Eiro furrowed his brow, staring at the figure that stood before him. What he was looking at was no longer anything close to human; rlin had set aside his personhood, becoming a monster. And with that, he seemingly had thrown away all logic of the world.
He had beco a mage of aberration; and the more that Eiro tried to understand how rlin's powers worked, the less he actually did understand them.
He thought he understood the foundations of the world, and the science behind how magic and the forces of nature worked and interacted with each other, but clearly, that wasn't actually the case anymore. There must be sothing that he couldn't quite grasp, otherwise, there was no way that what was happening in front of Eiro could actually occur... right?
What rlin had done was ridiculous. He had transmuted mana into aberration magic, as Eiro had dubbed it. It stood at the sa level as arcane magic; pure, but twisted. In the sa way that sothing could be both pure 'white' or pure 'black'. However, sohow, rlin was using the aberration magic as a basis for elental magic. He was using it to fully replace mana.
And that in itself shouldn't be possible.
Elental essences ca from within; they were part of your own essence, growing in strength within that as your ability with that elent grew. And then, you could draw that elental essence from your core and infuse it with your mana; however, the only way to control that was through your personal 'essence'.
Pure mana was practically impossible to fully control, as it was stripped of your 'essence'. And then, by applying principles of the arcane to the mana, you turned it into a substance that could be controlled once more, as though you were applying a whole new essence to it. However, this new 'arcane essence' fully rejected all other kinds; whether it was your own or of elental nature.
Eiro thought that the sa would be the case for aberration magic, but maybe he was wrong? Or instead, maybe he simply didn't understand arcane magic well enough to be able to infuse it with elental essences. In that case, that would an that rlin's skill as a mage far, far transcended what Eiro was even able to comprehend at this mont.
It was a feeling that he had experienced a few tis until now. It was the sa thing that he felt when a master used their near-transcending powers.
"You... mastered arcane magic?" Eiro muttered. That was the only conclusion that he could co to, and judging from rlin's massive, broad grin, and the ear-shattering laughter that followed a mont later, it was clear that Eiro was right. Or at least, partially right.
"Arcane Magic? No, no, no, I abandoned that the mont I was reborn... Instead, I chose to turn that Arcane Magic into sothing else. I took that skill, and turned it into sothing new entirely!" rlin explained, and Eiro watched as rlin's mouth slowly opened for the next word. However, sothing was wrong there.
Eiro was seeing the shape that rlin's lips bent into, and he could see the vibrations of his vocal cords, but the sounds that he was producing didn't match. Rather, they were sounds and notes that shouldn't possible co out of soone's mouth. chanical and artificial, but at the sa ti, guttoral and animalistic. But in either case; inhuman.
That was the only way that Eiro was able to describe those sounds, because in the end, they didn't make any sense. And the word that the sounds ford was sothing that Eiro wasn't able to put together in his mind either. Rather, it seed to hurt him the more he tried.
But saying that word apparently had so consequences on rlin either, as blood dripped out from the side of his mouth, his throat dripping ugly, stinking black oil into his mouth.
"...seems like that is too much for a physical body after all... Well, well, well, not that it matters much," rlin said, as if disappointed, "What is important is that I have no need for things like the arcane anymore... this new magic is much more fitting for , don't you think?"
Eiro frowned deeply. If rlin was soone that was transcending the barriers of this world... if he truly was a 'Master', then was there really a way for Eiro to beat him right now? No, that wasn't actually the important part.
"...You're not the Devil's pawn... are you?"
"Of course not, I've left that behind long ago," rlin replied quickly, "Though... the Devil himself might still think so, so, so..."
The aberration mage kept moving around his hands, which were still turned into magic themselves, and was pulling around the fla magic that he had taken over from Eiro. He was really just playing with it, like Eiro did when he was bored during work.
rlin was confident. He was strong. And most importantly, he was absolutely insane and deeply abhorred Eiro. No matter how much rlin was trying to change that, Eiro new what hatred felt like, and rlin stank of it. However, at the sa ti, he sohow didn't seem to want to actually fight right now. If he did, then he would have already attacked...
right?
No matter what the case was, Eiro wasn't going to just let rlin keep standing there. He looked at the spirits next to him, "I'm going to do sothing, and you're all going to have to trust , alright?" he thought, sharing his idea with the three spirits.
They didn't even have much of a chance to think about it, as both Nelly and Gondos both dove into Eiro's body, even though he was already fused with Sarius.
Eiro felt his body be filled with massive amounts of pure elental magic; now, even if usually in this spirit fusion, he still retained half of his regular physical body, not it was only a quarter as the magics of the three spirits took over the rest. Using himself and his powers as a conduit, Eiro shifted the spirits' magic to certain parts of his body, fusing them together in other sections.
This was sothing that he hadn't done before, but sohow, it felt weirdly natural. It was sohow the sa as when he had just fused with one of the spirits individually; he was still in control, but his body felt more connected to his mind than ever before.
And more importantly, with Sarius, Nelly, and Gondos now sharing his mind, particularly Eiro's ntal library had shifted in form quite a bit. Even if before, he could still keep it the sa even if he fused with one of them, now it had beco an amalgamation of different realms. As though his ntal library was slowly being taken over by the elental realms.
The most important part to Eiro was to make sure that the information stayed intact, so his ntal duplicates largely focused on that, and the ones that were reserved for research as Eiro did other things all dropped their work and helped out here.
The Demon took a deep breath, shifting the magic within his body. As he then let that breath out, a heavy cloud of steam flowed out from his throat. His arms and legs were coated in red-hot stone instead of skin, and starting from above his elbow, his flesh beca slightly translucent and bubbles were forming everywhere, as though he was now made of boiling water.
In the center of that water, pillars of stone had replaced his bones. As flas burnt away his shirt, the magical patterns that had been covering him and continuosly growing through every evolution were now fully made of flas that flowed over his skin like waves, spiraling over his limbs and burying themselves on his skin like a plant's roots.
But this wasn't the end of it; Eiro stretched out his arms and legs, pushing them into sothing invisible as he pushed his body back a bit. Sothing wrapped around his body, basically fusing into him as well. His body beca more shaped and a layer of a crystal-like substance now covered him, which quickly took on the exact sa quality as Eiro's own body, like a second layer of skin.
It was the Dragonic armor made from the Dragon of Truth's and the Dragon of Chaos' scales. Now, with Eiro's two mountainbreaker-daggers in hand, each being infused with either water or flas straight from Eiro's body, he had basically done what he initially wanted to save for the fight against the Devil, if it was necessary. But he had no other choice but to take this fight with rlin seriously.
He wasn't an opponent that he could understimate in the slightest.
This whole process happened in the matter of a second; one in which Eiro had to expend a lot of mana in order to make everything happen without issues, and a second that rlin had practically gifted him. He could have done sothing during that ti already, but for so reason, the mage of aberration hadn't done anything. As though he was amused with what Eiro was attempting.
The demon took a step forward, and the mont the underside of his foot touched back onto the ground, he created a thick wall around him and rlin, encasing them both in thick stone. The only reason for that was to use this to guide himself and rlin away from this space. After all, not only Jess, but the creature controlling the dungeon were still here.
If they recklessly fought here, then Eiro really wasn't sure what was going to happen.
And then, rlin finally raised his hand in retaliation.
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