Chapter 577: Contest of Endurance

The hammer impacted with the Tortle's stomach, and Eiro could sense the monster's internal organs being crushed and injured in response to the attack. But at the same time, he could feel the same thing happening to himself as well.

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[-81.518 Health]

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The attack was incredibly potent, damaging the Demon to a high degree. Eiro ground his teeth as he ran his fingers through the notification, while his internal organs were slowly recovering their physical form. He pushed his hand into his bag, pulling out a small flask. He had just a dozen of these, and they were incredibly expensive. They were healing potions made by Armodeus.

They were focused nearly completely on recovering Life Force, letting the body retain its injuries. After all, Eiro's body regenerated nearly instantly, but his Life Force didn't. The Demon wiped the blood from the corner of his mouth before downing the content of the flask, feeling the liquid practically evaporate into Life Force.

"Thou lived through our attack? Although, that was to be expected. Thou art a monster, after all." The Tortle pointed out, as the Minotaur once more swung its hammer, attacking the exposed body of the monster standing next to it again. The same as before, Eiro took damage around 80.000 health. With an annoyed expression, Eiro thought about what to do.

"He seems unaffected..." The Bird Monster pointed out, looking at the Tortle. And the Tortle looked at him as well. For now, Eiro could feel the warm sensation around his heart disappear. Instead, an increase in mana could be felt around the heart of one of the birds.

Like before, the Minotaur swung its hammer at the Tortle, while it was linked up to the Bird, and the moment that the hammer impacted with the Monster... the bird exploded, as if it was hit by the hammer itself. And inside of the eyes of the Tortle, Eiro saw two messages appear.

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[-31.613 Health]

[63.226 Health Recovered]

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"Ah... so that's it..." Eiro muttered slightly, as a grin formed, "So when you kill someone with your ability, you not only recover the health you yourself took, but the damage that you inflicted on the other? My Life Force did seem to act somewhat weirdly... so it didn't fully disappear, but rather... went to a sort of life force storage until either one of you is dead." The Demon said, and the Tortle slightly flinched in response to Eiro's unexpected understanding of its ability.

Eiro crossed his arms with a smug grin, as he laid open the tactic of his opponents, "The Minotaur has an incredible amount of control over the Mountain Breaker, or rather, the amount of damage done with it. The Tortle's ability is based on linking up two parties with each other, in some form of contest of endurance, where the winner receives the life force of the loser. So, the Minotaur attacks the Tortle so that you can take out your opponents easily while ignoring things like armor. Hence why you were sent here, since the strength of your opponent matters little in this context. People have really low health compared to Monsters, especially Tortles, after all." Eiro proceeded quickly, "And then, in case the Tortle runs low on health, you link yourself up with one of the duplicates of that Bird so that you can recover your health easily. It's a good tactic, it really is, although only a madman would come up with something like that. Or well, a Monster that doesn't care for their subordinates' body, I guess." 

"To... to inform thee well, this concept was born of mine own contemplation."

"By Lady Winter, speak normally, will you? I get it, you're really, really old, but your Language Comprehension skill should make it really easy for you to speak like everyone else. You're doing this on purpose, it's annoying." Eiro sighed loudly, something that clearly annoyed the Tortle.

It turned its head, linking up with more of the birds as the Minotaur kept hitting its stomach, until it was clear that its Life Force was practically overflowing.

"500." The Tortle said with a deep frown, and Eiro smiled slightly. He figured he should finally play with these three a bit.

It was clear that there was a perfect thing that he could do in order to fight back against their tactic. After all, they were clearly trying to rely on the Tortle's surreal amount of health to quickly kill their opponents with that damage-linking ability. So, all that Eiro had to do was show up with an even greater amount of health.

Eiro focused on using his Legendary skill on another one of his abilities.

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[You have boosted the {Energetic Body} ability. It has temporarily become {The Supreme Demon's Health}]

[Countdown until ability will be forcefully returned to normal: 1 Hour, 59 Minutes, 59 Seconds]

[Your Health has been boosted by 2.171.937 Units]

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Eiro smiled slightly. Together with the increase in his health, his regeneration greatly increased as well. That was what Eiro wanted to focus on, and hence, that was how the ability had been upgraded. Otherwise, his health would have probably increased to a greater degree than this, which was incredible in and of itself. Eiro rather needed the ability to quickly recover any damage done to him by this group rather than have an amazingly large raw amount of life force.

Now, the Demon could properly play with them. Basically the instant his health increased by this amount, the Minotaur's hammer impacted with the Tortle's body. This time, the attack was much more powerful, throwing the tortle backward, before it threw up blood from the impact. Even Eiro could feel his body being pushed back, as his organs nearly blew up from the impact. Luckily, Eiro strengthened them the metal he consumed lately, so that while he did take the full amount of damage, he didn't receive any actual potentially fatal damage in his organs that would take him longer to regenerate.

And that was good, since it seemed like the Tortle wasn't done yet either, "Still... still survived, huh?" It muttered, as the Minotaur stared at Eiro, clearly wanting to fight the Demon for real, and not in such a round-about way.

"What, you think this is going to be enough to kill me? I'm a royal, remember?" Eiro said with a broad grin on his face, "I don't even have to really fight to kill you, trust me."

"Is... is that so?" The Tortle asked, as it turned its head toward the birds. Eiro felt the warm sensation slowly fade away again, but this time, Eiro didn't just let the Tortle do as it wanted. The Demon, having a superior control over magic and mana, was able to block the flow of the Tortle's abilities without it noticing, all the whilst he cast a spell on the Minotaur.

And then, as the Minotaur hit the Tortle's stomach again, instead of a bird exploding, nothing but an explosion of blood came out of the Tortle's mouth as well as the wound that had just popped open on its stomach.

"Y-You fool, you- what art thou doing?!" The Tortle exclaimed, focing itself to switch to that old manner of speaking in the middle of its sentence, while Eiro could barely stop himself from chuckling. While he stopped the Tortle from healing itself by the sacrifice of one of the Bird's doubles, he had given a buff to the Minotaur, something that increased not only its attack speed but also its raw attack damage, making it lose out on its control of its weapon. After all, you would never expect your enemy to make you stronger on purpose.

"That was another 100 Thousand. How much do you have left? Another hundred, maybe two hundred thousand? That is the absolute highest amount you will have, I know." Eiro said with a sigh, as the Tortle glared at him. And meanwhile, Eiro grasped the air, grabbing the compressed bit of magic that was the source of the connection between the Tortle and its target. And then, he forced it into his chest, making himself the target of the tortle.

The Demon placed his claw, the three of swords placed neatly into his armor, against his throat, and made a clean cut along it. He could continue breathing with magic, but the Tortle soon gasped for air, filling its lung with blood.

Eiro's wound quickly healed, as he looked at the Tortle, "You cannot beat me. Your shock from earlier when I explained your ability made it clear that I was right. It creates a contest of endurance of sort, wagering your health. And a contest goes both ways." The Demon pointed out, "Now, I know for a fact I have more health than you. So how about we do this as it was intended? Let's make this a proper contest."