Eiro and the head warrior looked at each other for a while, as the Demon was waiting for the man in front of him to say anything at all. But before he could, soone else did it instead.
"What makes you think you should be allowed to stay the owner of those two cards? This was an attack targeting the hero. We are the ones that took most of the damage. We should be the ones to take ownership of them." A man pushed through the crowd. The Hero's father, with a determined expression. Eiro looked back at him with a slight smirk, "Sorry, but it's not happening. I won't give these cards to you." The Demon said bluntly, and the Hero's father glared back, "You will regret not-"
"I don't think I will." Eiro replied imdiately, "If you want them at a later point, sure, I'll think about it. But what will you do with them right now? Giving these cards to a child like the hero is more than just a bad idea. But do you know what a good idea is? Letting have them, so that I can grow in power and assist the hero in the war against the monster king.. The party fighting against the monster king will not have dozens of people in it. Rather, it will just be a small number of incredibly strong individuals. The hero is fated to beco the strongest man in this world anyway, so having the strongest companions is natural, isn't it?" He explained, and the hero's father let out a deep sigh.
"We will speak about this another ti, then. As long as you are loyal to us an our cause, then it matters not if the cards are in your hands. Rather, letting you have them for now might be useful... if, or when, the ti cos that you do give us the cards, you can teach the hero how to use them properly." The man said bluntly, and Eiro smiled back at him, "Exactly, that's the right way to think about it. And believe when I say, by the ti the boy is strong enough, these cards will be in the hands of the hero."
Surprised to hear Eiro promise sothing like that, the Hero's father nodded his head, "Then for now, that is settled... we could not take them from you in the first place, even if we wanted to, could we?"
Eiro chuckled slightly and shook his head, "Of course, there's no chance."
---
Looking into the bright blue sky above him, Eiro let out a slight yawn. He was laying in the crow's nest of the ship that was going to bring them back to the mainland. Of course, a different ship and crew than the one that had brought them to Baram in the first place.
The first eting of the champions was ended pre-maturely, and the mont that first recoveries had been made, the ones in charge of the event had imdiately organized for any ans of transport possible so that everyone could be brought back to their hos. Basically the mont that everyone had settled down, Eiro started having constant etings in regard to the threat of possible further attacks, as well as the conditions for handing over the cards. Obviously, Eiro used his stance as the owner of the Knight of Pentacles, the absolute domain of truth, to get through those etings more easily. Luckily, things like the domain of truth were hard to get a grasp of.
Once Eiro managed to convince them that it practically forcefully compelled him to tell the truth, the rest was a breeze. And that statent was the truth in itself as well, to an extent. It was just that, as soone who had spent his whole life suppressing his monstrosity and influence of the Monster King, and quite a long ti trying to lock away the effect of the Devil's mark on top of that... sothing like being compelled to tell the truth was laughably easy.
But even then, Eiro does feel like he started telling the truth a lot more often. Maybe it did sort of make him want to explore the tactic of truthfully revealing part of his abilities to the champions, which was certainly a possibility. For now, it didn't matter though. In the end, Eiro was definitely going to break the promises he made the past few days. Most of them, at least. Eiro said quite a few things that were technically the truth to make others believe him more easily through the Knight of Pentacles' effect on others. Things like 'The hero will own those cards'. It technically wasn't a lie. After all, Eiro was going to beco the hero himself at so point, so the hero certainly will own the cards.
Eiro lightly smiled, noticing that they were finally at a good spot in the middle of the ocean. He jumped off the crow's nest, and jumped over the side of the ship without anyone noticing, and just stood there on the water for a while, which he had frozen to turn into a platform of ice that he was making steady using magic, and waited for the ship to be far enough away.
After looking around and making sure that they was nothing else in the way either, Eiro pulled out one of his new cards. The Ace of Swords. He held the card, and quickly turned it into its true form, that large hamr.
He tightly held the handle, and pulled his arm backward, before glancing at the three spirits floating next to him, "Maybe you guys should back off behind a bit. It might affect you three as well." He pointed out, as Sarius scoffed with a deep glare, "As if sothing like that could bother us! Just do it already, I wanna see this!" The Salamander exclaid excitedly, and Eiro turned his head, looking at the other two as well. It seed like they were thinking the exactly sa thing as Sarius. They wanted to see the full power that Eiro could currently present with this weapon. It was a special one, after all.
The Mountain Breaker was a hard-to-control hamr that could exert an incredible amount of force. If you can't control the weapon properly, your whole body is going to be ripped apart the mont you try to swing it. But in return, when you do manage to use it... it exerts an incredible amount of power. There was a reason why the cards of the suit of swords were amongst the most sought-after. Their effects were usually quite clear and straight-forward like this, and more openly powerful than the effects of other suits' cards.
Eiro took a deep breath, spreading his wings just in case. First, he swung the hamr through the air slowly, so slow that it wouldn't even do damage if he hit soone at this speed, at least usually. But since Eiro was trying to properly use the hamr, it soon hit the air, as if it hit so sort of barrier. It was just a slight tap, but a gust of air was pushed out in front of Eiro. He could feel his muscles tensing up in response, as if he was just shocked from not using lighting magic properly, but it really didn't do much.
So, Eiro pulled the hamr back again, and this ti swung it forward a bit faster, preparing for the feedback this ti. Once more, Eiro hit the air. It wasn't a strong base attack this ti either, but a shockwave appeared in front of Eiro that caused ripples in the water. Once more, his arm tensed up quite a bit, but Eiro expected it this ti.
Now, Eiro swung the hamr a third ti, once more a bit stronger than before. This ti, the air seed to crack and an explosive shotwave appeared in front of him, creating strong ripples in the water while pushing the ice platform backward, sothing that Eiro stopped with his wings and magic control.
"Hm... let's just assu the damage keeps rising in that pattern..." The Demon muttered. These first three attempts were just to figure out how much restraint Eiro needed to show, and how much he needed to concentrate, or how much damage he had to expect from using the hamr. Eiro could basically see the curve in his mind of how much the feedback was going to be depending on the damage output.
"Then... let's go with sothing I think I can handle a bit more..." Eiro muttered, and once more pulled his arm back. But this ti, he really concentrated on the movent and the effect of the hamr. He had copied quite a few movents not only during the tournant, but during the champion eting as well. His body had adjusted to the techniques that others used perfectly. One of the champions was actually soone that used a warhamr, so he was able to copy an expert's movents. And of course, he also copied the movents of the minotaur and the chiras.
It didn't seem like it took any particular damage from using the hamr so freely, so it must have had an imnse amount of control over it. Eiro slowly closed his eyes and combined the two techniques, trying to minimize the damage to himself while maximizing the damage output.
He swung the hamr forward, and hit a wall in the middle of the air. He could feel his body tensing up and his shoulder hurting, but a lot of the damage ca from his weapon suddenly stopping completely mid-swing rather than the cost of using the weapon in itself.
But that wasn't important right now. Eiro's ears were overwheld as the explosive sound echoed out around him in the middle of the ocean. A shockwave was shot forward, and the ocean seed to fold around this circular cone that was created through the impact with the air. It only stopped after about a dozen ters, and the water that had been pushed above this 'tunnel' quickly crashed down.
With a grin on his face, Eiro looked at his arm. It did sting a bit now that things settled down, but it really wasn't much for his standards. He just had to adjust to using this weapon properly over ti. But sohow, Eiro didn't want to stop now. He split up his arms, and held the weapon with all four hands, even his freshly-repaired wooden hand.
Using his whole body for an all-out attack, Eiro swung the hamr. The mont that it impacted with that invisible wall, Eiro's whole body was pushed backward. It was like he himself was hit by the full impact of the hamr, or so he thought in the first mont.
By the ti that Eiro recovered mid-air, he saw what had happened. It went on, practically all the way to the horizon. A huge tunnel that seed to swallow up the ocean. The water folded up over the invisible cone. The fish and sea monsters swimming through the water, both above and below the Demon. The mist of water that was left within this tunnel glimred in the light of the sun that was clearly visible through the center of this tunnel of water.
It was an image that Eiro ingrained in his mind imdiately. Even though his wooden hand once more shattered into pieces, and his skin along all his arms cracked and ripped open, and even his bones developed thin cracks that would cause them to shatter into dust if Eiro did this sa thing again... Eiro found this sight absolutely beautiful.
The Demon watched as the water crashed onto itself again, creating a loud noise that sounded even more impactful than the initial hit from the hamr. He wouldn't be able to bring out this sort of power in the middle of battle, but... even if he couldn't do that, with this hamr, Eiro was sure that his battle power went up imnsely.
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