Demon's Virtue

Eiro stood in front of another duplicate, who would, for now, act as a test dummy. He didn't want to just go out and find a random monster or animal to try this out on; that just seemed a bit cruel. The duplicate was currently standing there, just breathing in an regular pattern. And then, the proxy original Eiro let his magic flow into his tail; specifically, into his stinger.

His arcane magic broke apart the venom in his stinger. Eiro expelled it, and the venom blinked right into the other duplicate's mouth. But while it was a bit faster than just turning the venom into mist and controlling it, he couldn't go as deep as he wanted to. Since he could only blink things to places that he could see, bringing it directly to the lungs, as he usually would. So this idea was quickly scrapped.

So instead, Eiro took out a small throwing-knife. He threw it at the duplicate, activating the blink spell right when it left his fingertips. The knife was broken apart in the air, and brought to another place; conserving the momentum, but changing the orientation of that momentum, the knife was put back together right behind the duplicate, hitting him straight in the back.

Eiro couldn't help himself but grin a bit at that. This was good. He could do something similar with his eye with the help of the

Mirror of Duplication

that he was using as a lens, but it required a lot more fine control and placed quite a large strain on Eiro. But then, Eiro had another idea. He slightly edited the spell, linking in the mirror of duplication. Since 'sight' was already a large factor of this spell, that was rather simple to do if he used the one in his eye.

By doing this, Eiro was able to basically duplicate the destination 'slots', while keeping a singular starting point. This edited version was the 'Duplication Blink'. One thing was broken apart, and multiple were put back together. The duplicate from before pulled the knife out of its neck and threw it back over to the proxy original. He caught it and quickly prepared to throw it back again.

Just as before, Eiro activated the spell right when the throwing-knife left his hand. But this time, he had set five different target positions, and the arcane magic that broke apart the knife split into five, duplicating itself in the process, and then flowed over to each of the five positions. The five knives hit the duplicate, all at the same speed, just from different positions and angles. A few moments later, four of the knives disappeared, and just one was left behind.

"There we go, now that's a good use for the spell," Eiro grinned. This was probably one of the best combat applications that Eiro had found so far, just behind supplementing his movement and changing his position mid-combat.

Curiously, Eiro set out to use the 'Duplication Blink' spell in another way. He focused the spell on himself, and tried to move forward about twenty feet, duplicating himself in the process. While his body was broken apart once, when he arrived at his destination, two more Eiros were there. But something about this version of them was different.

Rather than being made of that magical mass that usual duplicates were formed from, they were temporarily constructed using arcane magic, and were starting to fall apart the moment they appeared. After about five seconds, they were fully gone again. But that wasn't all, because Eiro's consciousness didn't extend to those duplicates. They were empty hulls that completely replicated the motions of the proxy original, simply in different places and orientations.

"That's... interesting," Eiro muttered. That definitely could have some benefits in combat. Whenever a new duplicate was created, it took a moment for its consciousness to properly 'wake up'. It wasn't long, but in the middle of combat, it was definitely long enough to jeopardize that duplicate's safety. Rather, it practically meant that its death was almost inevitable, considering the scale of opponents that Eiro faced these days.

But in this case, there was no lag whatsoever. These copies created by the Duplication Blink didn't think; they were like mirages with some mass to them. They didn't seem like they could exert the exact same strength that Eiro could, but that didn't really matter. It was still useful and could be an advantage over his opponent.

"Playing around with the mirror?" James let out a slight yawn as he stepped from the stairway into the garden. He was apparently out on a solo job last night to increase his level a bit, only coming back very late. Rather, he just slept a couple of hours from what Eiro knew.

"Something like that. I'm developing and expanding a new spell," Eiro explained, "Want to help out? I can use it on others as well."

James raised his brow curiously, "What, you're going to duplicate me?"

"No, no, I'm going to use the original version of the spell on you. But it's an interesting sensation, and I would like to use it as an emergency escape system."

James thought about it for a few moments, clearly curious about what Eiro was going to do to him. With a shrug, he agreed, "Sure, let's do it. Anything I gotta do?"

"Not really, just let it happen," the demon said, placing his hand onto James' chest, "Now, again, I'm still working on improving the spell so right now its range is restricted to touch, but I'm working on improving the distance of what the spell can affect."

"No worries. You've done weirder shit to me," James shuddered lightly, and Eiro simply scoffed.

"You're not wrong. Okay, this might be a bit disorienting."

James nodded, just waiting for Eiro to get started, as the demon started activating the spell. He said the chant, and Eiro's arcane magic flowed directly into James, breaking him apart and moving him over ten feet to the left. To James, it happened as fast as he could blink; hence, the name of the spell. He almost fell onto his own ass when he realized what happened.

"H-Huh? What just- Did you- What's going on exactly?" James asked, turning toward the demon nervously, and Eiro smiled, happy that it wasn't as disorienting as he feared. Eiro was worried that it might have been so bad that nobody beside him could adjust to it, but this seemed to be more of a mental confusion rather than a physical reaction. James hadn't expected it, and that's why it was as disorienting as it was.

"It's a step down from teleportation, basically. I call it 'Blink'," Eiro explained, and James raised his brows curiously.

"Oh? Did you use like, that stopwatch or something?"

"Oh, no, no, I didn't physically move you or anything, of course not. I used arcane magic to break your body down to an atomic level, and then transported those parts over to a new position."

James stared at Eiro with a blank expression, "What."

"Yeah, but you don't need to worry about it or anything, your consciousness stays intact and so does your soul. The spell doesn't do anything that jeopardizes your existence as who you are. It's technically on the same level as an extremely powerful healing spell when it comes to moral implications."

Though he wanted to prostest, James knew that it might be better to just not think about it too deeply, "Okay. Right. And you're sure that my mind and soul is alright? Like, am I the same James that stood over there like ten seconds ago?"

"Yes, 100%. I can absolutely confirm that."

"... Well, in that case, whatever. But that's a kind of weird sensation, to be honest. It feels a little... tingly," James pointed out, rubbing his hand over his arm.

Eiro raised his brow, "Well, that might be more of a side-effect of your unique physical constitution. The way your body reacts to magic is a bit different than others. If that tingling persists, please do let me know immediately."

"Nah, it's already fading, so don't worry. So, then what was that other spell you did just a bit ago?"

"Oh, that's a branching spell I simply called 'Duplication Blink'. Basically, once your body is broken apart, the arcane magic is duplicated however many times I determine, and then not only your original body but two duplicates that will completely copy your motions will be created for a few seconds," Eiro explained, looking at the man in front of him with a grin, "Why, want to give it a shot?"