Eiro opened up a hole in the courtyard's ground again, quickly dropping down into the underground hallway that was currently practically flooded with Imps. They were the only ones that didn't immediately rush at the space where the others were currently waiting for Eiro, it seemed. He was able to smell the scent of Imps that were molten away by Holy Energy, so Jess seemed to have used the Holy Energy magic stone to defend themselves. But even these Imps seemed to be smart enough to try and avoid their bane.
Well, either way, Eiro just quickly got rid of all of these Imps for his party, since they were bothering him quite a bit. A few of them were running away, but that was fine. Eiro would go for a final 'cleanup' measure later on anyway, where he would kill every single monster that they wouldn't take along to expand the Monster Village. Eiro had leveled up a bit already, through all these monsters that he had killed. These last monsters that were left in the city would probably bring him to the mid-90 range in regard to his level. At that point, it would become a miserable crawl to find ways to level up to 100 so that he could finally evolve, but it should be possible if he spent a week or two going out to hunt.
Eiro quickly knocked on the door to the room where the party and all those prisoners were currently in, "Don't attack, it's me." He said, and quickly opened it up. Of course, the moment he stepped inside, all the prisoners were shocked. They were told that they were going to be freed, and now, another Demon steps into the room? That was something that would shock most people, really.
"No need to be scared, I'm here to help you all." He said bluntly, and then turned toward James, "I already brought a group of people to a storage room up there. It's large, and there are plenty of places where they can sit or lay down. We'll bring them there, and then I'll go out to finish the hunt while you guys protect and help all of these guys." Eiro suggested, and James slowly nodded his head.
"Sounds good. But are you sure you don't need any help?" The Light-Elf asekd, and Eiro smiled at him, "Don't worry, I'll be fine on my own. I'll go all-out for a while, so it shouldn't take me too long to finish up. Especially since the sun is coming up, there are plenty of shadows around right now."
"Right, I keep forgetting you can travel through them so quickly." James pointed out, "Really, I'm kind of jealous. That's an ability I wish I had." He laughed slightly, and Eiro shrugged in response.
"I might be able to help you out with that once I can control other people's Magic Circuits. And when I'm... you know... I'll get plenty of new abilities. One of them might help with that." Eiro suggested, and James looked back at him with a wry smile, "Dude, you've already given me so much more power than I used to have, I'd feel bad if I-"
"James, just shut the fuck up and accept the offer." Krog said as he hit his friend's back, before going to help some of the prisoners up from where they were sitting. James looked at Krog with a slight glare, and Eiro slowly turned his head toward Nelli, "Could you stay here and help Jess heal everyone a bit?"
"Of course. That was the plan anyway, right?" The Naiad replied immediately, and Eiro quickly nodded, "Yup, basically." He said, and slowly turned around back toward the door
"Well, anyway, I guess it's about time for me to get started now. Nelli and Lugo will lead you to the right storage room." The Demon explained, and slowly spread out his wings as he infused his body with the air around him.
With a single flap of his wings, a strong gust hit the face of the people gathered here, and Eiro disappeared before they knew it. And what Eiro now did was simple. He really went all-out. For the first time really trying this out, Eiro accessed all ten blades of the three of swords.
The rings appeared on his left hand, and fit perfectly into his gauntlet there as well. Right now, he chose to gather compressed air in one spot and fuse it with each of the blades, effectively creating 'wind claws' for himself.
Using these, due to the speed that Eiro was traveling at right now, he was able to cut through most of the monsters that he was hunting immediately. Their necks were turned into thin discs while their bodies lifelessly slumped onto the ground. It didn't take Eiro too long until he managed to take out all of the Imps in this area, without a single exception. And then, he moved on to other parts of the city. Block by block, Eiro freed this city from the monsters, of course with the exception of the ones that he would take with him.
Depending on his oponents, he would change which element he infused himself with, using the Shadow Element quite a lot especially when it came to moving around narrow areas or the insides of buildings. Sometimes, Eiro even used Gravity magic to pull certain monsters toward him so that he didn't need to slow down in his movements. Like this, Eiro was able to quickly free the town of most of the monsters that were roaming around. Some managed to hide out in the blocks that Eiro already cleared out, so he had to go through the whole town a couple of times to make sure that there weren't any monsters hiding out anywhere anymore.
But soon, the town had been freed. And that meant that Eiro just had to take out the monsters in one more area. The Demon rushed to the edge of the city and quickly jumped off the edge of the floating island, rushing closer toward the surface of the lake second by second.
He dove deep into the water as he infused himself with it, letting him travel through it faster than he usually would be able to. If he was fused with Nelli, he might have been able to move even faster, but that mattered quite little for now.
When he was in the water, it was the first time that he actually saw the Lord of the Lake. Really, it was a truly huge, enormous serpent. Its body was so long that its body covered a large part of the bottom of the lake. But even so, it was still unable to move, magically chained up to the island. Eiro would need to remove those restraints later, but he wanted to somehow communicate with the Lord of the Lake first.
Eiro had no idea how powerful it was, but he wanted to make sure that the Lord of the Lake knew that it, as well as the city above it, was freed by Eiro. That was, it wouldn't end up attacking the island the moment it became able to move around again. If that were to happen... that would certainly be a rather bad outcome.
Well, for now, Eiro just had to find the leader of these underwater monsters first. Not that it was particularly hard, since they basically erected a castle down here using the corals that were naturally growing in this lake. The Demon approached the area, obviously dyeing part of the water near him red whenever a creature tried to attack him.
And so, it didn't take long for Eiro to reach the inside of this small underwater castle, and he soon set eyes on the creature that was waiting there for him. It was a Siren. He was the size of a regular human, and actually looked surprisingly similar to the Lonely Naiad.
His lower body was just a fish-tail, while his upper body was more humanoid, even if it was still largely covered in scales. He had webbed hands, and a fin on the back of his head running down toward the center of his back instead of hair. He had large, ever-open dead eyes, and only blinked with a see-through film like a regular fish would. He had sharp, monstrous teeth, and a long, nearly snake-like tongue.
Now, Eiro just had to find a way to communicate with him. Eiro approached the Siren and locked eyes with him, while he just sat there without reacting too much.
"Come with me." Eiro tried to speak through the water, layering his charisma onto his voice as much as absolutely possible, so that he could at least try to bring the rough meaning of his words to the Siren. Other sea-creatures came as well. They were all sorts of different underwater monsters, instead of just different Sirens. The monsters tried to attack Eiro, but the Siren just stopped them by raising its hand for a moment.
It looked back at Eiro, and simply nodded its head. Eiro didn't know how, but the Siren clearly understood what he was trying to say, and swam away from its throne toward Eiro. Surprised at how easily this worked, the Demon swam out of the underwater castle and approached the surface. He created a box of ice around the siren, and then more around a bunch of other different monsters that seemed like they would be useful. Eiro would just leave the rest to the Lord of the Lake, if it felt like eating something after being trapped for so long.
Eiro quickly shot out of the water and carried as many of the monsters up to the floating islands as he could by controlling the water-filled boxes of ice. On the surface of the island, Eiro quickly manipulated the earth and made a pond for these monsters to stay in for now. He would expand it further later if he needed to.
It took a few trips to bring all of them up to the island, but then, it was time for Eiro to speak to the Lord of the Lake, and then he would finish the request of the Lonely Naiad.
