew out of the daggers would influence things.

The moment that everyone had gathered, tightly held the first dagger in his hand. It was the flame dagger. He accessed the power of the mountainbreaker that was now permantently fused into the blade, and after taking a deep breath, vertically swung it at the tree. He stood only far enough away from it so that he would cut into the bark with the front one inch of the blade, but even that was prove to the Demon that this dagger had changed considerably.

The mountainbreaker’s power perfectly fused with the innate power of the flame dagger, and a rippling wave of fire buried itself in the tree. As it was ripped apart by the mountainbreaker, shattering even the leaves into small fragments, each gap was immediately filled with surging hot flames that seemed like they wanted to instantly incinerate even the smallest piece of this former tree.

But that wasn’t all; as if his body was naturally pulled into this combination, he swung the assassin’s dagger imbued with his ice magic vertically along where the tree once stood, albeit in the opposite direction as the first dagger’s attack. The tip of the dagger touched one of the larger fragments of the tree, and a second wave of power surged outward. As if in waves, the destructive power of the mountainbreaker further rippled through each and every fragment of the the former tree. But as it did so, traveling further toward the outer pieces, not only the burning chips of wood immediately froze, but for a few moments that possibly could only be perceived by Eiro himself, the flames that he spread with the flame dagger’s swing just earlier were frozen solid.

For those few instants, Eiro saw something that he had created unintentionally, not knowing what was even about to happen. It was tree made of wood, flames and ice, combined with the destructive power of his attacks. It was wonderful, but it disappeared even sooner than it came to be.

The pieces of wood were turned into even smaller chips and soon rained down. Some of the parts that had already been turned into ash now rained down in tiny frozen clumps as if they were snowflakes, as Eiro looked down at the weapons that had been given to him. While everyone else stared on in shock and confusion, and even Armodeus wasn’t able to believe his eyes as that giant tree was completely destroyed in an instant, Eiro looked at the dwarf with a smile.

“They’re even better than I could’ve dreamt of.”