Demon's Virtue - Chapter 653: Where is it?

Kristoph’s strike was heavy, but slow. With ease, Eiro twisted his body out of the way and took hold of the other fighter’s wrist. Using the momentum built during the dodge, Eiro pulled him forward, while hooking his own ankle onto Kristoph’s.

Instead of doing the generally obvious thing and trying to struggle against this, Kristoph did the opposite; he further jumped into Eiro’s pull and thus managed to take control of his own movement again. Eiro’s hand was still tightly wrapped around his wrist, but that also meant that Eiro was in range and it would be hard for him to dodge out of the way. Kristoph leaned back and to the side, and pulled his leg upward to strike at Eiro’s arm.

Eiro let go of the wrist and instead held his palm toward Kristoph’s incoming kick. Since physical enhancement was allowed, Eiro fused his body partially with water. The shock from Kristoph’s kick travelled through the Demon’s body, but he managed to direct the absorbed shock toward his other hand. Eiro slid over the ground and moved closer toward the slow Kristoph, pressing his palm into his stomach right when the shockwave passed his wrist. A shock of power rushed through Kristoph’s body, and due to the sheer force of the attack, his body shot to the other side of the training area, in a straight line.

Of course, it was an area where none of the students had gathered; otherwise, Eiro never would have attacked him in this way. Mid-air, Kristoph managed to twist his body around by practically kicking the air, introducing new momentum to his body. He pushed his feet into the trampled dirt and leaned forward, grabbing the ground to stop his movement as fast as he could.

Like a spring, he immediately changed direction and shot back at Eiro, while the student body watched on in awe. So far, the fight had gone on for just a few seconds, but they were already witnessing something incredible. They were watching a fight between two of the strongest people in the city; no, the country. Not even the fights during the ‘Selection Tournament’, where Eiro was chosen as the Hero’s companion, seemed this intense.

Eiro let out a slight breath as he dropped down backward. He was practically laying flat on the ground, even though the bottom of his feet were still solidly placed onto the floor. He wasn’t supporting himself with his hands either, and simply managed to hold such an impossible position for an even more impossible amount of time, simply to dodge underneath Kristoph’s sweep. Usually, this was the sort of attack you would try to avoid with a jump, but Eiro could already tell that Kristoph was flexing his upper body in a way to prepare to punch up, preparing exactly for that to happen, so he dodged out of the way underneath. But, as one would expect from a fighter at Kristoph’s level, he managed to adapt to the unexpected situation quickly. He had already started the momentum for his updward strike, but managed to twist his shoulder to make himself strike sideways instead, and he struck his right fist against his left.

It was the sort of attack you would expect to make one’s arm pop out of its stocket, and as far as Eiro could tell, Kristoph’s arm nearly did exactly that, but he managed to make his body follow behind just barely fast enough to avoid this. Instead, he managed to use the power of his punch for an elbow-strike that he could divert downward as he dropped his body as quickly as he could.

Eiro’s body was still horizontal, and Kristoph’s elbow was headed straight for his solar plexus, but the Demon finally kicked his feet of the ground and twisted around the incoming attack. He caught Kristoph’s elbow with both of his hands, before holding onto it as tightly as he could, while moving his own lower body toward Kristoph’s head. He pressed his knee onto his neck, where it met his right shoulder and hooked himself in. Kristoph’s right arm was still slightly raised, so the Demon wrapped his legs around it as if they were snakes. Most importantly, in a way that wasn’t usually physically possible, except if one had the level of flexibility that Eiro had. Usually, you could only bend your knee one way, but Eiro could bend it into any direction he wanted. He could manipulate all of his joints that way without losing much, or any, strength in his muscles while doing so. This way, he pulled Kristoph’s right arm away from his shoulder. Meanwhile, Eiro twisted the rest of his body so that he could turn Kristoph’s elbow, which he still tightly held onto, as much as he could.

Kristoph’s physical strength was remarkable, it was truly terrifying what this simple human managed to achieve. From what Eiro could tell, a huge amount of this strength did actually come from honing his muscles, instead of concentrating on gaining strength through stat increases, something that the Demon respected beyond belief. He himself had concentrated on this very thing since his last evolution; none of the stat points he gained since his last evolution had been put into any of his stats. While it did make you stronger, it also made it a lot harder to increase your physical strength independent from stats. So for now, Eiro did anything he could to make his training as efficient as possible, and would then increase his stats in one go when it was needed.

That being the case, it was clear that this moment wasn’t going to come soon. Kristoph wasn’t able to do much against Eiro except struggle with all the strength in his body, when Eiro himself still had plenty to spare. He simply didn’t want to use his whole strength, since actually cripping someone in front of the students was a rather bad idea, even if Eiro was able to heal him immediately, even if it happened.

Kristoph ground his teeth, and Eiro could just hear them squeal as if they were about to break apart. And that was when Kristoph jumped into the air, backward. It was clear that he was trying to use his own body weight to attack Eiro, but that wasn’t even nearly enough to hurt him. Right then, Eiro noticed the flow of magic in Kristoph’s body change, directed right at his feet. And then, the Demon heard the soles of Kristoph’s feet pressing against something, in the middle of the air. He had created a small, thin platform right under his own feet, and used it to force himself back down. With a grin, Eiro just let it happen. He wouldn’t be fast enough to completely let go of Kristoph before impact anyway, and like this he could at least continue pressuring his opponent, even if he did take some damage himself.

Eiro pressed into the ground, his body absorbing the brunt of the impact. It seemed as though Kristoph expected Eiro’s grip to loosen, since he pulled out a momentary burst of strength hidden inside of his body, but it was rather the opposite. Eiro had fused himself with a bit of Bavet’s slime, and wrapped it around his muscles before forcing it into a metal-like state. It basically turned Eiro into a statue, but it was only for a moment anyway. He couldn’t manipulate Bavet’s slime any longer than that, and even the short instant that he did, it wasn’t particularly effective anyway. Enough to stop his body from losing strength during the impact, though.

Kristoph quickly lost that burt of strength that he had hoped to use to escape Eiro’s clutches, but the Demon had already moved on. He kept one of his legs wrapped around Kristoph’s arm, and hooked his other one onto Kristoph’s right leg. One of his arms kept pulling and twisting on Kristoph’s elbow, while the other had wrapped around his neck and pulled up on the fighter’s chin. If Eiro wanted to, he could violently tear of Kristoph’s head right now. Of course, that wasn’t what he wanted, even if the urge was there for a few moments.

“You give up?” Eiro asked, and Kristoph glared at the Demon from the corner of his eye. The muscles in his throat twitched slightly, and his tongue was moving inside of his mouth, even if it couldn’t open due to Eiro grasp. But even so, Eiro could tell. Kristoph had tried to say something, but not what the Demon wanted to hear. Kristoph simply asked, “Where the hell is your heartbeat?”