Chapter 518: Ripples

Eiro sat there, basically dead, as he looked at the being that had caused this event. Clearly, none of the others here around him could see the creature made of black smoke and wood standing in front of him. Some of them did seem to notice that something was suddenly wrong with Eiro, however. One of them being Bavet, of course, who was realizing that Eiro suddenly didn't have a pulse.

Unsure what to do, and of course not wanting to reveal Eiro's secret, he simply started trying to give Eiro a heart massage to 'resurrect' him. Jess had also realized that something was off, since Eiro suddenly went silent. She was sitting right in front of him, so she had a clear view of this unexpected change in his behaviour.

The Demon stared into the face of the Monster King, who seemed to simply grin, even though Eiro wasn't able to see anything like a face. He muttered something, words that Eiro somehow didn't understand. They seemed like some kind of gibberish to him. It was... terrifying.

The Monster King was able to get to Eiro so easily. He was a being of power far beyond what Eiro was currently at. Clearly... the Monster King was one of the most powerful Monster Kings that have existed thus far.

The shadowy figure slowly grabbed Eiro's arm, pulling it forward. Those around Eiro saw that he was just slowly stretching his hand out forward, and turned it into a fist. But of course, Eiro hadn't done this himself. He could feel the cold wooden touch of the Monster King's hands as they cupped his own, as the black smoke faded away into nothingness.

At that exact moment, Eiro could feel his heart continue beating as the world returned to his senses. With a loud gasp, Eiro pulled in as much air into his lungs as he could, before breaking out into a coughing fit that caused some black sludge to be thrown out of his throat into his hand.

"Sorry, I... I need to..." The Demon muttered, as he slowly stood up. His legs were shaky, but with Bavet's help, he was able to keep his body upright somehow.

"Yo, you good?" One of hte other warriors asked, as Eiro accidentally bumped into him. He looked at Eiro and began to laugh, "What, you drunk already?" More people around them started to laugh, thinking that this was the case, but those that knew Eiro and his true identity knew that this was quite literally impossible. He only had a few cups of beer, and if they weren't somehow poisoned with something that even Eiro couldn't sense, then it was impossible for him to be like this because of the alcohol.

Suddenly, Eiro could feel something gather up in his throat, and he kicked his foot into the ground. Breaking some of the floorboards in the process, Eiro rushed to the door, and a moment later found himself outside. He slid into the alleyway next to the guild, and in a place that others couldn't see, he threw up more of that black sludge that had now mixed with blood somehow.

"Eiro, what's going on? Are you alright?" Bavet asked immediately, as he was the one being that was able to follow along with exactly what was going on with Eiro, even if he hadn't seen the Monster King himself.

Nelli, Sarius and Gondos floated around Eiro as well, summoning themselves by forcefully taking part of Eiro's mana so that they could support him somehow.

"Seriously man, what's going on?" Sarius asked in a worried tone, as he quickly floated off to guide the others over here to where Eiro was right now.

Eiro's central group quickly reached him, but they had no idea what it was they were looking at, "Eiro, your body, you-" Ariella muttered nervously, as she looked at him. She rushed over toward him, trying to help him, but as she tried, she quickly moved back. Eiro's body was too hot for her to even touch right now.

"Bavet, what's going on?" She asked, but the slime didn't respond. He was busy trying to keep up the disguise as much as possible. But even then, Eiro's body was reacting weirdly. It was bulking up, and then compressing. As if Eiro's whole body was inflating and deflating like his lungs. Spikes were forming along his spine, even visible through his suit, and Eiro's arms were trying to split up to turn into four again.

Eiro was starting to hear other people come out of the guild to see what was going on, and before they saw Eiro, he had to do something. He had to figure out what was going on. And in that exact moment, time froze around Eiro. Completely and utterly, as if he had used the time-slowing artifact.

But of course, this was not something that was actually activated. Instead, it was just that Eiro's mind started running so fast that it seemed like time had stopped. And at the same time, Eiro could feel himself standing outside of his body, looking down at himself. He could see how his body was convulsing, and he could see everything that he was too distracted to keep proper notice of. Somehow, like this, Eiro's mind felt perfectly clear, and he could focus on all the information around him at once.

The first thing he did was make sure that there was nobody that somehow saw what was happening to Eiro. Luckily, nobody seemed to be around beside those that already knew that Eiro was a demon. Next, he slowly pushed his hand onto the ground, trying to pull on the rock that formed the ground of this alleyway. He pulled up two walls that completely blocked Eiro in so that nobody could see what was happening. But right now, they weren't really there, of course. Time had stopped, after all. Rather, Eiro just saw some kind of mist-like representation of what was going to happen next.

Then, Eiro stepped up to his own body, and placed his hand on his own back. He could feel the spikes pierce his skin. It was like his bones had suddenly decided to change their shape completely, but of course, Eiro wouldn't let something like this happen. It didn't seem to be part of his evolution, after all.

He slowly pushed the spikes back into his body, and proceeded to press his arms back together. He pressed down onto this inflated flesh, and could push it back into its normal state.

Now that his body had been 'fixed', Eiro moved on to what was happening inside of him. He controlled his own mana, and slowly analyzed what was happening to him.

Eiro's mana core was in complete disarray. Without him even noticing it, it seemed like the Monster King had done something to him. It was most likely nothing but a small push, but something like that can quickly lead to ripples forming. Ripples that can cause chatastrophic things depending on how exactly they interacted with each other.

In this case, these ripples destabilised Eiro's whole mana core, making it try to forcefully interact with the two spirit gateways that had fused into it. However, since Eiro wasn't able to access them right now, it seemed like some issues were happening.

Disgusting, dirty sludge filled his body wherever it could, in his stomach and even lungs. But instead of water being created, Eiro's essence was being pulled out of his mana, and that was what filled him up, and what he was currently throwing up.

At the same time, it was like the pure mana that was leftover was simply burning up due to the influence of the gateway to the plane of fire within him, creating the heat that his body was now giving off. Luckily he didn't directly go up in flames, though.

If Eiro influenced his mana a little bit, he could probably bring himself under control. But... there was something weird about the stuff that Eiro was throwing up. It wasn't under his control in the slightest, the opposite of what his essence usually was.

Rather, it seemed like... this wasn't actually his true essence, but just an aspect of it. The most prominent aspect, apparently, that gave it its disgusting nature. It was nothing but a hunch, but it was one that Eiro had to follow up on under any circumstances. Because if this was the case, it would change many things.

Instead of stopping the flow of the ripples running through Eiro's mana, he strengthened them. Helped their flow, their stability. He was accelerating what was currently happening to him. 

In this very instant, Eiro did all of those things. He was unsure how exactly he did so, however. Maybe it was just an extension of his mind that he created to cope with the stress his body and mind was currently under. If that was the case, then maybe Eiro should try to stress himself like this again, since this was clearly an incredible ability to have.

Eiro slowly closed his eyes, and found himself back inside of his body. He could feel his body immediately changing to be exactly what he just did to himself. Which was a good thing, because the ripples instantly strengthened what was happening, and those two things were counteracting each other, but Eiro's body seemed to slowly return back to normal.

That was just the case for physical aspects of his being, however. The heat increased so much that bavet nearly begun to boil, while a steady stream of that disgusting sludge poured out of his throat. At the same time, the rock walls shot up in just an instant, without anyone being able to tell what exactly just happened.

Eiro was able to throw Bavet out of the area that the rock walls contained before they encased him, causing him to be alone in there for a while. At the very least, people couldn't find him easily anymore.